X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Inheritance of acquired characteristics


Inheritance of acquired characteristics

During the rule of Joseph Stalin in the USSR in the 1930s, the theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics was central to the dogma put forth by Trofim Lysenko, president of the Soviet Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

The idea was proposed in ancient times by Hippocrates and Aristotle, and was commonly accepted near to Lamarck's time.


A. L. Strand

(In particular, Strand was outraged that Spitzer supported the environmentally acquired genetic inheritance theories of Soviet scientist Trofim Lysenko.)


see also

The eclipse of Darwinism

As a consequence of the debate over the viability of neo-Lamarckism in the 1890s, James Mark Baldwin, Henry Fairfield Osborne and C. Lloyd Morgan all independently proposed a mechanism where new learned behaviors could cause the evolution of new instincts and physical traits through natural selection without resort to the inheritance of acquired characteristics.