On Mon, 24 Jul 1995 10:36:41 GMT +11 you wrote:
GM>Darwin was wrong on numerous points (e.g. his view of heredity).
>I cut and paste this from a post of Stephen Jones, I didn't see the
>original (just joined this group) so apologies if this has been
>covered before.
>What was Darwin's view of heredity? My medical texts tell me he had
>"no idea." Maybe they meant he was accepted Lamarckianism in a de
>facto manner.
Welcome.
To cut a long story short, Darwin started off rejecting Lamarck, but
under pressure (eg. Fleeming Jenkin, etc), he compromised and
accepted use and disuse of parts. His main problem was that he (and
everyone one else except Mendel) believed that inheritance was a blend
of father and mother's traits:
"...until reading an able and valuable article (by Fleeming
Jenkin) in the North British Review (1867), I did not appreciate how
rarely single variations, whether slight or strongly marked, could be
perpetuated. The author takes the case of a pair of animals,
producing during their lifetime two hundred offspring, of which, from
various causes of destruction, only two on an average survive to
procreate their kind. This is rather an extreme estimate for most of
the higher animals, but by no means so for many of the lower
organisms. He then shows that if a single individual were born, which
varied in some manner, giving it twice as good a chance of life as
that of the other individuals, yet the chances would be strongly
against its survival. Supposing it to survive and to breed, and that
half its young inherited the favourable variation; still, as the
Reviewer goes on to show, the young would have only a slightly better
chance of surviving and breeding; and this chance would go on
decreasing in the succeeding generations. The justice of these
remarks cannot, I think, be disputed." (Darwin C., "The Origin of
Species", Everyman's Library, 1967, J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London,
p90).
Darwin's problem would have been solved if he had accepted Mendel's
theory of genetics (he was contemporary with Darwin), but some
believe it was ignored/suppressed (eg. by Huxley) because it seemed to
be opposed to evolutionary change.
Regards.
Stephen