Canalization and genetic assimilation: Reassessing the radicality of the Waddingtonian concept of inheritance of acquired characters

The Law ◽

Abstract | Lamarck has left many legacies for future generations of biologists. His best known legacy was an explicit suggestion, developed in the Philosophie zoologique (PZ), that the effects of use and disuse (acquired characters) can be inherited and can drive species transformation.This suggestion was formulated as two laws, which we refer to as the law of biological plasticity and the law of phenotypic continuity. We put these laws in their historical context and distinguish between Lamarck’s key insights and later neo-Lamarckian interpretations of his ideas.We argue that Lamarck’s emphasis on the role played by the organization of living beings and his physiological model of reproduction are directly relevant to 21st-century concerns, and illustrate this by discussing intergenerational genomic continuity and cultural evolution.

Waddington’s Processual Epigenetics and the Debate over Cryptic Variability

10.1093/oso/9780198779636.003.0012 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Flavia Fabris

Keyword(s):

Genetic Variation ◽

Evolutionary Biology ◽

Modern Synthesis ◽

Genetic Assimilation ◽

Ontological Difference ◽

Epigenetic Process ◽

Recent Debate ◽

This chapter reappraises Waddington’s processual theory of epigenetics and examines its implications for contemporary evolutionary biology. It focuses in particular on the ontological difference between two conflicting assumptions that have been conflated in the recent debate over the nature of cryptic variability: a substance view that is consistent with the modern synthesis and construes variability as a preexisting pool of random genetic variation; and a processual view, which derives from Waddington’s conception of developmental canalization and understands variability as an epigenetic process. The chapter also discusses how these opposing interpretations fare in their capacity to explain the genetic assimilation of acquired characters.

Eugenio Rignano Upon the Inheritance of Acquired Characters. C.H. Harvey

The International Journal of Ethics ◽

10.1086/intejethi.23.1.2377122 ◽

1912 ◽

Vol 23 (1) ◽

pp. 117-118

Author(s):

M. Lightfoot Eastwood

Keyword(s):

Problema Nasledovaniya Priobretenykh Priznakov. Istoriya apriornykh i empiricheskikh popytok ego resheniia. (The Problem of Inheritance of Acquired Characters. The History of a Priori and Empirical Attempts to Solve It.). L. Ia. Bliacher

The Quarterly Review of Biology ◽

10.1086/407338 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 47 (3) ◽

pp. 324-325

Author(s):

I. Michael Lerner

Keyword(s):

A Priori ◽

History Of ◽

Darwin's Pangenesis and the Lamarckian Inheritance of Acquired Characters

Darwin’s Pangenesis and Its Rediscovery Part A - Advances in Genetics ◽

10.1016/bs.adgen.2018.05.005 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 115-144

Author(s):

Yongsheng Liu

Keyword(s):

Lamarckian Inheritance ◽

Adaptation under Changing Environments with Various Rates of Inheritance of Acquired Characters

Lecture Notes in Computer Science - Simulated Evolution and Learning ◽

10.1007/3-540-48873-1_6 ◽

1999 ◽

pp. 34-41 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Takahiro Sasaki ◽

Mario Tokoro

Keyword(s):

Changing Environments ◽

Inheritance of Acquired Characters

Nature ◽

10.1038/131095a0 ◽

1933 ◽

Vol 131 (3299) ◽

pp. 95-95

Author(s):

R. L. JENKINS

Keyword(s):

Lamarck, Evolution, and the Inheritance of Acquired Characters

Genetics ◽

10.1534/genetics.113.151852 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 194 (4) ◽

pp. 793-805 ◽

Cited By ~ 62

Author(s):

Richard W. Burkhardt

Keyword(s):

Somatic Selection and Adaptive Evolution: On the Inheritance of Acquired Characters. By E. J. Steele. Toronto: Williams-Wallace productions International, Inc. 90 pp. $14.95.

Cell ◽

10.1016/s0092-8674(80)80056-0 ◽

1980 ◽

Vol 19 (3) ◽

pp. 807-808 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

J CROW

Keyword(s):

Adaptive Evolution ◽

Acquired Characters ◽

Somatic Selection

Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Containing Papers of a Biological Character ◽

Experiments on the egg-laying instincts of the sawfly, Pontania salicis Christ., and their bearing on the inheritance of acquired characters; with some remarks on a new principle in evolution

10.1098/rspb.1927.0008 ◽

1927 ◽

Vol 101 (707) ◽

pp. 115-126 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Keyword(s):

Food Habits ◽

Calluna Vulgaris ◽

Egg Laying ◽

Food Plant ◽

Direct Result ◽

Natural Manner ◽

In Captivity ◽

In the course of genetical investigations (Harrison, 1920) in the lepidopterous genus Oporabia I conceived the idea that the inherited instinct of Oporabia filigrammaria HS. to deposit its eggs on heather ( Calluna vulgaris ) was the direct result of long-continued isolation on treeless heather-clad moorlands, involving a compulsory diet of that plant; in other words, I felt that the development of the instinct and its inheritance were Lamarckian effects. To test these views experimentally, by attempting a transference in the food habits of other insects, seemed far from difficult, and search was forthwith made for material easy to manipulate in captivity. No forms appeared more adapted for the purpose than the Geometrid moths Lycia hirtaria Cl. and Phigalia pedaria F., which I had employed in former experiments. However, the technique adopted, at any rate as applied to these insects, proved unsatisfactory and had therefore to be modified. Unexpected difficulties, riot in securing oviposition in a state of semicaptivity but in its taking place in a natural manner on the food plant, were immediately encountered.