In the past, it was widely believed that acquired characteristics could be inherited; this hypothesis is commonly known as Lamarckism after the early-nineteenth-century biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. But he himself considered it a minor mode of evolution (his major mechanism was a kind of orthogenesis, evolution driven by internal forces), and this hypothesis is much older than him.

Sir Thomas Browne, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1672; the title of his debunking book is approximately "Popular False Beliefs"), noted a widespread (and still-present!) misconception that men have one less rib than women, on account of the creation of Eve from one of Adam's ribs. He noted that not only is that not the case, but that mutilations do not get inherited.

And in the Bible itself (Genesis 30:25-43), Jacob performs Lamarckian genetic engineering on Laban's livestock, making Laban's solid-color livestock give birth to spottead and streaked livestock by showing them striped sticks.

More recently, George Bernard Shaw, in a preface to Back to Methuselah (1922), passionately defended Lamarckism by finding fault with Darwinism, calling it a great "chapter of accidents". He wrote:

It seems simple, because you do not at first realize all that it involves. But when its whole significance dawns on you, hour heart sinks into a heap of sand within you. There is a hideous fatalism about it, a ghastly and damnable reduction of beauty and intelligence, of strength and purpose, of honor and aspiration.

This rhetoric, Richard Dawkins tells us (and he quotes in The Blind Watchmaker), delayed his appreciation for Darwinism for at least a year when he was in his teens. Shaw was not a biologist, but Paul Kammerer was, and in his book on The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics, he stated (quoted in Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science),

If acquired characteristics cannot be passed on, as most of our contemporaneous naturalists contend, then no true organic progress is possible. Man lives and suffers in vain. Whatever he might have acquired in the course of a lifetime dies with him. His children and his children's children must ever and again start from the bottom... If acquired characteristics are occasionally inherited, then it becomes evident that we are not exclusively slaves of the past -- slaves helplessly endeavoring to free ourselves of our shackles -- but also captains of our future, who in the course of time will be able to rid ourselves, to a certain extent, of our heavy burdens and to ascend into higher and even higher strata of development. Education and civilization, hygiene and social endeavors are achievements which are not alone benefiting the single individual, for every action, every word, aye, even every thought may possibly leave an imprint on the generation.

In 1925, a year after he wrote this passionate statement, some biologists got a long-awaited look at his lab and discovered that some of his examples of Lamarckism -- the toe pads of some midwife toads -- had been faked.

I mention these two statements because I want to show that evolution != Darwinism, and rejection of Darwinism does not mean the acceptance of special creation -- it can mean acceptance of Lamarckism, or evolution by some very mystical mechanism. This is relevant to the creationists' call for "equal time" for their theories -- one can always call for "equal time" for "Lamarck science", as opposed to "Darwin science".

So, in every textbook that discusses Darwinian evolution and Mendelian heredity, "Darwin-Mendel science", there will be a section of equal size on Lamarckian evolution and Lysenkoite heredity, "Lamarck-Lysenko science". The former would feature evolution by natural selection and heredity controlled by nucleic-acid molecules, whose variations, due to miscopying and damage, are uncorrelated with what would lead to better adaptations -- only "good" ones would survive. The latter would feature evolution by the inheritance of acquired characteristics, and heredity being contributed by all parts of an organism, not just the nucleic-acid molecules in the reproductive cells. In the public-school versions of such textbooks, the Marxist ideology in Lysenko's theorizing would be downplayed or carefully concealed in neutral-sounding terms, so as to seem "neutral" and free from partisan politics.

One would invoke rhetoric like that mentioned above to make Lamarckism seem morally superior to Darwinism -- Lamarckism would be a lot less "wasteful" and a lot less destructive of "weaklings" and a lot more compassionate. Darwinism would be associated with robber-baron capitalism and exploitation and "might makes right", while Lamarckism would be associated with love and goodness and real progress. One would point out how much more logical Lamarckism is than Darwinism -- how intuitively clear it is, and explain that speculation about Darwinian mechanisms can cause too much mental wear and tear. ne would discuss great scientists who had believed in Lamarckism -- Lamarck himself, Erasmus Darwin, Paul Kammerer, and many others. One would point out that even Charles Darwin believed in Lamarckism. Only the section on "Darwin-Mendel science" would discuss Kammerer's faked "evidence".

All these constructions of "Lamarck-Lysenko science" are directly parallel to the creationists' construction of "creation science". The creationists' unwillingness to take Lamarckian evolution seriously suggests a very limited perspective on their part. A certain Ken Arndt, whose main argument seems to be Benjamin Disraeli's "Is man an ape or an angel? Now, I am on the side of the angels", might appreciate the "moral" arguments for Lamarckism, given above by Shaw and Kammerer.

In reply to Ken Arndt's "moral" objections to Darwinian evolution -- that if we came into existence with no outside purpose involved, our lives are pointless -- I reply be restating his argument in an "individual" fashion. If I discover that my parents had never intended to beget me, do I decide that my life is absolutely pointless and commit suicide? No. I create my own purpose. And the same for the human race as a whole.

I think Ken Arndt may find Lamarckism suspect for a similar reason -- no "purpose" is involved in the inheritance of acquired characteristics. I have wondered why he has been unwilling to seriously consider my XGE (exogenous genetic engineers -- either extraterrestrials or time travelers or both) hypothesis -- if XGE's are responsible for the evolution of humanity from some ancient apes, then we have a purpose -- the purpose that these XGE's had in mind when they engineered us into existence.

And if I turned the XGE hypothesis into something called "Petrich science", would the creationists be pushing for equal time for it? (It would include explanations of why the XGE's could devise the genes for camera-like eyes -- in at least two designs (vertebrates and squid/octopuses) -- but why they did not (or could not) transplant some genes for "essential" amino acid and vitamin synthesis into any animals that needed these substances).

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