Comment by stanfordkid

I agree with you there's a lot hand-wavy jumping to conclusions and claims human effects often feel like pop pseudo-science. However I do think when folks imply that epigenetic effects are negative they tend to point towards things like anxiety and fear. Anxiety very well could have a protective evolutionary benefit if you assume the next generation will also be born in a high-risk environment, but a generation later these qualities would be perceived as a negative consequence.

Another example is famine, it may be advantegous to store visceral fat in a low food environment, but if the famine ends, the next generation is more likely to carry this "advantage" which is now negative: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S216183132...