It is a field of study that will probably produce a growing trove of stories and a greater understanding of how genetics and the environment combine to impact biological development and disease. Every once in awhile, however, journalists need to pull back, as they did when the science was first cropping up in the media ten years ago, and remind readers of its basic tenets and definitions. Because despite the fact that reporters still call this a “new” field of research, it only seems that way because journalists and others haven’t done enough to explain it. And hopefully, in applying a wider perspective, journalists will avoid the temptation to use epigenetic explanations as a cure-all for everything we don’t understand about our own biology and upbringing (like what causes autism). Epigenetics greatly expands this understanding, but as it stands now, we’re just starting to figure out how the genome, the epigenome, and the environment interact to produce us.

Epigenetics need not sound like magic-and readers deserve to get stories explaining the science behind the field. It’s something many of us were never taught in school.

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