Genetic would mean that genes get modified.

But there might be other ways that some traits get inherited, eg by changing the cellular environment in the sperm/egg itself which could affect the offspring while keeping the genes the same.

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agumonkey 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe he's trying to go to the earliest idea of "gen-es" aka the reasons for the traits of an individual. The idea existed before the discovery of cells kernels and DNA right ? so in a way, if there are other mechanisms involved in passing traits to children, it could be termed as gen-something

	▲	shevy-java 13 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, that depends on the definition. Lamarck could fit into it, but he had no clue about DNA, genes and so forth; neither had Darwin. He babbled about gemmulae. Even the definition of a gene is not very accurate. Many important sequences yield a miRNA or another RNA. Only few sequences yield a mRNA. Some "genes" are just integrated viruses/phages/transposons etc... that were modified. One of the most fascinating one was the retrovirus in regards to the mammalian placenta: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4332834/ but there are many more examples. We are all DNA hybrids at the end of the day. The whole species concepts makes very little sense these days, IMO. I can see the use case for eukaryotes, but it makes no sense to me for bacteria yet alone viruses.