Wolfe's Lamarckism

m.driussi · 14 Jun 1998, 19:46 · from urth-v0013.mbox · original

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From: m.driussi at genie.com
Subject: (urth) Wolfe's Lamarckism
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 98 19:46:00 GMT
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So attempts to link "racial" characteristics to geographical details
("Caucasians are pale because they lived in caves and/or dark
forests"; "Asians have a yellowish skin because of the yellow sands
of the Gobi Desert"; "Tropical people are dark skinned in response to
greater influx of sunlight year round") amounts to Lamarckism?  Hmmm.

As opposed to something like, "The pale mutant by chance wandered off
that way, into Europe by way of Central Asia, the reddish mutant went
that way, into the Americas by way of Alaska, the yellowish mutant
went . . . etc."?  Is this form (a sort of Neo-Noah scenario) then
"Darwinism"?  (No, I'm not trying to open the debate on "single
human/hominid genesis" versus "multiple location human/hominid
genesis"!)

But I thought that the English moths of Industrial England were
always cited as textbook examples of evolutionary process?  That is,
when the environment changed (through sooty pollution, in this case),
some moths had camouflage and some moths didn't--those that did,
survived, until all remaining population (or majority, at least) had
the same advantage.  Then when pollution was reduced, the process
reversed itself.

=3Dmantis=3D

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