{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1335",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1335,
    "subject": "Lamarckism Explained",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1999-01-20T10:27:42+00:00",
    "last": "1999-01-21T12:18:55+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0023-0002@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "David_Lebling",
        "address": "david_lebling at avid.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-01-20T10:27:42+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Lamarckism Explained",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Those interested in Wolfe's profession of belief in Lamarckism (mentioned\nin _Castle of the Otter_, among other places) are referred to this month's\n(February, 1999, I think) issue of _Natural History_.  Stephen J. Gould's\ncolumn is about Lamarck.\n\nLamarck's theory of evolution is also known as the \"two-factor theory.\"\nOne factor is a push towards increasing complexity.  The other (which is\nthe part often caricatured as \"giraffes stretching their necks\") is a push\nfrom the environment which results in variation orthogonal to the level of\ncomplexity.\n\nThe idea seems to be that the vertical line of increased complexity leads\nfrom inanimate to animate to microorganisms to worms to reptiles to mammals\n(to simplify the progression overmuch).  The orthogonal push of\nenvironmental pressure (and we don't seem to be talking about \"natural\nselection\", but something else) produces variations on the basic theme, so\nwe get bears and hippos and moles and squirrels once we have mammals.\n\nIt is possible that what Wolfe is interested in in Lamarck is the\n\"increasing complexity\" factor, which to my mind allows the idea of\nprogressive evolution rather than chance mutation and adaptation.  This has\nalways been one of the two big problems some believers (including believers\nin Marx) have with Darwin; the other, of course being the inclusion of\nhumans in the theory.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a confimed\nDarwinist).\n\n     -- Dave Lebling\n     (aka vizcacha)"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0023-0003@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Kevin J. Maroney",
        "address": "kmaroney at crossover.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-01-21T12:18:55+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Lamarckism Explained",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0023-0002@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 10:27 AM 1/20/99 -0500, Dave wrote:\nThe orthogonal push of\nenvironmental pressure (and we don't seem to be talking about \"natural\nselection\", but something else) produces variations on the basic theme, so\nwe get bears and hippos and moles and squirrels once we have mammals.\n\nIt is possible that what Wolfe is interested in in Lamarck is the\n\"increasing complexity\" factor, which to my mind allows the idea of\nprogressive evolution rather than chance mutation and adaptation.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I don't understand Lamarck well; as Gould points out, what is taught in\nschools as Lamark is actually a cruel caricature, much closer to Lysenko.\nBut I think that what appealed to George Bernard Shaw about Lamarck was the\nsense that evolution was driven by *striving*, rather than by chance--that\nevolutionary change occurs in those creatures which move to the limits of\ntheir physical capacity and then \"discover\" that they can move slightly\nbeyond. \n\nAs you point out, there is also very clearly a sense of \"progress\" in\nLamarck which Darwin explicitly rejected. In fact, the word \"evolution\"\nitself has an implicit sense of progress in it (at least as it was used in\nthe 19th century), which lead Darwin to avoid it. His term for the process\nwas \"modification through descent\". \n\nWombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}