(urth) Lamarck, Wolfe and Exultants
James Wynn
crushtv at gmail.com
Thu Aug 5 07:15:54 PDT 2010
>
>> Wolfe is quoted as thus...
>> "I didn't know that anybody was working in the Lamarckian area, today
>> to be honest with you. I think somebody should be because I have
>> never been convinced that Lamarck was wrong."
>>
>> Lamarckism states that acquired traits are inherited.
>
> Yes, but "Lamarckism" is not a product of Lamarck himself. Inheritance
> of acquired characteristics is an ancient idea in one form or another,
> and Darwin allowed something like it in his idea that somatic tissues
> generated heritable "gemmules" in response to the development or
> disuse of various organs.
Actually, aspects of Larmarckism are making a comeback with the
understanding that our bodies are determined by more than our DNA
blueprints. The following is a link to an abstract of a study that
argues that your longevity is significantly determined by whether your
grandparents experienced famine in their childhood.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x61m87x016213823/
Obviously, if a trait can be acquired across generations based on
experiences occurring before the second generation was even conceived,
this could --over time-- have an evolutionary effect.
u+16b9
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