Wounded King writes:
Is there a coherent argument to be made for any sort of entirely genetically independent epigenetic inheritance becoming genetically encoded over generations?
Although I've never looked into this, I would hypothesize epigenetics (in the form of imprinting) as a mechanism behind the atrophy of vestigial organs. I guess this wouldn't really have to become genetically-encoded, though.
Also, here in the western US (and perhaps other places) I have seen a lot of bright blue pillbugs. I did some personal "research" on it, and found a website where a man identified the causal mechanism of the blueness as a virus which had become so prevalent as to create a crystalline network that strongly reflected blue light.
That got me thinking: here at BYU, everything's blue (school colors, you know), so this blue coloration could be advantageous (even though it shortens lifespan considerably). Now, this blue is due to structural coloration, not pigments, so it's not likely to become encoded. But, if it
were pigmentation (or otherwise encodable), viral transformation could pass it to the host.
I wish I knew a better example than this, because this one's kind of a stretch.
Signed,
Nobody Important (just Bluejay)