Epigenetics researchers in developmental, cell, and molecular biology greatly diverge in their understanding and definitions of epigenetics. In contrast, social epigeneticists, e.g., sociologists, scholars of STS, and behavioural scientists, share a focus and definition of epigenetics that is environmentally caused and trans-generationally inherited. This article demonstrates that this emphasis on the environment and on so-called Lamarckian inheritance, in addition to other factors, reflects an interdisciplinary power struggle with genetics, in which epigenetics appears to grant the social sciences a higher epistemic status. Social scientists’ understanding of epigenetics, thus, appears in part to be socially constructed, i.e., the result of extra-scientific factors, such as social processes and the self-interest of the discipline. This article argues that social epigeneticists make far-reaching claims by selecting elements from research labelled epigenetics in biology while ignoring widely confirmed scientific facts in genetics and cell biology, such as the dependence of epigenetic marks on DNA sequence-specific events, or the lack of evidence for the lasting influence of the environment on epigenetic marks or the epigenome. Moreover, they treat as a given crucial questions that are far from resolved, such as what role, if any, DNA methylation plays in the complex biochemical system of regulating gene activity. The article also points out incorrect perceptions and media hypes among biological epigeneticists and calls attention to an apparent bias among scientific journals that prefer papers that promote transgenerational epigenetic inheritance over articles that critique it. The article concludes that while research labelled epigenetics contributes significantly to our knowledge about chromatin and the genome, it does not, as is often claimed, rehabilitate Lamarck or overthrow the fundamental biological principles of gene regulation, which are based on specific regulatory sequences of the genome.

中文翻译：

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社会表观基因组的社会构建和更大的生物背景。

发育、细胞和分子生物学领域的表观遗传学研究人员对表观遗传学的理解和定义存在很大分歧。相比之下，社会表观遗传学家，例如社会学家、STS学者和行为科学家，对表观遗传学有共同的关注点和定义，即环境引起的和跨代遗传的。本文表明，除了其他因素之外，对环境和所谓的拉马克遗传的强调反映了与遗传学的跨学科权力斗争，其中表观遗传学似乎赋予了社会科学更高的认知地位。因此，社会科学家对表观遗传学的理解似乎部分是社会建构的，即科学外因素的结果，例如社会过程和学科的自身利益。本文认为，社会表观遗传学家通过从生物学中标记为表观遗传学的研究中选择元素，而忽略了遗传学和细胞生物学中广泛证实的科学事实，例如表观遗传学标记对 DNA 序列特异性事件的依赖性，或缺乏环境对表观遗传标记或表观基因组持久影响的证据。此外，他们将远未解决的关键问题视为既定的关键问题，例如DNA甲基化在调节基因活性的复杂生化系统中发挥什么作用（如果有的话）。文章还指出了生物表观遗传学家的错误认知和媒体炒作，并提请注意科学期刊中存在的明显偏见，这些期刊更喜欢促进跨代表观遗传的论文，而不是批评它的文章。文章的结论是，虽然表观遗传学的研究对我们关于染色质和基因组的知识做出了重大贡献，但它并没有像人们经常声称的那样，恢复拉马克的名誉或推翻基因调控的基本生物学原理，这些原理基于基因组的特定调控序列。