The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics Paul Kammerer 9781230326863 Books
Download As PDF : The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics Paul Kammerer 9781230326863 Books
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt ... CHAPTER XLVIII ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT The biologists and physicians of today are inclined to underestimate the influence of the environment upon living beings and, on the other hand, to overestimate the effects of procreation. Only internal conditions are considered responsible for the development of the embryo, while the effectiveness of external conditions is almost denied, with the physical and mental characteristics of an individual irrevocably decided from the very start. Whatever future is held in store for the embryo and child remains supposedly unessential in comparison with the potentialities already contained in the generative cells of the parents and forebears. The main cause for the rejection of environment as a factor in development is the doubt with which the theory of the heredity of acquired characteristics is confronted. The question whether the effects of environment are hereditary is, to be sure, connected with, but essentially different from, the question whether the influences of environment affect the individual or its embryonic history at all. That this last question must be answered unconditionally in the affirmative cannot be contended by anybody now. The amount of proofs is so large that it seems superfluous to quote them (Chapter XXXVIII). Indubitably the quantity and quality of food, of light and air (oxygen, carbon-dioxide, humidity of the air, poisonous pollutions, such as dust, smoke, and illuminating gas), the extent and nature of exercise and daily labor, spiritual and mental impressions, make themselves powerfully felt in the life and the characteristics of the developed individual as well as in the one in the process of development. It is platitudinous to remark that the early childhood is more...
The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics Paul Kammerer 9781230326863 Books
If you are looking for this book to gauge the history of Paul Kammerer's work and thought, definitely DO NOT buy the "books-a-million" version rendered by General Books. I have an older edition, and the original is filled with numerous tables and graphs, figures and diagrams, plus numerous photographic plates. That is the heart and "meat" of Kammerer's book. NONE OF IT IS DUPLICATED! Every table, graph, figure, diagram and photograph has been deleted, for the convenience of this junk-edition. So, don't waste your money. Better to buy a very old copy or get it from the library and make your own photocopy!Product details
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Tags : The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics [Paul Kammerer] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XLVIII ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT The biologists and physicians of today are inclined to underestimate the influence of the environment upon living beings and,Paul Kammerer,The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics,TheClassics.us,1230326863,General,Medical General,Medical Nursing,Medicine: general issues
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The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics Paul Kammerer 9781230326863 Books Reviews
Paul Kammerer (1880-1926) was an Austrian biologist who advocated the Lamarckian theory of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics" the notion that organisms may pass to their offspring characteristics they have acquired in their lifetime. Late in his career, he was accused of having falsified his data (by injecting ink into the footpads of "midwife" toads, to make them appear like the female's pads), and he committed suicide six weeks after the accusations. However, some have tried to rehabilitate Kammerer [e.g., Arthur Koestler's The Case of the Midwife Toad].
He wrote in the Preface to this 1924 book, "I was in doubt of the inheritance of acquired characteristics before my own research work had grown to such proportions as to irrevocably convince me of the truth of the theory that I am now advocating... my book may be remiss in an overwhelming weight of proof; but, on the other hand, this succinct treatise is not over-burdened with tiring details.... I appeal with this volume... to the laity also... My treatise... affords anybody with education and everybody endowed with sufficient reasoning power the opportunity to consider the subject, and to draw his own independent conclusions." (Pg. 20-21)
He argues, "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 his lifetime dies with him. His children and his children's children must ever and again start from the bottom." (Pg. 30)
He comments on the experiments of Weismann with cutting off the tails of rats (this was not inherited by subsequent generations, of course) "there was little reason for these Lamarckians to silently retreat. In the first place, a mutilation does not constitute an acquired, but rather a 'lost' characteristic. Even if one insists that a mutilation be considered an acquired characteristic, it seems quite hasty to deny the inheritance of acquired characteristics as a whole on account of nothing else but the non-inheritance of a single characteristic, especially if the latter belongs in a strictly limited and mechanical area." (Pg. 156) He adds, "In general... we may assume today that not mutilations, but their results can be inherited, because they constitute a stimulating reaction of the mutilated living being." (Pg. 162)
He contends, "Without the inheritance of acquired characteristics, the important from the monocellular being to the multicellular would have been impossible. Without this progressive method and inheritance of the new, it would have been impossible to evolve the higher developed kingdoms of the plants and animals. Without this inheritance, the development of blossoming trees and the final evolution into the 'crowning glory of creation'---man---would have been stifled right in the beginning." (Pg. 173)
He says about Eugenics "I hope it is understood now what is meant to 'negative' or selective eugenics on the one hand, and 'positive' or 'productive eugenics on the other... because I term the weeding out of detrimental characteristics 'negative' eugenics, it was stated that I am criticizing and condemning eugenics, as it stands today. However, this is not the case. I emphatically claim that, by suitable sifting processes, much is to be gained for the race; but I do not think this should be the end of it. I insist that knowledge and ability even today permit a perfection of the sifting process by creative processes. But first, the prejudice against the inheritance fo acquired characteristics ... has to be overcome; then the way to productive eugenics, and with that, to a better age for humanity, lies open before our very eyes."
Although his theory is perhaps irredeemably rejected nowadays, it is interesting to actually read Kammerer's book, and see that the theory seems less objectionable and more reasonable than one would think (from its usual brief dismissal in textbooks).
If you are looking for this book to gauge the history of Paul Kammerer's work and thought, definitely DO NOT buy the "books-a-million" version rendered by General Books. I have an older edition, and the original is filled with numerous tables and graphs, figures and diagrams, plus numerous photographic plates. That is the heart and "meat" of Kammerer's book. NONE OF IT IS DUPLICATED! Every table, graph, figure, diagram and photograph has been deleted, for the convenience of this junk-edition. So, don't waste your money. Better to buy a very old copy or get it from the library and make your own photocopy!
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