Over at Evolution News & Views, we are told that two Israeli researchers are “ flirting with Lamarck”:
Lamarck? He was the much-ridiculed Frenchman (1744–1829) who was right about the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
In other words, stuff that happened to our grandparents and parents could help shape our genome, and affect our health and sense of well-being. See, for example, Can epigenetics even shape attitudes?
Here’s the abstract:
“Which came first, the Chicken or the Egg?” We suggest this question is not a paradox. The Modern Synthesis envisions speciation through genetic changes in germ cells via random mutations, an “Egg first” scenario, but perhaps epigenetic inheritance mechanisms can transmit adaptive changes initiated in the soma (“Chicken first”). Open access
Anyway, Evolution News & Views, we offers,
What makes speculative articles such as this ultimately disappointing is the absence of supporting data (i.e., evidence) for the mechanisms being proposed.
From a philosophical standpoint, however, the speculations are fascinating — because they indicate what researchers are willing to try, in the face of the supposed “highly confirmed” status of textbook evolutionary theory.
How be this: There is lots of supporting data out there but maybe they daren’t offer it in a context that would sound like confronting the publicly funded Darwin cult?
Also: CRISPR findings vindicate Lamarck, says researcher in Quanta article, but it is now called epigenetics. Darwin’s tenures and many science journalists (pom poms for “science”) don’t like epigenetics. It detracts from the easy answers offered by Darwin’s followers.
See also: Another non-Darwinian biologist we need to know about: Mae-Wan Ho
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Lamarck was wrong about inheritance of acquired characteristics, and will continue to be wrong unless babies start being born precircumcised and lacking an appendix.
That mechanisms that change genomes other than through mutation are being described as Lamarckian does not mean they are examples of Lamarckism
Oh, and this:
is not only desperate posturing but also evidence that whoever wrote it didn’t bother to read the actual article:
The more plausible track appears to be one in which the epigenetic change is first transferred as is from the soma into the germline (e.g. in the case of small non-coding RNA in worms), and at a later stage is assimilated and replaced by a genetic change. The alternative is that the somatic epigenetic change could first be assimilated into the soma’s genome and only later be transferred as such into the germline (a scenario with no current supporting data).
Roy, the self-deceiver:
This is so ass-backwards, it’s not even funny. The whole point of epigenetics is to adapt to the environment. How is circumcision or the lack of an appendix a type survival adaptation? And why the appendix? It does serve a purpose, regardless of your ignorance of it.
One such clearly Lamarckian mechanism is the one that allows finches to grow longer beaks. The reason that it is not Darwinian is the speed (single generation) and the repeatability/reversibility of the process.
Epigenetics is not the exception in biology. It is the rule. Everything else, i.e., any other theory of evolution, is voodoo. Epigenetics is so widespread that some trees develop a different genetic signature at the top than at the bottom.
Roy at 1: The appendix is part of a redundant anti-pathogen system. The fact that appendices get infected no more proves they are a bad thing than the fact that soldiers get shot protecting civilians at the front (and civilians die in the crossfire) means that soldiers are a bad thing.
The value of circumcision seems to relate to the views of human communities, which are all over the map. So I am currently unclear how any of this show that Lamarck was wrong.
What do you think Lamarck’s theory of evolution was, News?
@ Mapou:
I didn’t say anything about epigenetics (which is not the same as Lamarckism). Nor does it matter why circumcision occurs, or what the appendix does. Both you and News seem to have some hot button such that whenever the appendix is mentioned you start yelling “It does have a function! It does!!! regardless of whether this is relevant.
All you have shown is that you don’t know anything about Lamarckism, epigenetics, phenotype plasticity or finches.
@ News:
Try applying Lamarck’s 2nd law:
All the acquisitions or losses wrought by nature on individuals, through the influence of the environment in which their race has long been placed, and hence through the influence of the predominant use or permanent disuse of any organ; all these are preserved by reproduction to the new individuals which arise, provided that the acquired modifications are common to both sexes, or at least to the individuals which produce the young.
to wisdom teeth, appendices, tonsils and genitalia.
Epigenetic change is Lamarkian evolution, Roy. epigenetics and Lamark
Roy, this is pure nonsense. Epigenetics is not Lamarckism. It is the genetic mechanism of Lamarckism. In fact, adaptation, the observed changes in organisms under environmental pressure, that Darwinists love to confuse with voodoo evolution via RM+NS, is nothing but epigenetics/Lamarckism. It was genetically designed from day one for this purpose, to adapt. There is no need for RM+NS nonsense anywhere.
And there are indeed cases in nature where a species would lose the need for an organ such as the eye, for example, and the organ would eventually transform into a useless appendage. All that is programmed in the genes and reprogrammed when necessary. Nature defecates on Darwinian processes.
Moreover, Roy can’t read:
All the acquisitions or losses wrought by nature on individuals, through the influence of the environment in which their race has long been placed, and hence through the influence of the predominant use or permanent disuse of any organ; all these are preserved by reproduction to the new individuals which arise, provided that the acquired modifications are common to both sexes, or at least to the individuals which produce the young.
While surgeons and razor-wielders may not strictly be “nature”, they are most definitely part of the environment in which humans exist and have been for a long time, so unless Mung can come up with a reason why Lamarckism would not apply to organs removed by surgery as well as to organs affected by accident, disability or disuse, he is firing blanks.
As for the other two highlighted sections, does Mung really think that appendectomies, tonsillectomies etc do not result in permanent disuse of the organs removed? Does he think that they only apply to one gender?
Perhaps he could explain how a human can continue to use their appendix after it is has been placed in a glass jar full of formaldehyde.
Roy, Artificial as opposed to natural. Lamarck’s ideas only pertain to the natural.
Roy @10,
You people are incorrigible. It’s almost as if you are possessed by a malevolent alien entity or something. You continually come up with one pathetic argument after another to defend your voodoo theories.
My first question to you is this: Why are you Darwinists so stupid?
My second question is: Has it occurred to you that the genome was designed and that this is the reason that babies are not born circumcised? IOW, has it occurred to you that the designers engineered the heritance mechanism to allow only certain changes to be inherited and not others?
My third question is: Why are you Darwinists so stupid?
Mapou @ 12
If I’m so stupid and my arguments are so pathetic, you should be able to refute them. Instead, you post only insults and non sequuntur.
Roy, I believe Darwinists should be insulted and humiliated at every opportunity. You are a case in point. You are so stupid, all my arguments went over your head.
How Christian.
You don’t know what a Christian is. I can be even more insulting toward Christians who have more faith in silly man-made doctrines than in their savior.
Roy, and why do you, as a militant atheist, appeal to ‘illusory’ Christian morality, which you ridicule others for believing in, to be upheld?
Why not appeal to survival of the fittest morality that you yourself believe to be true to be upheld? Do you or do you not believe it to be superior to Christian morality since you hold it is true?
You know, the morality that Dawkins himself espouses to be upheld?
In other words, why don’t you yourself live consistently within your professed worldview of ‘blind, pitiless, indifference’ instead of ‘borrowing’ morality from Christians?
Moreover, this psychopathic characteristic inherent to the atheistic philosophy is born out empirically, in that people who do not believe in free will and a soul tend to be more psychopathic than the majority of normal people in America who do believe in free will and a soul.
Verse and Music:
Proverbs: There is a time for everything. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
Me: There is a time for cheek turning and a time for arse kicking. Watch out.
BA#17
Silence came Roy’s stern reply.