Regarding "evolution happening through experience rather than random mutation" - you are on a well trodden road, because before and since Darwin many people have been drawn to that hypothesis. Lamarck was probably the most famous - in fact it's named after him - Lamarckianism.

The belief that the experiences and "skills" of an organism could be passed on to it's offspring. If antelope stretch for higher and harder to reach leaves on trees their offspring will have longer necks - if those offspring then stretch and reach a bit further - then in turn their offspring etc etc until that population of antelope have evolved into giraffes Basically - if you work out like Arnold Schwartzenegger, will your children have larger muscles?
Very plausible, but WRONG. You have to ask the question "what would the mechanism be for the transfer of information gained during a parent's life from the parent to its offspring?". There isn't one.... well see later...

The cells in your body are called "somatic cells" and they include cells that make muscle and liver and brain and bone and skin etc etc. Somatic cells have a full component of DNA - genetic information. - but NONE OF THAT DNA is passed on to offspring. The only cells that pass on their DNA to the organism's offspring are the "germ line cells" - in your gonads - ovaries or testicles depending on sex. There is no mechanism for information about how big you muscles are or how much you've stretched your neck can be introduced into your germ line. Not only that but essentially information in an organism is a one-way road: DNA > RNA > protein.

Now DNA codes for the genetic information that makes up an organism but in any one cell, only a fraction of the 30,000 genes will be expressed. The fact that a cell is a liver or brain or germ line cell is governed by the repertoir of proteins it expresses ie. the repertoir of genes that it transcribes, even though they all contain identical DNA and genes. From conception, as well as the proteins in the egg and sperm that control which genes are expressed, the DNA itself is modified by methylation on clusters of certain C bases near the start point of a range of genes. Such methylation patterns are fairly stable and can be maintained through DNA replication. This methylation is very important because it also modifies gene transcription - so two identical genes will differ in their level of transcription if they have different levels and patterns of methylation. This level of control is called "epigenetic".

There are now some recognised epigenic observations by which "information" from a parent can be passed on to its offspring. If stress to a prospective mother or father occurs during the formation of their gonads or development of their germline cells, that presumably can alter the methylation patterns of the DNA in those cells. So if a mother carrying a female foetus is stressed by lack of food or excess alcohol or whatever at the very stage that the foetus inside her is laying down eggs in its ovaries, then epigenetic changes can occur to those germ line cells. In males the "opportunity" to cause epigenetic damage occurs much later - when they undergo puberty.

So in a way Lamarck and you are not absolutely and completely wrong, just mostly wrong!


Sad to say cruel experiments have been carried out last century to test your and Lamarck's theories. The tails of mice were repeatedly cut off in a breeding mouse colony. It didn't matter how many generations of ancesters had their tails lopped, not a single offspring was born with a short tail.