I have always thought that the random-mutation factor in Darwin's evolutionary theory was a rather poor explanation to the highly specialized organisms we see today. In that specific account I've, personally, always favored Lamarquism as the simplest, most plausible theory.
Of course such an opinion might be considered 'heretic' among the scientific society, which I found to be way too dogmatic on most aspects.
>Of course such an opinion might be considered 'heretic' >which I found to be way too dogmatic on most aspects.
Go ahead and design some falsifiable and testable experiments to prove this. You can whine about dogmatism or you can challenge it. I suspect like more Lamarckian ideas its quickly refuted, but you are welcome to try. That's how science works.
As far as I, any many others, can tell, random mutation and natural selection works really, really well, but would love to be proved wrong. Please note "proven" isn't flowerly speech about how some ideas "feel" righter than others.
Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like a dismissive asshole, but epigenetics is still a young science. We can't even tell if this stuff in inheritable or if it even makes any difference if it was. Epigenetic inheritance even if real doesn't change genes it just changes expression. Its really not like Lamarck at all (if you are fat and like rap music, you will have fat children who like rap music because magic, that's why!).
>In fact, from a quick glance in history we see science prove itself wrong over and over again,
That's a feature, not a bug. Think something is wrong? Prove it. Then it becomes the status quo. Then that gets either refined or dismissed by a better theory. You may say this process is evolutionary...(oh, I love puns).
Are there egos and politics involved? Yes, just like in any human endeavor.
I don't think science should work on dogmatism at all... leave dogma to the church.
I have seen more than a share of people that call themselves scientists literally laugh at an argument and dismiss it without analysis or a counter-argument.
In fact, from a quick glance in history we see science prove itself wrong over and over again, which is natural, but it's very common to contemporary scientists think they are just right.
All I'm saying is that sometimes, not all times, scientists appear more like cult-followers than researchers.
Of course such an opinion might be considered 'heretic' among the scientific society, which I found to be way too dogmatic on most aspects.