> ”They will not persist across many generations though”
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.
If I understand both correctly, a better answer to your question than sibling post is that yes, that could be imagined, but your dichotomy is not mutually exclusive, and the process described here is much more related to variable conditions of the environment and the parents’ health at the time of conception rather than to the replicable genetic structures.
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.