Evolution DMD

Let’s stipulate for this conversation that everything the experts say about evolution is true. Creatures that are the most successful at reproducing pass their traits to the next generation, and so on.

But I have another hypothesis that I think is testable. What if there is another influence that also contributes?

I wonder if a creature’s aspirations can somehow have an impact on what her genes pass to the next generation. We know that thoughts are associated with feelings, and feelings are associated with body chemistry. It’s not impossible that wanting something in your lifetime can make it more likely the child achieves it.

Recently I read that certain environmental conditions can increase the odds that women will give birth to boys. So we know that external conditions can influence body chemistry which in turn can influence the genetic makeup of the kid.

So I wonder about the giraffe with its long neck, to pick an easy example. The classic explanation is that giraffes with longer necks could reach leaves higher in trees, and had a survival advantage when food was scarce. That seems reasonable enough. But I wonder if the giraffes that strained and wished they had longer necks experienced some sort of stress, and giraffe-style wishfulness, that released any chemicals that could influence the odds of producing a long-necked child. In other words, do creatures guide their own evolutionary path through their desires?

It seems hugely unlikely that such a complicated and specific system could exist in a creature. But everything about creatures with brains is ridiculously complicated and specific and unlikely. It seems to me entirely plausible that creatures with brains evolved a heretofore undiscovered ability to translate their aspirations in this life to physical traits in their children.

You could test this in female rats. One group is the control, and the other is kept frustratingly a half inch from some delicious cheese. Both rats are fed enough to guarantee equal survival, so the normal mechanism for evolution is turned off. Would the rat who aspired to have a longer snout to reach the cheese produce, on average, longer snouted offspring?

Someone probably tested that already in fruit flies or something.

[Update: Lamark didn't deal with a person's aspirations. He was all about the traits you acquire during life, whether you wanted them or not. -- Scott]

Comments

[Volker Hetzer]

I don't think food determines gender. What food /might/ determine is which sperm cell gets through the eggshell.
As for other influences, yes, there are grotesquely oversized secondary sexual characteristics in the animal world, but still, the basic mechanism is genes, mutation, competition and the fitness function. Even if "fitness" is determined by "impressiveness to female peacocks".
As someone else suggested, Darwin is a fascinating read. He arrived at the whole thing well before genes and mutations were discovered. Read his "Origin" and watch a giant think.

[karen]

well, in a completely real worl setting (not in the lab) what organisms aspire to are what is useful to survival...so evolution is again based on survival.

[Matthew]

Is DMD Dance Monkey, Dance or something else?

[st512]

I think you are on the right track now. Long ago you posted, that the theory of evolution invokes you bullshit detector. Wouldn't it make much more sense, if a population could control the rate and subject of mutation of the next generations. Early giraffs operated at their maximum range when trying to get food and were still close to starving. So they started mutating spine and legs. Classical selection picked the good ones and a new species evolved...

If the mutations are not entirely random, there might be a chance, that a benefical one would occur in more than one individuum per generation. And that would make it much more likely to select and keep this modification inside the genpool.

[Graeme]

It's not the quality of the breakfast that determines the sex.
It's the quality of the sex that determines whether you stay for breakfast.

[Mike Johnston]

My theory of evolution for today is that one entrant to the Kentucky Derby should be an ordinary quarter horse, and anyone who doesn't believe in evolution should be forced to bet their entire fortune on that horse.

Blue Mikey

[Eric Sigurdson]

"Recently I read that certain environmental conditions can increase the odds that women will give birth to boys. So we know that external conditions can influence body chemistry which in turn can influence the genetic makeup of the kid."

The only thing we know is that you read something saying that... Source please!

[Keely]

You must be talking about women who eat breakfast are more likely to have boys.

It's more likely that female babies give off some hormone that makes the mom nauseous in the morning or that boys make the mom more hungry with some hormone. It's very unlikely that eating more will make you have a boy.
They wrote it up to sound like that because making people think that they might be able to change the sex of their baby is way more exciting than the truth. A child's sex is determined as soon as the sperm enters the egg.
In fact this study isn't that interesting. We already have a way of knowing a baby's sex. It's called an ultrasound.

[Chris H]

"Recently I read that certain environmental conditions can increase the odds that women will give birth to boys. So we know that external conditions can influence body chemistry which in turn can influence the genetic makeup of the kid."

...I think that's lizards.

[Dotacus]

Speaking of testable:

#1 Why aren't there fossil remains of the all the short necked giraffes before the long necked ones came around and made the short necked ones extinct?

#2 My daughter is alot like me, despite my wife wishing she wouldn't be the entire time she was in her whomb.

I don't believe any of it.

[Shivam]

If such was a case, then why only giraffe, even zebra, donkeys, cows and all other plant eating animals would have long necks (because secretly they all would desire longer necks!)

[StephenP]

I think that the penis argument actually proves Scott's point. Humans have the largest members (proportionally) of any primate. The average monkey probably doesn't desire a bigger penis; he is more concerned with nuts. The average human does, over the millenia this has made a significant difference. Obviously there is still a variation. Maybe some people want it more than others.

[Petr]

Two comments:

1. As for the beginning of your article: You caught me unaware. I didn't know that there was any doubt whatsoever that the "most successful at reproducing pass their traits to the next generation". This empirical fact is very well established and I was really unaware of anyone defying it other than on the basis of belief. - What *is* controversial is whether this well-established fact of natural selection causes evolution. You know, whether it just keeps the species clean of runts, or if it really creates a human out of the proverbial monkey.

2. The way you pose the question, you didn't "decontaminate" it from the Darwinian stuff. If all the giraffes wish for a long neck, then they will consider the one giraffe with a long neck an attractive one. And they will all want his/her babies. If you really want to make your experiment add plausibility to your hypothesis, you will need to control (randomly, double-blindedly) how your rats mate. And by double-blind I mean, not only *you* must choose the mate randomly, but also the rat must not be able to evaluate the traits of his/her partner. (At least in rats, it's been observed that a female rat can spontaneously abort if it gets a chance to mate with a more attractive male.)

[matt nicol]

Stick to writing comics monkey brain.

Read Dawkins

Quit yanking our chains

[Dan(bert)]

Environment can influence genetic expression, but not genetic makeup. However, exposure to gamma radiation had been known to make some people turn into big green comic book heros.

Just published:
You are what your mother eats: evidence for maternal preconception diet influencing foetal sex in humans
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/w260687441pp64w5/

Somebody beat me to Epigenetics.

All Hail Dogbert!

[Gecko]

The idea actually has a lot of merit. I don't think it works on the level of chemistry, but on the level of selection by the parents who tend to favour the children that fit their aspirations best. Giraffes want to reach high places, so those offspring that have long necks are favoured by the parents, and those with short necks are neglected.

[BobNL]

LOL Leora. My god, that was funny.

[Victor Prometeo L. Frankenstein]

Hi Scott,
This time I want to do the grim person with a slight tendency in believe that some conspiracy theories are true.
I want to start telling that I think You are right.
The only reason why that truth (Yours) can not be brought to the public attention, is because it leads straight to the fact that -…here You come again…- the way we think our world has a deep impact on it. From this point on, You can built Your own conspiracy theories without me telling You mines; think only of the following words: dangerous thoughts are not allowable, because of the impact they have on reality (reality = our average perception derived from the interaction with something else called: “all but me”).
Now let me continue in what it might seems a digression, but is not; …many years ago I stumbled across a pretty strange “Book” (…well, in pdf format, …and translated into my language, …and in many, many others) and even if I was educated in a certain religious way :), I read it anyway; some parts were out of my grasp because of my cultural background, but there were others, regarding the “natural world” and the way our thoughts have an impact on reality (reality in the common sense, … or in the writer sense would be more appropriate), that struck me, deeply from within. Because of that book I started wondering about true, ..its possible existence, …his possible holders, …and I started to think about how really ours thoughts are able to change reality (reality in whatever meaning); …to be honest I started to think of the stake and the Holy Inquisition too, …but that is another story.
In that book, think of it as a kind of bible if You want, I found a little part of myself, and now, with hindsight, I think in that book there was also a little part of You too, and…………
I’m very sorry, I realised that this is a very longwinded speech that might have no meaning, so let me end this comment with something I heard from D. V. Kleist about conspiracy theories, because that fits with theories in general (I quote NOT verbatim): “if You have no evidence, Your theory is a conspiracy theory, but if You have a single piece of evidence, that theory become a possibility (is not anymore an hypothesis), and the more the evidences You gather, the more Your theory approach what really happen/happened.”
Bye.
V.P.L.F.

[Phil Bob]

But you've already said many times that We're moist robots with no free will. So Even if we do have aspirations, we have no control over them. Even if your theory were true - and the penis arguments show that it is not - all you would be saying was that the random enviroment in which you were placed had an ability to affect which genes you passed on. And that's no different from evolution as it is right now.

[games]

thanks ..

thats good and If this were true, then the world would be flooded with women that have extremely large bazooms and men with extremely long ---- inseams.

[Leora]

I tried your rat idea in conjunction with Hiesenberg's cat experiment.

Now I have a box that may contain a cat and a bunch of extra-snouty rats. And a swarm of fruit flies.

Tomorrow when I open the box I expect I'll have a nice long-necked giraffe in it. Though I think it will die as soon as I look at it, if I remember the original experiment rightly.

Today's science lesson has been brought to you by the letter 'D', 'U', and 'H', and the number '0'.

[Scott (Not Adams)]

Creatures? Shouldn't they be evolvers?

[Charles]

Scott

We need to review the evidence. Let us use the size of the male member as the outcome, and the desire to have a big one, as the intervention.

A recent Discovery program revealed that the desire for a bigger member is pretty inbred in most males. So, using your hypophysis, what has this intervention produced over the millenia? In some enormous success, in others not so impressive results, and in some huge disappointment.

What does throw a spanner in the works though is that the less well-endowed races in this world seem to far outnumber the rest. So, although we all desire bigger penises, it seems that such desire will make us extinct.

Oh Scott, oh Scott, what have you started!?

[jp]

There is no possible way that an animal can change its own DNA in a directed manner. It's as simple as that.

Hormones can affect the ways the DNA is read, but it will not affect the DNA that is passed on the children.

[jim]

[Recently I read that certain environmental conditions can increase the odds that women will give birth to boys. So we know that external conditions can influence body chemistry which in turn can influence the genetic makeup of the kid.]

Wow. Talk about misleading. Environmental conditions, in this circumstance, has nothing to do with genetics. Body chemistry maybe...BUT a woman pregnant with a boy (even two cells - sperm and egg) isn't going to have it change into a girl through environmental conditions. It's going to be a boy. I think you need to read that report again.

[MM]

Get me a government grant of 200 billion and I will research it. :)

[Greg Baumann]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

[AC]

This would prove free will, would it not?

[Rack]

It's theoretically possible and extremely difficult to prove (given accepted rates of change you'd expect it to happen very infrequently) The trick is that it wouldn't happen until animals had evolved a will, which is fairly late in the game.

[as]

I don't think you are right (even though i've got about zero evidence to back it up), but I applaud the fact that you've proposed a hypothesis that is falsificatable (can be proven to be wrong).
Prehaps someone should run the test to see wether you are right.

[Jason Dumler]

Does it still count if the rats choose mates that will generally create offspring with longer snouts? Would they have to kill the ones with shorter snouts...or otherwise deprive them of food?

[Courtney B]

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2835283.html

[Gustaf Sjoblom]

One could try to rework your hypothesis to "it would be an evolutionary benefit to be able to get offspring that matches your desires". This is 100% correct, it would be a HUGE advantage. So big an advantage in fact that if it had ever happened the species able to do it would utterly dominate earth. I think we can therefor relatively safely conclude that it has never happened.

[Kevin Kunreuther]

1.)Invite Ben Stein to present the next topic concerning evolution, intelligent design, free will, etc. I'm sure that'll be a very busy day on the blog.
2.)PDB posted:"The rat experiment sounds good, but you'd have to do it for centuries if not millennia to get some results."
Boy, did you get that wrong. First rats, breed year round. Two, one pair of rats can produce up to 14,000 babies a year. Three, it wouldn't even take decades, probably three to seven years when meaningful measurable, and most important, repeatable results can be produced.

[latsot]

Those of you suggesting that Scott's proposal is similar to sexual selection are confused. Sexual selection leads to traits - possibly even otherwise maladaptive traits - because those traits are selected for, not because 'desire' for those traits (fancier tail, for example) results in increased tail fanciness in offspring.

The difference between sexual and natural selection is really just a level of indirection: reproductive success and the heritability of traits depends on increasing the liklihood or frequency of sexual encounters, rather than on surviving long enough to have offspring.

It is acceptable to use the teleological view of organisms 'desiring' those traits in their mates (and offspring), but only if you don't take it literally, but use it as a euphamism for reproductive success. The traits themselves might be a kind of expression of fitness, as some people here have said (only a really first rate peacock can survive despite the enormous tail he carts about) or they might be arbitrary. All that's needed is for the genes coding for the trait in one sex are coupled with the genes coding for desiring that trait in the other, so they are both inherited.

[Simon Jester]

Occam's razor says "no" is the most likely answer.

[Marklar]

"Ooh, look at that long-nosed fella over there Mildrid, he can reach the cheese. I think I'll have his babies".

[latsot]

Scott,

I don't think you can possibly have thought deeply about the mechanism you propose. It seems orders of magnitude more complex than anything else we have seen in biology. You are suggesting that all kinds of environmental stress is translated into a specific response within the body, specifically denoting that type of stress and that this response is then translated into specific adaptations in offspring, which happen to code for the very thing that would reduce that stress in the offspring, presumably either by modifying sex cells or some jiggery pokery with the developmental environment in the womb, without also leading to any other undesirable changes.

This would be quite a feat. As many have pointed out, 'desires' are highly abstract things. If the mouse can't reach the cheese, in what sense does it 'desire' to have a longer nose so that it can? In other words, where does the information that a longer nose would help get more cheese come from? It seems unlikely that the mouse could draw this conclusion, let alone its genes.

Even if every type of desire could be codified by some set of body responses, where would the information about how to attain those desires come from? Wouldn't it be highly context dependent? If the cheese is up high, might not longer legs or neck be an equally valid solution?

The mechainism is an unfathomably complex one with enormous engineering difficulties, but this doesn't necessarily rule it out as a possible mechanism of evolution.

However, it is also necessary to ask how such a mechanism might evolve by natural selection. The problem is that the mechanism is not directly exposed to natural selection. Although we can see with hindsight that such a mechanism might be useful for survival, natural selection doesn't work like that. In other words, the ability to flexibly respond to an environment through directed changes in the next generation does not seem like something that could be selected for, except possibly under very contrived circumstances.

For this reason, I suspect it is impossible (or at least vanishingly unlikely) for this type of mechanism to evolve by natural selection.

[Alex Andronov]

The problem with this is simply that it ignores why evolution occurs at the microscopic level. I mean in traditional evolution bactiria and humans evolve in the same way. But unless bacteria have brains I've missed you'll need a theory for that too.

[Brendan Mackie]

Isn't the giraffe's long neck a product of sexual selection? Male giraffes compete for females by neck-butting each other. Those with longer necks are better at it. Which is why the females have shorter necks. The feeding habits have pretty much nothing to do about it.

And yeah, anything is possible. But... do you have proof? I reckon natural selection has more explanatory power than aspirational selection. Is there evidence of this happening? A mechanism?

[Dinky mcbutthose]

I might agree with ou except then i would go to hell. God made long necks and anteater snouts and small penised cartoon monkies.

debate over.

[frances a.]

I'm no sociologist but it seems to me you could test your hypothesis on humans, albeit with a strictly observational study. Have a group of pregnant women document their personal situations, dreams, aspirations, goals, intentions, wishes, desires, et cetera throughout their pregnancy, then observe their off-spring throughout their respective lives to see how they turn out and whether any of their mothers' aspirations, wishes, desires, et cetera manifest, while allowing for parenting techniques, environment, and all that jazz. No idea about a control group, though, unless you used test tube babies. Can we even grow human babies in a lab without a borrowing a womb for ~9 months yet? (Or perhaps you could swap a few infants in the baby room at the hospital. Ethics regulations would probably get in the way there, though.)

Granted, this would take several decades for a big enough picture, but that's a great deal shorter than the millennia previous posters have suggested.

[Daniel]

Your rat experiment is flawed. There is an evolutionary explanation for the behaviour that you say would prove your theory: Rats who mutated longer snouts could get the cheese and have more spare time to have babies that would have long snouts.

[KD]

This would be really hard to test, much less prevent unintended consequences. Take the gender issue. Diet might help you have one gender, but if the mother is really stressed, she's more likely to have a girl or a miscarriage.

Or take your long neck theory. We'd be talking about not only a longer neck, but also internal changes that would have to occur simotaniously. (I butchered that one) In order to get his neck that high, he'd also have to have the heart and blood vessals as well. Likewise it'd have to occur slowly where the animals needed to have longer necks for some reason and not too fast where a sudden lack of necklength is going to kill you.

The trick to it would have to be is if the males (or any female animal that can produce new eggs on demand, something human females can't do) had some way of recording their current events in their reproductive materials such that their genetic info would tend to carry the best codes for the situation.

I think it would be a great way to change your genetic code on demand, however gender tendancies of birth are another matter. In several species, enviromental changes effect gender. In humans this works by in which the female's body is producing conditions more or less favorable to one gender of sperm or embryo.

[Jonny]

I like your theory Scott, but have 1 question.( & then other, subsequent questions)

How did this theory apply before animals had evolved brains? Did they aspire to grow brains and therefore get them? Indeed, can creatures without brains aspire to be anything?

[Steve]

Ignorance is not bliss.

The Teaching Company www.teach12.com has an awesome biology course. There are 72 thirty minute lectures but lectures 4 through 11 will teach you what you need to know about microbiology so you won't be embarrassing yourself by making wild ass guesses. Why go through life stupid when the cure is so easy.

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=1500&pc=Science%20and%20Mathematics

[aaron]

Of course it does because aspirations will influence the social groups you mix with and what kind of mate you choose.

Most mammals are probably smart enough that this could apply to them to a small but statistically significant degree with out needing to evolve a new mate selection strategy. But of course anything non-mammalian wouldn't be smart enough so we could rule out the influence of aspiration.

[Dom P]

Giraffes have long necks because they have long legs. Their necks are proportional.

If you have long legs, you need a long neck (or a trunk) so that you can drink without kneeling.

Baby giraffes would be in trouble if they needed to access high-up food. Hardly an evolutionary advantage.

[Annie]

I've theorised myself a version of this that happens in- utero, after reading an article that describes the synapse-pruning in the brain of a foetus in the few months before birth.
As far as I know, little is known about what causes particular synapses to be pruned, as within a womb evironmental conditions would assumingly be of little influence.
Clearly we're getting beyond current scientific theory if we are going to talk about 'desires' or 'energies' of the mother influencing the development of the foetus..but it doesn't seem that much of a stretch in my mind, at least anything over 'chance' should be explored.
I am particularly interested in how the synaptic connections are formed in the first place - does a foetus have a physical 'memory' of sorts that develops in the early months, only to get 'fixed'or 'formed' through the will of the mother?

[Mark]

MISCONCEPTION WATCH:

People who study the natural history of giraffes have observed that they don't really eat from just high up in the trees. More often, rather, they eat from the lower limbs.

So why the long necks? They're actually secondary sex traits (e.g., tails of male peackocks, antlers/horns, male lion manes, and German cars).

Females giraffes choose mates with long necks for the same reason female birds choose males with pretty colors - these animals can survive, are tough, and good providers, because they can take care of themselves AND avoid death due to bad camouflage or pretentiousness (German cars).

Male giraffes even use their necks to wrestle one another in direct competition to mate with females. This also explains why females have shorter necks, similar to female birds having drab colors, and female lions lacking manes (females don't compete for the attention of males, rather choose the biggest, fastest, best singers, or ones with the most endurance). If only we could get German car drivers to smash into one another like big horn rams to gain the acceptance of the opposite sex. I'd pay to watch that.

[Mark]

MISCONCEPTION WATCH:

People who study the natural history of giraffes have observed that they don't really eat from just high up in the trees. More often, rather, they eat from the lower limbs.

So why the long necks? They're actually secondary sex traits (e.g., tails of male peackocks, antlers/horns, male lion manes, and German cars).

Females giraffes choose mates with long necks for the same reason female birds choose males with pretty colors - these animals can survive, are tough, and good providers, because they can take care of themselves AND avoid death due to bad camouflage or pretentiousness (German cars).

Male giraffes even use their necks to wrestle one another in direct competition to mate with females. This also explains why females have shorter necks, similar to female birds having drab colors, and female lions lacking manes (females don't compete for the attention of males, rather choose the biggest, fastest, best singers, or ones with the most endurance). If only we could get German car drivers to smash into one another like big horn rams to gain the acceptance of the opposite sex. I'd pay to watch that.

[Peter Payne]

I got it. Another "aspirations" post.

[Chris Marshall]

Well, the rats would probably be embittered, and this resentment would influence their child-rearing. That is what we see in humans.

What difference does it make whether a biochemical mediator is involved? Do you have a "particle fetish"?

[Dave]

The way I see it, (sorry if it has been repeated already since this is the most logical reason) is that the giraffe has no (sub/super/other)concious choice in determining whether the offspring has a longer or shorter neck. It is just that giraffes with longer necks are able to reach the tree which just so happen to have leaves high in the air. Other thousands of iterations the ones that could not reach high up in the air die off to starvation, and the ones that can reach survive, by simple evolution. Looking at one individual states as you are doing is just a single realisation of the quantum multitude of actual occurances whether they be parallel or sequentially in time. Reasoning that an animal has a choice on what their offsprings genes will be is just viewing from a limited perspective not taking into account the infinite randomness of giraffes with different length necks, in an almost constant evolving state. This way it will seem that you always see the giraffe which evolved with a long neck, but you never see the giraffe with the short neck. If you could travel back in time then you could be able to view the mutations of different animals as we see them today.

[Doug]

Boooooooooooooooooring

where are the funnies?

[Fred]

What you're talking about is approximately what Lamark defended. You talk about aspirations, but if you give an example about rat's trying to reach cheese, it goes the same way as he did. He just included the aspirations in all the thrives that move evolution, and not independently.
Anyway, there are is also a theory that mixes Lamarkism and Genetics (neo-lamarkism), but it hasn't much supporters.
I think it's not an illogic idea, and I think that it may have some influence somewhere. Even though it goes against your theory that we are moist robots, therefore we choose nothing about our or others evolution! =p

[Dan See]

I'm sorry, but this is the most insufferable piece of bullshit I've ever read from you. Lamark's theory makes more sense than yours, and he was wrong. What does that say about your theory? I rest my case.

[Miguel]

I can't believe no one has said it already (or maybe someone did and I didn't pay attention): What is it that makes us 'wish' for something? Maybe long ago our ancestors wished that they could wish for stuff... :D

[Travesti]

Interesting...

[Brad K]

Environmental factors don't affect the gender of a given fetus. They affect the likelihood that a male fetus or female fetus will persists and develop.

[TCC]

It is insofar unlikely as the body does not have the knowledge what genes might effect which phenotype (e.g. body parts) and also how. It would not only require some kind of metainformation regarding the whole genetic material and its regulation(because a longer snout would not be cause my a mere mutation of a snout gene but it would require fiddling with whole network of genes involved in body development), but even worse it would also require predictive powers (what to tweak to get desired results).
I suppose if something like this was possible the labrats would have all grown poisonous fangs and attacked the experimentators by now ;)

However, there are e mechanisms known to effect the genetic material of the offspring, depending on what the parents experience. This mostly done via an error-prone repair/replication system resulting in the enhancement of replication errors and therefore an increase in mutation rate (this in turn might result in a longer snout, but it may also just change fur colour, or nothing at all). The result by itself is not directed as the scenario outlined in the blog, though. Another possibility would be epigenetic modification of the DNA passed on to the offspring (which has mostly regulatory influences).

[Medical ,Engineering , Web Design Forums]

thanks

[Laurence Boyce]

Scott, notwithstanding your update about Lamark, your post really does suggest what I have long suspected - namely that you don't really understand evolution. You say, "I wonder if a creature's aspirations can somehow have an impact on what her genes pass to the next generation." The point is that absolutely NOTHING can have an impact on what genes are passed to the next generation. Your genes are immutable. Either find and read a good book on evolution, or stay off the topic because it's always embarrassing.

[Azi]

Joel Coehoorn: You say that there hasn't been enough time for the speciation we see to have evolved... what do you base this on? We have no comparative sample. It may turn out that our rate of evolution is embarassingly slow and the aliens keep flying past to see if we're actually getting anywhere yet.

But seriously folks, please stop using the term "Survival of the Fittest." It was coined by a self-promoting guy that liked Darwin's work and has a negative, and incorrect, implication that there is some kind of winners ladder that all species are trying to climb. That's just wrong. Evolution has got nothing to do with "continuous improvement", it's merely about adaptation to a changing environment. A lot of the counter-arguments for evolution are based on the "survival of the fittest" spin, and they score points because they are arguing the wrong thing (a bit like Scott's continuous assertion of cognitive disonance when people argue his posts).

[Ken]

Sooo.. I have no control over what I want for dinner or whether or not I pick up a spoon or not.. but I have control over the traits my kids may have? That would mean, while I have no free will.. I wish I did.... but then.. my kids would have it... so, if one of my ancestors wished they had it then I might already have it! Maybe, Scott is the only person in the world who DOESN'T have free will because his robots never got programed to wish THEY had it.

... and maybe Obama sat in church for 20 years and never heard one word the preacher said..... hmmmm... hope.. it's rubbish.

Ken

[Nightmare]

This sort of reminds me of RPG games, where as you level up you put points on stats. Some games even get you bonuses when you reach a certain level at a given stat.

Weirdly enough, it has to do with the idea you'd been stating about living in a computer. What if it's the way of the program to make us "level up"?

[Richard]

A female mammal's egg cells are formed before birth. The ovaries just preserve them and no new ones are formed during her lifertime. All genetic selections for her future offspring are made in the womb, long before she is conscious or has aspirations. If your theory is right, then only the aspirations of males will have effect on their children. Females are out of luck and have to rely on regular evolution.

[Azi]

Scott: Evolution was developed as a theory a long time before genetics were discovered. Genetics provided a base-line mechanism for evolution, explaining how the process is carried out. Research shows, however, that genes alone are not the only determining factors (I urge you to read the most excellent "Darwin's Watch" by Terry Pratchett and others. Easy read, insightful and funny). If your idea of aspiration-boosted development were to be true, it wouldn't contradict the theory of evolution, only add to our understanding of the mechanism behind it.

[burt]

mr adams i dont think it works like that. im sure some idiot tried this 500 years a go. an idea like this is bound to have been tried.

also did it occur to you that the rats are all surviving so darwin wont work? yes you did, which means that it explains intelligient desgin to.

Burt (unqualified to speak) truB

[Tanya G]

What an interesting question. I do know that after I had become an actress in my early twenties, I discovered that my father always wanted to be one - um actor, not actress (although he does a mean Diana Ross impression). This could have been an environmental influence though. His personality and interests could have somehow shaped my own?

lostandloster.blogspot.com/

[Wil]

So, the issue is that your child's gender probability has been correlated with your food intake, rather than your desires, so you'd have to set up a test to even see if desires play a role. How can you set up an experiment?

Ask couples who are trying but do not yet have kids what gender of child they want. Come back after 1 year, and check, among those who had kids, which were the gender their child is. Weight their preferences for all the demographic traits you can think of, and see if anything is left over. If so, you're either forgetting something, or you've confirmed your theory. Time will tell.

But why go that far? After all, we've already got sexual selection. When many animals of one species desire trait Z in a mate, then trait Z will (all other things being equal) be present in higher proportions in future generations. As well as the trait for desiring trait Z. But only if the combination of trait Z and the desire for trait Z put together are more likely to result in successful offspring than indifference to trait Z combined with no trait Z.

Sexual selection kind of moves it out to second-order evolution, and same goes for your desire theory. If there's a gene Q that makes desiring trait Z more likely for trait Z to get passed on to descendants, then gene Q will flourish only if that desire is a likely predictor of the success of trait Z in the next generation.

-Wil

[jeff]

why are men so obsessed with penis size? if it's because the woman cares, great.

"oh, you didn't like it? i'm sorry.....so does this mean i don't have to call tomorrow? wonderful."

it's all about my release....i'm done and i'm sleepy. night, night......

[Sincere]

if the theory was true, men would have huge penises by now...

[OlsonBW]

I don't think it works the way that Scott is suggesting.

The way I think it works is this.

You want your children to have longer necks, you pick out a mating partner with the longest neck that you can attract and mate with them. This, odds wise, is most likely to cause your children to have longer necks.

As far as female giraffes, apparently most male giraffes like the females a little shorter than themselves. This seems to be true in humans too.

Note: Most does not mean all.

I think it is as simple as that. Each male and female looks for mates with traits that they like and mates with them.

[Andrew]

Sorry Scott...I replied earlier, but I had a cubical thought as I was working. A change in one genome can be passed on to the next generation even if it is "willed". Here is a Lamarckian principle that I think applies. If a person wants to get tan, they stay out in the sun...the body protects the skin nucleus by chaning the tone of the skin cell...well that sometimes goes too far and the radiation gets inside the cell...and you get cancer. I read a report the other day that said that propensity for skin cancer is hereditary. The propensity mind you...not the acutal skin cancer. Isn't this an example of a Lamarckian principle where one person's desire can have genetic mutationous effect?

Also, if you look at viruses and other soma genes you will see Lamarckian priciples all over the place...Mutations in one generation to an environment are passed on to the kids...even if those changes happen mid-stream in the life of the virus...not one that was "born" that way.

Also, in relation to addiciton agagin...caffene can replace thymine in some mutations that slip past the checking enzymes...hence one environmental mutation based on desire, more energy at work, results in a viable mutated offspring that will persist.

[RJ]

It's unclear to me how this theory is compatible with your other theory that free will does not exist. What does the term "desire" mean to someone who does not believe in free will?

[Bloodboiler]

Considering that we still don't fully know how genes work, your idea may not be impossible. As far as I know, current understanding of genes is that although there are genes with specific effects, most traits emerge as complex interaction of multiple genes. What ends up in the egg is not everything. Even clones that are supposed to be identical may end up slightly different because genes simply do not strictly determine everything (I've heard that pet cloning companies explain this to clients beforehand to avoid complaints).

It doesn't seem impossible to me that carrying mother could in small way affect the way genes interact in the fetus. I doubt it would be as specific as determining snout length, but It could be more generic such as more suitable overall body proportions or improved intelligence for solving frustrating problems. If mothers could even slightly push offspring's genes to interact in a way that produces some traits, those traits would become prominent in the gene pool over time.

[LA Clay]

This also reminds me why an Elephant has four feet. 18" just ain't enough!

[LA Clay]

Did you know that in nature, mammals when overpopulating, produce a higher numbers of homosexuals. This has been observed in bears, deer and other mammals, it naturally thins the herd.

I think it an interesting sidebar to your point

[Jesse]

The woman has no control over the sex of the baby. Eggs have only the X chromosome; sperm has either X or Y.

You could argue that a man would make more of X or Y sperm cells based on certain factors. The sperm cells are out of the woman's control, and once the woman is pregnant, it's over and done with, so her activities after fertilization are irrelevant to the sex of the baby.

[Jody]

FWIW, there is a documented interaction between culture and evolution. Basically, if the culture values some trait, you will tend get more of it over time.

For something closer, when you don't mind abandoning babies and what you're "aspiring" to is pretty obvious, you can get exactly what you want out of your offspring. See China now (excess males) or Sparta wayback when (abandoning sickly babies).

[Jason]

This is a competing explanation of evolution, which we were taught in freshman biology was discredited. But I ask you this, why would the short necked giraffes die off? Plenty of short necked creatures also survived and didn't have to deal with the disadvantages of a long neck. And if a long neck was such an overwhelming advantage, why has no other creature developed it? We know of 4 separate cases where creatures developed duck bills independently of each other. And that can't be nearly as useful as a long neck. The only way I can see a giraffe coming to be according to standard evolution theory, is some case where most of food was up high and one Giraffes accidentally had a long neck. Which means evolutions happens when something accidentally happens that allows it to survive in an otherwise futile situation. Otherwise nerdy kids would be getting all the girls these days.

[Angus McRoid]

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Angus

[DB]

Is parthenogenesis an example of changing genetic structure by wishing?

Hammerhead Shark Gave "Virgin Birth" in Omaha Zoo

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070524-shark-virgin.html

[Chris Tann, LAWNMOWER MAN]

Scott,

SPOT ON!!!!

I have been playing around with this hypothesis for some time - that desire is actually a part of the evolutionary mechanism. And, I have an explanation for the physical process too. Hold onto your hats, its going to get crazy... but I think I have a unified hypothesis that explains intelligent design, evolution, and a lot of other crazy stuff.

I first started thinking about this when considering the difference between men and women (well, _one_ of the differences!). Men produce millions of sperms a day, where as women have a fixed number of ovum, and drop off one a month. That seems to be a huge disparity in scale, and I wondered what on earth could have pushed for that evolutionary trait.

Next, I considered the structure of the male plumbing - miles of vas-deferens, epididymus's, and assorted plumbing. It all seemed a little over-complicated for a relatively simple task.

[There is also some consideration here of a certain act that males seem to find strangely appealing. I won't go into too many details in this public forum, but the upshot is one of bringing a woman's brains into close proximity to the plumbing...].

And then it struck me - I knew where I had seem a similar structure to all that plumbing - a radio antenna!

So, what if that is the answer. We know that brains radiate all sort of electro/magnetic patterns. And males are equiped with what may well be a very good receptor for such radiation. Viola, the link. Intelligent design is right, but we are the intelligence. Evolution is right, with the addition that we can evolve into what we imagine.

Do I win a prize? :->

Chris Tann, LAWNMOWER MAN

[Scott Scheule]

Actually, from what I can tell, the traditional story about giraffe's neck evolution is wrong. Turns out, it evolved as a means for males to do battle.

See, e.g.,

http://www.whyevolution.com/giraffe.html

and

http://www1.pacific.edu/~e-buhals/GIRAFFE2.htm

[JJ]

"Recently I read that certain environmental conditions can increase the odds that women will give birth to boys"

The sex of a child is determined, at conception, and by the chromosome (X or Y) the MALE passes. The research was bullshit on the face of it.

[Blee]

So, which is it? People have free will and may be able to change not only their minds but their growth, or they don't have free will in which case even their desire the change would still be a part of genetic selection....

[RavenBlack]

1. Chemicals can alter genetics.

2. Thoughts can alter brain chemistry and, less directly, chemistry elsewhere in the system - try thinking of hot naked chicks; an erection is caused by an increase in a chemical which is a vasodilator (or constrictor). And ended by an increase in another chemical which removes that first chemical.

Hence 3. It is plausible that thoughts can alter genetics.

[John]

Not getting any work done today....Thanks, Scott!

Going off of what Francisco said, I wonder if our big brains are more-or-less the kind of thing you're talking about, Scott. I don't mean in the sense that our brains can literally transform the DNA within us, but we certainly know a lot about DNA, and have successfully manipulated it in several species before. We already have the ability to manipulate the genes of our offspring by being able to terminate pregnancies that either genetically or phenotypically show signs of malformation. And from what I understand, we're not far off from being able to build DNA however we choose.

Moreover, we have the fascinating ability to augment our abilities with tool usage - we've enormously expanded our natural abilities by inventing spears, wheels, engines, cars, planes, computers, etc. That's resulted in much more rapid progress than I expect any sort of DNA telekenesis would have. Plus it's probably way simpler to evolve while producing similar advantages.

[Dave]

I think its worth a shot. As for other cool-ass rat experiments regarding behaviour and genetics... I think this one in Siberia takes the cake

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/health/25rats.html

[Mr. Wampus]

So, creatures evolve because they want to? I guess that makes sense. That explains a lot about ultra conservatives. They don't believe in evolution, therefore...

[carfree since '93]

Suppose a woman desires to be a ballerina, but circumstances don't allow it. She has a child that later becomes a ballerina. I'd say their genes were pretty well matched. Just because the mother didn't attain her dream, doesn't mean she wasn't genetically primed for it. Else why would she desire it in the first place? Desiring different body part? That's another issue, that won't be passed on to the next generation.

The entire post seems to argue against your free will stance, as well. Our genes control us, not the other way around. They decide what we desire.

CFS'93

[andrew]

Consider this Scott. Men's desire for a large sex organ is almost universal but it still remains that a large portion of men do not have this. I suppose you could test to see if the average size is increasing but I would bet that it isn't.

[Speak for yourself. -- Scott]

[BaltimoreGal]

I am extremely dubious about the study that shows that "certain environmental conditions can increase the odds that women will give birth to boys". This study suggests a link between higher energy intake around the time of conception and the birth of sons but I think it's rather tenuous. It is from Oxford which is a good start, but only tracked 740 women and the dietary data is self-reported. Plus there was only a 5-10% difference which is not terribly significant. I'll wait to see more studies before I believe that the sex is not determined by the sperm that ends up fertilizing the egg.

[Skyy]

I immediately thought of the following quote from the movie spoof "Murder by Death". Just substitute "Adams" for "Charleston".

Sidney Wang: Very interesting theory, Mr. Charleston. However, leave out one important point.
Dick Charleston: What's that?
Sidney Wang: Is stupid. Is stupidest theory I ever heard.

[Alicorn]

The people making comments about penis size might be interested to know that human males have - by far - the proportionately largest penises compared to other ape species. It's in "The Third Ape" by Jared Diamond.

[John]

@Paki: "It can't be that smaller snout rat dies, and the longer one survives. It would seem logical for such 'tendencies' to be 'suggested' by something in our subconsciousness or chemistry as you say."

You don't know what you're talking about. "It can't be"? Well, sorry, it is. If a longer snout is more useful for the production of offspring, then the animal with the longer snout is more likely to produce offspring, and those offspring will probably have longer snouts. It's not going to happen in a single generation, but throw some mice in a cage, make their food hard to reach, and leave them be for 100 years, and the average snout length of the population will probably have gone up, assuming that the food isn't so hard to reach that they die off.

"There is so much we don't know. But what worries me is that most academics and research departments are not thinking 'out of the box' as much as they should."

What do you know about any academics or research departments? Did you skim the abstracts of one single peer-reviewed science journal before you stated that, or did you just plain make it up? The researchers that I'm aware of (which admittedly is limited to a small subset of the ones with blogs) are pretty well aware of the limitations of human knowledge, and know enough about the history of science to know that the research innovation is required for filling in the gaps. Even an armchair scientist like myself knows that some of the biggest discoveries in science were either accidental, or considered bonkers in the context of their status quo.

@Scott: I'm extremely skeptical of your hypothesis. It's a pretty giant leap from "the power of postive thinking" to "molding DNA with mind powers". Nevertheless, if such a mechanism were discovered, it would sort of have to fit into the framework of natural selection, wouldn't it? That is to say, being able to mold our own DNA would have to be somehow beneficial to our descendants ability to procreate. Considering how irrational us humans can be, I can't see how wielding that kind of ability would be advantageous.

[Francisco Passos]

In short: yes, it is possible that by chance, the chemical alterations produced by desiring something would ultimately repercute in gene mutations that would transmit to your children a higher influence of attaining your goals in the first place.

In not so short: mutations are infrequent; the chance of your desires producing chemical changes which would originate mutations is very low (and by very I mean extremely); and finally, the chance that the produced mutation would target exactly the individual characteristics more suitable for reaching your goal is as insanely unlikely as we can imagine.

But in a universe with at least billions of creatures and within a long enough time-frame I can imagine that happening. Furthermore, I could very well imagine that becoming a favoured gene in the genetic pool if it were ever to arise - it would allow populations to adapt to dramatic changes in only one generation's time.

I'd say we're not there yet nor will we be in any sort of time-frame less than midboggingly long. But I know nothing of genetics, so I'll leave it at that

[Ric]

So...are you saying you have some sort of control over the computer program already running your life....or were you programmed from the beginning to think this...and thus believe you had control when in fact it was already pre-determined?

[RobAtl]

A very similar thing has been shown recently in hyenas. (See a recent Smithsonian Magazine Article at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/hyena.html?c=y&page=1) From what I can remember, the hyenas are matriarchic and the leader produces larger amounts of testosterone than other members of the group. Thus, this hyena's children will be exposed to higher levels of testosterone in the womb and will be born more aggressive, making it more likely that they will be the leader of the pack (or at least increased social status). Over time, this “aspiration” to be leader, manifested by (and caused by) high levels of testosterone, is passed on through the female lines.

[Jason]

Speaking of Giraffes, did you know that female Giraffes average 1-2 feet shorter then males? This of course makes it more difficult to reach the higher leaves. I guess they didn't want them as much. This survival disadvantage is the primary reason there are not female giraffes today.

[Hmm...]

Assume that some strange mutation causes an organism's aspirations to control which chromosomes are "chosen" in the formation of its sex cells. Such a mutation can be an evolutionary success if and only if the aspirations increase its chances of survival (improving longevity/fecundity).

The bottom line is whether the mutation itself is stable as per basic theory of evolution. So, you just can't beat the basic theory of evolution. It is like the meta-rule which controls the other rules. That is how powerful it is.

[jackjumper]

Did you read the recent case of very rapid evolution among lizards? This is cool. I bet they wanted to change pretty badly

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417112433.htm

[BoscoH]

Scott, This reminds of the joke where the guy asks the genie if he can be "white, up tight, and outa sight". So the genie turns him into a tampon. But seriously, of course this works. Your evidence is all the short, fat, bald accountants walking around.

[Joel]

I'm sure someone else already pointed this out, but the study didn't show genetic modification to the embryos. It was about creating an environment better suited for male or female embryos to be successfully implanted and gestated.

That being said, I still vote we go ahead with your experiment.

[letra]

Genes change over a person's lifetime. It's been tested and confirmed.
What you get from your parents isn't what you pass on. It changes during your life, according to the way you live it.
And at the time of conception, your genes will have to fight with the other parent's genes. If this is not evolution, then I don't know what is. :)

You theory is right, since body chemistry influences changes in the genome. There's just nothing new to it.

[LA Clay]

I believe it is so and I am the proof! I loved yo-yos as a kid (remember the late 60's?) and now my son is #2 in California! (yes it's still a professional sport). As to my love of Music and Art, his band and art carrer are progressing just fine!

I think I'll work on world domination for the next brood.

[rita mae]

#1 -- Billy Arvia
#2 -- Rita Mae

That's the way, uh-huh-uh-huh I like it, uh-huh-uh-huh, that's the way, uh-huh-uh-huh I like it, uh-huh. Sound like a song?

I have got to get a frickin' life.

Rita Mae

[Big Al]

From a strict evolutionary perspective, I think it more likely that animals seek to mate with those that have the traits they desire for their offspring. In other words, if I want kids with long snouts, I would seek a long-snouted mate.

It breaks down in our current human society, where there is not a lot of discrimination in the selection of mating partners, especially after adding a little alcohol to the equation...

[Emily Z]

Epigenetics: changes in gene expression that are stable over rounds of cell division, and sometimes between generations. Recent studies have shown that certain behaviors are linked to epigenetic changes. I think you would enjoy reading Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem.

[Joe]

My dad really, really wanted to be a great baseball player. He sucked. I suck, too. We're both really good at math, and we tend to make very photogenic turds.

[Dave]

Sound theory. But if this were true, I believe the males in my family, over time, would have increasingly larger reproductive 'members'. I can prove otherwise.

[Aardwizz]

Scott:

You didn't go far enough.

Premise: Thoughts can affect one's own body chemistry.

But one own thoughts can also affect another's thoughts, or even a pack's thoughts; c.f. "Mob mentality".

As Heisenberg showed, the observer cannot be separated from the observed. His cat is only alive or dead when you look.

This explains why clinical trial funded by the tobacco industry shows that smoking is OK, while studies funded by people who've lost family members to lung cancer shows that cigarettes kill.

So your experiment would have to be done twice: once by "pro-evolution" researchers, and once by "creationists".

It would be interesting if they produce different results.

========

The experiment will be tricky to pull off. In order to pass on traits, the critter needs to survive.
- If the cheese is out of reach, then the critter dies.
- If the cheese in in reach, then the critter doesn't desire a trait to reach the cheese.

So there will have to be some cheese in reach, just enough to keep rats alive, but barely, so that they'll reproduce. But more out of reach to create desire to "want something better for their kids".

This shows why it will be important to conduct the parallel experiment on the experimenters. "Experimental Technique" between the two groups of researchers can easily skew the results. Hidden cameras will be required.

========

The flaw in the experiment is that, if the rats fail to develop a longer snout, or arms, or telekinetic powers, is that you don't know for sure what the rat was desiring, so the the experiment is inconclusive. It may be that the rats were thinking, "Gee, there's only a little bit a cheese available. I wish I wasn't so hungry all the time" and you wind up with low-metabolism rats.

Therefore, while you might be able to use this experiment to prove that a need for a longer snout creates a longer snout, you don't prove that changes aren't caused by needs.

©¿©¬
(dancing monkey)

[Fabio FZero]

So, if I wish really, really hard, would you return the Dilbert site to the old layout?

Again: EVERYBODY HATES THE NEW DILBERT SITE. Read the comments.

[Arun]

"...Someone probably tested that already in fruit flies or something..."
.. & then came dragonflies... ;)

[Rolf Marvin Bøe Lindgren]

Let’s stipulate for this conversation that everything the experts say about evolution is true. Creatures that are the most successful at reproducing pass their traits to the next generation, and so on.

This is not what the experts say.

Traits are not passed on. Genes are. But it's traits that have heritability, not genes.

You seem to understand evolution at a managerial level.

[Phillip J. Eby]

There's something *almost* like this. It's called sexual selection: animals (and people) select mates based on "desirable" traits.

But "intention" still has nothing to do with it. As you've pointed out, even humans have trouble manifesting intentions in their *own* lifetimes...

[Jean]

Hi Scott

If your theory was true, there would be only boys in China.

[Nathan]

I've wondered about this too. This is quite different from Lamarckism (I think) that some people have suggested. It's not passing on acquired characteristics, it's having kids that are more likely to have suited characteristics.

I remeber reading about someone who tried to prove Scott's theory with frogs. Putting green frogs is a yellow aquarium and seeing if the offspring were more likely to be yellow. As I recall he was discredited for falsifying some of his findings. that doesn't mean he was completely wrong though. I think someone should try this.

[Francesco Orsenigo]

How would your idea work with creatures that are unlikely to have aspirations? Let's say plants.
How could we be able to make selective breeding?

The theory is nice but applies to a very limited range of creatures and mutations, it could side evolution, but not work alone.

You want this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Lamarck
Lamarck was a great scientist and did a great job, but his theory was eventually surpassed, as often happens in science.

Evolution is the only theory so far that explains the imperfections of living creatures (like a rabbit requiring to eat its own dung!), that's why is yet unsurpassed.

[Andrew Denny]

I can see you are going to work this into a Dilbert strip very soon! I wonder if Wally will soon aspire to looking coffee-coloured, like Asok.

[Robert]

While it doesn't seem likely that just wanting to have a longer snout or neck could affect your child's genes in a sense it can. Sexual selection can make this happen. If every creature wants this trait and it's known then females (or males depending on how mates are chosen) can begin selecting sexual partners based on this trait. Matt Ridley wrote a book about this call The Red Queen.
Basically it goes, it becomes sexy to have a long neck because you're getting more food and the female see this as an advantage for her children that you'll be raising with her. Peacocks are often used as an example because they select on who has the best tail only because it indicates how well you can feed your self. Everybody wants the tail and then the guy with the best tail gets laid. It's similar to what you're suggesting.
The deal is the entire community has to see this as a positive trait and there has to be marginal gains to reinforce the selection. Your rat idea might not work out because there aren't any marginal gains. I would definitely suggest reading The Red Queen though.

[D. Mented]

Things that make ya go "hmmmmmmmm"
I'd like to see a study like that. I believe reality is somewhat malleable, especially when there are groups thinking the same thing (I WANT those leaves up there!)as opposed to one individual.
For that reason, I hope I'm not the only one that imagines truckloads of food, seed grain, and other necessities arriving, leading to great harvests the next year, whenever I hear about more food shortages - if it can exist in mindspace, maybe it can exist in realspace (and the expiriment is free, so why not?)
Sadly, I think you're right about yeaterday's topic; all the Democrats had to do was nominate Edwards, and they were guarunteed to win. The press chose to attack his haircut 'till people voted against him just to get him off their television screens. Now if they show anything at all about Clinton, it's something negative, and they skip right over some scary stuff about Obama. (the second half of the "bitterness remark" was that concerns about unregulated trade and immigration are based solely on prejudice. If he's that unable to see the effect unregulated trade and immigration have had on our economy, he's really not fit to be president. But nobody is going to comment on that, even on late night cable)
We're doomed no matter which flavor of crap we elect.
D. Mented

[Phil]

Your mention of long-necked giraffes reminds me of two remote tribes that have women wearing rings around their necks, the Ndebele tribe of South Africa and the Pa Dong (a small minority of the Red Karen tribe in Burma). Wouldn't you think that, if your posit is true, each successive generation would have longer necks without the need to use the rings to stretch them?

[spoilsport engineer]

In your search for the perfect cocktail-party theory, you are probably approaching a local optimum. The problem with Lamarckian genetics is that you can get suggestive results that aren't sufficiently rigorous to convince anyone. Only the establishment of a molecular basis for evolution by Crick and Watson really discredited Lamarckian genetics, and there are still situations (in bacteria, which are hardly self-aware) where Lamarckian genetics may be a valid model.

Your experiment would be hard to actually perform. You'd have to separate people who aspired to be weight lifters because they were already muscular and fit from those who just wanted it, so as to control for purely chemical influences, or genetic predisposition.

You'd have to prove in any animal experiment that the subjects were sufficiently self-aware to aspire. This almost certainly lets out mice and giraffes, but maybe not all animals.

[dan]

I find it interesting how the majority of the posts state that Scotts theory is wrong because men don't have larger dicks.

Wishing for a larger penis hasn't necessarily been been something humans wanted for the last large number of generations.

In many species, it is mostly the dominant male that gets to mate with all the females around. Clearly for these species wishing for bigger muscles/body so you could be the dominant male and have all the females is a better strategy then wishing for a larger penis.
How would you know weather they were wishing to be bigger to get the females or because the bigger males did the majority of reproducing you ended up with bigger/stronger animals.

THAT is what Scott is trying to suggest. That IF wishing for a trait increased the chances of passing that trait to your offspring, the result would look the same as evolution as we know it.

I don't agree with Scott's hypothesis because I've heard/read that it has already been tested and proven false. But the fact that you have a small penis does not prove Scott's hypothesis is wrong!

[Mel]

Your premise is faulty.

Assuming you believe the article about environmental factors affecting gender in offspring (which I am still not sure how I feel about) it isn't actually changing the genetics of the offspring, as much as selecting which sperm survive. There is no DNA alteration involved.

I truly believe that just wanting something, or any mental association of something, may have an effect on body chemistry, but cannot affect DNA per se.

That said, I still think this is one of the most intelligent blogs I ever read. Thanks for the daily brain exercise.

[Florin]

Oh, I am pretty sure your experiment would work, the only downside being that but it would take a few hundreds of thousands of years...

[Dilbert fan]

Lamarkism was quoted almost immediately in the comments (stretching giraffe necks makes their kids have longer necks.)

My high school biology class made a big deal about Lamarkism, a hypothesis of the creation of life that now no one believes. Then they talked about Darwinian evolution in detail. That way all those who thought the universe was created in seven days could assume Darwin was just about to be disproven as well.

I thought that was a neat way to teach all the details, while ducking any possible controversy.

[Maddog]

So this is actually a new theory of evolution. Remember that the theory of evolution (or more correctly the Theory of Evolution by Means of Natural Selection) assumes that the genetic changes were random. I guess you are suggesting that they changes can be directed. Interesting. I know that chemicals (smoking, drinking, some forms of illegal drugs) can alter genetic material, but emotions or desire (determination, whatever) altering genetic material? You probably need (or one of your molecular biologist bloggers) to develop the mechanism a little better. But you may get to share a Nobel prize. Cool.

[DF]

So, what you are saying, is that only the wishful thinking of the mother will be passed on? That really doesn't seem fair, although it would explain certain genetic traits...

Let me see if I can follow your thinking in human terms. You have priests that are playing with young altar boys they shouldn't be. Would it be fair to guess that the priest's mother was an older woman, a cougar, who enjoyed preying on younger men and passed that onto her kids? This would also explain why there are so many gay men out there that like pool boys with muscles and shaved chests, because that's probably the look their mother's liked. I guess if those mother's had popped out daughters instead of sons, there would be a lot less gay men in the world. I don't have an explaination for lesbians yet, I will have to get back to you....

[Royce]

I think you need a brain for this theory. How does it work for the two other kingdoms with out brains and the periods in history where there were no brains in any life form?

Scott,

Interesting notion. It is certainly true socially for humans... parents who really wanted to go to college but didn't will facilitate or maybe even exert pressure on their children to go.

Could there be a biological driver there?

Dunno. Seems like a stretch. However, it sure does seem like the specific traits animals present that fit their environment perfectly are too good and too many to be totally random.

If that were true, it seems that you would have a lot of useless variations - things like the freaky extra ear, a completely useless appendag