Darwin and after Darwin
Format: Paperback
ISBN13: 9780217814225
Paperback|9780217814225
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Characters As Hereditary And Acquired (continued). Indirect Evidence in favour of the Inheritance of Acquired Characters. Starting with the evidence in favour of the so- called Lamarckian factors, we have to begin with the Indirect?and this without any special reference to the theories, either of Weismann or of others. It has already been shown, while setting forth in the preceding chapter the antecedent standing of the issue, that in this respect the prima facie presumption is wholly on the side of the transmission, in greater degree or less, of acquired characters. Even Weismann allows that all appearances point in this direction, while there is no inductive evidence of the action of natural selection in any one case, either as regards germs or somas, and therefore, a fortiori, of the all-sufficiency of this cause1. It is true that in some of his earlier essays he has argued that there is no small weight of prima facie evidence in favour of his own views as to the noninheritance of acquired characters. This, however, will have to be considered in its proper place further on. Meanwhile I shall say merely in general terms that it arises almost entirely from a confusion of the doctrine of Continuity as absolute with that of Continuity as partial, and therefore as admitting of degrees in different cases?which, as already explained, are doctrines wide as the poles asunder. But, leaving aside for the present such prima facie evidence as Weismann has adduced on his side of the issue, I may quote him as a hostile witness to the weight of this kind of evidence per contra, in so far as it has already been presented in the foregoing chapter. Indeed, Weismann is much too logical a thinker not to perceive the cogency of the appearances which lie against his ...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217814225 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217814220 |
| Weight | 0.73 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.51 In |
| List Price | $19.99 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 222 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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