April 16, 2007
DESIGNING CHICKENS:
Swedish chickens challenge Darwin (The Local, 16th April 2007)
Darwin's theory of evolution has been dealt a stinging blow by a group of Swedish-Norwegian researchers. The group, led by Professor Per Jensen from Linköping University, has launched a challenge to Darwin's notion that behaviour cannot be inherited.In a study published by scientific journal PLoS ONE, the group found that the young of domestic hens exposed to high levels of stress displayed similar behavioral anomalies despite growing up in a stress free environment.
Furthermore, genetic modifications in the young chickens' brains were similar to those developed by their parents as a result of stress.
Per Jensen is keen to stress that the results do not mean that Darwin was wrong.
Of course that doesn't make him wrong, Darwin died a Lamarckian. It is just more evidence that Darwinism is wrong, making the score Googleplex to 0. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 16, 2007 12:43 PM
Leaving aside the debate about Lamarkism, the name itself opens itself up for the easy pun regarding "Marlarckism," otherwise known as Malarckey.
Posted by: Bruno at April 16, 2007 3:17 PMAtheist sci-fi author Greg Bear explored Lamarckian evolution in his sequel to 'Eon', a novel called 'Legacy'. After re-reading the novel several times, I observed that the Lamarckian story thread comes to an abrupt end, rather like the proverbial teenager and his moped: it's fun as long as your friends don't see you.
In Bear's world of Lamarckia, self-modifying, self-improving ecosystems called 'silvas' act like macroscopic cellular factories, pumping out new "models" more regularly than Ford or Toyota. Then, when humans introduced the chemical blueprint for photosynthesis (from Earth) into a silva, the silvas immediately rolled out 'green' models using the new information, while "garbage collectors" 'recyled' the old ones. The Cambrian Explosion on steroids.
The main characters' search for the "seed mother", the mechanism for how silvas learned to copy information, turned up empty. It seems that a certain amount of functionality just had to exist. Naturally.
Anyway, Bear must have realized how dangerously close the Lamarckian story line had come to making the case for irreducible complexity, because after that, Lamarckia was dispatched without much further ado.
Complex living machinery (such as in the cell) is a fundamental challenge to Darwinism, something Darwin himself realized (Ch 6, OoS).
Posted by: Steve Bragg at April 16, 2007 3:54 PMShould have said, "prequel" not "sequel"...
Posted by: Steve Bragg at April 16, 2007 4:01 PMAnd I could probably write a long paper discussing the scientific errors of Phrenology, but it wouldn't qualify me to discuss cranial surgery.
Live horses are a lot harder to beat. Of course, that wouldn't be so much for for you, would it?
The comparison of Darwinism to Phrenology is pluperfect.
Mr. Bragg:
Robert Sawyer did him one better:
http://brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/1191/
Posted by: oj at April 16, 2007 4:22 PMoj-
Interesting. I was reminded of CS Lewis' Ransom comparing notes with the Sorn in "Out of the Silent Planet." I will definitely have to pick that one up.