An Avian Trope

Why would a hawk
undertake to educate sparrows....

Dr. Lamarck I Presume

Notice also that nobody is even using the word Lamarckism, though that is precisely the term for instances where environmental changes get translated into heritable characteristics. The standard example is the long neck of the giraffe, gained over generations of stretching to reach high leaves. I think now of studies suggesting  trauma affects the genes of offspring, among other headlines. For most of the last century Larmarckism has been an example of out-moded thought. It had to be--- since ordinary thought is binary. This means Darwinism is defined by what it is not--- and it is not Lamarckism. This was the natural conclusion with the explanatory success of Darwin's idea. But step back--- why couldn't both explanations be correct. Why can't evolution have two methods of advance. What a good question.

The fleas of DNA

In rare instances, DNA is known to have jumped from one species to another.

This is the first line of an article, from phys.org which shows the limitations of modern thought. "In rare instances" is a lovely phrase. Because you could not evaluate the relative rarity of something without a firm knowledge of the whole, and that is an unlikely  perspective. Unlikely not because of positivistic assumptions, but because of the nature of binary thought. Which must divide to succeed. External progress depends on man's ability to rearrange his environment, and this rearrangement assumes that things can be broken into pieces prior to the rearrangement. This is something Jan Cox pointed out decades ago. The special success of this rearrangement is so great that modern scientists never question (nowadays) the utility of binary thought to handle all cognitive tasks. And yet, we have here, with DNA hopping around, evidence that man is not separate from all of life. Every breath depends on the reality that we are part of a larger whole. But partialness is exactly what ordinary thinking cannot grasp. Or remember.