Inherited fault: scars, sin, and what crosses over

The science: parents seem to pass down more than genes. Stress and suffering leave epigenetic marks — DNA methylation, small RNAs clustered near brain-development genes — that ride into the next generation, a disposition handed over at conception. The theology: every doctrine of original sin or ancestral fault already claims a wound is inherited rather than chosen — Augustine's 'seminal nature... vitiated by sin,' propagated to every child. What do biology and theology each mean by an inherited burden, and how far do their accounts of how it passes actually line up?

open-question·epigenetics·theology