Old "Science" beliefs: `Telegony' & `Pangenesis' & more


 Telegony -  "offspring at a distance" - a belief held from before and through
 Victorian times.
    
 Some folk, including Darwin, believed that males could could somehow pass on
 traits to later children of a woman, even though the children were fathered
 by another male!

 Unbelievably, Telegony was taught, and decreed as a fact in text books for
 up to 70 years without any real attempt at verification. No viable experiment
 was ever made, the idea being dropped from science fashion only when Mendel's
 basic logic began to dominate.      
    
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 Pangenesis - "all-producing" - a pet belief of Darwin's
    
 Darwin thought that tiny particles called `gemmules' were produced by body
 cells and that these eventually traveled to the sex organs and influenced
 future offspring.

 Important thing was - he thought these `gemmules' picked up on parents'
 activities and passed those temporary traits on to any children.

 That is, he thought skills or characteristics acquired during the life of
 the parent could be inherited by offspring

 We would now call that sort of idea `Lamarckian'.


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 More - Darwin seriously speculated that these imaginary `gemmules' passed
 from male to female in sperm and so might be a reason for some women "coming
 to resemble their husbands".

 `Perceptions' note:

 Many women & men choose partners with the bone structure of their parent(s):
 hence couples can resemble each other later in life. Check any newspaper
 archives.  


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 In `The Origin of Species' he began the chapter on sexual selection :- "Man is
 more courageous, pugnacious, and energetic than woman and has more inventive
 genius".

 `Perceptions' note: Disagree - see
 www.perceptions.couk.com/greatest.html

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 Darwin again - "Woman seems to differ from man in mental disposition ... these
 faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and
 lower state of civilization." ("The Descent of Man -")

 `Perceptions' note: Disagree - think that's unscientific and untrue - see
 www.perceptions.couk.com/genes4.html

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 Also maybe see
 www.perceptions.couk.com/uef/wallace.html
 for details of `real evolution'

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              FURTHER REFERENCES

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file-ID www.perceptions.couk.com/olfacs.txt