[cheryl j]

See , for example , how epigenetics have been refuting the materialist mechanistic neo-Darwinian view of the world ,regarding inheritance : acquired characteristics get passed on from generation to generation :

There's nothing immaterial about epigenetics. It's just an additional physical mechanism or process that affects genes besides mutation.

[dlorde]

... See , for example , how epigenetics have been refuting the materialist mechanistic neo-Darwinian view of the world ,regarding inheritance : acquired characteristics get passed on from generation to generation :
Darwin himself by the way was a convinced Lamarckian ,in the sense that he did accept that kind of inheritance , while even trying to deliver some theories to explain just that : the materialist neo-Darwinians such as Dennett , Dawkins ...do reject that Lamarckian view of evolution and inheritance , obviously ...

Ah, no. Epigenetics isn't inheritance of acquired characteristics in the Lamarkian sense. Epigenetics is about environmental influences (typically stressors) affecting the physiology of an individual and causing suppression of certain genes via methylation; this gene suppression is potentially heritable. So the only acquired characteristic is the methylation of certain genes.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

See , for example , how epigenetics have been refuting the materialist mechanistic neo-Darwinian view of the world ,regarding inheritance : acquired characteristics get passed on from generation to generation :

There's nothing immaterial about epigenetics. It's just an additional physical mechanism or process that affects genes besides mutation.

What makes genes get "imprinted " by acquired characteristics or by acquired enviromental traits ,such as the implications of famine , holocaust , war traumas ....such as tragic events ...as to behave as if they "hold " some sort of a "memory " of past events ...they pass on to the next generations, and beyond ? How does that happen ? just via physics and chemistry ? How ?
Mechanistic materialist neo-Darwinian science excludes , per definition, the Lamarckian Darwinian epigenetics= epigenetics as a scientific heresy .

[RD]

Science must start looking for non-physical forms of causation, or for non-physical or mental phenomena , that are still unknown to science ,  that might or must be underlying the laws of physics themselves , by rejecting reductionist materialism .

Then, and only then, will science or biology , in this case , be able to explain epigenetics , morphogenesis , birds' homing

You must have missed my posts on ...

morphogenesis , see ... http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=49531.msg424665#msg424665

and

birds homing , see ...  http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=49531.msg424182#msg424182

[dlorde]

I also liked the part about qualia distinguishing real from imaginary, that if beliefs, ideas, memories, etc had qualia as vivid as those associated with perception, it would be impossible for the brain to distinguish between the idea of a monkey sitting in a chair and an actual one; thinking about eating a meal would seem equivalent to actually eating it.

Yes; particularly relevant to me as I realise how many of my past memories consist of a blend of real and dreamed content. If dreams are involved in the encoding of current experiences to long term storage, this integration of dream material is not unexpected, and perhaps helps to explain the unreliability of even seemingly vivid memories.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

... See , for example , how epigenetics have been refuting the materialist mechanistic neo-Darwinian view of the world ,regarding inheritance : acquired characteristics get passed on from generation to generation :
Darwin himself by the way was a convinced Lamarckian ,in the sense that he did accept that kind of inheritance , while even trying to deliver some theories to explain just that : the materialist neo-Darwinians such as Dennett , Dawkins ...do reject that Lamarckian view of evolution and inheritance , obviously ...

Ah, no. Epigenetics isn't inheritance of acquired characteristics in the Lamarkian sense. Epigenetics is about environmental influences (typically stressors) affecting the physiology of an individual and causing suppression of certain genes via methylation; this gene suppression is potentially heritable. So the only acquired characteristic is the methylation of certain genes.

[/quote]

Ok, i am no expert in biology or genetics , but, how do you explain the inheritance of acquired traits or characteristics then , in the Lamarckian and Darwinian sense , that gets rejected by the materialist neo-Darwinians ?

[dlorde]

What makes genes get "imprinted " by acquired characteristics or by acquired enviromental traits ,such as the implications of famine , holocaust , war traumas ....such as tragic events ...as to behave as if they "hold " some sort of a "memory " of past events ...they pass on to the next generations, and beyond ? How does that happen ? just via physics and chemistry ? How ?

Yes, epigenetics is biochemistry. Read all about it Here: Epigenetics

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Science must start looking for non-physical forms of causation, or for non-physical or mental phenomena , that are still unknown to science ,  that might or must be underlying the laws of physics themselves , by rejecting reductionist materialism .

Then, and only then, will science or biology , in this case , be able to explain epigenetics , morphogenesis , birds' homing

You must have missed my posts on ...

morphogenesis , see ... http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=49531.msg424665#msg424665

and

birds homing , see ...  http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=49531.msg424182#msg424182

There were many mechanistic attempts to try to explain birds' homing via the position of the sun , but even at night , birds could get home, or via magnetism  by attaching magnets to those birds , via smell  , via the so-called biological clock ....none was proven to be "true " .

[dlorde]

Ok, i am no expert in biology or genetics , but, how do you explain the inheritance of acquired traits or characteristics then , in the Lamarckian and Darwinian sense , that gets rejected by the materialist neo-Darwinians ?

I'm not aware of any inheritance of acquired traits or characteristics, in the Lamarckian sense. Have you got an example?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

What makes genes get "imprinted " by acquired characteristics or by acquired enviromental traits ,such as the implications of famine , holocaust , war traumas ....such as tragic events ...as to behave as if they "hold " some sort of a "memory " of past events ...they pass on to the next generations, and beyond ? How does that happen ? just via physics and chemistry ? How ?

Yes, epigenetics is biochemistry. Read all about it Here: Epigenetics

[/quote]

Answer my question .
How do those acquired traits , due to famine, war traumas , holocaust, tragic events ...get passed on to the next generations, and beyond ?

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Ok, i am no expert in biology or genetics , but, how do you explain the inheritance of acquired traits or characteristics then , in the Lamarckian and Darwinian sense , that gets rejected by the materialist neo-Darwinians ?

I'm not aware of any inheritance of acquired traits or characteristics, in the Lamarckian sense. Have you got an example?

[/quote]


See the following scientific "heresy " on the subject : enlightening study :

Tell me then how do you explain just that , that which was revealed in the video above , when you will finish watching it then .

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

When science thus will realise and acknowledge the fact that reality as a whole is not just physical or material , including evolution, the mind or consciousness , and the rest , including matter itself (see modern physics regarding the latter )

It's really a shame that you don't share some of your ideas about chaos theory, observers, causality etc. on the physics forum. They don't know what they are missing.

[/quote]


Do you exclude a-priori any non-physical forms of causation ? Since reality is not just material or physical , do you ?
Do you deny the fact that the mind of the observer does affect the observed .?
And how can the "physical " mind "that's " in the brain , the mental "that's just physics and chemistry"  thus , be able to tell us anything reliable about physics and chemistry = circular "reasoning " : the observed  does imply  the mental of the observer that's observing it , does it not ?
I did never pretend to be an expert on chaos theory, not even remotely close .
Nobody knows "everything " : instead of trying to play the silly wise girl, why don't you enlighten us about how physics and chemistry alone can explain "everything = nothing " then,while missing the mental side of reality , genius .

[dlorde]

There were many mechanistic attempts to try to explain birds' homing via the position of the sun , but even at night , birds could get home, or via magnetism  by attaching magnets to those birds , via smell  , via the so-called biological clock ....none was proven to be "true " .

As one might expect, they use a variety of navigation cues; landmark recognition, magnetic field sensing, starfield and sun navigation, olfactory cues, etc. See All About Birds: Navigation. Not every homing or migration mechanism is fully explained, but the majority of those examined have been explained, and there's good reason to be confident that the others will have physical explanations.

Experience says unexplained doesn't mean inexplicable. You can always argue that the unexplained may be of 'immaterial' origin until it is explained, 'the immaterial of the gaps'; this seems a rather pointless semantic exercise. But is this is what rocks your boat, go for it. Oh, you did already...

[dlorde]

See the following scientific "heresy " on the subject : enlightening study :

Tell me then how do you explain just that , that which was revealed in the video above , when you will finish watching it then .

What do you think is heretical about it?

What about it do you think contradicts what I already described? It may be a little dated, but it's a reasonable summary of epigenetics.

It isn't Lamarkism.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

There were many mechanistic attempts to try to explain birds' homing via the position of the sun , but even at night , birds could get home, or via magnetism  by attaching magnets to those birds , via smell  , via the so-called biological clock ....none was proven to be "true " .

As one might expect, they use a variety of navigation cues; landmark recognition, magnetic field sensing, starfield and sun navigation, olfactory cues, etc. See All About Birds: Navigation. Not every homing or migration mechanism is fully explained, but the majority of those examined have been explained, and there's good reason to be confident that the others will have physical explanations.

Experience says unexplained doesn't mean inexplicable. You can always argue that the unexplained may be of 'immaterial' origin until it is explained, 'the immaterial of the gaps'; this seems a rather pointless semantic exercise. But is this is what rocks your boat, go for it. Oh, you did already...

No, they were not explained those ways : all attempts to explain birds ' homing physically failed so far ;as Sheldrake said :
and they will not be explained physically , not fully physically at least , not because we can't explain that now , and hence we will be able to explain them tomorrow , but simply because physics and chemistry alone are just a single part of the whole pic = that's a fact , no "immaterial of the gaps " : materialism is the one in fact that 's not only a kind of a promissory messianism ,in the sense that materialist science will be able to explain "everything =nothing " in the future ,just in terms of physics and chemistry thus,  but materialism is also the one using its "materialism of the gaps " by trying to explain consciousness ,for example,not to mention evolution, life and the rest  , just in terms of physics and chemistry , simply because materialism cannot account for  consciousness or the mental that's irreducible to the physical .

[cheryl j]

Answer my question .
How do those acquired traits , due to famine, war traumas , holocaust, tragic events ...get passed on to the next generations, and beyond ?

Because  those extreme and long lasting events have physiological effects on the human body, effects like lack of nutrition, exposure to the elements, injury and inflammation, chronic exposure to stress hormones like cortisol. It doesn't mean a memory of the events of WWII become encoded in the genes.

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

See the following scientific "heresy " on the subject : enlightening study :

Tell me then how do you explain just that , that which was revealed in the video above , when you will finish watching it then .

What do you think is heretical about it?

What about it do you think contradicts what I already described? It may be a little dated, but it's a reasonable summary of epigenetics.

It isn't Lamarkism.

The findings in that video are  against the materialist mechanistic orthodox neo-Darwinian  "scientific world view " , i guess,   , that's why they are scientific "heresy " .
Watch the video then .
Later , alligator ,thanks, gotta go.Bye.

[RD]

There were many mechanistic attempts to try to explain birds' homing via the position of the sun , but even at night , birds could get home, or via magnetism  by attaching magnets to those birds , via smell  , via the so-called biological clock ....none was proven to be "true " .

That birds can sense magnetic field has been proven ...

Although conjecture in the late nineteenth century held that birds could use the earth's magnetic field, it was only in the 1960s that scientists first demonstrated this experimentally.

http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/History/magnetoreception/

If you followed the Cornell University link I gave you can read about the experiments ...

The Magnetic Compass
Another German team did research with the European Robin in the early 1960s. In their tests, robins in a migratory mood were placed in covered cages to eliminate sun, star and other light clues. Despite the lack of visual clues, the robins were observed hopping in the correct migratory direction.

As an additional refinement to the test, a Helmholtz coil was placed around the covered cages. The coil allowed the researchers to shift the direction of the earth's magnetic field. When the direction of the magnetic field was changed, the robins changed their hopping direction.]The Magnetic Compass
Another German team did research with the European Robin in the early 1960s. In their tests, robins in a migratory mood were placed in covered cages to eliminate sun, star and other light clues. Despite the lack of visual clues, the robins were observed hopping in the correct migratory direction.

As an additional refinement to the test, a Helmholtz coil was placed around the covered cages. The coil allowed the researchers to shift the direction of the earth's magnetic field. When the direction of the magnetic field was changed, the robins changed their hopping direction.

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/allaboutbirds/studying/migration/navigation

So that birds cans sense magnetism proven in 1960s , and Alan Turing's paper on "Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis" published in 1952. Whoever is advising you that these phenomena are inexplicable by science is half a century out-of-date, (and can't do a google-search).

[DonQuichotte (OP)]

Answer my question .
How do those acquired traits , due to famine, war traumas , holocaust, tragic events ...get passed on to the next generations, and beyond ?

Because  those extreme and long lasting events have physiological effects on the human body, effects like lack of nutrition, exposure to the elements, injury and inflammation, chronic exposure to stress hormones like cortisol. It doesn't mean a memory of the events of WWII become encoded in the genes.

What about the much more  important  implications of all that : the psychological mental implications , genius ?
Gotta go, ciao ,think about that : the psychological or mental that are irreducible to the physical : how did those mental and psychological environmental implications and traits get passed on to the next generations and beyond then ?

In short :

Is heredity exclusively material  genetical ?
Hint : no.

[dlorde]

... physics and chemistry alone are just a single part of the whole pic = that's a fact , no "immaterial of the gaps " : materialism is the one in fact that 's not only a kind of a promissory messianism ,in the sense that materialist science will be able to explain "everything =nothing " in the future ,just in terms of physics and chemistry thus,  but materialism is also the one using its "materialism of the gaps " by trying to explain consciousness ,for example,not to mention evolution, life and the rest  , just in terms of physics and chemistry , simply because materialism cannot account for  consciousness or the mental that's irreducible to the physical .

Yawn...