Darwin versus Lamarck
June 18, 2010 9:03 am UncategorizedAn interesting new post in Newsweek, of all places, on the ongoing issue of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
Lest the assembled hosts of Darwinians descend on me for heresy, let me assure them that my allegiance to the party line is questionable: Darwin is largely correct. His theory on the unity of life, the variation of species by random mutations, and the emergence of new species from gradual changes is almost certainly correct. Is his theory complete? Does it cover all possible circumstances? I doubt it, and so do many other biologists more eminently qualified than I.
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}
Dalwhinnie
alex :
Date: June 18, 2010 @ 9:54 AM
I first heard about this on NOVA. Change the eggs or sperm and you change the next generation. Its not really Lamarckism at all, jut a further understanding of evolution.
Cannabis has been shown to mutate sperm for example. They end up with 2 heads or 2 tails, and those ones usually don’t make it to the egg. Its reasonable to guess that eggs fertilized by a pot smoker are the ones who also happen to be resistant to the ill affects of smoking pot. A baby would be genetically predisposed against this mutation where none existed in the parents. It would have been induced by the actions of the father.
Ted :
Date: June 18, 2010 @ 10:07 AM
Does anyone except anti-evolutionists and historians ever really talk about Darwin anymore? Theories of evolution have, well, evolved and become far more sophisticated, intricate, precise.
So you can say that his general theory is still true, but I don’t think anyone has used Darwin’s theories in actual biological studies in a long time. So taking aim at him (which I’m not suggesting you are exactly) as the anti-science crowd does, is very much a strawman line of attack.
dollops :
Date: June 18, 2010 @ 10:26 AM
Within living memory it was once inconceivable that human science and technology would manipulate genes and someday create life from inert material. Darwin, Scopes, Huxley et al did not have our perspective any more than today’s protagonists can imagine what is yet to be discovered and accomplished. There are huge hurdles to overcome before we understand, if we are capable of it, the what, where and why of existence. Ergo, God.
bulletproofcourier :
Date: June 19, 2010 @ 4:08 AM
Not ergo God, but ergo something we don’t know about yet.
“God of the gaps” is faulty.
Just because science can’t explain something, it doesn’t automatically mean God did it.
Dalwhinnie :
Date: June 22, 2010 @ 12:06 PM
The above comments illustrate how difficult it is to write anything sensible about darwin that is not fully adulatory and thoroughly orthodox. I recommend David Stove’s “Darwinian Fairytales” for a really good romp through the thickets of Darwin and Dawkins.
Evolution manifestly happens, and is happening. The mechanisms described by Darwin may not be exhaustive of the total available ways for it to occur. That is all.