Remark on Lamarck

Whitman: (some passage that had some vague reference to the changing of creatures, and thence evolution)

Prof: "Well, I don't know much about evolution, but it seems to be a reference to it. Does anybody know more about evolution, and whether it applies to the text?"

Student: "Well, evolution is a need or a response to a change in the environment. So [giraffes] will grow longer necks to reach the leaves on the trees, or developing opposable thumbs to better hold objects."

Prof: "well, that's more than I know about evolution"

student: "well yeah, I took a course on it."

me: "and what, did you fail it? Unless you were being imprecise about your description of evolution because this isn't a biology class. Otherwise, what you were describing was Lamarckian evolution, and Lamarck's theory was most emphatically disproven by his own peers in his own time."

</end fantasy>

Well, the only fantastical element was my own response, although it was pretty real in the sense that those lines were running through my head at the time. Yeah, it's an English class, so they shouldn't care too much, but why compound the ignorance of science among the arts?