Introduction
Lamarck’s idea about giraffe necks is that animals could pick up traits during their lifetime, through effort and struggle, then pass those traits on to their kids to give them a leg up. This theory is incorrect, as evolution doesn’t work that way. Species change slowly, over long periods, thanks to chance and fate, with no regard for how an individual improves through life.
Discussion
Based on scientific ideas to fit in political ideologies, for example, politicians have used the inheritance of genes to show that people can inherit positive behaviors from their parents. Generally, it is not appropriate for politicians to pick and choose scientific ideas to fit their political ideology because science should be based on evidence and facts, not political beliefs. Using science to further political agendas often lead to misinformation and harm society.
Science and the scientific process will never be completely separate from the people and their personalities or the sociopolitical context in which they work. Scientists are human beings and are influenced by their personal beliefs and experiences and the societal and cultural context in which they operate. This leads to biases in the design, execution, and interpretation of research studies. Ultimately, science needs to be as objective and impartial as possible. An awareness of the potential biases and influences in the scientific process can affect how one consumes new scientific ideas in several ways. One needs to be critical when evaluating new scientific ideas and research findings and consider the potential sources of bias and influence that may have affected the study.
While it is true that environmental factors cannot change the DNA sequence itself, the expression of that DNA can be affected. The rat-licking behavior influences the epigenetic modifications in the rat pup DNA, which affects the expression of certain genes. For example, research has shown that rat pups that receive more licking and grooming from their mothers have different patterns of methylation, a type of epigenetic modification, on genes involved in stress response. Lamarck proposed that organisms could pass on traits acquired during their lifetime to their offspring, which was later disproven by Darwin’s theory of natural selection.
Conclusion
Nevertheless, the most interesting part of this conversation was discussing the idea of Lamarckian evolution and how it has been disproven by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Some possible questions that one could have after this conversation would be, ‘How does the process of epigenetics work?’