pangloss

One of the tenets of EAM (Endogenous Adaptive Mutagenesis), as espoused by "Bertvan" and "mturner" at ARN, is that living organisms can adapt to their environemt in their lifetime. They claim that adaptation has nothing to do with the genotpye.

I had proposed this to Bertvan probably a year or two ago, and it was, predictably, ignored/blown off...


THE HYPOTHYSIS:
Organisms can adapt in a Lamarckian style to their environemnt. This is called EAM.


THE EMPIRICAL TEST:
Ask an Eskimo to move to the Savannah of sub-Saharan Africa.


If EAM has merit, we should expect the Eskimo to, at least:
Become taller and 'lankier';
To upregulat the production of melanin;
To expang his/her nasal cavity/passages


If this does not occur, EAM is false.


This 'experiment' has already been done. For centuries. Not necessarily with Eskimos moving ot Africa, but humans with specific adaptations to their environemnt have definitley moved abouit the earth, and stayed for long pewriods of time, and as far as I know, not a single example of a major phenotypic change as 'predicted' by EAM has occurred.
Of course, this empirical test does not even have to involve humans.
We could throw a dog into the ocean and keep it there to see if it sprouts flippers.....