Word: lamarckian
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...part in a Philadelphia symposium on "The Factors of Organic Evolution." He was then only 33 and rather bashful about appearing before his elders, but, being urged, he accepted. He was pitted in debate against a booming bigwig, Professor Edward Drinker Cope of University of Pennsylvania, who advanced the Lamarckian view that acquired characteristics (e.g., muscular development or manual skill) can be inherited. Conklin defended the opposite view, boldly stated that inherited characteristics are determined solely by the germ plasm. In the course of time biology gave him the palm over Bigwig Cope. Today almost all top-notch biologists have...
...lower jaw to scoop food from swamps. The African elephant developed its upper tusks to uproot trees for their tender top leaves. This Osborn theory opposes the Darwinian theory that new types develop from accidental variations of which only those survive which are best adapted to their environment; the Lamarckian theory that new types inherit the changed habits of ancestors; the "vitalistic" theory that a force for change occurs within the germ cells...