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Re: [RC] Cloning/Larmarck/Bey Shah Temperament - Beverley H. Kane, MD"Pure Darwinism" is still pretty much adhered to in scientific circles, especially as the counterpoint to creationism. Interesting!--your experience with foals from the same stallions. Is it true that most foals never meet their fathers? "Environment" as an influence in forming neural connections is not just about "objective" visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli. At the Soul level of the organism, the subjective responses to these stimuli are unique, get hard wired into the brain, and may or may not be inheritable going forward. We are talking Soul or Consciousness or, at the very least, for all you Social Darwinists, random herd behaviors. :-) Chaos theory being what it is, as soon as you introduce one unique, random, individual influence--whether hard wired into the brain or genes or not--the organism starts down an infinitely divergent path. Whew! More thoughts per cup of Peet's coffee than any other brand. All I know is that, having about finished my book, I am starting to seriously look for my Soul Horse, and I don't care much about breeding. I care about heart and eye and how we are together in the now (and being less than 15hh). Beverley On 10/25/07 9:39 AM, "heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Pure Darwinism (inheritance only through natural selection and random variations) has never been scientifically, absolutely proven. There is an alternate theory, called Larmarckian, that offers substantial experimental evidence for inheritance of acquired (physical) traits. Read The Case of the Midwife Toad by Arthur Koestler. That book changed my life ~30 yrs ago. Also, the constant formation of new neural connections in the brain is, I think, more relevant to behavior than genetics. This relates to the interesting thread on Bey Shah temperaments.One needs to keep in mind that Darwin was the pioneer, and that so-called "pure Darwinism" is about like calling Civil War battlefield medicine "pure medicine." One must not throw the baby out with the bathwater as variations and additional inputs are recognized. With regard to new neural connections in the brain, absolutely "environment" is essential to behavior, and it is environment that causes the experiences that cause the brain to form new neural connections. That still doesn't take away from the genetic components of behavior, which are considerable. Having raised multiple foals by several different stallions, it is amazing how similarly the offspring of each will react to different things, and will develop mentally in similar fashions, despite a communal enviroment with the foals of the other stallions. I've also identified some specific behavior traits in multiple offspring of long-gone stallions that have come to me from widely-varied programs and environments--but nonetheless they share the quirky behaviors, whereas other horses coming from the same programs and same places do not. Genetics give an individual specific potentials. Environment determines what happens to those potentials. Both are responsible for the "final product," if there is such a thing, since we all change and adapt daily. Heidi _____________________________________ Beverley Kane, MD Horsensei Equine-Assisted Learning & Therapy Woodside, CA http://www.horsensei.com See Emmy Award-winning Stanford "Medicine & Horses" on NBC-TV http://www.horsensei.com/nbcnews.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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