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From: sa209@utb.shv.hb.se (Claes Andersson)
Subject: Re: Lamarckian Evolution
Message-ID: <1995Feb1.204115.22753@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se>
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References: <davesag-1701952036170001@sladl1p11.ozemail.com.au> <3fi3gh$abe@laplace.ee.latrobe.edu.au> <1995Jan19.195400.24879@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se> <D382AG.Hnp@lincoln.gpsemi.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 1995 02:59:28 GMT
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whipp@roborough.gpsemi.com (David Whipp) wrote:
>In article <1995Jan19.195400.24879@gdunix.gd.chalmers.se, sa209@utb.shv.hb.se (Claes Andersson) writes:
>
>> I get so tired.. firstly: No one here seems to understand the
>> impossibility of Lamarckian evolution. It is very easily dispatched
>> since it would that some sort of magic gene-construction. It was
>> proved to be wrong long before even the DNA was found and dragging
>> it up is like dragging the geocentric view of the universe!
>
>> The other thing, no one seems to know what Lamarckism is at all! Not?
>> Why then come with examples of Lamarckian evolution that isn't
>> Lamarckian evolution in any way.  It is called LEARNING. Your parents
>> learned you to speak, and they didn't do it via your genes.. So it is
>> in no way Lamarckian evolution.
>
>OK, I will accept that the term Lamarckian Evolution is being used
>incorrectly in this thread.  However, that does no alter my opinion
>that characteristics are inherited through non-Darwinian mechanisms.
>Learning is an excellent example of such a mechanism. I can think
>of others that are not dependent on the modification of genes;
>for example, addiction can be inherited because chemicals are
>passed in the blood from mother to child (e.g. Kwala bears are
>addicted to Eucoliptus leaves)

 Yes, how convenient. Isn't it possible that the reason why they are
is genetical. Or if it wouldn't have been beneficial, there would have
been a selection for a resistance. I can also think of an almost infinite
number of such examples but they are not Lamarckian as I have pointed
out.

I think we can agree by defining that the term "Lamarckian evolution"
have been (well not by those who looks on the genotype as a blueprint
of the body and somehow have got evolution quite wrong) wrongly used
here. What is natural and unnatural selection is very hard to define,
most parts of what you call envrinment is traits of other living entities,
where do you draw the line. I, personally, find it more convenient to
call them all just selection pressures.

 I agree fully that lifeforms don't have to be subject to our form of
Darwinian evolution but they must however be subject to some form
of it: Selection and reproduction. If the selection is a robot that constructs
a new robot is irrelevant, it is still an iterated selection-reproduction.

Claes Andersson. University of Bors. Sweden


