Soft Inheritance
Soft inheritance (a.k.a. Open Inheritance) a term, coined by Ernst Mayr, used to refer to the process whereby current environmental conditions are "stored" in the genetic materials of the organism and then passed on to offspring during the Present lifetime.
Soft inheritance has major political, economic, social, psychological, and emotional implications for the human species because it clearly points to the fact that your current environment has a profound impact on your families future. The should be obvious. If your current environment is "stored" in your genetic materials, and if this has immediate impact an your offspring (your children and grandchildren then), in the developmental interests of yourself and your offspring, your current environment impact the future of your family and must therefore be carefully examined.
In the mind of the modern geneticist, Soft Inheritance is distinguished from Hard Inheritance.
Note that the distinction between "soft" and "hard" mechanisms of inheritance is a reflection of the Patriarchal Sexism of modern science, a sexism that worships the hard penis as the epitome of strength and superiority. In this context of genetics, hard inheritance emerges as "superior" reflection of reality, representing a "stronger" and more virile science By contrast, and via implication, "soft" inheritance is an inferior representation of impotent scientific effort.
Feminists have suggested replacing the term "hard" with "dry" and "soft" with "wet." However this re-representation simply continues the sexualization and sexist exploitation of science. More appropriate would be to characterize theories and theorists that espouse hard inheritance as ridged, and those that are more open (and less ideologically motivated) as "open."
