Re: Ted Steele and Lamarck

From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Fri Jun 13 2003 - 23:24:18 MDT

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    ----- Original Message -----
    From: "Damien Broderick" <damienb@unimelb.edu.au>
    To: <extropians@extropy.com>
    Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 12:22 AM
    Subject: Ted Steele and Lamarck

    > Old Darwin Warriors might recall British scientist Ted Steele, who's long
    > been in Australia working on his much-mocked version of Lamarckism. The
    > other night I saw the tail end of what seemed to be a moderately good TV
    > program about his heterodox career (`Australian Story'); here's a
    newspaper
    > piece about it and him:
    >
    > http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/11/1055220640170.html
    >
    > His 1998 book *Lamarck's Signature: How Retrogenes are Changing Darwin's
    > Natural Selection Paradigm* seemed to me a complete dog's breakfast that
    > begged crucial questions on every side. Still, the argument is now being
    > made that recent results corroborate his claim that Weismann's barrier is
    > often broken, genes entering sperm and ova, allowing adaptations to
    > leapfrog generations. On the face of it this makes little sense, since
    > phenotypic adaptations during life (except in the immune system, where his
    > case began and should have stayed) don't involve *changing* genes, just
    > their expression. But IANAG let alone a MB, so maybe experts on the list
    > will have something to say on this.
    >
    > Damien Broderick
    >
    ### I haven't read the book, but here are comments from somebody who did
    :http://www.2think.org/lamarck.shtml.

    Apparently, Steele doesn't give a shred of experimental evidence in favor of
    his theory, and embarrassingly, supports creationism.

    Enough said.

    Rafal



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