{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/752",
    "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'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 752,
    "subject": "Lamark, Lysenko, Darwin, and Christ",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-06-08T09:19:56+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-08T09:19:56+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0013-0009@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehyo at us.oracle.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-08T09:19:56+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Lamark, Lysenko, Darwin, and Christ",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hi --\n\nOne possible reason for Wolfe's holding to (some version of) \nLamarckian evolution is (the Catholic version of) Christian theology.\nIt is absolutely central to (Catholic) Christian dogma that each and \nevery one of us inherits from our first ancestors an acquired \ncharacteristic, that characteristic being \"original sin,\" the result\nof disobedience, the Fall.\n\nIncidentally, I also hold to (a modified form of) Lamarckism -- and\n_not_ only because of Catholic teaching, but also simple common \nsense.  Wolfe, here and there, tells an evolutionary fable about \nbirds learning to build nests.  I don't know what I think of that,\nbut I sure as hell do know that each of us has a whole lot of \ninherited characteristics, which were _not_ passed on to us through \nour parents genes, but rather through their \"memes\" (to borrow\nRichard Dawkins' semi-useful term) -- through language and culture.\n\nOnce upon a time someone found out how to keep a fire under control\nin their cave or hut or whatever; this knowledge has been passed \ndown and, indeed, has itself evolved until carefully-controlled \nfires run our planes, trains, and automobiles.  But \"controlling\nfire\" is an acquired characteristic, and one that each new \ngeneration has to acquire -- but our acquisition is heritable, \nbecause we bypass genetic heritage and pass it on through the \nextrabiotic matrix of culture, language, etc.\n\nThe same holds true, to a lesser extent, for many prelinguistic\nanimals -- cats and birds can readily be seen teaching their \noffspring how to perform various survival-oriented activities.  \nThey, we, inherit the ability to teach and to be taught, but the\nactual content of the teaching, the extrabiotic inheritance, is\ninherited but always acquired.\n\nZat make sense?\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------\n|                                 |                                 |\n|        Dan'l Danehy-Oakes       | First Amendment Pop Quiz:       |\n|    Staff Curriculum Developer   |                                 |\n|   Oracle World-Wide Education   | Is it all right to shout        |\n|  e-mail ddanehyo at us.oracle.com  | \"movie\" in a crowded firehouse? |\n|        phone 650.506.0793       |                                 |\n|                                 |                                 |\n---------------------------------------------------------------------"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}