I recently came across Bruce Lipton while browsing a book filed in the New Age section.

The book is called "Spontaneous Evolution". It made me curious about some of Lipton's science/spiritual ideas and now I'm interested in learning more about epigenetics.

Here's an intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6Vyh_sBMcs

Epigenetics

13 minute video of Neil Degrass-Tyson explaining epigenetics in an easy to understand way.

A summary of "Spontaneous Evolution" from Lipton's site: http://www.brucelipton.com/spontaneo...ution-overview

A+ on the video.

Lipton's Part 2 video about 8 to 9 minutes long:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfKsvF_L9oA

A brief editorial speculating on link of epigenetics to Deuteronomy: http://www.eternalgod.org/update/999

And an article on DNA, epigenetic and hormone fluctuations: http://www.mcmanweb.com/epigenetics.html

A fabulously interesting article by Time Magazine just published a few days ago explaining how important the epigenome is and that there could be a future mapping of the epigenome that is even bigger than the Human Genome project. Apparently Darwinian assumptions temporarily blocked some of the progress in this up and coming field of study:

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...1968-1,00.html

The article is entitled "Why Genes Aren't Destiny".

Ooops...link above isn't cooperating. Just google "epigenetics update" then click on "Why Genes Aren't Destiny" to read the article.

The Swedish study was conducted when a researcher asked:

Could parents' experiences early in their lives somehow change the traits they passed to their offspring?

Fascinating stuff. 'Evolution in Four Dimensions' was my introduction to it, I highly recommend it.

http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Four.../dp/0262600692

Ty.

Here's Amazon's product description:

Product Description
Ideas about heredity and evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. New findings in molecular biology challenge the gene-centered version of Darwinian theory according to which adaptation occurs only through natural selection of chance DNA variations. In Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb argue that there is more to heredity than genes. They trace four "dimensions" in evolution—four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic (or non-DNA cellular transmission of traits), behavioral, and symbolic (transmission through language and other forms of symbolic communication). These systems, they argue, can all provide variations on which natural selection can act. Evolution in Four Dimensions offers a richer, more complex view of evolution than the gene-based, one-dimensional view held by many today. The new synthesis advanced by Jablonka and Lamb makes clear that induced and acquired changes also play a role in evolution.

After discussing each of the four inheritance systems in detail, Jablonka and Lamb "put Humpty Dumpty together again" by showing how all of these systems interact. They consider how each may have originated and guided evolutionary history and they discuss the social and philosophical implications of the four-dimensional view of evolution. Each chapter ends with a dialogue in which the authors engage the contrarieties of the fictional (and skeptical) "I.M.," or Ifcha Mistabra—Aramaic for "the opposite conjecture"—refining their arguments against I.M.'s vigorous counterarguments. The lucid and accessible text is accompanied by artist-physician Anna Zeligowski's lively drawings, which humorously and effectively illustrate the authors' points.

Splendour are you exploring this because there is some theistic angle to it? Or do you just find it interesting? Not challenging you, just curious.

This isn't different from Darwinian evolution, it's just more specific. It comes about because people generally misunderstand, as has been demonstrated in this very forum, how selection works. Selection does not act on genes. Selection acts on phenotypes of individuals. The result of the actions of selection on certain phenotypes, is a change in gene frequency. But, selection acts on the individual phenotype and that is Darwinism. Individuals do not evolve, populations do.

So, the phenotype of each individual, the only unit that can be acted upon by natural selection, includes things like cultural transmission, behavior, language, and so forth. It always did. Phenotype is genes plus environment. It was always genes plus environment, even when Darwin didn't know what the mechanism of transmission was.

I'm glad you brought this here so that people can start to understand how complex a process this is. It isn't a new idea, but it is a new focus on the basic processes and will, one can only hope, result in a more educated public.

How does information pass on if its not encoded in the genes? I may not be understanding you here.

It is "encoded", but it isn't necessarily encoded in the DNA. Basically it's changes how genes activate on a level which can be passed on through cell division but rarely through generations, but it can pass on if a DNA change also occurs...but in those cases I think this is often a hen/egg question.

A typical example of epigenetic change is cancer starting to form.