Lamarck, Wolfe and Exultants

Jeff Wilson · 05 Aug 2010, 15:22 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 10:22:17 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: (urth) Lamarck, Wolfe and Exultants
In-Reply-To: <4C5AC79A.9020104 at gmail.com>
References: <0A589998-8CB7-4024-A68A-F47FFB410726 at liftingfaces.com>
	<4C5A724D.2070403 at io.com> <4C5AC79A.9020104 at gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9051b0a30cec919ade290f46fd6e71d7.squirrel at webmail.prismnet.com>

>
>>
>>> Wolfe is quoted as thus...
>>> "I didn't know that anybody was working in the Lamarckian area, today
>>> to be honest with you. I think somebody should be because I have
>>> never been convinced that Lamarck was wrong."
>>>
>>> Lamarckism states that acquired traits are inherited.
>>
>> Yes, but "Lamarckism" is not a product of Lamarck himself. Inheritance
>> of acquired characteristics is an ancient idea in one form or another,
>> and Darwin allowed something like it in his idea that somatic tissues
>> generated heritable "gemmules" in response to the development or
>> disuse of various organs.
>
> Actually, aspects of Larmarckism are making a comeback with the
> understanding that our bodies are determined by more than our DNA
> blueprints. The following is a link to an abstract of a study that
> argues that your longevity is significantly determined by whether your
> grandparents experienced famine in their childhood.
>
> http://www.springerlink.com/content/x61m87x016213823/
>
> Obviously, if a trait can be acquired across generations based on
> experiences occurring before the second generation was even conceived,
> this could --over time-- have an evolutionary effect.

This may or may not be an "acquired" trait so much as a flexible
phenotype. There's also jazz like epigenetics and reversion that can
effectively undo the adaptation in a small number of generations; we need
many generations to be sure. But this may not have been available to the
author at the time of writing.

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