Why is Darwin's theory of evolution more probable than Lamarks?

Question

I want to see opinions. Or vice-versa.

Answer 1

We now know through microbiology  that it is impossible for plants and animals to evolve without changes in their DNA.

Harleigh Kyson Jr.

Answer 2

Because DNA doesn't change with daily activity.

Answer 3

Darwin's did not really originate the theory that is now commony referred to as biological evolution. Like Lamarck, he proposed a mechanism by which evolution might take place.  His mechanism is "natural selection".  The idea is simply that species which are not adequate to survive and reproduce in a given environment die off and those that are adequate survive (common sense really).  LaMarck, on the other hand, proposed that beneficial changes experienced by an organism would be passed on to its offspring - causing more rapid evolutionary change.

There are two main reasons why Darwin's selection makes more sense than LaMarck's mechanism:

1st and foremost - unambiguous, clear, repeatable and very simple observable evidence supports Darwin's models.  We can now watch evolution take place among very simple organisms like fruit flies in controlled experiments. Lamarkian evolution occurs, but only under very rare circumstances involving mutagenic substances (mostly toxic chemicals which kill off creatures before they can reproduce and pass on the mutation - if it happens to be attached to a s*x cell).

2nd - and more subtle, but just as important:  LaMarck's perspective suggested that environment could, through some unseen, unknown and unexplained force, manipulate the genetic and phenotypic character of organisms. So, in a sense, it is not an explanation at all.  Natural Selection, very differently, does not require unseen forces. It is simply a matter of what survives (selected for) and what does not (selected against) in a given environment.

Answer 4

What IS IT with you MORONS who insist on calling EVOLUTION... a THEORY.?  Evolution has NOT BEEN A THEORY for MORE THAN 100 YEARS... ever since the British Academy of Sciences DECLARED Darwin's work on Evolution to be a GENUINE SCIENCE.

NO legitimate scientific group has EVER named that stupid Divine Design nonsense a REAL scientific discipline.

The only people who are SO STUPID that they still call Evolution a theory, are also so STUPID they believe some dead Jew is going to come down from heaven and we are all going to rise up in the air to meet him.

EVOLUTION IS REAL... get used to it.  ALL LIFE... everything in the world that is alive... HAS EVOLVED... and a person has to be REALLY STUPID to not understand that.

Answer 5

As both of them are highly improbable,  it's not worth the hassle. We should stick with what we know to be true, and that my friends is : That we don't know !.

Of course, that does not mean that we give up the search, It does mean, that we need to begin all over again beginning with fact, With fact being equal to truth.

Answer 6

More probable?  Probability doesn't enter into it.  Lamarck had supporters many years ago (yes, I'm familiar with Lysenko in the Soviet Union) but even then it had major problems, the first being that it is patently false.  Acquired characteristics do not tranfser into the next generation.  

Darwin's theory of natural selection is empirically demonstrable in nature and in laboratory settings.  Look at the development of resistence to antibiotics among bacterial strains.  Artificial selection has been practiced for centuries, Darwin just worked out how nature was doing the same thing.

So you have an explanation which is empirically true and has a conceiveable reason for how it works rooted in genetics, and on the other hand you have one that is demonstrably false and doesn't even have an explanation for how it could work even if it did.

No contest here, and it has nothing to do with anyone's opinion.  The facts speak for themselves.

Answer 7

The Communists loved Lamark as they felt that a "New Soviet Man" would result from party discipline, good living and so on. The Soviet Union is gone.

Lamarck's theory is that characteristics acquired during an creatures lifetime get passed on to their offspring. By that theory we should now see only the sons of professional basketball players in the NBA. Another example would be if you practiced flapping your arms to fly. Over time your arms should become more like wings. Your children's arms would be more winglike then yours. The classic experiment was to cut the tails off mice. Under  Lamarck's theory offspring would have shorter tails and then no tails.

Natural selection the driving part of evolution holds that creatures that are better adapted to their enviorment survive to reproduce and pass their characteristics on to their offspring. The finches Darwin saw had come from standard finishes. However, those that had slightly different shaped beaks tended to get more food and passed these beaks on. In time the finches Darwin found appeared.