{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/742", "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": 742, "subject": "Wolfe's Lamarkism", "messages": 4, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-06-05T13:41:00+00:00", "last": "1998-06-05T17:53:39+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Craig Christensen", "address": "2644 at mn3.lawson.lawson.com" }, "date": "1998-06-05T13:41:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Lamarkism", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan Parmenter,\n\nYou wrote here," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Maybe you can explain why Wolfe defends Lamarckism (explicitly\nand implicitly), but never really explains why." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "and, I've read the same thing elsewhere in the archives. Could you point \nme to some examples of this? I'd like to read those over.\n\nCraig Christensen" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mark Millman", "address": "mark_millman at hmco.com" }, "date": "1998-06-05T15:45:42+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Wolfe's Lamarkism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Dan Parmenter and Craig Christensen wrote:\nDan Parmenter,\n\nYou wrote here," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Maybe you can explain why Wolfe defends\nLamarckism (explicitly and implicitly), but\nnever really explains why." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "and, I've read the same thing elsewhere in the\narchives. Could you point me to some examples\nof this? I'd like to read those over.\n\nCraig Christensen" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe defends Lamarckism at least in part because he\nthinks that Jean-Baptiste Lamarck got a bad rap from\nmodern science when the Darwinian model of evolution\n(there were several competing theories of evolution\nbefore Darwin's time; Larmarck's was among the front-\nrunners) became the preferred--and by now, the only\nserious--forum for discussion of the development of\nspecies. He also claims to believe in it. I think that when\nhe says this, Wolfe may be nipping a bit at our heels. To\nbegin with, although Lamarckism is not, as Wolfe very\ncorrectly points out, the same as Lysenkoism (the latter\nclaims that if you continue to cut the tails off mice, after\nmany generations you will have tailless mice; Lamarck's\ncontention is that if mice never use their tails for anything,\nthe tails will eventually wither and disappear, yielding\ntailless mice; but if they begin to wrap their tails around\nobjects, the use that the organ gets will stimulate its\ndevelopment, and it's this increased development that\nis passed on to the offspring, which will eventually give\nthem prehensile tails; while Darwinian evolution says\nthat the mice that can grip with their tails will, presumably,\nsurvive more often than the ones that can't, and the\ndifference in mortality between the gripping mice and\nthe non-gripping mice will ensure that there will be more\ngripping mice to have more--and healthier--offspring,\neventually resulting in mice with prehensile tails), it's\nfairly clear that Lamarckism confuses cause with effect.\nIt would also require that changes in body parts could\naffect reproductive DNA, which does not happen. There\nis, however, a strong progressive element in Lamarck's\nown ideas--the ones that Wolfe claims to adhere to--and\nthis progressive element (it suggests that life is always\nimproving itself, and that the evolution of humans is, in\na way, therefore inevitable) may appeal to Wolfe or to\nhis religious beliefs. You can read more about Lamarck\nand Lamarckism, and about Lamarckism in nineteenth-\ncentury literature (which is probably relevant to Wolfe's\nideas), on this very informative Web site:\nhttp://www.clarehall.cam.ac.uk/~djhc2/index.htm (click\non the Biographies link for information about Lamarck\nhimself and his original ideas).\n\nMark Millman" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Craig Christensen", "address": "2644 at mn3.lawson.lawson.com" }, "date": "1998-06-05T16:14:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Wolfe's Lamarkism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mark Millman,\n\n Thank-you for the very clear explanation of Lamarkism. I thought I had \na passing familiarity with it, but I confess I was lumping it together \nwith Lysenkoism. I recall the story of the mice clearly.\n\n But, what I was looking for were specific stories where Wolfe discusses \nor defends his belief in Lamarkism. Can you help me out here?\n\n BTW, have you read DARWIN'S CENTURY by Loren Eiseley? He is another \nfavorite author of mine. In this book he discusses all of the \ndiscoveries of others that Darwin built his own theory upon. I enjoyed \nit, but less than his collections of essays.\n\nCraig Christensen" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Mark Millman", "address": "mark_millman at hmco.com" }, "date": "1998-06-05T17:53:39+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Wolfe's Lamarkism", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Craig Christensen wrote:\nMark Millman,\n\nThank-you for the very clear explanation of Lamarkism.\nI thought I had a passing familiarity with it, but I confess\nI was lumping it together with Lysenkoism. I recall the\nstory of the mice clearly.\n\nBut, what I was looking for were specific stories where\nWolfe discusses or defends his belief in Lamarkism.\nCan you help me out here?\n\nBTW, have you read DARWIN'S CENTURY by Loren\nEiseley? He is another favorite author of mine. In this\nbook he discusses all of the discoveries of others that\nDarwin built his own theory upon. I enjoyed it, but less\nthan his collections of essays." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As far as I can recall there are no stories in which Wolfe explicitly\ndiscusses evolution at all (and now, no doubt, someone will post\nthe titles of several), though he perhaps comes closest in \"The\nHero as Werwolf\", \"Tracking Song\", and \"Peritonitis\". I do recall\nhis having discussed the issue in the interview he granted to\nJames B. Jordan (you can find it on Paul Duggan's Wolfe Web\nsite at http://world.std.com/~pduggan/gwjbj1.html#sci; the link is\ndirectly to the part of the interview in which he discusses Lamarck)\nand, briefly, on page 15 of the Science Fiction Book Club edition\nof _The Castle of the Otter_.\n\nI haven't read _Darwin's Century_, but I'll look for it now.\n\nMark Millman" } ] } ] }