If it weren’t for the rats, I wouldn’t be writing about epigenetics and meditation. Epigenetics is one of those scientific subjects that, after a solid and respectable start, jumped the shark. It burst into the scientific mainstream in the last decade or so with fascinating, even paradigm-shifting, discoveries in how genes operate, offering explanations for mysteries from why identical twins differ in the inherited genetic diseases they develop to how our physical environment and social experiences reach into our DNA, altering the blueprints of our lives.
Many of the findings have solid scientific support. Lately, however, studies on the epigenetic effects of meditation have been popping up like dandelions in April, making claims that, unfortunately, rest on shaky science—the shark is well and truly jumped. “The science just isn’t as strong as some people are making it out to be,” said neuroscientist Cliff Saron of the University of California, Davis. Saron is hardly a meditation basher: He co-led a study showing possible epigenetic effects from mindfulness meditation.
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