Posted by Viridis on December 9, 2003, at 5:48:54
In reply to Re: Opioids for depression, posted by maxx44 on December 8, 2003, at 14:13:07
Dog breeds provide remarkable examples of artificial selection for certain traits (an area that Darwin discussed extensively, mostly with respect to breeds of pigeons). Basically, humans have chosen dogs with particular, inheritable features and inbred them to "strengthen" these characteristics. This is purely Darwinian -- nothing Lamarckian about this at all.
The "neo-Lamarckian" stuff is almost all based on some very special cases in bacteria, most of which can be explained equally well in a Darwinian context. The bottom line is that there's hardly a shred of evidence for Lamarck's idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics, nor does it make any sense in the context of all the evidence that's been accumulated in many decades of biological research.
To put this in a psychiatric context, brain damage etc. to an individual won't be passed on to children, because even if brain cell DNA changes, there's no connection with DNA in sperm and eggs. There is evidence that stress during pregnancy etc. might affect a child's mental development, but this is a consequence of conditions in the womb etc., not a change in genetic material.
Anyway, I sense that this discussion will soon be directed to some other board -- does Dr. Bob have an "evolutionary psychiatry" one set up yet?
poster:Viridis
thread:952
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031208/msgs/287953.html