Word: lamarckianism
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...easily dismissed an early naturalist who anticipated modern epigenetics - and whom Darwinists have long disparaged. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) argued that evolution could occur within a generation or two. He posited that animals acquired certain traits during their lifetimes because of their environment and choices. The most famous Lamarckian example: giraffes acquired their long necks because their recent ancestors had stretched to reach high, nutrient-rich leaves...
...works not through the fire of effort but through cold, impartial selection. By Darwinist thinking, giraffes got their long necks over millennia because genes for long necks had, very slowly, gained advantage. Darwin, who was 84 years younger than Lamarck, was the better scientist, and he won the day. Lamarckian evolution came to be seen as a scientific blunder. Yet epigenetics is now forcing scientists to re-evaluate Lamarck's ideas. (See TIME's video on Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln...
...device debate right now is over convergence: Will single-purpose machines prevail, or will new appliances emerge with multiple functions? It's a high-tech version of Lamarckian evolution, in which new characteristics are acquired through demand. You can expect cell phones to sprout color monitors so they can be used to surf the Web, and PDAs to develop telephonic capability. When the convergence is complete, the theory goes, we'll have a single device combining in one small, supersmart package the qualities of a PDA, cell phone and pager--allowing you to schedule, e-mail, call, beep and surf...
...scientifically minded nitpickers have noted, there is a flaw here. The idea that Adam's choice of cuisine somehow affected biological inheritance involves the generally discredited Lamarckian notion that acquired traits get transmitted genetically. Still, a more generic version of Augustine's assertion--that sin results from biological drives passed through the human lineage ever since its origin--makes scientific sense...
Most cell biology is currently dominated by Lamarckian evolutionary theory--which suggests that cells respond to changes in their environments--and the belief that cell death takes place according to a "blueprint...