Transformations of Lamarckism: The Next Nightmare for Evolutionists

Dr Hunter- thank you for the response- It has been my experience that a caricature of Lamarkism has been denied, staunchly opposed, ridiculed, etc- to this day. To me it is similar to the way caricatures of ID and Creation are denied, staunchly opposed, ridiculed, etc- to this day. Perhaps there should be a thread that discusses what is and ain't Lamarkism... Joe

Joe: Gould wrote that relatively recently, when the evidence was becoming undeniable, even for many evolutionists. Lamarckism was denied, staunchly opposed, ridiculed, etc, for many decades. Cornelius Hunter

From SJ Gould in "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory" page 354:

"If acquired characters are inherited only rarely and weakly, then Lamarckism might aid natural selection in developing adaptation more quickly - a position advocatted by Darwin himself throughout the Origin. But if acquired characters are inherited faithfully all the time, then natural selection will be overwhelmed and Lamarckism becomes a refutation of Darwinism. Relative frequency determines the distinction."

So as I said above: Darwinism and neo-darwinism are OK with Lamarkism- Darwin’s ideas and genetics were in addition to, ie OTHER, more important mechanisms- at least that was my understanding So despite what Dr Hunter says Darwinism is OK with Lamarkism, just as long as it is NOT the main driver. Joe

Stu7: So does this mean neo-Darwinists have finally tossed out “Central Dogma” on the ever mounting rubbish heap of falsified preconceptions? Or will this play out in yet another “yeah we knew that all along” cover-up.. Well both I suspect. The beauty of evolution is that it can make a seemingly endless stream of false predictions without consequence. After all, it must be true. With the inheritance of acquired characteristics evolutionists can take an idea they fiercely opposed, ridiculed and blackballed, and now say that evolution created it. As if evolution had not violated science enough already. Now we say that not only did it create all of biology, but it created itself. Point mutations are inadequate to do much of anything, but evolution constructed far more sophisticated mechanisms of change, such as horizontal gene transfer so that evolution could occur. And now it created fantastic mechanisms so organisms could implement adaptations in the future and pass those adaptations on to future generations. Cornelius Hunter

DrREC: I’m not particularly interested in rehashing what you took away from debates on this subject ... [reasons why evolutionists might object] No, evolutionists have opposed and ridiculed the inheritance of acquired characteristics because it doesn't fit their theory. You see you cannot fiercely oppose an idea that is contradictory to your theory and then turn around one day, when the evidence becomes too strong for you, and quietly agree with it and claim it for your own. Cornelius Hunter

goodusername: By “evolutionists” I’m guessing you mean “Darwinists” [followed by historical discussion] No, I don't mean “Darwinists." I meant contemporary thinkers who believe evolution is a fact. If you say Darwin had it wrong, then they say that doesn't matter because we've moved beyond Darwin. We're "evolutionists" not "Darwinists." Now I'm saying evolutionists have it wrong and you're saying it doesn't matter because Darwin made no such committment. The whole "Darwin accepted the inheritance of acquired characteristics" rebuttal is not relevant to the scientific problem at hand, not only because evolution moved past that a long time ago, but Darwin was hand-waving anyway. Darwin was proposing a theory which he was woefully ill-prepared to defend. He was engaging in substantial speculation, and particularly so when it came to the details. So yes, he was happy to recruit some of Lamark's ideas where they could assist his hand-waving, but he had little in the way of scientific explanation of how his theory was supposed to work anyway. Cornelius Hunter

I don't see any attempt to address what the book is actually about, or what the authors say. There are some pretty nice chapters on the historical interactions of Lamarckism and Darwinism and Lamarckism's influence on modern evolutionary biology. I'm not particularly interested in rehashing what you took away from debates on this subject, but some reasons people opposed what you were saying (even defining Lamarckism as the “inheritance of acquired characteristics”) could be: 1) The examples weren't inherited-for example, epigenetic marks that maintain cell fate or plasticity in development rarely arise from embryonic marks, and are generally not passed on to eggs and sperm. 2) The examples were not characteristics acquired in that animal's life. 3) The examples were transient, and not shown to amount to "Lamarckian evolution," but were merely passing adaptive plasticity. "These findings make no sense on evolution." Could you give an example of a finding discussed in the book that makes no sense in light of evolution? Or explain why a book written by evolutionary biologists is a nightmare for evolutionists? DrREC

So does this mean neo-Darwinists have finally tossed out "Central Dogma" on the ever mounting rubbish heap of falsified preconceptions? Or will this play out in yet another "yeah we knew that all along" cover-up.. Stu7

Well at least one sees what some 3 billion dollars to Israel is doing these days! It all comes down to the point of whether in nature biological change of importance can happen without random mutations or mutations at all. Is there other mechanisms? Perhaps in all these studies there is a growing hunch that there is. There was and seemly still is. Its the origin of human colours and other details of our bodies. Robert Byers

So if I’m constructing a false dichotomy then why have evolutionists opposed Lamarckism so staunchly?

For the same reason Lamarckists opposed Mendelism so staunchly. By “evolutionists” I’m guessing you mean “Darwinists” (Lamarckists, of course, were evolutionists) and by “Lamarckism” I’m guessing you mean “inheritance of acquired characteristics” (Lamarckism was much more than that. Darwin accepted the inheritance of acquired characteristics but called Lamarckism “nonsense”). “Darwinists” initially didn’t have much of an issue with the idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics (views varied) - but the “neo-Darwinists” certainly did. The idea of acquired characteristics didn’t fade away due to the rise of Darwinism. Anyone who reads Darwin will see that he readily accepted the idea. He even attempted to build in a possible mechanism for inheritance of acquired characteristics into his theory of pangenesis. The idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics faded away first from the discovery of the separation of the germ line from the soma (August Weismann), and from the rise of Mendelism. The early Mendelists roundly rejected Lamarckism, regardless of whether they were Darwinist or not (many weren’t). With neo-Darwinism came wide acceptance of Mendelism within the Darwin camp (and vice-versa) and the idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics was rejected by most. (The idea of Mendelism took much longer to catch on in France since Lamarckism was very popular there). Most people know about Darwinism being attacked in the USSR under the resurgence of a type of Lamarckism there, under the name of Lysenkoism; but Darwinism wasn’t their only target – in fact, it probably wasn’t their main target – genetics was, which they called "Weismannism-Mendelism-Morganism" . goodusername

DrREC: It seems Dr. Hunter is a not only a believer in the false dichotomy between Darwin and Lamarck, but somehow thinks the refinement of evolutionary thought is a nightmare for evolution. Hard to see how this book conveyed those messages. So if I’m constructing a false dichotomy then why have evolutionists opposed Lamarckism so staunchly? Even in public debates in which I’ve participated the professors unequivocally rejected these “refinements.” One simply labelled it as a fallacy. The other assured the audience it was a case of some research gone wrong. After a century of rejection and ridicule, evolutionists can no longer ignore the evidence. Then with the dust settling people like you come along, incredulous at all the fuss. Sure, evolution ultimately will morph and absorb the new findings which are contradictory. And it will be sold as a “refinement.” But this is not a point in its favor. These findings make no sense on evolution. Like all the other false predictions that were absorbed, this will make evolution even more absurd than it was. Cornelius Hunter

1- I am not a fan of PZ but PZ screams "It's not Lamarkism" to people who try to pass off stuff that isn't Lamarkism as Larmarkism (eg- epigenetics) 2- Darwinism and neo-darwinism are OK with Lamarkism- Darwin's ideas and genetics were in addition to, ie OTHER, more important mechanisms- at least that was my understanding Who's writing this stuff? Joe

I suppose it depends on how you define "Lamarckism." This book, as the title "Transformations of Lamarckism: From Subtle Fluids to Molecular Biology" suggests, discusses the evolution of what we might call Lamarckism, and suggests a definition that makes it relevant today. This isn't new. Gould described this as evolutionists "re-read Lamarck, cast aside the guts of it ... and elevated one aspect of the mechanics - inheritance of acquired characters - to a central focus it never had for Lamarck himself" and went on to suggest similar definitions. Is this book a nightmare for evolutionists? I think not. From the intro: "We wish to make clear at the outset that it is not our intention to contribute to a debate about Lamarckism versus Darwinism. Such a dichotomy is both theoretically unjustifiable and historically misleading. Lamarckism, in particular has been evolving... There is little similarity between Lamarck's descriptions of the subtle fluids...and modern ideas and research on "Lamarckian" evolution. .... Nevertheless, we believe that even critics and skeptics will agree that the Lamarckian problematics, the developmental-variation-focused view is returning to the center of evolutionary theorizing, complementing the Darwinian focus on gene selection." It seems Dr. Hunter is a not only a believer in the false dichotomy between Darwin and Lamarck, but somehow thinks the refinement of evolutionary thought is a nightmare for evolution. Hard to see how this book conveyed those messages. DrREC

Yeah the first time I read about non-random mutation I thought of Lamarck. Mytheos