A new study by Chinese scientists has challenged the long-standing dominance of Darwin’s theory of evolution by showing that organisms can inherit traits acquired during their lifetime without changes to their DNA.
Published in the journal Cell, the research focused on rice plants exposed to cold temperatures.
The plants developed a tolerance to cold that was passed down through five generations despite no genetic mutations occurring.
This discovery resurrects the 19th-century concept of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who proposed that creatures could pass on traits they acquired to their offspring.
Lamarck famously explained giraffes’ long necks by saying their ancestors stretched to reach higher leaves, and this acquired trait was passed down through inheritance.
The Chinese team discovered a similar process in rice, where changes in DNA methylation—a chemical modification that does not alter the DNA sequence—helped the plants adapt to cold environments.
Led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the researchers studied rice from China’s cold northeast. They discovered these stable, inherited adaptations, suggesting that Lamarck’s theory plays a fundamental role alongside Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Their work invites scientists to reconsider how epigenetics, the study of changes in gene expression, fits into the broader picture of evolution.
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