The Error of Lamarckist Epistemology

Описание: This video is an overview of Lamarckism, a false theory of knowledge. It started as a theory of biological evolution that still survives today as a widespread mistake about how knowledge grows.

I use clips from Richard Dawkins and David Deutsch to explain Lamarckism. Lamarck believed that acquired characteristics could be directly passed on to offspring. Lamarck’s error is misunderstanding where knowledge is stored and how knowledge of different forms interact.

I translate Lamarckism into a general theory of knowledge and isolate its core assumptions:
Internal knowledge is instructed by external conditions.
Knowledge growth stops once external needs are satisfied.
Knowledge is faithfully stored without active error correction.
Knowledge is automatically translated to different forms.

Each of these assumptions is contrasted with Darwinian knowledge growth, where:
Knowledge varies blindly and is not instructed by the environment.
Knowledge growth has no endpoint.
Errors are constantly corrected through active error correction mechanisms.
Different forms of knowledge require specialized mechanisms to translate.

In the second half of the video, I show how Lamarckist thinking appears in everyday life:
Art: treating art as emotional data transfer rather than creative interpretation.
Relationships: trying to copy outcomes without understanding distributed knowledge.
Education: assuming instruction can directly install knowledge.
Authority & tradition: copying past rules without understanding context.
Empiricism: treating perception as passive knowledge absorption.
Emotions: treating happiness or contentment as fixed endpoints rather than improvable creations.

The core idea is that knowledge has no external source. It cannot be instructed, downloaded, or copied. It must be created internally through trial and error. Once this is understood, Lamarckism can be recognized and avoided.