Man, is this a great time to be alive ...

One day you can have one view of the world, and then the next day have that same view totally turned on its head by a new discovery.

Take, for example, the burgeoning field of "Epigenetics" ...

Epigenetics is the study of how environmentally or behaviorally acquired traits can be passed on to future generations - without any change in the DNA of that organism.

Huh?

Yeah ...

Anyone paying attention to what's been happening in biology over the last 150 years just did a double take.

If this sounds to you like "Lamarckism" (the Lamarckism that you learned in High School was "disproven" by Darwinian/Mendelian genetics) you're exactly right.

Despite what has been believed as irrefutable biological truth, there is now a body of evidence that suggests that we didn't have the full picture.  The study of Epigenetics shows that changes which occur to you as a result of your environment and behavior can be passed on to future generations.  We don't fully understand "the how" yet, but the evidence of this phenomenon seems quite clear.

And no, these changes don't have anything to do with the way you treat your kids.  They have everything to do with how you treat yourself.

For example, a cancer you get today could have been triggered by your great grand-mothers exposure to an industrial poison.

The passing of these non-genetic traits has been observed now across multiple generations of mice.

The implications are huge.

If these findings are right, then everything you do ...

... what you eat, your use of recreational chemicals (including alcohol and tobacco), where you live, your moods, your stress levels ...

All of these things can not only affect your health, but any adverse (or favorable) affects could be passed on to future generations as well.

If you've been looking for an excuse to change your lifestyle, I don't think you'll find a better one than that.

Stunning, isn't it?

Also stunning is the way new discoveries can completely up-end everything we think we know.  

This unexpected nature of paradigm shifts makes the hubris and arrogance we seem to revere in our popular media all the more absurd.