h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Lamarck, scientific bridesmaid - A2141434
Author: Pimms Lettuce - U219930

This is a companion piece to the entry on Luke Howard, the namer of clouds. It doesn't cover Lamarck's theory of evolution in any detail which is sufficiently interesting to be a separate entry.

I plan to add some links to other entries, but maybe it is sufficient. Please provide some useful criticism

Pimms

Hello Pimms.

Nice entry, and I could find no fault with a quick read. But his use of French to describe the clouds when the scientific establishment used Latin: was that in any way similar to the modern defense of French, refusing to officially accept e.g. television as a good word?

I don't know why Lamarck chose French over Latin, the sources I've read point it out as one of the *possible* reasons his nomenclature did not take off.

It could be that Howard's gained prominence due to a greater interest in meteorology in Britain than in France - there was a scientific community willing to embrace new ideas.

This however would be speculation on my part, with an admitted ignorance of the history of French meteorology. I am just more familiar with British 'local heroes' such as Fitzroy who started the Met Office

Pimms

Hi Pimms! I had a quick run through this. There are a few phrases that don't quite hang together, but I won't bore you with that level of detail just at the moment. I think this would benefit from perhaps a two sentence introduction to Lamarckian Evolution - you talk about his theory without saying what it actually was. This is tantalising. It would be better to just say something like

"Lamarck's theory of evolution was that organisms strived for improvement and the results of their achievements were passed to their offspring. For example, a giraffe might stretch to reach the highest leaves on the tree and develop a slightly longer neck as a result. His offspring would then, according to the theory, inherit the long neck."

Hi Pimms

Good entry

Needless to say, I do have one or two comments

He was pretty reknowned in his time wasn't he? The title and opening paragraph kind of suggest that he missed the boat on everything, but he didn't really. It's just some stuff he was either wrong about (evolution), or his ideas didn't catch the mood of the time (clouds). Other things were fine - inverts for instance and the botanic gardens. And you suggest he must have been a Prof - that's something I'm not sure how you can get all that across more clearly, but I think it should be stressed he wasn't a complete loser!

Perhaps it was the case that whilst he was reknowned and amongst the leaders in various fields, he never quite got to the top of the pile in any one field? Does that make sense?

In the bit about the clouds, the first paragraph: the mention of is a bit of a non sequetor and I'm not sure what you're getting at. Perhaps if there were a few examples of the names he gave clouds it would help - like those in ?


F/b

Hi Gnomon
It is so easy to forget that you've ignored mentioning what you think 'everyone knows'

Hi FB
you're right about Lamarck not being a failure, but I don't want accuracy to spoil my plan for the entry also clouds - it made sense to me when I wrote it

I'll try and adjust to rectify these oversights soon.

Pimms

I wouldn't like to cloud your judgement

F/b

"Erasmus Darwin, Charles's father subscribed to an evolutionary mechanism remarkably similar to Lamarck's."

Erasmus Darwin was the grandfather of Charles. His father was the more authoritarian and conservative (in nature, not politics) Dr Robert Darwin, who sent young Charles off to study for the Church, and who is generally held accountable for Charles's lifelong painful self-doubt.

"Lamarckian" is more or less a synonym for "mistaken" in evolution; I agree a few words should be inserted mentioning the supposed inheritance of acquired characteristics. Darwin seems to have seen through this wishful thinking, even without the benefit of DNA; he did a lot of research around pigeon breeders, becoming one himself.

Thanks R'man.
erase erasmus error. evolution expansion expected

Pimms

Excellent expediency; Entry encouraged.

Revisions made. Does it now fulfil expectations?

Pimms

Note: I hope to write a fuller treatment of Larmarckism, which will mention the champions of it such as Lysenko, G B Shaw and that American author whose name escapes me. Something about fraudulent experiments and injections of black ink under skin of toads comes into it somewhere.

A google for "Lamarck toad fraud" comes up with a good crop including http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v11n1p06.htm
which certainly looks interesting. The case of Paul Kammerer in the 1930s: a cautionary tale.

Nope, sorry, it was earlier than that . . . "While the toad's forelimbs showed no evidence whatever of nuptial pads, they did show a copious injection of black ink under the skin. Noble and Przibram reported their findings in the prestigious international journal Nature on August 7, 1926. setting off an academic bombshell.

In the midst of the uproar over this exposure of fraud Kammerer was busy shipping scientific equipment and personal belongings to Moscow, apparently preparing to move there and assume his new post. However, on September 22, 1926 he wrote a letter to the Moscow Academy of Science in which he resigned his position. In it he also affirmed that he himself had not injected coloring into the midwife toad specimen, nor had he painted a salamander also discovered doctored with black ink. He expressed the hope that he would find courage to end his life which had been hopelessly destroyed by what had happened. . . The next day he shot himself through the head in a Vienna suburb."

[from the above link]

Thanks RM

As I indicated this will be included in a different entry - do you nevertheless think some brief mention of the disrepute his theory fell into is approproiate to this entry?

Pimms

The Entry reads very well now.

Dare I suggest:

"He is known to most people as a contrast from Charles Darwin, having also proposed a theory of evolution, but one that was flawed."

-- No-one said Darwin's theory was flawless, least of all Darwin who revised his theory constantly and not always for the better. But the difference is that while Darwin's theory has been enormously supported by evidence since then, Lamarck's has not: it was "fatally flawed".

Also, "as a contrast from" is curious; perhaps "by contrast with"?

"Lamarck was compelled by the evidence to accept the fact of evolution, but unlike Darwin, proposed a method for evolution of species that is not how evolution works. It is worth stressing that Lamarck's mechanism for the process of evolution has only proved false since the particulate nature of DNA genetic inheritance has become clear."

-- this could be tightened a little; the Kammerer affair was an attempt to prove Lamarckism, that was proved false in the 1920s. I would suggest ". . . Lamarck's mechanism for the process of evolution has only been comprehensively disproved by the discovery of the particulate nature of DNA genetic inheritance."

An article on Kammerer (not American!) et al would be very much to the point; and a link to it could be inserted into this one.

Suggestions implemented

I mentioned an American author, who I remember reading, like GB Shaw, was passionately opposed to (his misunderstanding of) what Darwinism implied. The case of the midwife toad was one he wrote about. Arthur Koestler that's the name http://www.mbl.edu/publications/Ciona/Kammerer/

Likely to be a week or two before I can put forward an entry on Lamarckism


Pimms

Koestler -- The Ghost in the Machine? I borrowed it once but couldn't get enthusiastic enough to read it. Must give it back.

I'm slightly indigesting your "blunt instrument". In its way, random mutation is an extremely blunt instrument; its redeeming feature is its credibility. Directed mutation on the other hand is if anything too sharp and pointy an instrument.

Summarising objections to Lamarckism in one sentence is likely to lead to ambiguous points. What I intended by 'blunt instrument' was not the suggestion that Lamarckism relies on random mutation, but that the crude idea of 'use and disuse' (that organs which are used a great deal would be better if they were bigger) would be incapable of providing the variety of fine adaptation that exists.

Darwinian theory, where the success of some variations leads to them becoming more prevalent at the expense of less successful variations (survival of the fittest) is a much more adaptable theory, allowing any variations thrown up by mutation to be tested on the world.

Richard Dawkins explains the inadequacies of Lamarckism well in the Blind Watchmaker (chapter 11), but he does take about 20 pages to do it.

I had hoped to indicate that Lamarckism is inadequate without too much explanation - mentioning 'epigenetic embryology' as another exampler of how Lamarckism couldn't work would just open another can of worms

Pimms

Just spotted a typo:

Hoawrd > Howard

Cripes Time to run the entry through a spellcheck and catch any other unintentional errors!

Done

Pimms