Most of us were taught to think of DNA as a fixed instruction manual. You inherit the book from your parents, and the words remain the same throughout your life.
But consider this: nearly every cell in the human body contains essentially the same DNA. Yet a brain cell looks and behaves very differently from a skin cell or a heart cell. The difference is not simply in the instructions themselves, but in which instructions are being read, when they are being read, and how strongly they are expressed.
This is where epigenetics comes in.
Epigenetic processes help regulate whether particular genes are more or less active without changing the underlying DNA sequence. Nutrition, stress, toxins, and conditions during early development can influence some of these processes. Certain changes are temporary, while others may persist for years or through many cell divisions. The science is complicated, but the basic idea is remarkable: our biology does not develop in isolation from our environment.1
A Biological Record Is Not the Same as Biological Inheritance
One of the best-known human examples comes from the Dutch Hunger Winter. Researchers studied people who had been conceived during a severe famine near the end of World War II. More than sixty years later, they found differences in DNA methylation associated with their early exposure when compared with unexposed siblings. In other words, an experience from before birth appeared to have left a measurable biological record many decades later.2
That is remarkable.
However, it does not prove that an acquired epigenetic change was passed through the germline to unexposed grandchildren. Those are two different questions, and they are too often confused.
During pregnancy, the developing child is directly exposed to the mother’s environment. Even some of the reproductive cells developing inside that child may be exposed. Therefore, effects observed in children—or sometimes grandchildren—may still reflect direct exposure rather than true transgenerational inheritance.
Additionally, much of the epigenome is reset during the formation of reproductive cells and again after fertilization. For an acquired epigenetic change to pass through multiple generations, it would have to escape this reprogramming. That may occur under some circumstances, and forms of epigenetic inheritance have been demonstrated in plants and certain animals. In mammals, however, the evidence is more complicated. In humans, it remains difficult to separate biological inheritance from shared genes, pregnancy, environment, family behavior, and culture.34
At this point, science requires humility. We should remain curious without turning possibility into fact.
What I Mean by “Making Goodness Heritable”
When I speak in Sacred Evolution about “making goodness heritable,” I am not suggesting that scientists have discovered a gene—or an epigenetic switch—for goodness. Compassion, honesty, restraint, justice, and forgiveness are far too complex to be reduced to a single molecular mark.
I mean something more immediate, and something we can already observe.
A child may or may not inherit a parent’s acquired epigenetic marks. But children unquestionably inherit what the people around them repeatedly practice. They learn which behaviors are rewarded, whose suffering matters, how anger is handled, whether the weak are protected, and whether power is used for service or for self-interest.
They inherit stories. They inherit habits. They inherit institutions, prejudices, rituals, relationships, and expectations.
Culture, too, is an inheritance.
In many ways, this makes our responsibility even greater. We do not have to wait for science to prove that kindness can be transmitted through a sperm cell or an egg before recognizing that it can be transmitted through a family, a community, or a civilization.
Where Science and Faith Meet
This is where faith and science need not compete. Science helps us understand how human beings develop and adapt. Spiritual and ethical traditions ask what kind of human beings we should become. When those traditions encourage compassion, forgiveness, self-restraint, responsibility, and concern for others, they create environments in which those qualities can be practiced and carried forward.
Whether those practices also leave biological effects that reach beyond one generation remains an open scientific question. The moral question, however, is already in front of us.
What are we repeatedly practicing? What are our children watching? And what kind of inheritance are we preparing for people we may never meet?
We inherit more than DNA. And we leave behind far more than genes.
Scientific Note
This discussion distinguishes epigenetic changes within an individual, effects involving directly exposed children, and true transgenerational inheritance in later, unexposed generations. Environmental influences on gene regulation are well established. True human transgenerational epigenetic inheritance remains under investigation and should not be presented as settled science.
Sources
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences: Epigenetics
- Heijmans et al.: Persistent epigenetic differences associated with prenatal exposure to famine in humans
- Horsthemke: A critical view on transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in humans
- Khatib et al.: What is mammalian transgenerational epigenetic inheritance?
About the author: Hasan Gokal, MD, is a physician and the author of Sacred Evolution. This essay explores scientific, ethical, and spiritual ideas for educational discussion and does not constitute medical advice.