Lamarck and the Sad Tale of the Blind Cave-Fish

By Maria B. O'Hare

This book assesses the unjust suppression & more recent scientific vindication of the 'Original Founder of Evolution' Jean Baptiste Lamarck.
Not many know that Darwin himself was a Lamarckian as he believed that blindness in cave-fish was due to the disuse of their eyes brought about by finding themselves in dark environments. It turns out that he may have been right. An overwhelming amount of scientific data is emerging that clearly brings into question the most fundamental tenets of the modern synthesis. At the same time, it is beginning to verify the main principles of evolution as proposed by Lamarck over 200 years ago. This is perhaps an historical and scientific account that you may not be fully aware of. I hope the deep research in this book will reveal to you something previously obscured by our current paradigm of biological evolutionary thought....

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maria B. O'Hare
• Release date: Mar 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311241757

Maria B. O'Hare

Although my main academic training is in Archaeology (PhD), as my research became increasingly independent, I began digging around some old dusty long forgotten archives and soon discovered that our current genetically-driven concept of evolutionary dynamics itself evolved and often, not by natural means. I began to realise that there had always been well-founded scientifically sound criticism of our Darwinian model and indeed, perfectly plausible alternatives, hence, as these exciting and much aligned alternatives are finally beginning to get the scientific recognition they have always deserved, I began writing about these in a blog entitled: digging up the future dot com This research and ongoing discoveries have made their way into several publications listed here (See the 'Little Book of Evolutionary Quotes', 'The Epigenetic Caterpillar: An Alternative View of the Peppered Moth Phenomenon', 'Lamarck and the Sad Tale of the Blind Cave Fish' and watch out for forthcoming book about D'Arcy Thompson's dynamic evolutionary model). Another related book - soon to be released, is entitled: 'Don't Count Your Children Until They've Had the Pox' which explores a very different form of non-genetic generational immunity using original death statistics from some of the deadliest contagions known to humankind with a focus on Ireland and comparing these with other developed nations. Other publications by the author range from self-publishing to science fiction dealing with a futuristic (evolutionary) genetics theme and are also published under the imprint: DiG-Press. See the full story of how I became a writer can be found at writing.ie https://www.writing.ie/tell-your-own-story/how-to-make-a-book-by-maria-b-ohare/ Cheers MariaBrigit

Book preview

LAMARCK

&

THE SAD TALE OF THE BLIND

CAVE-FISH

BY

MARIA B. O’HARE (PHD)

Front Cover Images

Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1893)

(source: Wikimedia-Commons)

Photograph of blind cave-fish (Credit: Trisha Shears photograph taken and uploaded freely to Wikimedia.org)

First Digital Edition

DIG-PRESS

© 2015 by Maria B. O’Hare

http://www.diggingupthefuture.com/

LAMARCK & THE SAD TALE OF THE BLIND CAVE-FISH

EDITED BY NÓRA GERAGHTY

Dedicated To

FONN

&

TOM

Table of Contents

Cave-Fish become Blind because of the Disuse of the eyes, Don’t they?

Lamarck: The Founder of Evolution

The Hardening of the Modern Synthesis

Epigenetic Blind Cave-Fish

Epilogue

Recommended Videos

About the Author

Other Publications

Cave-Fish become Blind because of the Disuse of their Eyes, Don’t they?

Picture this: Fish, the world over, that live exclusively in dark caves, are typically blind. Now, what do you think would cause this? Most of us would automatically think that the fact that they live in a dark world means they have no need to see and therefore lost the use of the eyes. This is a perfectly legitimate answer, but the Neo-Darwinians would frown at you and say that smacks of Lamarckian use/disuse (acquired characteristics), environmentally-driven evolution and we banned that nonsense a long time ago.

However, most people are unaware that Charles Darwin himself sometimes viewed selection as a minor driver of evolutionary adaptation and instead took a more Lamarckian stance regarding certain phenomenon such as blindness in animals finding themselves in dark environments as seen throughout later additions of his work in particular (see Darwin online). In other words, Darwin saw environmentally-driven evolution via disuse/use (acquired characteristics that could be inherited) as a perfectly good explanation for this loss of sight in animals living in dark worlds, which is noted with some incredulity in a recent science paper as following:

Evolution of Eye development n the darkness of caves: adaptation, drift, or both?

Darwin saw [….] subterranean animals as examples of eyelessness and loss of structure in general. For him, the explanation was a straightforward Lamarckian one, and one that did not involve adaptation and the struggle for existence. […]. Although this Lamarckian theory should have been quickly discredited...

Rétaux and Casane (2013) [1]

I was particularly curious about the comment: Although this Lamarckian theory should have been quickly discredited (ibid) in the light of what I have discovered regarding the scientific basis of their argument and the fact that the article continues to point out that it wasn’t until the latter part of the 20th century that this issue of the mechanisms for blindness in cave-fish and other animals living in dark environments began to be addressed from a modern Darwinian perspective.

Yet, it would appear that a Lamarckian (use/disuse) and acquired characteristics explanation of blindness in cave-fish or indeed most other species adaptation according to environmental conditions - Epigenetics in more modern parlance meaning to change the expression of genes with rather radical outward changes without changing the DNA sequence itself (see The Epigenetic Caterpillar by O’Hare 2014) [2], is being supported by empirical studies, while the Neo-Darwinian genetic-only explanation is not.

Most scientists are not actually aware of the fact that either selection or genetic mutations have ever been verified by empirical studies or any observational data (O’Hare forthcoming) [3], yet, an increasing swell of clinicians, biologists and geneticists are becoming fully aware of the empirical studies demonstrating epigenetic inheritance and epigenetic evolutionary drivers of evolution and how it can occur rather dramatically and rapidly at times according to environmental conditions.

Indeed, what is described below as epigenetic inheritance with its evolutionary implications on the website: Learn Genetics on the topic of Genetic science, is entirely in-keeping with Lamarckian principles of acquired characteristics (use/disuse) and the idea that environment can and does create real and stable change in a species particularly when they are developing:

Epigenetics and Inheritance

We used to think that a new embryo's epigenome was completely erased and rebuilt from scratch. But this isn't completely true. Some epigenetic tags remain in place as genetic information passes from generation to generation, a process called epigenetic inheritance.

Epigenetic inheritance is an unconventional finding. It goes against the idea that inheritance happens only through the DNA code that passes from parent to offspring. It means that a parent's experiences, in the form of epigenetic tags, can be passed down to future generations. As unconventional as it may be, there is little doubt that epigenetic inheritance is real. In fact, it explains some strange patterns of inheritance geneticists have been puzzling over for decades [....] Implications for Evolution

…The epigenome, on the other hand, can change rapidly in response to signals from the environment. And epigenetic changes can happen in many individuals at once. Through epigenetic inheritance, some of the experiences of the parents may pass to future generations. At the same time, the epigenome remains flexible as environmental conditions continue to change. Epigenetic