Talk:Baldwin effect/Archive 1

I copied the Bladwin effect from http://www2.create.human.nagoya-u.ac.jp/baldwin/introduction.html

It is a very good simple summary worthy of sharing in wikipedia. I have emailed the site to ensure they don't mind.

merging baldwin topics
I suggest the baldwin topics be merged...

false dichotomy?
In fact it seems the 'Baldwinian evolution' article suggests a false dichotomy between it and Darwinian evolution. 'Baldwinian evolution' is not an alternative to Darwinism so much as it is a way of using Darwinism to explain Lamarck-like evolution. I think this article should be eliminated and pointed to 'Baldwin effect'.

Leo 128.54.57.16 23:59, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

lactose intolerance
The explanation of lactose intolerance is unclear. The article says that, 'a feedback loop operates whereby a dairy culture increases the selective advantage from this genetic trait'; why would a dairy culture increase the selective advantage of lactose intolerance?Hgilbert 15:21, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, it is the other side of the genetic effect. Lactose intolerance in adulthood is the usual condition for mammals, although some human genetic lines do not turn off lactase production as adulthood is reached. The phenomenon referred to in the article is the prevalence of lactose tolerance (which is the exceptional condition) among herding cultures. We might wonder why the more parsimonious explanation - that herding of dairy animals is popular among people who can make good use of unfermented dairy products - is disfavored. Flagmichael (talk) 22:04, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Evo-devo
I see that this article says "'The 'Baldwin effect' is better understood in evo-devo literature as a scenario in which a character or trait change occurring in an organism as a result of its interaction with its environment becomes gradually assimilated into its developmental genetic/epigenetic repertoire.'"

I have two concerns here


 * (1) I'm not very familiar with the term "evo-devo". It sounds to me like one which would primarily be used by opponents of evolutionary developmental biology, hence pejorative, hence POV, hence inappropriate. Is this term in fact used primarily by critics, or is it used by supporters of evolutionary developmental biology as well?
 * (2) I'd like to see a clear cite that the "Baldwin effect" is better understood in evo-devo literature (etc, etc). The reference (Simpson, 1953; Newman, 2002) is given. Do these sources really support our article's statement?

-- Writtenonsand (talk) 02:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

For some reason evodevo people like to call themselves such. And use "Neo-Darwinian" as a pejorative against others. But I agree using the full term seems more fitting to academia. --84.112.2.205 (talk) 19:03, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

"genetically coded" in 19th century?
"genetically coded" seems somewhat a-historical; the concept of "genes" and "genome" was, according to the Genome article, coined in 1920 by Hans Winkler. -- 89.247.63.225 (talk) 20:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation
I suggest that this page be moved to one with a subject-specific name (such as "Baldwin effect (biology)") because there is also a Baldwin effect in astrophysics that I would like to write an article on. Splat (talk) 18:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Notability of "Genetic Priming" - discussion about possible deletion
Please offer opinions at Articles for deletion/Genetic Priming. The scientific topic Genetic Priming, which was just inserted (without citations) into this page's text, seems to have been mentioned mainly on a blog or two, and hasn't generated any peer-reviewed publications. Can it be notable, or should its page be deleted per WP:NOTE? More comment needed from experienced Wikipedians. -- Health Researcher (talk) 19:03, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

What is this?
This article is a real mess. I don't think in its current state it represents any noteworthy actual "knowledge" about anything, other than totally unsubstantiated, and ultimately unscientific speculation from philosophers venturing way, way beyond their expertise into - to them - unknown waters of evolutionary biology. Yeah, it's a cute idea with just one problem: no evidence has ever been presented for it. Some philosophers of mind dredged up this late-19th-century idea because they are desperate to explain why humans are so much more intelligent than other animals, but they don't want to actually do the science involved in checking whether it actually is valid. I think it should be nominated for deletion as it doesn't seem to be any more notable than other idle speculation on evolution. There seems to be only one book even written on the subject, and the number of papers seriously referencing it can be counted on one hand, but I don't contribute to WP often so I'm not sure as to the deletion procedure. 89.98.179.2 (talk) 01:28, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

To the contrary, several scientific papers have discussed the Baldwin Effect (see e.g. Wcislo 1989, Robinson & Dukas 1999, Crispo 2007), and it is discussed extensively and favourably in West-Eberhard (2003) which is a core textbook for courses in biology at several universities. It is also currently discussed (largely favourably) as part of the zoology course at the University of Cambridge. Though the effect remains controversial, your description is seriously misrepresentative of its current scientific status.

Having said all that, this article is indeed somewhat inaccurate. I particularly disagree with the suggestion that the Baldwin Effect refers specifically to learning, which is not the case either in Baldwin's original theory or in most of the subsequent discussion. 131.111.185.72 (talk) 16:38, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

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