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edwest211
Guest
Right. However, staying ‘on message’ is also designed to deflect legitimate questions or ignore them.
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LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
Read comment #4 after the article. It is a very good criticism of the conclusions one might draw from these experiments.
Essentially, what these mice experiments show is that certain experiences in the environment can create changes in the offspring that are inheritable. But that is not Lamarckism. Lamarckism is the principle that a specific characteristic that is acquired through experience can be passed on to the offspring. To return to that poor giraffe again, his experience is stretching his neck to reach food. That act of stretching is supposed to cause the offspring of that giraffe to inherit a longer neck. That would be Lamarckism. But this experiment with the mice did not do that. Here is what I think happened with the mice in the experiment cited here: Some mice were exposed to an “enriched environment.” (EE). The EE mice had more toys to play with and more opportunities for socialization and exercise. As we all know, living a life with interesting activity, more exercise and interpersonal interaction is a healthier life style. A healthier mouse produces healthier gametes. Healthier gametes produce healthier offspring. Healthier offspring have better developed organs, including the brain. So it is no surprise that the offspring did better in brain-related areas.
But this is a very special case of an acquired characteristic. We can just as well call this acquired characteristic “general health.” It is not surprising that healthy mothers have healthier babies - even at the genetic level. What would be surprising is some very specific characteristic (other than general health) being acquired by an organism and then to have that very same characteristic passed on to the offspring. That is what you would need to do to prove Lamarckism. This article doesn’t do it.
As for the giraffe, I think the opposite of what Lamarckism claims might be true. Giraffes that are put in an environment where they must stretch to reach any food at all are likely to be malnourished. Malnourished mothers will give birth to stunted baby giraffes with an even shorter neck, and perhaps damaged genes. They won’t have longer necks. However giraffes given plenty of food within easy reach of their present height will be healthier and have healthier babies with nice long necks.
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Aloysium
Guest
What you say makes sense but it sounds argumentative for some reason.
The article wasn’t in support of Lamarckism. It speaks to the importance of factors outside of the genome, about the impact of the environment on diversification and how the two could offer protection against the effects of random mutation of DNA molecules on the phenotype and even it’s offspring.
Creation becomes increasingly amazing the more one learns of it’s workings.
The article wasn’t in support of Lamarckism. It speaks to the importance of factors outside of the genome, about the impact of the environment on diversification and how the two could offer protection against the effects of random mutation of DNA molecules on the phenotype and even it’s offspring.
Creation becomes increasingly amazing the more one learns of it’s workings.
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Aloysium
Guest
The environment is in a continuous state change.
How it took shape over billions of years is nowhere close to being understood, but recent thinking generally holds that before the advent of life, in a world of volcanoes, the atmosphere was composed of hydrogen sulfide, methane, and ten to 200 times as much carbon dioxide as there is today. The earth cooled and water began to collect, creating an environment in which simple organisms could flourish. The creation of Cyanobacteria in Earth’s oceans, by means of their photosynthetic metabolism brought gaseous oxygen into the world from carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight. Initially aerobic organisms were mainly found in the ocean using the oxygen dissolved in seawater. But as the atmosphere changed, the land was ready to accept the next level of life - the creation of land plants and animals.
One way I’d put it is that God plants seeds, and they grow and flourish, laying the foundation for something grander. Another seed is planted and a world of life is born. Within that garden He places mankind to live out the most amazing drama of good and evil, with everything to gain and everything to lose. You win by giving it away in love.
How it took shape over billions of years is nowhere close to being understood, but recent thinking generally holds that before the advent of life, in a world of volcanoes, the atmosphere was composed of hydrogen sulfide, methane, and ten to 200 times as much carbon dioxide as there is today. The earth cooled and water began to collect, creating an environment in which simple organisms could flourish. The creation of Cyanobacteria in Earth’s oceans, by means of their photosynthetic metabolism brought gaseous oxygen into the world from carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight. Initially aerobic organisms were mainly found in the ocean using the oxygen dissolved in seawater. But as the atmosphere changed, the land was ready to accept the next level of life - the creation of land plants and animals.
One way I’d put it is that God plants seeds, and they grow and flourish, laying the foundation for something grander. Another seed is planted and a world of life is born. Within that garden He places mankind to live out the most amazing drama of good and evil, with everything to gain and everything to lose. You win by giving it away in love.
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Glark
Guest
This a priori position leads to all sorts of untestable nonsense and stories being offered as “science”. I like the example of a piece of a reptile’s jaw supposedly evolving into the inner-ear bones of a mammal: No one can prove that such a transition is even possible - it is simply assumed that it is - because evolution is true. And no one can sensibly explain how or why such a transition happened … no real need to - evolution is true so the “how” and the “why” are of no great importance.
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Glark
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Science has, but the claim that all life evolved from microbes is still stuck in nineteenth century “story telling” mode.
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Glark
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In evolution “science”, things don’t even have to be known to be possible to be probable.
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Rau
Guest
Whether that is to be understood literally as a direct creation from dust one moment to adult male the next - or as something different, matters not one jot. It would matter if science were able to discover the answer to be “direct”. It would cause a greater focus on the Bible. Some feel that without such literalness, faith evaporates, as people emulate the doubting Thomas.
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rossum
Guest
So far there is no evidence of that. Are Jewish males born ready-circumcised or do they still have foreskins despite thousands of years of circumcisions?
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rossum
Guest
Common descent for land creatures exists. It is observable.
Your problem here is that tetrapod wings are very different. All are based on the standard tetrapod forelimb, but all three are different:
- Pterosaur: one digit and skin.
- Bird: two fused digits and feathers.
- Bat: five digits and skin.
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Aloysium
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I’m not sure why this favours random changes over design. Seems to me that given all the other bodily modifications required for flight, that it would be much less likely or impossible. That’s what I see.
I’m not sure why this favours random changes over design. Seems to me that given all the other bodily modifications required for flight, that it would be much less likely or impossible. That’s what I see.
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rossum
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Having a working design in the pterosaur wing, why did any proposed designer switch to a different design for birds and yet another different design for bats? Design proponent often claim that reuse of the same ideas shows design. Here is an example where the same ideas were not reused. On the same basis is that to be taken as evidence against design?
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Aloysium
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I’m thinking we’d be the freaks of nature who that particular day got lucky to feed our soul with delight.
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Aloysium
Guest
God is not a utilitarian. He is Creator of wonders and beauty.
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Ender
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OK, here is an even more detailed explanation of Waddington’s experiment. If you want to read the original paper you’ll have to find it yourself, but there is a footnote referring to it.
To the last question: yes, that is not what is meant by an acquired characteristic. What is being shown is that evolution can be influenced by the environment in which the organism lives; it is not determined solely (if at all) by mutated genes.
As I said before, Darwin himself did not insist that evolution was a bottom up, gene centered process. That part was added later, and is part of neo-Darwinian dogma.
I think this accurately sums up the rationale of the neo-Darwinian: no matter how implausible, it just has to be true. This is a matter of faith, not science.
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Ender
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No, this is not what Lamarck proposed. According to Denis Noble it is:
“…a response to the environment that produces an acquired characteristic which is inherited. That is the original definition of one form of Lamarkism.”
That is, evolution can be caused by circumstances external to it - by its environment. This wouldn’t prove that evolution doesn’t also happen by genetic mutation, but it would prove that genetic mutation is not the only pathway, which would refute one of the tenets on which neo-Darwinism is based.
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Ender
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Of course there is evidence for it. You may disagree with the interpretation of the evidence, but the evidence exists nonetheless. And the comment on circumcision shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what Lamarck proposed. He claimed that organisms evolved changes in response to the environment. Circumcisions do not represent any change to the environment.
Neo-Darwinism proposes random genetic changes that result in physiological changes in the organism, that survive in the gene pool if those changes confer an advantage. Lamarck proposed that changes in the environment caused genetic changes that conferred advantages because they were in response to the environment that caused them.
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buffalo
Guest
Designers often use common building blocks but not always.
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
It is a statement of scientific fact, just like this one:
"If you toss a coin enough times, it has to turn up heads 20 times in a row.
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