On the Baldwin effect and the notion of inheritance

Abstract

Currently, many scholars take the Baldwin effect (i.e. the idea that learned behaviors may become inherited) to be a powerful evolutionary mechanism. However, its importance derives from the neo-Darwinist assumption that inheritance is a purely genetic mechanism. From a wider notion of inheritance, which considers that (1) there is much more to it than genes, and (2) extra-genomic inheritance has important evolutionary consequences, an ontogenetic adaptation may have evolutionary consequences in spite of not being seated in the genome. Accordingly, this paper asserts that the relevance of the Baldwin effect should become relativized.