The Evil One

Elijah, you do realise that Lamarckism is known to be false and hasn't been seriously espoused (except by Stalin's pet biologist) for over 150 years?

Saying "I'm a Lamarckist" just makes you look like an idiot.

At least the creationists have got the excuse that they're surrounded by a massive church apparatus dedicated to stopping them finding out their view is bullshit. What's the Lamarckist's excuse?

Elijah

I don't believe in actual mutations of the dna being the drive behind evolution. I believe in changes of the dna that are predictable, that reflect the life we live.

I'm not one to believe a jaw muscle's dna suddenly wanked out and created space for the brain to grow. I believe we didn't use those muscles and they slowly atrophied away over time. At the same time when we used our brains a lot more and they grew as well. I'm a use it or lose it fellow.

Elijah

I think Lamarck is is going to make a come back. How was lamarckisim proved false in your opinion?

I don't have a problem looking like an idiot, I have a problem being one.

ck1

SO you think those mutational changes in DNA are somehow purposefully induced by lifestyle changes? Got a mechanism for that?

Calilasseia

The absence of a mechanism for converting acquired characteristics into inheritable genes in a single generation, which is what Lamarckism called for. None was found, despite it being searched for.

Elijah

Epigenetics.

The Evil One

Acquired characters are not inherited. Every single discovery in the entire history of genetics leads to this conclusion. If acquired characters are not inherited then Lamarck's mechanism does not have a role in evolution. Therefore Lamarckism is false.

If you think Lamarck is going to make a comeback, it's extremely easy to convince me: just show me evidence of an acquired character being inherited.

So far you have made no reference to evidence. Only to "I believe" ... "I don't believe" ... "I think" ... "it would be this way/that way" ... blah blah.

Unfortunately for you, no one gives a shit what you "believe". It's what you can demonstrate through evidence that counts.

Elijah

You are what you eat and where you eat it. That's the most common mechanism I know of for genetic change.

Elijah

From wiki on lamarckism.

"In 1988, John Cairns at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, England, and a group of other scientists renewed the Lamarckian controversy (which by then had been a dead debate for many years).[4] The group took a mutated strain of E. coli that was unable to consume the sugar lactose and placed it in an environment where lactose was the only food source. They observed over time that mutations occurred within the colony at a rate that suggested the bacteria were overcoming their handicap by altering their own genes. Cairns, among others, dubbed the process adaptive mutagenesis."

The Evil One

Um "mutagenesis"? As in mutations to the genes? As in, the mechanism of change in neo-Darwinism, not Lamarckism?