Foreign media: Chinese scientists challenge the more than one hundred years of dominance of Darwinism through an innovative study, reviving the long-neglected Lamarckian theory of evolution.
The research found that rice can pass on its tolerance to cold stress to its offspring without a gene mutation after being subjected to low temperature stress. This study was published in the journal Cell, marking the resurgence of the 19th-century competition between Lamarck and Darwin.
Lamarck's "giraffe theory" suggested that organisms could pass on learned survival traits to their offspring, while Darwin believed that evolution depends on random genetic changes. This research confirmed, through observing DNA methylation changes in rice under cold environments, that environmentally-induced epigenetic variations can affect hereditary traits, challenging the question of how epigenetics should be integrated into the core principles of modern biology's understanding of evolution.
This breakthrough led by a research team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences indicates that Lamarckism remains an important factor in the evolutionary process, even though it only plays a role in certain contexts.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1833258073071623/
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