• NeatNit
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    2 months ago

    I had to look it up. If you search Lamarck you find the guy, but the wikipedia page is massive. But searching ‘Lamarck theory’ brings up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism . TL;DR: inheritance of acquired characteristics.

    Lamarck argued that a blacksmith gets strong muscles from his work and his sons inherit those strong muscles.

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      I mean, it wasn’t a horrible theory at the time, and there was even some evidence for it (because the blacksmiths sons were very likely also blacksmiths, and thus also muscular). Even Darwin couldn’t explain HOW his theory evolution was actually supposed to function, he basically just said that it did.

      Unfortunately, even after we discovered genes, people were still following Lamarck, and it’s offshoot, Lysonkoism got a LOT of people killed, despite by then being verifiably false.

      • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        There’s also epigenetics, which could be described as a very limited version of Lamarckism that actually holds water. That’s stretching definitions, but it does involve lifestyle conditions in one generation that affect future generations. So far, it’s mostly restricted to things like famine in one generation leading to increased fat storage in future generations, iirc.

    • Jolteon@lemmy.zip
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      2 months ago

      I mean, that’s basically halfway to pokémon evolution already. I’m in.