Where was Darwin wrong?

[NorthernSoul]

I'm currently part way through reading "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin. I was wondering if anybody could tell me on what points Darwin was wrong. That is, to what Darwin said, can modern science now say "Okay, he did a good job for the period, but that's not exactly right"?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I've not read Origins, but from what I understand, he was pretty much right. Any holes in the theory are from lack of knowledge that we now have.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I've not read Origins, but from what I understand, he was pretty much right. Any holes in the theory are from lack of knowledge that we now have.

I believe he had ideas about learned or developed traits being passed down to offspring. Lammarkanism if I remember correctly.

This is not how it works.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I believe he had ideas about learned or developed traits being passed down to offspring. Lammarkanism if I remember correctly.

This is not how it works.

I don't think Darwin agreed with Lamarck about this. He thought natural selection only applied to traits you were born with.

 

[Sherman Bay]

I don't think Darwin was wrong, but he left many details unanswered, as things like DNA were unknown at the time. Just how genes worked and passed down data to later generations was a mystery at the time. His contribution to science was the idea that heredity was influenced by survival of the fittest.

 

[ravdin]

Darwin had a theory he called pangenesis^WP to explain the mechanism for heredity. It's dead wrong. We know better today thanks to Mendelian genetics and molecular biology.

 

[blutoski]

I don't think Darwin agreed with Lamarck about this. He thought natural selection only applied to traits you were born with.

People are always surprised to learn that Darwin started out as a type of Lamarckist. But there's no contradiction: he didn't know the origin of diversity was genetic mutation, so assumed as everybody did at that time that physical changes from effort or need could be passed to offspring.

What he proposed that was new to Lamarckists was that random diversity in offspring is culled by competition eliminating the less fit rather than propelled by general necessity in all animals in the population, and that this is what gives the appearance of a directed phenotype shift toward better adaptation.

Later, he abandoned two other Larmackian principles: that the changes are directed toward a specific endpoint, and secondly, that there was an upward direction toward 'better' rather than just temporary spacio-temporal fitness.

Lots of other errors in detail, though, as mentioned in previous posts. No awareness of discrete genetics was a handicap.

 

[TMiguel]

Darwin had a theory he called pangenesis^WP to explain the mechanism for heredity. It's dead wrong. We know better today thanks to Mendelian genetics and molecular biology.

Not a theory but a hypothesis.

 

[Wowbagger]

So, basically, Darwin didn't distinguish between somatic and germ-line genes.

But, other than that, I think he was right on the mark.... Right?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

People are always surprised to learn that Darwin was a type of Lamarckist. But there's no contradiction: he didn't know the origin of diversity was genetic mutation, so assumed as everybody did at that time that adaptations could be passed to offspring.

What he proposed that was new to Lamarckists was that this diversity in offspring is culled by competition eliminating the less fit rather than propelled by general necessity in all animals in the population, and that this is what gives the appearance of a directed phenotype shift toward better adaptation.

I've just looked it up. Thank you for correcting my misconception. And of course the inheritance of acquired characteristics has been partially rehabilitated with the study of epigenetics (or have I completely got this wrong too?)

 

[Wowbagger]

I think epigenetics is more about how the enviornment that the genes find themselves in, impacts their expression. It is not really a form of inheritance. Though, I suppose some of that impact could end up altering what goes into the germ-line.

 

[shadron]

Darwin had a problem. Without knowing that genetic traits are quantized by genes, he assumed that a chance good mutation would be watered down in successive generations and thus disappear from the species without affecting it. Mendel's genetics showed that such traits are quantized rather than be "qualitized" - that rather than the trait being watered down, it was passed, intact, to a proportion of the offspring, and therefore remained in full effect generations later. Later on, of course, Crick and Watson showed how this worked, exactly, at the molecular level.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Epidemiological studies suggest that environmentally induced properties such as underweight and the low birth weight of humans are inherited epigenetically. This suggests that acquired traits and properties can be inherited. This also reconstitutes (at least partially) Lamarck, whose scientific theories seemed to have been buried for good in the 20th century following vehement debates.

http://www.bio-pro.de/en/life/thema/03951/index.html

Also
https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/0/b360905554fdb7d985256ec5006a7755?OpenDocument

 

[Delvo]

Some of the problems people mention here (inheritance of acquired traits and "upward" direction) would not be found in TOoS because that book was written at a later time after he abandoned them. In fact, in one case, he wrote the opposite in TOoS: that parasites seeming to have moved "down" compared to their nearest non-parasitic relatives, which would fit perfectly with natural selection but not with "upward"-oriented theories.

Somewhere in TOos (presumably while discussing traits which originally serve one purpose but end up serving another later), I read him stating that it had been established in entomology that insects' wings were derived from "tracheids", a name which indicates breathing as the things' original purpose. But the last time I mentioned this online, someone told me that those wings did not actually come from such a source. (It could still have been what Darwin was told by entomologists at the time, though.)

He's also quoted hypothesizing an origin for cetacians in the form of a bear-like ancestor, which we now know that their ancestors were not like, but I don't think that particular story appears in TOoS.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

ISTR that there was a book published about 15 years ago that annotated Origin with modern biological knowledge so you could see where Darwin had speculated correctly and where he had not. I just spent a few minutes trying to find its name by Googling but without success. Maybe someone with better Google skills could do better.

 

[learner]

ISTR that there was a book published about 15 years ago that annotated Origin with modern biological knowledge so you could see where Darwin had speculated correctly and where he had not. I just spent a few minutes trying to find its name by Googling but without success. Maybe someone with better Google skills could do better.

Possibly ""Almost like a Whale" Steve Jones, Oxford Geneticist.
Good book.
It confirms just how right Darwin was, given the biological knowledge available to him.
By the way, the title of the book is taken from a quote of Darwins, he was speculating the power of natural selection and gave an extreme example that a Bear swimming and scooping flies from the surface of the water, could lead, through natural selection,to the evolution of a Whale.

 

[Mojo]

Possibly ""Almost like a Whale" Steve Jones, Oxford Geneticist.
Good book.

The US edition is called Darwin's Ghost.

He's a London geneticist, BTW.

 

[Mojo]

Darwin had a problem. Without knowing that genetic traits are quantized by genes, he assumed that a chance good mutation would be watered down in successive generations and thus disappear from the species without affecting it. Mendel's genetics showed that such traits are quantized rather than be "qualitized" - that rather than the trait being watered down, it was passed, intact, to a proportion of the offspring, and therefore remained in full effect generations later.

The idea of "blending" of inheritance was the dominant theory of inheritance among biologists of Darwin's time. The then-current theory was wrong in a way that weakened Darwin's central theory, and subsequent evidence has actually strengthened it.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Possibly ""Almost like a Whale" Steve Jones, Oxford Geneticist.
Good book.
It confirms just how right Darwin was, given the biological knowledge available to him.
By the way, the title of the book is taken from a quote of Darwins, he was speculating the power of natural selection and gave an extreme example that a Bear swimming and scooping flies from the surface of the water, could lead, through natural selection,to the evolution of a Whale.

Thanks! After a bit of Googling the title, this looks like the book my fading memory was trying to recall.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

The US edition is called Darwin's Ghost.

As is the Canadian edition.

He's a London geneticist, BTW.