In the Roger Scruton on altruism thread, some commenters have expressed confusion over the evolutionary explanation of altruism in ants. If workers and soldiers leave no offspring, then how does their altruistic behavior get selected for?
The answer is simple but somewhat counterintuitive. The genes for altruistic behavior are present in both the workers/soldiers and in their parents. Self-sacrificing behavior in the workers and soldiers is bad for their copies of these genes, but it promotes the survival and proliferation of the copies contained in the queen and in her store of sperm. As long as there is a net reproductive benefit to the genes, such altruistic behaviors can be maintained in the population.
Selfish genes, altruistic individuals.
Let’s dedicate this thread to a discussion of other counterintuitive evolutionary truths. Here are some of my favorites:
1. The classic example of sickle-cell trait in humans. Why is a disease-causing mutation maintained in a human population? Shouldn’t selection eliminate the mutants? Not in this case, because only the unfortunate folks who have two copies of the allele get the disease. People with one copy of the allele don’t get the disease, but they do receive a benefit: improved resistance to malaria. In effect, the people with the disease are paying for the improved health of the people with only one copy of the mutation.
(Kinda makes you wonder why the Designer did it that way, doesn’t it?)
2. In utero cannibalism in sharks:
Shark embryos cannibalize their littermates in the womb, with the largest embryo eating all but one of its siblings.
Now, researchers know why: It’s part of a struggle for paternity in utero, where babies of different fathers compete to be born.
The researchers, who detailed their findings today (April 30) in the journal Biology Letters, analyzed shark embryos found in sand tiger sharks (Carcharias taurus) at various stages of gestation and found that the later in pregnancy, the more likely the remaining shark embryos had just one father.
(Kinda makes you wonder why the Designer did it that way, doesn’t it?)
3. Genetic conflict between parents and offspring. Here’s a great example from a 1993 paper by David Haig:
Pregnancy has commonly been viewed as a cooperative interaction between a mother and her fetus. The effects of natural selection on genes expressed in fetuses, however, may be opposed by the effects of natural selection on genes expressed in mothers. In this sense, a genetic conflict can be said to exist between maternal and fetal genes. Fetal genes will be selected to increase the transfer of nutrients to their fetus, and maternal genes will be selected to limit transfers in excess of some maternal optimum. Thus a process of evolutionary escalation is predicted in which fetal actions are opposed by maternal countermeasures. The phenomenon of genomic imprinting means that a similar conflict exists within fetal cells between genes that are expressed when maternally derived, and genes that are expressed when paternally derived.
(Kinda makes you wonder why the Designer did it that way, doesn’t it?)
Can readers think of other counterintuitive evolutionary truths?
Addendum
4. Mutant organism loses its innate capacity to reproduce and becomes a great evolutionary success. Can anyone guess which organism(s) I’m thinking of?
Jesus did!
Why not? It’d just be a much simpler organism, that’s all. It wouldn’t have an embryological development path – it’d be single celled, or an undifferentiated colony organism, or something like that.
Good, that out of the way, let’s move on.
… ? Have you been drinking? What are you talking about?
How many times now have we mentioned this little thing called natural selection?
You don’t actually know what it’s about, do you? And you didn’t actually read any of the comments explaining to you what it’s about, did you?
O, well.
There can be no doubt.
Hey, wait. I want to put in a word for Vishnu.
I submit Hephaestos. A miniature switchboard? Sounds exactly like his kind of thing.
You know who else is good at that? Intel.
Maybe it was a designer there?
phoodoo,
You are gibbering, presumably as some kind of smokescreen. All of the problems you perceive were discovered by biologists, fully cognizant of the implications for their chosen subject, including evolutionary ones. That’s not an argument from authority, simply an observation. Its relevance is that knowledge of these facts has not led to wholesale abandonment of evolutionary theory by the people best placed to judge. Ignorance appears to lead you to think that it should. You no doubt rationalise it as some kind of materialist blindness or conspiracy. There is another potential explanation: you don’t know what you are talking about.
I’m not an expert, but I do know all about the switching of genes, about polygenism and pleiotropy, and about epigenetics. These are not troublesome for evolutionary theory because it all still boils down to genes having differential effects upon their own copying. All of it. Gene control is mediated by genes. Epigenetic effects are mediated by genes. Polygenic and pleiotropic effects still act through genes. How this all arose initially is not relevant to this discussion.
Now, I can clearly see that the problem lies squarely with you, and your understanding of biology. I cannot, however, persuade you that this is the case. You have to get there by yourself.
phoodoo,
Illustrating my point. You cannot see the difference between cutting off mouse tails and expecting to see shorter tails in descendants, and preserving a methylation signal over a generation or two. Mutations happen to ancestors and are seen in descendants. Can you see the differences and similarities between these 3 scenarios, and sum them up intelligibly?
Allan Miller,
How a bunch of switches arose to turn genes on and off during development, so that the organism can turn into what it needs to is not relevant to the discussion? Where is the code for the switches stored Allan. How do you get switches by trail and error replication copies? There is nothing more relevant. Can you have half the switches working properly and half not and still create life? Can you start off with an organism with no genetic switches, and then suddenly get a few? What kind of mutation would make that?
“Oh, but the experts aren’t troubled by it, so why should you.”
Who are the experts Allan, that you have so much faith in? Who is the one who knows that this is not a problem? Whose has it all figured out, can you name him?
Cool. You are now displaying not only your ignorance, but also your failure at reading comprehension. Excellent stuff.
The ignorance: Of the ten articles that you cited, I count at most two “science journals” – the Genetics and Molecular Biology paper by Jablonka, and the MIT Tech Review (for partial credit).
The reading comprehension: JoeF wrote: “the idea that doing something to part of an organism in its life will affect that part of its descendants”,
which none of your articles purport to show; they are all about epigenetics.
And do you understand why your examples of Down’s, achondroplasia, Marfan and PWS are quite unlike sickle cell, but CF is like sickle cell?
phoodoo,
The duplication and divergence of homeobox genes would be a sufficient explanation.
In the genome, ‘doo. The cell is basically a huge autocatalytic set, with DNA its most important catalyst.
Like I said: you start out with an organism that hasn’t such regulatory networks. Then all you need is a single mutation that links some expression to an environmental factor, and off you go.
Look around you, nincompoop. Do you think that you’re the only species on the planet? Do you think all other species have all of the “switches” you have, or need them? They manage well enough, don’t they?
phoodoo,
Correct. The origin of a co-ordinated system is not relevant to discussion of the dynamics of such systems.
The ‘code’ for a gene switch is stored in another gene. Its protein or RNA product binds to DNA or RNA and acts as promoter or repressor. It succeeds or fails just as any other gene, by being useful to its own copying, or not hindering it too much.
There is frequent transfer of switches from one gene to another, as an incidental byproduct of DNA manipulation. Mutation is not restricted to point mutation. It is often possible to trace their relatedness and infer common ancestry. You have one DNA binding protein, it can form the basis for many others.
I dunno! [shrug] The origin of gene switching is clearly deep in time. Every modern organism apparently descends from ancestors with switching in place. Since there is substantial commonality, it would appear that the organisms that first ‘solved’ this issue have left a rich dynasty. So that just leaves us with the entire modern tree/bush/topiary of life. That’s not bad, as an explanatory arena.
Give it a rest. I’m saying that the experts aren’t troubled by it, perhaps you could make the effort to find out why.
You were going to explain how a system of chemical switches which turn genes on and off can and control the entire structure of the organism develop through accidental mutations and natural selection right?
Because you are one of the experts Allan has faith in correct?
Allan Miller,
You can’t name a single expert who you are basing your grand faith in? You also have no idea how a system came to be, but this doesn’t concern you. And you are a deep thinker?
Can you at least choose which of the five rationale you made for dismissing Lamarck, then accepting it, then saying you knew it all along , then saying it doesn’t matter anyway if its true you prefer most?
Expecting me to go through a whole litany of detailed rebuttals, just for you to say, what does it matter anyway, is pretty pointless You will just say, well, the experts believe it.
I think your specialty seems to be giving your brain a rest; because you can’t seem to be bothered to consider the hard questions.
I would like to, but you are going to have to learn some basics first. Read “A Genetic Switch” by M. Ptashne, and we can then discuss it. Then we can move on to cell type determination in single-celled organisms.
Well, I doubt that. Allan is more up-to-date on this stuff than I.
What you fail to understand is that there are thousands of experts who pick each others’ ideas apart mercilessly. Everyone gets to watch.
Speaking of slime molds.
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3398
Or by providing “drive” – sorry, Just started on Genes in conflict, so I’ll be trying some stuff now and again 😉
phoodoo,
I don’t have ‘faith’, and there is no single expert. I went to university. I had many teachers, and have read many books. What would pulling an individual out iof the hat prove to you? That I can name a scientist?
I have some pretty firm ideas on how things came to be, but you don’t go back to origins when discussing every last detail.
You consider Lamarck to be a problem for ‘Darwinism’. I pointed out that Darwin was much more Lamarckian than any modern thinker. You don’t think it relevant to your case? Further, you still have not grasped the deep distinction between ‘Lamarckism’ and epigenetic inheriitance.
Awww, phoodoo! And I thought we were friends. I’m wounded.
Smearing with guilt by association is certainly a big part of the creationist repertoire. There seems to me that another factor in these discussions is the importance of revelation and authority to the fundamentalists who comprise the vast majority of the anti-science movement in the US.
Just as a dog can’t conceive of a group of cats without an alpha cat, creationists (including the intelligent design variant) don’t seem to really understand that science isn’t about personalities. Intellectually some of them recognize that, but they still demonstrate an emotional attachment to disparaging individual scientists because that allows them to ignore what those (bad) people say.
Patrick,
You knew this was coming:
(Still can’t add image tags to comments, such a shame…)
Allan,
There are no experts when it comes to understanding how epigenetics can arise through Darwinian evolution. None. zero. You are referring to fictitious characters. And you would just as quickly reject any experts who admit they don’t have the faintest idea.
I don’t need to know who the expert is, because I am telling you, there isn’t any. I am just using you to illustrate that.
True. All the names above the many research papers on this subject are completely made up. Actually all those papers are written by my Auntie Rose, just to mess with your head. The scientific journals in which they are published are in on the conspiracy too.
Have you read The genesis and evolution of homeobox gene clusters by Auntie Rose et al, 2005, in Nature Review Genetics? Really fascinating material.
Suddenly, phoodoo regains confidence in experts, whom he was previously dismissing out of hand:
Fixed that for you. You can use normal HTML angle brackets instead of the more usual markup square brackets.
Patrick,
(Nah, I can’t. WP removes the tag if I do. Thanks!)
Patrick,
WordPress seems to strip out HTML embeds for anyone who doesn’t have admin privileges. Alan tried to fix it at one point, but no luck.
Aha!
I thought I detected your Auntie’s whimsical side in her choice of pseudonyms here.
“But how did this process unfold? “We’re having a hell of time figuring out how [these inheritable effects] work,” Oliver Rando, a molecular biologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who studied a similar paternal inheritance effect in mice, told Hughes. His work showed that liver gene expression changed in mice whose fathers had been fed a low-protein diet.
The problem is, despite several promising explanations, no one knows exactly how this phenomenon of transgenerational epigenetics works. There is no well-defined mechanism; researchers so far have mostly been looking at the fascinating end results of a process they don’t quite understand.”
March 6, 2014!!!
Oh, but the experts know they cry. Why is Oliver Rando such a liar!
Know Know exactly. Phoodoo Phail.
Shorter phoodoo: Scientists don’t know something, therefore Jesus.
phoodoo,
Don’t understand your point phoodoo. Not everything is known.
I don’t believe I ever said that anyone knows how all epigenetic phenomena work at the detailed mechanistic level, so your crowing over my failure to produce someone who does is rather ludicrous. You seem rather hung up on authority.
What I do know is that no epigenetic phenomenon of which I am aware is worthy of the term ‘Lamarckian’. I do know that people (especially journalists) bandy that term about, a little too freely. I think they are wrong. Which means, paradoxically, that I find myself at odds with your experts, despite being a ‘sheep’. One cannot, after all, adhere to every expert, as they may say contradictory things.
But it does help if you can understand the arguments, which you apparently don’t.
phoodoo,
And later in the 3/6/14 article you quote, we read
Oh dear.
DNA_Jock,
Heh heh!
DNA_Jock,
Well, they’re not saying evolution *isn’t* wrong!
Oops wrong thread!
I find the mouse study hard to swallow for reasons unconnected with implications for evolutionary theory (there are none).
It has the flavour of homeopathy. If water has ‘memory’, there would be memories of every molecule the water had ever been in contact with. Likewise, if negative associations are passed on, every negative association with a scent (or a sight, or a taste) would need to be passed on. Some kind of signal that can get from brain/nose to gamete, not be diluted by the mother’s genome or further imprinting/wiping, and ultimately find expression back in the offspring’s brain. Even for one molecule that’s quite a task. For a whole panoply, it seems highly improbable.
I don’t doubt that protocols were rigorous and reviewers sufficiently skeptical. But it does seem implausible.
Allan Miller,
One confounding variable that they may concievably have failed to control for is the recently discovered role of the gender of the research technician.
Fear responses to scent are very malleable.
OTOH the imprinting / reprogramming that occurs in spermatogenesis could leave unwiped signals for the elevated or inappropriate expression of Oflr151. Non-mendelian, but really not a poke in the eye for Darwin…
DNA_Jock,
The ‘rat man’ at my uni would certainly have them quivering! We needed fresh unstressed livers for a glycogen assay. He’d caress them, then – whump! – whacked on the edge of the table before they knew what him ’em, liver out and on the petri dish before they could say “wha…?”.
My own PhD career was cut short by a struggle with a particular assay, for tocopherol oxidase. A female lab technician got perfect graphs every time. Mine were all over the shop. I should have discovered why myself, had I been worth the lab space, but a 3rd year student later discovered that certain people, mainly of the male persuasion, interfered with the assay by virtue of their manly emanations …
DNA_Jock,
Aye, it’s possible though I’m unsure why the paternal copy would dominate in such an effect, and the Oflr151 promoter is apparently not rich in methylatable bases.
Allan, Too funny.
I do remember my undergrad lab — looking at the effects of insulin and glucagon on slices of rat liver — was a total failure. The TA commented wryly “Maybe the rats were stressed”.
I suspect this wasn’t the first time it had happened, nor the last. You clearly had a better “rat man”.
As my hero Fred said “Most experiments don’t work” 🙂
For historical exactitude, this statement, which is being attributed to me, was actually uttered by Alan Miller here.
PS I saw your sly remark that “everyone still uses PCR” and cracked up.
I believe that Lamarck did not envisage natural selection at all. The directional forces in his theory were the Inherent Complexifying Force and the effects of use and disuse.
Lamarck’s Philosophie Zoologique is on line, in the original and in translation, the latter being here (see Chapter VII) or here (see page 112ff.).
Joe Felsenstein,
Thank you for the correction, and the appreciation.
A female American colleague had heard me refer to that particular scientist as a “wanker”, and a Brit friend of hers had independently referred to the same gent as a “tosser”. Wishing to improve her command of the English vernacular, she quizzed me – are these two terms similar in meaning?
Imagine my joy at being able to reply “Well, yes, Georgina, they both literally mean ‘one who ….'”
Why it’s an insult, that I cannot fathom.
😮
Joe Felsenstein,
Thanks!
I was curious where I got this notion that the Darwinian picture (or at least the Wallace one) was simpler, and the Lamarckian one more complicated–that is, that while the former relied on natural selection (plus random variation) only, the latter required that plus habit/disuse. So I looked a bit at the Butler books I’d read a long time ago on this and found the following passages, which, I think you’ll see, gave me that impression. Butler also takes a few of his customary shots at Darwin for hedging toward the end.
These come from Butler’s _Evolution, Old and New_, starting on page 349. The book is available on the internet archive. I hope no one will mind me reprinting these lengthy excerpts. (I think they’re kind of interesting, myself.)
Certainly those animals and plants which are best fitted for their environment, or, as Lamarck calls it, ” circonsiances ” — those animals, in fact, which are best fitted to comply with the conditions of their existence — are most likely to survive and transmit their especial fitness. No one would admit this more readily than Lamarck. This is no theory; it is a commonly observed fact in nature which no one will dispute, but it is not more ” a means of modification ” than many other commonly observed facts concerning animals.
Why is “the survival of the fittest” more a means of modification than, we will say, the fact that animals live at all, or that they live in successive generations, being born, continuing their species, and dying, instead of living on forever as one single animal in the common acceptation of the term; or than that they eat and drink ?
The heat whereby the water is heated, the water which- is turned into steam, the piston on which the steam acts, the driving wheel, &c., &c., are all one as much as another a means whereby a train is made to go from one place to another ; it is impossible to say that any one of them is the main means. So (mutatis, mutandis) with modification. There is no reason therefore why “the survival of the fittest” should claim to be an especial ” means of modification ” rather than any other necessary adjunct of animal or vegetable life….
Hence, when he falls in with such writers as Professor Mivart and the Rev. J. J. Murphy, who show, and very plainly, that the survival of the fittest, unsupplemented by something which shall give a definite aim to the variations which successively occur, fails to account for the coadaptations of need and structure, he imagines that evolution has much less to say for itself than it really has. If Mr. Darwin, instead of taking the line which he has thought fit to adopt towards Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and the author of the ‘Vestiges,’ had shown us what these men taught, why they taught it, wherein they were wrong, and how he proposed to set them right, he would have taken a course at once more agreeable with ordinary practice, and more likely to clear misconception from his own mind and from those of his readers…..
An island of no very great extent is surrounded by a sea which cuts it off for many miles from the nearest land. It lies a good deal exposed to winds, so that the beetles which live upon it are in continual danger of being blown out to sea if they fly during the hours and seasons when the wind is blowing. It is found that an unusually large proportion of the beetles inhabiting this island are either without wings or have their wings in a useless and merely rudimentary state ; and that a large number of kinds which are very common on the nearest mainland, but which are compelled to use their wings in seeking their food, are here entirely wanting. It is also observed that the beetles on this island generally lie much concealed until the wind lulls and the sun shines. These are the facts ; let us now see how Lamarck would treat them.
Lamarck would say that the beetles once being on this island it became one of the conditions of their existence that they should not get blown out to sea. For once blown out to sea, they would be quite certain to be drowned. Beetles, when they fly, generally fly for some purpose, and do not like having that purpose interfered with by something which can carry them all-whithers, whether they like it or no. If they are flying and find the wind taking them in a wrong direction, or seaward — which they know will be fatal to them — they stop flying as soon as may be, and alight on terra firma. But if the wind is very prevalent the beetles can find but little opportunity for flying at all : they will therefore lie quiet all day and do as best they can to get their living on foot instead of on the wing.
There will thus be a long-continued disuse of wings, and this will gradually diminish the development of the wings themselves, till after a sufficient number of generations these will either disappear altogether, or be seen in a rudimentary condition only. For each beetle which has made but little use of its wings will be liable to leave offspring with a slightly diminished wing, some other organ which has been used instead of the wing becoming proportionately developed. It is thus seen that the conditions of existence are the indirect cause of the wings becoming rudimentary, inasmuch as they preclude the beetles from using them; the disuse however on the part of the beetles themselves is the direct cause.
Now let us see how Mr. Darwin deals with the same case. He writes : —
” In some cases we might easily set down to disuse, modifications of structure which are wholly or mainly, due to natural selection.” Then follow the facts about the beetles of Madeira, as I, have given them above.
While we are reading them we naturally make up our minds that the winglessness of the beetles will prove due either wholly, or at any rate mainly, to natural selection, and that though it would be easy to set it down to disuse, yet we must on no account do so. The facts having been stated, Mr, Darwin continues: — “These several considerations make me believe that the wingless condition of so many Madeira beetles is mainly due to the action of natural selection,” and when we go on to the words that immediately follow, ” combined probably with disuse,” we are almost surprised at finding that disuse has had anything to do with the matter. We feel a languid wish to know exactly how much and in what way it has entered into the combination; but we find it difficult to think the matter out, and are glad to take it for granted that the part played by disuse must be so unimportant that we need not consider it. Mr. Darwin continues: — ” For during many successive generations each individual beetle which flew least, either from its wings having been ever so little less perfectly developed, or from indolent habit, will have had the best chance of surviving from not having been blown out to sea ; and on the other hand those beetles which most readily took to flight would oftenest be blown out to sea and perish.” (‘Origin of Species,’ p. 109) So apt are we to believe what we are told, when it is told us gravely and with authority, and when there is no statement at hand to contradict it, that we fail to see that Mr. Darwin is all the time really attributing the winglessness of the Madeira beetles either to the qua him imJenown causes which, have led to the “ever so little less perfect development of wing ” on the part of the beetles that leave offspring — that is to say, is admitting that he can give no account of the matter — or else to the ” indolent habit ” of the parent beetles which has led them to disuse their wings, and hence gradually to lose them–which is neither more nor less than the ” erroneous grounds of opinion,” and ” well-known doctrine ” of Lamarck.
For Mr. Darwin cannot mean that the fact of some beetles being blown out to sea is the most important means whereby certain other beetles come to have smaller wings — that the Madeira beetles in fact come to have smaller wings mainly because their large winged uncles and aunts — go away. But if he does not mean this, what becomes of natural selection? For in this case we are left exactly where Lamarck left us, and must hold that such beetles as have smaller wings have them because the conditions of life or ” circumstances ” in which their parents were placed, rendered it inconvenient to them to fly, and thus led them to leave off using their wings.
Granted, that if there had been nothing to take unmodified beetles away, there would have been less room and scope for the modified beetles; also that unmodified beetles would have intermixed with the modified, and impeded the prevalence of the modification. But anything else than such removal of unmodified individuals would be contrary to our hypothesis. The very essence of conditions of existence is that there will be something to take away those which do not comply with the conditions; if there is nothing to render such and such a course a sine qua non for life, there is no condition of existence in respect of this course, and no modification according to Lamarck could follow, as there would be no changed distribution of use.
I think that if I were to leave this matter here I should have said enough to make the reader feel that Lamarck’s system is direct, intelligible and sufficient — while Mr. Darwin’s is confused and confusing. I may however quote Mr. Darwin himself as throwing his theory about the Madeira beetles on one side in a later passage, for he writes : — ” It is probable that disuse has been the main agent in rendering organs rudimentary” or in other words that Lamarck was quite right — nor does one see why if disuse is after all the main agent in rendering an organ rudimentary, use should not have been the main agent in developing it — but let that pass. ” It (disuse) would at first lead,” continues Mr. Darwin, ” by slow steps to ‘ the more and more complete reduction of a part, until at last it became rudimentary — as in the case of the eyes of animals inhabiting dark caverns, and of the wings of birds inhabiting oceanic islands, which have seldom been forced by beasts of prey to take flight, and have ultimately lost the power of flying. Again, an organ useful under certain conditions, might become injurious under others, as with the wings of beetles living on small and exposed islands ;” * so that the rudimentary condition of the Madeira beetles’ wings is here set down * (‘Origin of Species’ p. 401) as mainly due to disuse — while above we find it mainly due to natural selection.
I should say that immediately after the word ” islands “just quoted, Mr. Darwin adds ” and in this case natural selection will have aided in reducing the organ, until it was rendered harmless and rudimentary,” but this is Mr. Darwin’s manner, and must go for what it is worth.
How refreshing to turn to the simple straightforward language of Lamarck. “Long continued disuse,” he writes, “in consequence of the habits which an animal has contracted, gradually reduces an organ, and leads to its final disappearance.”
Lamarck is the target of the central dogma.
I like that term. It always starts a feeding frenzy among IDists.
I think design–supporters bringing up Lamarck is nothing but the “enemy of my enemy” biz. Lamarck was straightforwardly opposed to the theory of ID. In the book Joe F. linked above, Lamarck says this:
….we may adopt one or other
of the two following conclusions and…neither of them can be verified.
Conclusion adopted hitherto: Nature (or her Author) in creating
animals, foresaw all the possible kinds of environment in which they
would have to live, and endowed each species with a fixed organisa-
tion and with a definite and invariable shape, which compel each
species to live in the places and climates where we actually find them,
and there to maintain the habits which we know in them.
My individual conclusion : Nature has produced all the species
of animals in succession, beginning with the most imperfect or simplest,
and ending her work with the most perfect, so as to create a gradually
increasing complexity in their organisation ; these animals have
spread at large throughout all the habitable regions of the globe,
and every species has derived from its environment the habits that
we find in it and the structural modifications which observation
shows us.
The former of these two conclusions is that which has been drawn
hitherto, at least by nearly everyone : it attributes to every animal
a fixed organisation and structure which never have varied and never
do vary ; it assumes, moreover, that none of the localities inhabited
by animals ever vary ; for if they were to vary, the same animals
could no longer survive, and the possibility of finding other localities
and transporting themselves thither would not be open to them.
The second conclusion is my own : it assumes that by the influence
of environment on habit, and thereafter by that of habit on the state of
the parts and even on organisation, the structure and organisation
of any animal may undergo modifications, possibly very great, and
capable of accounting for the actual condition in which all animals
are found.
It is interesting to note that in that passage, a crucial one, Lamarck contrasts “the conclusion adopted hitherto” with his own conclusion. The former involved “Nature (or her Author)” creating animals, while the latter involved only “Nature”. Lamarck has been described as a deist, like many intellectuals of his time and place. But he was no theist. He did not envisage Nature’s “Author” as intervening. Hence, as you have perceptively seen, ID is out.
Once again Joe, you conflate the discussion of a concept with the discussion of the person who suggests it, just as you couldn’t understand the separation between discussing who should get credit for a theory, with the theory itself.
Does it make any difference whatsoever if Lamarck was a theist, atheist, or cartoonist?