[Marxism] Dialectic of life; inheritance of acquired characteristics

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

hari.kumar at sympatico.ca
<http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism>  wrote:
>
>
> As regards all this, it is still fashionable to berate Engels'
understanding of biology. But relatively recently work certainly
substantiates Engels view on the evolution of the hand. [Schick KD & Toth N:
'Making Silent Stones Speak'; 1994].

Levins & Lewontin dedicate _The Dialectical Biologist_ "To Frederick
Engels, who got it wrong a lot of the time but who got it right when it
counted." We all get it wrong a lot of the time; getting it right when
it counts is what is really difficult.

Carrol

^^^^^

CB: Also, it is not clear to me that Levins and Lewontin understand
dialectic as well as Engels did. Dialectic concerns more than the
relationship  between the part and the whole. There is a good more to it
than Levins and Lewontin get into in _The Dialectical Biologist_. They are
discovering dialectic in that book, which is refreshing, but they are not as
developed in it as someone like Engels. So, upon further review we may find
that Engels got it right even more than Levins and Lewontin realized at that
time.

By the way, on Hari's conjectural comments, Levins and Lewontin criticize
Lysenko , but they don't treat him as a pariah, as many do.



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