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