Can someone explain why Lamark’s theory is listed as being based on Essentialism? This seems to tie it in with controversial presuppositions, while excluding other perspectives on evolution, such as Darwin’s, from the same context. It is merely the mis-understanding of genetic variation (i.e. Darwin) that limits its continuity with Lamark’s theory and making another general theory more coherent and comprehensive.
Either both or neither should be related to essentialism, I am not making a case for one or the other. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.71.67.26 ( talk) 14:18, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
"As science historian Stephen Jay Gould has noted, if Lamarck had been aware of Darwin's proposed mechanism of natural selection, there is no reason to assume he would not have accepted it as a more likely alternative to his "own" mechanism." I am concerned about this passage--I don't know if it reflects what Gould said accurately, but it is not logical. Natural selection and Lamarckism aren't necessarily alternatives. In fact, Darwin was a committed Lamarckian--that is, he believed changes in somatic cells altered the germ line, particularly in his theory of "gemmules." Natural selection and Lamarckism are not incompatible, the latter provides a mechanism for the generation of the variation upon which natural selection acts. Lamarckism, interpreted broadly as heritable changes in the germline due to environmental influence, has not and can not be rigorously disproven (you can't prove that something NEVER happens in biology). It is in conflict with aspects of the Modern Synthesis, but not Darwin. Smh73 ( talk) 07:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
This is very true. Lamarck himself only exposed this mecanism in 1 chapter (out of 32) of a single book. Darwin made a theory of it and proposed it as a (the?) main mecanism of evolution. -- denis "spir" ( talk) 13:56, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
A blacksmith, through his work, strengthens the muscles in his arms. His sons will have like muscular development when they mature sounds much better to me than similar muscular development, although I admit the use of "like" in this manner is perhaps a bit archaic or at least not widely known in American English. -- Marshman 17:11, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I changed the intro to: Lamarckism is a theory of biological evolution proposed by French biologist Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck. Developed in the early 19th century, Lamarckism holds that traits acquired (or diminished) during the lifetime of an organism can be passed on to the offspring. Lamarck based his theory on two observations, in his day considered to be generally true:
...as I believe Lamarckism is not a "discredited theory" any more than Darwin is "discredited" for some of the things he said in "Varieties..." Msr.Lamarck was a true genious of his day and the intro as previously written was not objective enough.
For that same reason I deleted the link to "Obsolete Scientific Theories" though I might have been a little hasty in that. (spirit of free speech and all) I'll try to replace it.
Further, I strongly object to the phrase: the main argument against Lamarckism is that experiments simply do not support the second law—purely "acquired traits" are not inherited.
Evolution of any sort generally takes eons to accomplish. I cannot conceive of an experiment that would definitively show that minor allele modification or genetic drift is not accomplished in this manner. Could someone please cite work of this sort? -- LeonardM 23:23, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
LoL, Revert it back if you like. I don't have time to go to the mats on it right now. Mark my words though, epigenetic influence will prove a stronger drive to evolution than the blind random chance that Darwin so strongly advocated. (whatever the heck THAT is! :) LeonardM 18:34, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Could this article be better referenced? Even if some external links were added? -- Nicholas 22:35, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
This seems inaccurate to me. Lamarckism in a wider sense may have been demonstrated to be unlikely/ dominated by other processes/ not happen but to say it is disproven is surely bunk. In the world of bacteriology Lamarckism is alive and kicking -- where it has been argued that bacteria can "learn" resistance from one another and then pass that "learning" on to future generations [1]. In the words of Salvador Luria: "bacteriology is the last stronghold of Lamarckism" (although he himself did not believe Lamarckism to hold for bacteria). The Encyclopedia Britannica comments that the process also holds for some protozoa [2]. Coricus 06:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Coricus 09:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I know the scientists out there aren't likely to be happy about this but I think we should at least debate whether the article on racial memory should be merged into the one on Lamarckism. If science doesn't stop new-age pseudoscience from taking older discredited scientific theories and running with them (by simply changing the words to something else) then it loses its best facet -- the ability to educate and lift everyone's level of knowledge. Coricus 09:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I am adimantly against merging these articles. It seems today that too many historical and scientific theories are grouped together because they are now deemed false, lessening their importance. Racial memory has many implication Lammarck's biological theory does not. I vote against merging these two articles, though I know this is not democracy. Hummel
Redsupremacy says:
I have streamlined racial memory so it makes more sense, though i know think they should be kept seperate.
I'm copying this discussion here as it may be useful in writing this article. It comes from Talk:Natural selection originally. - Samsara contrib talk 17:41, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
"Darwin, moreover, had also to overcome the then dominant view that individual organisms can transmit to their progeny modifications elicited in them by environmental factors. In contrast, Darwin argued that adaptation is the result of the culling by nature of inheritable variation that arises without directionality."
As far as I know, Darwin did accept the transmission of "somatic" modifications, he proposed pangenesis, his own idea of that. Thus accepting then that the modification could arise directionally.
But with natural selection taken in consideration, acquired characteristics, by itself, were not the main mechanism driving the evolution of adaptations. Along with that, there was the point that the environment is limited (Malthus influence), and those who are better adapted would succeed reproductively with more ease, outnumbering the lesser adapted variants, and eventually only the better adapted ones would exist.
Only with the rediscovery of Mendel's works with heredity that the inheritance of acquired characteristics was finally abandoned. Initially Mendel's genetics were also seen as a trouble for natural selection, by some. However, nowadays there's the myth resulting from oversimplification and historical incorrectness that Lamarckism and Darwinism conflict each other in the sense of "natural selection of non-acquired characteristics" versus "transmission of characteristics acquired by individual effort".
Even though Darwin received a letter of Mendel himself, as I've read it or heard it, he never opened, for some reason. Mendel's genetics remained unknown for some more time, and were never defended by Darwin. (I guess I've read that on Carl Zimmer's "at the water's edge", but I've also read something that makes me suspicious, I guess that was in wikipedia, about Darwin citing some of Mendel's papers.
-- Extremophile 21:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
This year, a group of British(?) scientists did an experiment that showed that a female mouse put under a lot of stress would produce offspring that exhibited a stronger perpensity for stress and anxiety than the offspring of a mouse that was kept in calm and relaxed conditions.
I believe that they found actual verifiable chemical changes in the mice born from the stressed mother that were not the result of learned behavour.
I know that this isn't the same thing as new a genetic trate being passed on, but it seems like a fringe example of Lamarckism?
If it is, could somebody please find some data on it (sorry I don't have any more information to proffer) and add it to this section as it turns around some of the agruments pressed on this page about this princple being pure hockum.
At the viral level, apparently there's a set of enzymes called Reverse transcriptase enzymes. These transfer from the RNA back to the DNA, and may be responsible for the way viruses 'jump' species. Wonder if anyone would like to source this for this article? Seems like the one area where Lamarckism might be relevant and true. ThuranX 03:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I have 'updated' this page to place footnotes in the current Wiki format. Also deleted an external reference to a site that is by subscription. Comments on doing this would be appreciated [I am new to this]. -- Dumarest 16:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I found material that shows that Bacteriology is the last "stronghold" of Lamarckism, namely the E.coli which are discussed :
Autrans Proceedings, epigenomique.free.fr/Cours_HN/Multistationarity.pdf
Epigenesis and the lactose operon: importance of a positive feedback circuit.
The experiment was reported by Novick and Wiener in the famous journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences US” [4]. Lactose utilisation by the bacterium E. Coli had been studied for some time in the Pasteur Institute. It was known that lactose catabolism required both an enzyme (the β-galactosidase) that degrades lactose and a permease that facilitates its penetration into the cells. Both proteins were not synthesised by the bacteria unless lactose, designated hence as the “inducer” of this synthesis, was present in the culture medium. Novick and Wiener evidenced an epigenetic modification when the bacteria were grown in the presence of a low concentration of lactose, which was not sufficient to induce the synthesis of the two proteins.
However if the cells had been previously induced (by a high concentration of lactose in the medium, but
for as short as 10 minutes), they could synthesise the proteins in the presence of the low lactose concentration for (at least) 150 generations. Thus the phenotype of the same bacteria with regard to the production of β-galactosidase, was different in this culture medium (with a low concentration of lactose) depending on whether they had or not experienced during 10 min, 150 generations ago, a high concentration of lactose. This is a wonderfully simple but quite typical epigenetic modification. And the consequences are not trivial. It means that the phenotype of this extremely well known bacterium, whose genome has been fully sequenced, is still not predictible, when the bacteria are in a medium containing a low lactose concentration if the history of the culture is not known!
Now, as everybody knows, the mechanism of the induction by lactose of the
synthesis of the proteins required for its metabolism was unravelled by Jacob and Monod
[5], who were awarded the Nobel prize for their now famous “operon model”. Fig 1 depicts
the mechanism as it is established now. In the absence of lactose a negative regulator,
protein LacI, which is always produced due to the constitutive expression of gene lacI , is
active and prevents the expression (transcription followed by translation) of three genes
including gene lacZ encoding the β-galactosidase, and lacY, encoding the lactose permease.
In the presence of lactose, a derivative of this sugar (allolactose) has a high affinity for
protein LacI and provokes an allosteric modification of this protein that looses its affinity
for the promoter of the operon, which can thus be transcribed. When there is no more
lactose, protein LacI resumes its active conformation, and the synthesis of the enzymes is
rapidly interrupted. But how does lactose enter inside the cells? When the external
concentration is high, it can diffuse through the cell wall, but this process is not sufficient at
low lactose concentration. This explains why, in general, bacteria cannot be induced by low
lactose concentrations.
Let us now go back to the Novick and Wiener experiment. At low lactose
concentration, the cells cannot be induced, but pre-induced cells have produced a permease
that allows lactose transport into the cells even at low concentration! So all that is to the
epigenetic behaviour is that the permease allows the entrance of lactose that allows the
synthesis of the permease etc…From this simple fact, arise all the properties of epigenesis:
the phenotype (with regard to β-galactosidase synthesis) depends on the history of the
culture, a short pulse of a high concentration of lactose (or a transitory removal of lactose)
suffices to change one of the phenotype into the other, and there is hysteresis, since the
concentration required to induce the culture is much higher than the concentration below
which the cultures is “de-induced” (fig 2).
All these properties are those of a bistable system, a non linear dynamical system
with two steady states. And all these properties result from the fact that the lactose
permease promotes its own synthesis under low lactose concentration, that is, lactose
permease is part of a positive feedback circuit.
Links:
1. Enzyme Induction as an All-or-None Phenomenon -- Novick and Weiner , 1957 www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=528498
2. "Physiology of the inhibition by glucose of the induced synthesis of the beta-galactosideenzyme system of Escherichia coli." , Melvin Cohn and Kengo Horibata http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=290602&tools=bot
There's currently an article on 'Inheritance of acquired characters' which is quite a short stub. I'm a bit confused, please ignore my ignorance if i am displaying any, but why is there two articles on what appears to be the same thing. Are Lamarckism and the theory of acquired characteristics different because as far as i can tell they relate to the same thing. If they are different, are they different enough to qualify being two separate articles or could they be merged into one? Thanks, Gazzelle 15:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
According to the field of epigenetics, Lamarckism is partly correct and there's quite a bit of evidence. To sum it up briefly, there's a number of genes that can be turned off or on during your lifetime by a variety of factors and these can be inherited. This is a cutting edge field of science so I doubt most people have ever heard of it and since it supports Lamarckism I'm sure many scientists dismiss it out of habit but the science behind it and the evidence for it is very sound. In fact, this explains a huge number of problems with genetics including how at least some types of cancer are triggered. -- Calibas 17:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
This article needs some major cleaning up. There are a lot of places where someone intended to create links, but in fact just made messy text. And Neo-Lamarckism is covered twice. The "Soma to germ line feedback" section is incomprehensible to nonscientists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.237.89.173 ( talk) 17:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
We cut off the ears and tails of dogs, yet each new litter has to be cut also. A tribe in Africa stretch out their necks with rings, yet each baby has to get rings of its own. A body builder, his kid won't be strong, he will have to work out like his dad. -- Posted 9 Feb 2008 by 68.56.49.13 (Sig added by Writtenonsand ( talk) 13:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC) )
Sorry, my english is very bad. I not found any reference to the paper "epigenetycs; genome meet your environment" that it also is about lamarckism. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.219.201.104 ( talk) 03:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Is Will Wright's SPORE an example of Lamarckism in popular culture? -- Trithemius ( talk) 03:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Why does the article say that Charles Darwin quoted Gregor Mendel? I thought Charles recieved a copy of Gregor's work but never read it.
2008-10-08 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.67.105.223 ( talk) 17:53, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
A commentary on the topic found no evidence that Darwin was aware of Mendel's work. THE EXTENT OF CHARLES DARWIN’S KNOWLEDGE OF MENDEL. Andrew Sclater http://www.springerlink.com/content/w112307246x77t37/ http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~jaliff/GA%20Sci%2061-3.pdf
I've removed the comment that Darwin cited Mendel. Fences and windows ( talk) 09:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Take a look at this: European Journal of Human Genetics (2006) 14, 131–132. doi:10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201567 Epigenetics: Sins of the fathers, and their fathers "...the behaviour (or environment) of prepubescent boys could influence the phenotype of their sons and grandsons...." And: "The study suggested that in humans, a one-off environmental event could influence phenotype for more than one generation in a sex-specific way. If true, these findings implied a novel kind of transgenerational inheritance, an idea strengthened by recent studies in animal systems." http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v14/n2/full/5201567a.html
Also look at all evidence quoted in the ES (Spanish) version of this article. -- Sbassi ( talk) 18:44, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Both to comply with the recommended form of a lead and to give readers an accurate overview of this topic the lead needs to have a consistent message as to the current acceptance of Lamarkianism and a brief mentions of the current research validation.
At present the lead is misleading.
At present the lead is misleading. (I am also surprised by the lack of mention of http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7256/full/460688a.html ) SmithBlue ( talk) 04:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
This section is called "Lamarck's theory", but is not an account of Lamarck's theory. It is an account of the views of two historians about popular views of Lamarck's theory, and thus two removes from the thing it is supposed to be about. There should be a section, "Lamarck's theory", which gives an account of what Lamarck himself actually proposed, perhaps with some account of the historical context, properly cited. (I don't consider myself qualified to write this.) The current text of the section belongs in a new section about the reception of his ideas from then until now. Even considered in those terms, the wording of this section is tendentious in some places, giving the impression that certain ideas that are to be found in Lamarck are later distortions. In at least two of the examples given, Lamarck did indeed say the things popularly attributed to him.
Firstly, the example of the giraffe's neck is described as "what is traditionally called "Lamarckism"", but the example is drawn directly from Lamarck -- p.122 of the English translation of *Philosophie zoologique*. Just to be sure, I've compared the translation with the French original online at http://www.lamarck.cnrs.fr and it agrees. I don't think the blacksmith is in Lamarck, but many other examples of a similar kind are -- wading birds developing long legs, browsing quadrupeds developing sturdy hooves, etc. I have not edited anything here.
Secondly, in the section "Lamarck's theory", the article says "With this in mind, Lamarck has been credited in some textbooks and popular culture with developing two laws:" This gives the impression that the two numbered laws that follow are not from Lamarck, but are something that "some textbooks and popular culture" ascribe to him. But these two laws, thus stated, are a direct and unattributed quote from that same English translation of Lamarck. I've limited my editing to adding a reference to the translation and which-tags to the lead-in ("some textbooks"? "popular culture"?), but the whole sentence is still misleading as it stands. Is the intention to assert that Lamarck did not come up with these laws himself but was expressing ideas which were already widely believed? If so, it needs to say and substantiate that. Ghiselin's web page cited in this section makes that claim but does not cite any sources, making it unsatisfactory evidence. RichardKennaway ( talk) 23:33, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Their child will be born with one arm? 184.96.254.177 ( talk) 15:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
No, but if someone gets a piece of fruit stuck in their throat their descendants will have a bulge in their throat.
I think we can see where Lamarck got his inspiration for his theories. AerobicFox ( talk) 03:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Despite the cited "proof" in this articles, I still do not see nay credible proof that acquired traits can be passed on genetically. It is not okay for this article to state that Lamarckism has been proven correctly when in fact it has not. The blacksmith example is bunk. Sure, blacksmiths' sons may very well also have muscular arms, but this is more likely because an artisan's son is likely to try his hand at his father's trade. Furthermore, a blacksmith is likely to have been muscular before starting his trade, which IS a heritable trait. Obviously this is an argument using logic rather than references. -- MariechenP ( talk) 23:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
Suggest removing, or paraphrasing in a sentence, the paragraph on Ross Honeywill's Meta-Lamarckism theory. The current paragraph, which is almost entirely quotation, is violating WP:QUOTE, specifically: "Where a quotation presents rhetorical language in place of more neutral, dispassionate tone preferred for encyclopedias, it can be a backdoor method of inserting a non-neutral treatment of a controversial subject into Wikipedia's narrative on the subject, and should be avoided.
I can't tell from a quick glance whether this *is* or *is not* a scientific principle which is generally accepted today. And could we please contrast it with Lysenkoism? -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 20:40, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
Our little toes are disappearing? Due to the use of shoes, which results in weakening of our tendons and muscles in our toes? Our wisdom teeth are disappearing (I only had two)? Because we are eating softer processed food, rather than chewing tough meat and gnawing bones?
Considering natural selection, and traits which are advantageous to survival, what would the advantage to having smaller toes and fewer teeth be?
Also, won't parents which eat a healthy diet and/or exercize produce offspring who are healthier? Our average height has increased significantly over the last few centuries. Why can't that be considered as changes during a lifetime being passed on to offspring? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Flight Risk ( talk • contribs) 03:30, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Could this information find a place in the Lamarckism article? 74.118.30.114 ( talk) 03:45, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
This article was a bit confusing to me at first. After re-reading a couple of sections, I have a better grasp of it, but there are still some things that I think lead to confusion.
The intro says that "the importance of individual efforts in the generation of adaptation was considerably diminished", that the theory was generally abandoned, and that interest in the theory has recently increased since several studies "have highlighted the possible inheritance of behavioral traits acquired by the previous generation". All pretty straightforward.
Then, "With the development of the modern synthesis of the theory of evolution and a lack of evidence for either a mechanism or even the heritability of acquired characteristics, Lamarckism largely fell from favor.".
After that, in the Current Views section, it says "Several recent studies" "have rekindled the debate once again.", and that MIT's Technology Review reported that "The findings provide support for a 200-year-old theory of evolution that has been largely dismissed".
Again, nothing too crazy yet - these aren't mutually exclusive (with the possible exception of "lack of evidence" and studies that "provide support", but it is a bit confusing. We go from "diminished" and "abandonment", to "possible", then find that the modern theory of evolution and "lack of evidence" caused this theory to fall from favor, and then learn that recent studies "provide support" for the theory.
But then, in the single-celled organisms section, it says that "While Lamarckism has been discredited as an evolutionary influence for larger lifeforms". There is a source cited at the end of the sentence, but it seems that source would apply to the "some scientists controversially argue that it can be observed among microorganisms." assertion rather than the discredited portion. If it has been discredited, the article doesn't do a very good job of showing when/why it happened.
I apologize for the lengthy post, but I came to this article having never really heard anything about Lamarckism before and found it to be confusing. Especially since I looked it up after seeing it referred to as the "discredited Lamarckian theory" (which a quick Google search shows a ton of results for, including another Wikipedia page that references this one). I really don't know if it's been discredited, disproven, abandoned in favor of newer theories and how exactly the new studies play into the picture. Just my opinion, but it seems that this could be clarified somehow and made less confusing. I'm not sure of the best way to do that - maybe something toward the beginning that sums up it's rise and fall (and rise again?) along with more details about the reason it was "discredited" as opposed to just losing favor over time after no evidence was found and newer theories came out. I could just be stupid, but I wanted to point that out in case any other readers who are new to the subject find it as confusing as I did.
ScrobDobbins ( talk) 10:55, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I appreciate what user 195.188.41.30 is trying to do at the mention of memetics near the beginning of the article, and I hope he or she figures out the right way to do it with standard templates (editorialising within the tag is not the way), but I question whether the whole sentence beginning "In a wider context, soft inheritance..." belongs there at all. There is no wider context than biology for Lamarckism as such, and the analogical use of the term in the context of cultural change is already adequately addressed in the section "Lamarckism and societal change", which says as much about memes as necessary. RichardKennaway ( talk) 14:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I deleted this text: "In a wider context, soft inheritance is of use when examining the evolution of cultures and ideas, and is related to the theory of memeticsdubious - memetics is not widely accepted due to it being unsubstantiated." for two reasons. Firstly, as in my comment just above, this sentence is unnecessary -- Lamarckism applied to culture is already sufficiently treated in a later section and does not need to be mentioned here. Secondly, inserting a discussion into a pseudo-"dubious" tag is incorrect practice. A standard "dubious" or "citation needed" tag should be inserted and discussion carried out here on the talk page.
I also deleted "Needs revision in light of recent findings i.e. Tim Spector, Identically Different" for the same reason: comments like this should be made on the talk page only. RichardKennaway ( talk) 16:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
I have three papers that describe that here [3], [4] and [5] to be added to the article shortly. A little angry ( talk) 00:41, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
A diagram of a Giraffe was added to this article but this is somebodies own diagram and misrepresentation of Lamarckism, not from a scientific source.
Michael Ghiselin covers the giraffe fallacy here [6], the text that was on the diagram was entirely inaccurate to what Lamarckism actually says. So I removed it. TreeTrailer ( talk) 03:38, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
A recent article describes a mechanism by which environmental changes cause an organism (yeast in this case) to its DNA. Hull, Ryan M.; Cruz, Cristina; Jack, Carmen V.; Houseley, Jonathan (27 June 2017).
"Environmental change drives accelerated adaptation through stimulated copy number variation". PLOS Biology. 15 (6): e2001333.
doi:
10.1371/journal.pbio.2001333.{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (
link): "... we directly demonstrate that Copy Number Variation of the copper-resistance gene CUP1 is stimulated by environmental copper.".
This article doesn't mention Lamarckism and this Wikipedia article doesn't mention "copy number variation". It seems to me that this is a clear instance of Lamarckism. I have not added a section regarding this because I do not yet know of a peer-reviewed journal article making the link.
Robin Whittle ( talk) 03:44, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't know if this is relevant here, but Lamarckism popped-up in my mind while reading this: Astronaut's DNA no longer matches that of his identical twin, NASA finds. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 08:10, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Is it useful to list every single experiment that was claimed to support Lamarckism? Mateusz Konieczny ( talk) 06:38, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Lamarckism is obsolete. There is no known possible mechanism for how it could occur and no repeatable experimental evidence that supports it. I think it should be included in the "Obsolete biological theories" category. I know there has been some hype about 'epigenetics' reviving Lamarckism but this is inaccurate, they are entirely unrelated. Any thoughts? Skeptic from Britain ( talk) 19:17, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
We follow rather than lead the textbooks here on the encyclopedia. Like it or not, Lamarckism has come to mean what it has come to mean. Skeptics, Cynics, Epicureans, and anarchists all feel your pain. However, we are not doing our job if we force the lead to take a side in the debate rather than inform the general reader what the term has come to mean. Lamarck has his own page where you can mount a defense all day long. This page currently suffers from WP:UNDUE from Gould and Ghiselen. And the page is trying to do three opposing things 1) defend Lamarck, 2)defend soft evolution 3)question soft evolution. In shorthand, a neutral description would go like this, "Lamarckism has come to mean "inheritance of behaviorally acquired traits (or however it's properly cashed out)" it is named after Lamarck with the following caveats (other people had this idea, it was a small part of his work), and the idea of inheritance of acquired traits has been disputed and supported in the following ways...." What's more, I don't know if "soft evolution" is sufficiently backed up by WP:RS. DolyaIskrina ( talk) 00:48, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
This article needs an explanatory supporting image in the lede. Much use of Wikipedia never gets beyond the first few sentences and we need to convey the gist of an article as much to the casual reader as those who want an in depth view. Lumos3 ( talk) 10:22, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
Some important scientists and researchers have came out in the field of genetics claiming to prove that the natural selection theory in Darwinism is highly flawed in areas where Lamarckian genetics has now been proven right. Would be important to mention and elaborate upon. Also the obvious connection to theories of eugenics coming from somewhere in this area of thought here rather than classical social darwinism often considered bunk science today by many as an explanation of eugenics. Seems like there needs to be a great expansion in this article highlighting the new modern understanding of neo-Lamarckism as highly biologically tenable with much scientific insight discovered greatly improving upon the theory of evolution for instance in the broader understanding of the scientific community, rather than mostly emphasizing claims throughout this article about how people couldn't prove or disprove the theory or aren't sure if evidence was valid or not in the distant past rather the present day understandings. Recent new discoveries mentioned need to be taught if they are relevant and useful for greatly improving the quality of the article beyond just a "good article". Some editing users seemed apprehensive about adding things because they are either "not useful" or "irrelevant" but it seems there's no real argument to base the accusation in. 184.71.97.170 ( talk) 20:08, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
has never been proven right or wrongand ending with
it is denigrated because the Soviets believed in it. And your edits in the article are just unsourced editorializing, that is, your opinion, and not helpful either. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 14:14, 3 August 2022 (UTC)
Can someone explain why Lamark’s theory is listed as being based on Essentialism? This seems to tie it in with controversial presuppositions, while excluding other perspectives on evolution, such as Darwin’s, from the same context. It is merely the mis-understanding of genetic variation (i.e. Darwin) that limits its continuity with Lamark’s theory and making another general theory more coherent and comprehensive.
Either both or neither should be related to essentialism, I am not making a case for one or the other. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.71.67.26 ( talk) 14:18, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
"As science historian Stephen Jay Gould has noted, if Lamarck had been aware of Darwin's proposed mechanism of natural selection, there is no reason to assume he would not have accepted it as a more likely alternative to his "own" mechanism." I am concerned about this passage--I don't know if it reflects what Gould said accurately, but it is not logical. Natural selection and Lamarckism aren't necessarily alternatives. In fact, Darwin was a committed Lamarckian--that is, he believed changes in somatic cells altered the germ line, particularly in his theory of "gemmules." Natural selection and Lamarckism are not incompatible, the latter provides a mechanism for the generation of the variation upon which natural selection acts. Lamarckism, interpreted broadly as heritable changes in the germline due to environmental influence, has not and can not be rigorously disproven (you can't prove that something NEVER happens in biology). It is in conflict with aspects of the Modern Synthesis, but not Darwin. Smh73 ( talk) 07:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
This is very true. Lamarck himself only exposed this mecanism in 1 chapter (out of 32) of a single book. Darwin made a theory of it and proposed it as a (the?) main mecanism of evolution. -- denis "spir" ( talk) 13:56, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
A blacksmith, through his work, strengthens the muscles in his arms. His sons will have like muscular development when they mature sounds much better to me than similar muscular development, although I admit the use of "like" in this manner is perhaps a bit archaic or at least not widely known in American English. -- Marshman 17:11, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I changed the intro to: Lamarckism is a theory of biological evolution proposed by French biologist Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck. Developed in the early 19th century, Lamarckism holds that traits acquired (or diminished) during the lifetime of an organism can be passed on to the offspring. Lamarck based his theory on two observations, in his day considered to be generally true:
...as I believe Lamarckism is not a "discredited theory" any more than Darwin is "discredited" for some of the things he said in "Varieties..." Msr.Lamarck was a true genious of his day and the intro as previously written was not objective enough.
For that same reason I deleted the link to "Obsolete Scientific Theories" though I might have been a little hasty in that. (spirit of free speech and all) I'll try to replace it.
Further, I strongly object to the phrase: the main argument against Lamarckism is that experiments simply do not support the second law—purely "acquired traits" are not inherited.
Evolution of any sort generally takes eons to accomplish. I cannot conceive of an experiment that would definitively show that minor allele modification or genetic drift is not accomplished in this manner. Could someone please cite work of this sort? -- LeonardM 23:23, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
LoL, Revert it back if you like. I don't have time to go to the mats on it right now. Mark my words though, epigenetic influence will prove a stronger drive to evolution than the blind random chance that Darwin so strongly advocated. (whatever the heck THAT is! :) LeonardM 18:34, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Could this article be better referenced? Even if some external links were added? -- Nicholas 22:35, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
This seems inaccurate to me. Lamarckism in a wider sense may have been demonstrated to be unlikely/ dominated by other processes/ not happen but to say it is disproven is surely bunk. In the world of bacteriology Lamarckism is alive and kicking -- where it has been argued that bacteria can "learn" resistance from one another and then pass that "learning" on to future generations [1]. In the words of Salvador Luria: "bacteriology is the last stronghold of Lamarckism" (although he himself did not believe Lamarckism to hold for bacteria). The Encyclopedia Britannica comments that the process also holds for some protozoa [2]. Coricus 06:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Coricus 09:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I know the scientists out there aren't likely to be happy about this but I think we should at least debate whether the article on racial memory should be merged into the one on Lamarckism. If science doesn't stop new-age pseudoscience from taking older discredited scientific theories and running with them (by simply changing the words to something else) then it loses its best facet -- the ability to educate and lift everyone's level of knowledge. Coricus 09:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I am adimantly against merging these articles. It seems today that too many historical and scientific theories are grouped together because they are now deemed false, lessening their importance. Racial memory has many implication Lammarck's biological theory does not. I vote against merging these two articles, though I know this is not democracy. Hummel
Redsupremacy says:
I have streamlined racial memory so it makes more sense, though i know think they should be kept seperate.
I'm copying this discussion here as it may be useful in writing this article. It comes from Talk:Natural selection originally. - Samsara contrib talk 17:41, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
"Darwin, moreover, had also to overcome the then dominant view that individual organisms can transmit to their progeny modifications elicited in them by environmental factors. In contrast, Darwin argued that adaptation is the result of the culling by nature of inheritable variation that arises without directionality."
As far as I know, Darwin did accept the transmission of "somatic" modifications, he proposed pangenesis, his own idea of that. Thus accepting then that the modification could arise directionally.
But with natural selection taken in consideration, acquired characteristics, by itself, were not the main mechanism driving the evolution of adaptations. Along with that, there was the point that the environment is limited (Malthus influence), and those who are better adapted would succeed reproductively with more ease, outnumbering the lesser adapted variants, and eventually only the better adapted ones would exist.
Only with the rediscovery of Mendel's works with heredity that the inheritance of acquired characteristics was finally abandoned. Initially Mendel's genetics were also seen as a trouble for natural selection, by some. However, nowadays there's the myth resulting from oversimplification and historical incorrectness that Lamarckism and Darwinism conflict each other in the sense of "natural selection of non-acquired characteristics" versus "transmission of characteristics acquired by individual effort".
Even though Darwin received a letter of Mendel himself, as I've read it or heard it, he never opened, for some reason. Mendel's genetics remained unknown for some more time, and were never defended by Darwin. (I guess I've read that on Carl Zimmer's "at the water's edge", but I've also read something that makes me suspicious, I guess that was in wikipedia, about Darwin citing some of Mendel's papers.
-- Extremophile 21:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
This year, a group of British(?) scientists did an experiment that showed that a female mouse put under a lot of stress would produce offspring that exhibited a stronger perpensity for stress and anxiety than the offspring of a mouse that was kept in calm and relaxed conditions.
I believe that they found actual verifiable chemical changes in the mice born from the stressed mother that were not the result of learned behavour.
I know that this isn't the same thing as new a genetic trate being passed on, but it seems like a fringe example of Lamarckism?
If it is, could somebody please find some data on it (sorry I don't have any more information to proffer) and add it to this section as it turns around some of the agruments pressed on this page about this princple being pure hockum.
At the viral level, apparently there's a set of enzymes called Reverse transcriptase enzymes. These transfer from the RNA back to the DNA, and may be responsible for the way viruses 'jump' species. Wonder if anyone would like to source this for this article? Seems like the one area where Lamarckism might be relevant and true. ThuranX 03:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I have 'updated' this page to place footnotes in the current Wiki format. Also deleted an external reference to a site that is by subscription. Comments on doing this would be appreciated [I am new to this]. -- Dumarest 16:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I found material that shows that Bacteriology is the last "stronghold" of Lamarckism, namely the E.coli which are discussed :
Autrans Proceedings, epigenomique.free.fr/Cours_HN/Multistationarity.pdf
Epigenesis and the lactose operon: importance of a positive feedback circuit.
The experiment was reported by Novick and Wiener in the famous journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences US” [4]. Lactose utilisation by the bacterium E. Coli had been studied for some time in the Pasteur Institute. It was known that lactose catabolism required both an enzyme (the β-galactosidase) that degrades lactose and a permease that facilitates its penetration into the cells. Both proteins were not synthesised by the bacteria unless lactose, designated hence as the “inducer” of this synthesis, was present in the culture medium. Novick and Wiener evidenced an epigenetic modification when the bacteria were grown in the presence of a low concentration of lactose, which was not sufficient to induce the synthesis of the two proteins.
However if the cells had been previously induced (by a high concentration of lactose in the medium, but
for as short as 10 minutes), they could synthesise the proteins in the presence of the low lactose concentration for (at least) 150 generations. Thus the phenotype of the same bacteria with regard to the production of β-galactosidase, was different in this culture medium (with a low concentration of lactose) depending on whether they had or not experienced during 10 min, 150 generations ago, a high concentration of lactose. This is a wonderfully simple but quite typical epigenetic modification. And the consequences are not trivial. It means that the phenotype of this extremely well known bacterium, whose genome has been fully sequenced, is still not predictible, when the bacteria are in a medium containing a low lactose concentration if the history of the culture is not known!
Now, as everybody knows, the mechanism of the induction by lactose of the
synthesis of the proteins required for its metabolism was unravelled by Jacob and Monod
[5], who were awarded the Nobel prize for their now famous “operon model”. Fig 1 depicts
the mechanism as it is established now. In the absence of lactose a negative regulator,
protein LacI, which is always produced due to the constitutive expression of gene lacI , is
active and prevents the expression (transcription followed by translation) of three genes
including gene lacZ encoding the β-galactosidase, and lacY, encoding the lactose permease.
In the presence of lactose, a derivative of this sugar (allolactose) has a high affinity for
protein LacI and provokes an allosteric modification of this protein that looses its affinity
for the promoter of the operon, which can thus be transcribed. When there is no more
lactose, protein LacI resumes its active conformation, and the synthesis of the enzymes is
rapidly interrupted. But how does lactose enter inside the cells? When the external
concentration is high, it can diffuse through the cell wall, but this process is not sufficient at
low lactose concentration. This explains why, in general, bacteria cannot be induced by low
lactose concentrations.
Let us now go back to the Novick and Wiener experiment. At low lactose
concentration, the cells cannot be induced, but pre-induced cells have produced a permease
that allows lactose transport into the cells even at low concentration! So all that is to the
epigenetic behaviour is that the permease allows the entrance of lactose that allows the
synthesis of the permease etc…From this simple fact, arise all the properties of epigenesis:
the phenotype (with regard to β-galactosidase synthesis) depends on the history of the
culture, a short pulse of a high concentration of lactose (or a transitory removal of lactose)
suffices to change one of the phenotype into the other, and there is hysteresis, since the
concentration required to induce the culture is much higher than the concentration below
which the cultures is “de-induced” (fig 2).
All these properties are those of a bistable system, a non linear dynamical system
with two steady states. And all these properties result from the fact that the lactose
permease promotes its own synthesis under low lactose concentration, that is, lactose
permease is part of a positive feedback circuit.
Links:
1. Enzyme Induction as an All-or-None Phenomenon -- Novick and Weiner , 1957 www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=528498
2. "Physiology of the inhibition by glucose of the induced synthesis of the beta-galactosideenzyme system of Escherichia coli." , Melvin Cohn and Kengo Horibata http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=290602&tools=bot
There's currently an article on 'Inheritance of acquired characters' which is quite a short stub. I'm a bit confused, please ignore my ignorance if i am displaying any, but why is there two articles on what appears to be the same thing. Are Lamarckism and the theory of acquired characteristics different because as far as i can tell they relate to the same thing. If they are different, are they different enough to qualify being two separate articles or could they be merged into one? Thanks, Gazzelle 15:23, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
According to the field of epigenetics, Lamarckism is partly correct and there's quite a bit of evidence. To sum it up briefly, there's a number of genes that can be turned off or on during your lifetime by a variety of factors and these can be inherited. This is a cutting edge field of science so I doubt most people have ever heard of it and since it supports Lamarckism I'm sure many scientists dismiss it out of habit but the science behind it and the evidence for it is very sound. In fact, this explains a huge number of problems with genetics including how at least some types of cancer are triggered. -- Calibas 17:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
This article needs some major cleaning up. There are a lot of places where someone intended to create links, but in fact just made messy text. And Neo-Lamarckism is covered twice. The "Soma to germ line feedback" section is incomprehensible to nonscientists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.237.89.173 ( talk) 17:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
We cut off the ears and tails of dogs, yet each new litter has to be cut also. A tribe in Africa stretch out their necks with rings, yet each baby has to get rings of its own. A body builder, his kid won't be strong, he will have to work out like his dad. -- Posted 9 Feb 2008 by 68.56.49.13 (Sig added by Writtenonsand ( talk) 13:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC) )
Sorry, my english is very bad. I not found any reference to the paper "epigenetycs; genome meet your environment" that it also is about lamarckism. Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.219.201.104 ( talk) 03:43, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Is Will Wright's SPORE an example of Lamarckism in popular culture? -- Trithemius ( talk) 03:04, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
Why does the article say that Charles Darwin quoted Gregor Mendel? I thought Charles recieved a copy of Gregor's work but never read it.
2008-10-08 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.67.105.223 ( talk) 17:53, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
A commentary on the topic found no evidence that Darwin was aware of Mendel's work. THE EXTENT OF CHARLES DARWIN’S KNOWLEDGE OF MENDEL. Andrew Sclater http://www.springerlink.com/content/w112307246x77t37/ http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~jaliff/GA%20Sci%2061-3.pdf
I've removed the comment that Darwin cited Mendel. Fences and windows ( talk) 09:03, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
Take a look at this: European Journal of Human Genetics (2006) 14, 131–132. doi:10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201567 Epigenetics: Sins of the fathers, and their fathers "...the behaviour (or environment) of prepubescent boys could influence the phenotype of their sons and grandsons...." And: "The study suggested that in humans, a one-off environmental event could influence phenotype for more than one generation in a sex-specific way. If true, these findings implied a novel kind of transgenerational inheritance, an idea strengthened by recent studies in animal systems." http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v14/n2/full/5201567a.html
Also look at all evidence quoted in the ES (Spanish) version of this article. -- Sbassi ( talk) 18:44, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Both to comply with the recommended form of a lead and to give readers an accurate overview of this topic the lead needs to have a consistent message as to the current acceptance of Lamarkianism and a brief mentions of the current research validation.
At present the lead is misleading.
At present the lead is misleading. (I am also surprised by the lack of mention of http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7256/full/460688a.html ) SmithBlue ( talk) 04:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
This section is called "Lamarck's theory", but is not an account of Lamarck's theory. It is an account of the views of two historians about popular views of Lamarck's theory, and thus two removes from the thing it is supposed to be about. There should be a section, "Lamarck's theory", which gives an account of what Lamarck himself actually proposed, perhaps with some account of the historical context, properly cited. (I don't consider myself qualified to write this.) The current text of the section belongs in a new section about the reception of his ideas from then until now. Even considered in those terms, the wording of this section is tendentious in some places, giving the impression that certain ideas that are to be found in Lamarck are later distortions. In at least two of the examples given, Lamarck did indeed say the things popularly attributed to him.
Firstly, the example of the giraffe's neck is described as "what is traditionally called "Lamarckism"", but the example is drawn directly from Lamarck -- p.122 of the English translation of *Philosophie zoologique*. Just to be sure, I've compared the translation with the French original online at http://www.lamarck.cnrs.fr and it agrees. I don't think the blacksmith is in Lamarck, but many other examples of a similar kind are -- wading birds developing long legs, browsing quadrupeds developing sturdy hooves, etc. I have not edited anything here.
Secondly, in the section "Lamarck's theory", the article says "With this in mind, Lamarck has been credited in some textbooks and popular culture with developing two laws:" This gives the impression that the two numbered laws that follow are not from Lamarck, but are something that "some textbooks and popular culture" ascribe to him. But these two laws, thus stated, are a direct and unattributed quote from that same English translation of Lamarck. I've limited my editing to adding a reference to the translation and which-tags to the lead-in ("some textbooks"? "popular culture"?), but the whole sentence is still misleading as it stands. Is the intention to assert that Lamarck did not come up with these laws himself but was expressing ideas which were already widely believed? If so, it needs to say and substantiate that. Ghiselin's web page cited in this section makes that claim but does not cite any sources, making it unsatisfactory evidence. RichardKennaway ( talk) 23:33, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
Their child will be born with one arm? 184.96.254.177 ( talk) 15:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
No, but if someone gets a piece of fruit stuck in their throat their descendants will have a bulge in their throat.
I think we can see where Lamarck got his inspiration for his theories. AerobicFox ( talk) 03:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
Despite the cited "proof" in this articles, I still do not see nay credible proof that acquired traits can be passed on genetically. It is not okay for this article to state that Lamarckism has been proven correctly when in fact it has not. The blacksmith example is bunk. Sure, blacksmiths' sons may very well also have muscular arms, but this is more likely because an artisan's son is likely to try his hand at his father's trade. Furthermore, a blacksmith is likely to have been muscular before starting his trade, which IS a heritable trait. Obviously this is an argument using logic rather than references. -- MariechenP ( talk) 23:09, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
Suggest removing, or paraphrasing in a sentence, the paragraph on Ross Honeywill's Meta-Lamarckism theory. The current paragraph, which is almost entirely quotation, is violating WP:QUOTE, specifically: "Where a quotation presents rhetorical language in place of more neutral, dispassionate tone preferred for encyclopedias, it can be a backdoor method of inserting a non-neutral treatment of a controversial subject into Wikipedia's narrative on the subject, and should be avoided.
I can't tell from a quick glance whether this *is* or *is not* a scientific principle which is generally accepted today. And could we please contrast it with Lysenkoism? -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 20:40, 4 April 2011 (UTC)
Our little toes are disappearing? Due to the use of shoes, which results in weakening of our tendons and muscles in our toes? Our wisdom teeth are disappearing (I only had two)? Because we are eating softer processed food, rather than chewing tough meat and gnawing bones?
Considering natural selection, and traits which are advantageous to survival, what would the advantage to having smaller toes and fewer teeth be?
Also, won't parents which eat a healthy diet and/or exercize produce offspring who are healthier? Our average height has increased significantly over the last few centuries. Why can't that be considered as changes during a lifetime being passed on to offspring? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Flight Risk ( talk • contribs) 03:30, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
Could this information find a place in the Lamarckism article? 74.118.30.114 ( talk) 03:45, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
This article was a bit confusing to me at first. After re-reading a couple of sections, I have a better grasp of it, but there are still some things that I think lead to confusion.
The intro says that "the importance of individual efforts in the generation of adaptation was considerably diminished", that the theory was generally abandoned, and that interest in the theory has recently increased since several studies "have highlighted the possible inheritance of behavioral traits acquired by the previous generation". All pretty straightforward.
Then, "With the development of the modern synthesis of the theory of evolution and a lack of evidence for either a mechanism or even the heritability of acquired characteristics, Lamarckism largely fell from favor.".
After that, in the Current Views section, it says "Several recent studies" "have rekindled the debate once again.", and that MIT's Technology Review reported that "The findings provide support for a 200-year-old theory of evolution that has been largely dismissed".
Again, nothing too crazy yet - these aren't mutually exclusive (with the possible exception of "lack of evidence" and studies that "provide support", but it is a bit confusing. We go from "diminished" and "abandonment", to "possible", then find that the modern theory of evolution and "lack of evidence" caused this theory to fall from favor, and then learn that recent studies "provide support" for the theory.
But then, in the single-celled organisms section, it says that "While Lamarckism has been discredited as an evolutionary influence for larger lifeforms". There is a source cited at the end of the sentence, but it seems that source would apply to the "some scientists controversially argue that it can be observed among microorganisms." assertion rather than the discredited portion. If it has been discredited, the article doesn't do a very good job of showing when/why it happened.
I apologize for the lengthy post, but I came to this article having never really heard anything about Lamarckism before and found it to be confusing. Especially since I looked it up after seeing it referred to as the "discredited Lamarckian theory" (which a quick Google search shows a ton of results for, including another Wikipedia page that references this one). I really don't know if it's been discredited, disproven, abandoned in favor of newer theories and how exactly the new studies play into the picture. Just my opinion, but it seems that this could be clarified somehow and made less confusing. I'm not sure of the best way to do that - maybe something toward the beginning that sums up it's rise and fall (and rise again?) along with more details about the reason it was "discredited" as opposed to just losing favor over time after no evidence was found and newer theories came out. I could just be stupid, but I wanted to point that out in case any other readers who are new to the subject find it as confusing as I did.
ScrobDobbins ( talk) 10:55, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
I appreciate what user 195.188.41.30 is trying to do at the mention of memetics near the beginning of the article, and I hope he or she figures out the right way to do it with standard templates (editorialising within the tag is not the way), but I question whether the whole sentence beginning "In a wider context, soft inheritance..." belongs there at all. There is no wider context than biology for Lamarckism as such, and the analogical use of the term in the context of cultural change is already adequately addressed in the section "Lamarckism and societal change", which says as much about memes as necessary. RichardKennaway ( talk) 14:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)
I deleted this text: "In a wider context, soft inheritance is of use when examining the evolution of cultures and ideas, and is related to the theory of memeticsdubious - memetics is not widely accepted due to it being unsubstantiated." for two reasons. Firstly, as in my comment just above, this sentence is unnecessary -- Lamarckism applied to culture is already sufficiently treated in a later section and does not need to be mentioned here. Secondly, inserting a discussion into a pseudo-"dubious" tag is incorrect practice. A standard "dubious" or "citation needed" tag should be inserted and discussion carried out here on the talk page.
I also deleted "Needs revision in light of recent findings i.e. Tim Spector, Identically Different" for the same reason: comments like this should be made on the talk page only. RichardKennaway ( talk) 16:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
I have three papers that describe that here [3], [4] and [5] to be added to the article shortly. A little angry ( talk) 00:41, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
A diagram of a Giraffe was added to this article but this is somebodies own diagram and misrepresentation of Lamarckism, not from a scientific source.
Michael Ghiselin covers the giraffe fallacy here [6], the text that was on the diagram was entirely inaccurate to what Lamarckism actually says. So I removed it. TreeTrailer ( talk) 03:38, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
A recent article describes a mechanism by which environmental changes cause an organism (yeast in this case) to its DNA. Hull, Ryan M.; Cruz, Cristina; Jack, Carmen V.; Houseley, Jonathan (27 June 2017).
"Environmental change drives accelerated adaptation through stimulated copy number variation". PLOS Biology. 15 (6): e2001333.
doi:
10.1371/journal.pbio.2001333.{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (
link): "... we directly demonstrate that Copy Number Variation of the copper-resistance gene CUP1 is stimulated by environmental copper.".
This article doesn't mention Lamarckism and this Wikipedia article doesn't mention "copy number variation". It seems to me that this is a clear instance of Lamarckism. I have not added a section regarding this because I do not yet know of a peer-reviewed journal article making the link.
Robin Whittle ( talk) 03:44, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't know if this is relevant here, but Lamarckism popped-up in my mind while reading this: Astronaut's DNA no longer matches that of his identical twin, NASA finds. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 08:10, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
Is it useful to list every single experiment that was claimed to support Lamarckism? Mateusz Konieczny ( talk) 06:38, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
Lamarckism is obsolete. There is no known possible mechanism for how it could occur and no repeatable experimental evidence that supports it. I think it should be included in the "Obsolete biological theories" category. I know there has been some hype about 'epigenetics' reviving Lamarckism but this is inaccurate, they are entirely unrelated. Any thoughts? Skeptic from Britain ( talk) 19:17, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
We follow rather than lead the textbooks here on the encyclopedia. Like it or not, Lamarckism has come to mean what it has come to mean. Skeptics, Cynics, Epicureans, and anarchists all feel your pain. However, we are not doing our job if we force the lead to take a side in the debate rather than inform the general reader what the term has come to mean. Lamarck has his own page where you can mount a defense all day long. This page currently suffers from WP:UNDUE from Gould and Ghiselen. And the page is trying to do three opposing things 1) defend Lamarck, 2)defend soft evolution 3)question soft evolution. In shorthand, a neutral description would go like this, "Lamarckism has come to mean "inheritance of behaviorally acquired traits (or however it's properly cashed out)" it is named after Lamarck with the following caveats (other people had this idea, it was a small part of his work), and the idea of inheritance of acquired traits has been disputed and supported in the following ways...." What's more, I don't know if "soft evolution" is sufficiently backed up by WP:RS. DolyaIskrina ( talk) 00:48, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
This article needs an explanatory supporting image in the lede. Much use of Wikipedia never gets beyond the first few sentences and we need to convey the gist of an article as much to the casual reader as those who want an in depth view. Lumos3 ( talk) 10:22, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
Some important scientists and researchers have came out in the field of genetics claiming to prove that the natural selection theory in Darwinism is highly flawed in areas where Lamarckian genetics has now been proven right. Would be important to mention and elaborate upon. Also the obvious connection to theories of eugenics coming from somewhere in this area of thought here rather than classical social darwinism often considered bunk science today by many as an explanation of eugenics. Seems like there needs to be a great expansion in this article highlighting the new modern understanding of neo-Lamarckism as highly biologically tenable with much scientific insight discovered greatly improving upon the theory of evolution for instance in the broader understanding of the scientific community, rather than mostly emphasizing claims throughout this article about how people couldn't prove or disprove the theory or aren't sure if evidence was valid or not in the distant past rather the present day understandings. Recent new discoveries mentioned need to be taught if they are relevant and useful for greatly improving the quality of the article beyond just a "good article". Some editing users seemed apprehensive about adding things because they are either "not useful" or "irrelevant" but it seems there's no real argument to base the accusation in. 184.71.97.170 ( talk) 20:08, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
has never been proven right or wrongand ending with
it is denigrated because the Soviets believed in it. And your edits in the article are just unsourced editorializing, that is, your opinion, and not helpful either. -- Hob Gadling ( talk) 14:14, 3 August 2022 (UTC)