Is there **any** evidence that "regression" is a biological state. This screams Lamarckian (or Stalinist Lysenko) fallacy. By "regression" I am referring to the popular internet meme that bees may be conditioned to grow into smaller sizes. This is "the heritability of acquired traits" that people should of learned in 7th grade was an alternative to Darwinian evolution proposed by Lamarck (Giraffes stretching their necks). The theory is complete bunkum.
As a member of a biological community that has to contend with folklore and disbelief about the Darwinian principles, I am uncomfortable when "regression" is presented as an established fact based solely on the anecdotes of Internet Gurus.
I do not believe that acquired traits are heritable in any meaningful way. I have more than a century of scientific trials to back me up.
"Regression", as far as reducing the size of the bees goes, has nothing to do with Lamarckism or Lysenkoism. I have not seen a single person claim that going small-cell will alter the bee's genetic markup. While I did not attempt "regression" to go small-cell or natural cell, those who did described a self-replicating system that is more cultural in nature than genetic. They claim that the bee's natural behavior is to make cells for brood that is roughly the same size as their own, and that brood will grow, to a certain extent, to the size the cell it's in will allow it to. Thus by artificially giving bees large cells, we bred bees that would then naturally continue to draw up cells of that size, and that future generations will continue to maintain this size. Eggs transferred into different colonies, however, would not inherit this size, but will adapt to the "culture" of its new host population.
Pretty much like higher education in the real world. Offspring of people who went to university are more likely to go to university themselves, while offspring of people who bailed out at high school are more likely to do so as well themselves. And while genes could influence how fit an individual is for higher education, if you take babies from both contexts and swap them, nurture will show to be a determining factor. Valorisation of education is not inherited, it is transmitted. Just because some acquired traits can be passed down from generation to generation does not mean that we are talking about Lamarckism. There's more to nature and behaviors than just genetics and inherited traits. Comparing regression of bees to small size and Lamarck's theories on how giraffes got their long necks is absurd.
The number of people who report having "regressed" their bees, and the extended period of time over which such reports extend and the lack of incentive to make it up is too great to simply broadly discredit them as charlatans.
