{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/747",
    "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": 747,
    "subject": "Wolfe, Dollo and Evolution",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-06-05T17:34:20+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-05T17:34:20+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0013-0002@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-05T17:34:20+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Wolfe, Dollo and Evolution",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "To Mark Millman:\n\nThank you for presenting the Lamarkian position, and nicely so at that--now\nI don't have to do it. \n\nI do think however some discussion of Dollo's Law needs to take place,\nbecause it's crucial to an understanding of FIFTH HEAD in several senses.\n\nI'm therefore enclosing my Dollo's Law entry from CAVE CANEM:\n\nDollo's Law: an actual tenet of evolutionary theory, formulated by the\nBelgian biologist Louis Dollo (1857-1931), also known as the Law of\nIrreversible Evolution. It basically states that organisms cannot re-evolve\nalong lost pathways, but must (because the same fortuitous train of\nmutational events, being totally random, will never repeat) find alternate\nroutes. Whales, in other words, will never again walk on land with\nre-evolved pelvic appendages that derive from the current remnant\nstructures that correspond in us to legs. They *might* however evolve\nappendages that derive from other biological provenance--especially if\nthere were some pressure to do so, say, if the oceans began to dry up.\nWhile various non-Darwinian theorists have attempted to use Dollo to\npromote their cause, Dollo was simply seeking to explain convergence of\nform in diverse species (e.g., icthyosaurs, dolphins, fish). Note, however,\nWolfe uses Dollo correctly.\n\nVRT subsequently uses Dollo's Law to explain how he learns to use a pencil,\nbut it also plays an important role in decoding one of Number Five's dreams\n(I, 42). In the dream, Number Five is imprisoned in a courtyard, the paving\nstones of which are mortuary tablets featuring the names of his ancestors\n(a church like this exists in Port-Mimizon and it is probably where most of\nNumber Five's family is buried), and with columns too narrowly spaced\ntogether for him to squeeze through.There are words written on the columns,\nbut only one of them is discernable: carapace. As Wolfe makes sure to tell\nus in V.R.T, Dollo's Law is based on the study of fossilized turtle\ncarapaces. Thus the dream combines elements of stasis, death and\nunattainable goals; possibly also implying that the various Wolfe clones,\nhaving forsaken their consciences, can never reacquire them. \n\nLupines interested in reading more about evolutionary theory might also\npick up any of Stephen Jay Gould's fine work, usually found in most\nlibraries. He does go down smoother, however, if you'd had at least some\nbiology beyond the high school level.\n\nHey, at least our version of Maitre isn't a creationist!\n\nRobert Borski"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}