> -----Original Message----- > From: howard posner [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 3:50 PM > To: lute-cs.dartmouth.edu > Subject: [LUTE] Re: players getting better--was Trench Fill > > > On Feb 3, 2009, at 12:47 PM, Eugene C. Braig IV wrote: > > > Darwin recognized that individuals don't adapt. > > ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? > ???????????????? > > I think what Darwin recognized is that acquired adaptations aren't > passed on genetically, which is a different thing.
"Alas, poor Darwin!" He may be one of the most misinterpreted and misrepresented figures in all popular media. Perhaps a little too far off topic, but here's a decent definition of adaptation from Ricklefs' classic ecology text (emphasis by asterisk is mine): "A *genetically* determined characteristic that enhances the ability of an individual to cope with its environment; an evolutionary process by which organisms [note: plural] become better suited to their environments." In other words--being defined as genetic traits--adaptations ARE passed on and preprogrammed into individuals, not acquired by them at an individual level. Those who are better at sending progeny into the future (the real measure of the "fittest") shape the adaptations inherent in their population through genetic inheritance. Of course, understanding of the genetic basis of it all was before Darwin's time, but Darwin did recognize the manifestation of what we now know as genetics in the inheritance of adaptations. That said, something about the whole early music movement/HIP/whatever you call it strikes me as deliberately anti-Darwinian in any meaningful analogy...and I am a great fan of such musical efforts. Early music making deliberately looks to emulate those "adaptations" which are functionally extinct to those that make for modern, popular music making. Best, Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
