To: CarolinaGuitarman
1,103 posted on
01/29/2006 3:16:40 PM PST by
Heartlander
(Do You Find Information Harms Your Ability To Make Uninformed Decisions?)
To: Heartlander
Darwin believed in a limited neo-Lamarkian inheritance, but that is not why Mendel was ignored. For Darwin, the mode of heredity was up in the air. The inheritance of acquired characteristics was only a small part of his overall theory. One of the biggest Darwinians (and perhaps the second greatest biologist in the 19th century before Darwin) was August Weissman who showed conclusively that the inheritance of acquired characteristics was untenable.
As for the second link, it in no way goes against my contention that eugenics was as much influenced by Mendel as it was Darwin. It was a misunderstanding of BOTH theories. It's a fact that the movement didn't gather steam until after Mendel's laws were understood and the neo-lamarkian views that prevailed in the last quarter of the 19th century were overthrown. Mendel's work seemed to show that *feeble-mindedness* was not going to be breed away with education and social programs.
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