United States or Uruguay ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
To this category belong Darwin’s gemmules, Haeckel’s plastidules, Nägeli’s micellæ, Weismann’s labyrinth of ids, determinants, and biophors within the germ-plasm, and Roux’s ingenious hypothesis of the struggle of parts, which is an attempt to apply the Darwinian principle within the organism in order here also to rebut the teleological interpretation by giving a scientific one. Heredity.
He criticises very severely all attempts to carry the Darwinian principle of explaining adaptations into internal and minute details, arguing against Roux’s “Struggle of Parts” and Weismann’s “Germinal Selection.” And though he himself maintains very decidedly that the ultimate aim of biology is to find a mechanical solution of the problem of life, he criticises the modern hypotheses in this direction without prejudice, and declares them unsuccessful and insufficient, inclining himself towards the “neo-vitalistic reaction” in its most recent expression.
On this basis Weismann attempts to reach explanations of the phenomena of variation, of many apparently Lamarckian phenomena, and of recognised cases of “orthogenesis,” and seeks to complete and deepen Roux’s theory of the “struggle of parts,” which was just another attempt to carry Darwinism within the organism.
Word Of The Day