Talk:Acquired characteristic

I would like to edit this article, but see that there is no talk page currently set up for it. I will take this to mean that there is nobody closely monitoring this article who will immediately delete my changes because it's their baby. If I am mistaken, please respond here to let me know of any changes that are desired or which would be unacceptable. Ahhii (talk) 20:25, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The usual rules; cite your sources, no POV-pushing and be civil - Skysmith (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit Question
Would this be the wiki to add mentally acquired (mostly due to head trauma) characteristics? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ropjen09 (talk • contribs) 22:30, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Since no one has responded I am going to go ahead and add my section.
They are about head trauma and the possible side effects. (Foreign Accent Syndrome etc) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ropjen09 (talk • contribs) 20:40, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

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Article needs work
This article needs a good deal of work in terms of content, style, and formatting. I will try to make some edits when I have time.

Intro section: I am confused by the argument that tattoos and perms are acquired characteristics but tooth whitening or applying henna aren't because they don't change the structure or function.

Disputes: I'm not sure why the section on eye color is here. It doesn't seem to be a matter of dispute that eye color is inherited. In the "Certain genetic conditions" section, I am not sure what is being referred to where is says "it is debatable whether changes in bodily functions..." etc. The material that follows talks about conditions that are entirely a matter of genetics and conditions which are a combination of genetics and environment, neither of which provides support for the idea that acquired characteristics are heritable.

Mind-body correlation: This section needs to be rewritten to remove the second person "you" and change the text to a more encyclopedic tone.

Significant formatting is needed for the Period of Origin and Causes sections.

There are numerous assertions throughout the article that acquired characteristics are only those occurring after birth. I'm not sure I agree with that assertion. While a birth defect occurring due to physical trauma to the fetus may not have been "acquired" after the birth, I would argue that it is an acquired characteristic of the organism. It certainly wouldn't be an inherited characteristic. Maybe we should make a distinction between prenatal and postnatal acquired characteristics?

There is a lot of random information which I don't think really belongs in this article. Some examples: The ethics of body modification (most people oppose neck rings?). Definitions of battery, assault, and violence. Definitions of hormones, drugs, chemicals, etc. Various (unformatted) lists of (somewhat) related topics.

NCBioTeacher (talk) 08:24, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Debated?
I asked ChatGPT if it can find faults in the first parts of this article. The following is its answer:

''The text you provided seems to be mostly accurate. However, the last paragraph may be a bit misleading depending on the perspective. The classical form of Lamarckism, which suggests that characteristics acquired or lost during an organism's lifetime are transmitted to its offspring, is widely discredited in the realm of genetics. This concept has been generally replaced with the understanding that changes in an organism's DNA (mutations), not its characteristics, are what can be passed down to offspring.''

''However, recent research into the field of epigenetics has revealed that some changes that occur during an organism's lifetime can potentially have effects that are passed down to offspring, although this does not typically involve the transmission of new traits acquired through experience or behavior in the same way that Lamarckism proposed. These changes involve modifications to the DNA molecule itself, like methylation, or to the proteins called histones around which DNA is wound, and these modifications can influence how genes are expressed.''

''So the statement "there is still debate on whether some acquired characteristics in organisms are actually inheritable" is somewhat true, but it may give the incorrect impression that traditional Lamarckism is still widely considered a viable explanation for inheritance of traits. Instead, what is being discussed is much more specific and nuanced.''

I think this answer points at a valuable potential clarification: The heritable acquired characteristics are things like methylation (and histone arrangement?). But I dare not do that myself. Ettrig (talk) 14:46, 11 July 2023 (UTC)


 * What about learning to speak a (particular) language? That's an acquired characteristic. And isn't it passed along to offspring? I would argue that the process of acquiring language from one's parents is 'inheritance' in only a metaphorical sense, but still it is passed from one generation to the next. (And I'm not arguing that this is epigenetics!) 186.29.185.84 (talk) 20:21, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Edit: One problem with this article is that inheritance is *defined* as genetic. But there are other kinds of inheritance, in the sense that a characteristic acquired by one generation is, because of this, acquired by the next. I think it would help to use the explicit phrase "genetic inheritance" when (and only when) that is what is meant. For example, some now talk about "cultural inheritance" of skills and abilities. 186.29.185.84 (talk) 20:48, 28 May 2024 (UTC)