From Scientific American:
Giraffes’ long necks are perfectly suited to harvesting tender leaves beyond the reach of other herbivores. Pondering the genesis of this phenomenon, two giants of modern biology, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin, arrived at remarkably different hypotheses. Lamarck believed that constant stretching of the neck somehow stimulated its growth. The giraffe would then pass along this new trait to its offspring. In effect, this newer, longer neck was a direct result of a giraffe’s interaction with its environment. By contrast, Darwin’s theory posited that traits evolve as part of a random, gradual process. The giraffes that happened to have been born with longer necks thanks to a random genetic mutation were better fed and thus healthier than their shorter-necked counterparts, making them more likely to live long enough to breed and pass on this trait. Because this mutation conferred a specific advantage to long-necked giraffes that aided their survival, the trait was preserved in future generations.
Lamarckian theories about the influence of the environment were largely abandoned after scientists discovered that heritable traits are carried on the genes encoded by our DNA. A recent study, however, published by neuroscientists Junko A. Arai, Shaomin Li and colleagues at Tufts University, shows that not only does the environment an animal is reared in have marked effects on its ability to learn and remember, but also that these effects are inherited. The study suggests that we are not the mere sum of our genes: what we do can make a difference.
More here.
Adaptation, the process by which one thing develops into another thing, by which one shape or form changes into a different form, is a commonplace artistic activity. Books are turned into plays and films all the time, plays are turned into movies and also sometimes into musicals, movies are turned into Broadway shows and even, by the ugly method known as “novelisation”, into books as well. We live in a world of such transformations and metamorphoses. Good movies – Lolita, The Pink Panther – are remade as bad movies; bad movies – The Incredible Hulk, Deep Throat – are remade as even worse movies; British TV comedy series are turned into American TV comedy series, so that The Office becomes a different The Office, and Ricky Gervais turns into Steve Carell, just as, long ago, the British working-class racist Alf Garnett in Till Death Us Do Part turned into the American blue-collar bigot Archie Bunker in All In the Family. British reality programmes are adapted to suit American audiences as well; Pop Idol becomes American Idol when it crosses the Atlantic, Strictly Come Dancing becomes Dancing With the Stars – a programme which, it may interest you to know, invited me to appear on it last season, an invitation I declined.