It doesn't, but the article doesn't go into this detail, so people unfamiliar with the field wouldn't understand why. The keyword is epigenetics. I.e. how certain genes become activated or deactivated through behaviour and/or environmental influences. But the DNA sequence itself remains unaltered. So no evolution necessary. There are basically a bunch of molecules than sit on top of your DNA that regulate gene expression. They don't just tell a cell to behave like a skin cell or a brain cell, they also regulate the entire cellular metabolism. The discovery that male sperm can also transmit this epigenetic information to offspring is relatively new, but now that we know that, it makes total sense that these gene-expression-modifying behaviours in fathers could affect their children. After all, they simply get to start with a good (or bad) bunch of epigenetic markers. They will not persist across many generations though, so it has no real long term effect on evolution. It may even be an evolved mechanism that allows organisms to respond to environmental changes on timeframes that would be prohibited by evolution.
Why not? Is there some tempering mechanism on epigenetic transfer? I could imagine that some sperm-conferred epigenetic markers could continue down the male descendants unbroken.
It is pretty accurate, even if we don't understand all details yet. Here's a review article of the current research that's not from a popsci journalist: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37820-2
These mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance or whatever need much more study. It is far too early to draw any conclusions other than we need to keep researching.
Also there are the very known costs of nicotine damaging sperms, or of course being in literal smoke as a child (or adult) and deal with those real effects.
Allergies and cancer are way up.
There’s multiple causes behind those, this is almost certainly one.
>Think of all the kids of the 60th and 70th. They must be immune to most toxins ;).
But seriously though, "immune" is a humorous exaggeration, but I'm not sure we have data to rule out the idea that this cohort has increased tolerance to some environmental toxins.
So it's possible the level of harm we see today is already "post-" this protective effect, if any.
> 60th and 70th what?? :)
He means that the hippie generation and disco generation took a lot of drugs.
There were plenty of non-"drug" toxins people were exposed to where levels peaked around that time — leaded gasoline, early food contact plastics with unsafe additives, pesticides that are now banned, etc. But thanks Nancy Reagan. ;)