Giraffe up!

So there's this adorable Android app where you help the giraffe grow her neck so she can eat the leaves and survive. Sounds exactly like Lamarck's theory of evolution. I included the description that came with the app below.

" GIRAFFE UP is a arcade game for controlling Giraffe with tilt sensor to make her neck really really long! Let`s feed Giraffe green leaves. Let her jump over gravity, time and space with useful items, dodge annoying animals. Thank you Lamarck, you were so right. "

Source: http://androidapp.lisisoft.com/apps-android-phone/458077-lamarckism.lamarckism.html

Basics of Darwinism

Darwin describes evolution as the change of living things over time, and evolution is a result of natural selection. However, for natural selection to occur, four conditions must be met.

1. Variation in a population: some variations will allow organisms survivie and reproduce better than other organisms in the population.
2. Overproduction of Offspring: every population produces more offspring than can naturaly survive
3. Struggle to Survive: Indivivduals must struggle to meet their basic needs of survival
4. Differental Survival and Reproduction: the best adapted individuals tend to survive and reproduce, passing on their genes.

This means change happens over time in a population, not change happening in individuals during their lifetime.

Basics of Lamarck's Theory

Lamarck's theory of evolution consists of three major components; constant progression, spontaneous generation, and the theory of acquired traits.


The idea of constant progression means that every generation adapts its body to become more advanced than the previous generation. An organism's environment is the cause of the gradual development changes and is the cause of diversity.


The principle of spontaneous generation is the idea that living things originated directly from nonliving matter.

 Lamarck's theory of acquired characteristics states that an animal would pass along physiological changes that it had encountered in its lifetime to its offspring. These changes are a response to the animals survival needs, that then become habit for that species, and later inheritable traits.


Source: http://campus.udayton.edu/~hume/Lamarck/lamarck.htm

Darwin vs. Lamarck

Here we see Minecraft versions of Darwin and Lamarck painting sheep, something we all love to do in Minecraft (or at least I do...), and sometime later the two painted sheep have a natural purple baby together. Now even though this comic has a few mistakes, ( Lamarck and Darwin could have never met, etc...) it does a nice job of blending today's pop culture with Lamarck's theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics.

Source: http://kmc.thecomicseries.com/comics/15/