What's all the fuss about? The inheritance of acquired traits is compatible with the Central Dogma.

Abstract

The Central Dogma of molecular biology, which holds that DNA makes protein and not the other way around, is as influential as it is controversial. Some believe the Dogma has outlived its usefulness, either because it fails to fully capture the ins-and-outs of protein synthesis (Griffiths and Stotz in Genetics and philosophy Cambridge introductions to philosophy and biology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013; Stotz in Hist Philos Life Sci 28(4):533-548, 2006), because it turns on a confused notion of information (Sarkar in Molecular models of life, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2004), or because it problematically assumes the unidirectional flow of information from DNA to protein (Gottlieb, in: Oyama, Griffiths, Gray (eds), Cycles of contingency: developmental systems and evolution, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001). This paper evaluates an underexplored defense of the Dogma, which relies on the assumption that the Dogma and the Inheritance of Acquired Traits, a principle which dates as far back as Jean Baptiste-Lamarck, are incompatible principles (Smith in The theory of evolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993; Judson in The eighth day of creation, Jonathan Cape, London, 1979; Dawkins in The extended phenotype, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1970; Cobb in PLoS Biol 15(9):e2003243, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2003243 ; Wilkins in BioEssays 24(10):960-973, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.10167 ; Graur The fallacious commingling of two unrelated hypotheses: 'the central dogma' and 'dna makes rna makes protein'. Judge Starling., 2018. http://judgestarling.tumblr.com/post/177554581856/the-fallacious-commingling-of-two-unrelated ). By appealing to empirical evidence in molecular science, I argue that this apparent incompatibility is indeed merely apparent. I conclude by briefly demonstrating how these considerations bear on the topic of conceptual pluralism in the philosophy of science (Stencel and Proszewska in Found Sci 23(4):603-620, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10699-017-9543-x ; Lu and Bourrat in Br J Philos Sci 69(3):775-800, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axx019 ).