{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 30/e01/p073","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"This view is represented among others by Herbert Spencer, the English thinker, who has constructed a philosophical world-conception on the basis of natural evolution. Weismann holds this view to be mistaken. For in the worker-bee the reproductive organs do not merely remain behindhand in their development, but they actually become rudimentary; they do not possess a large proportion of the parts necessary for reproduction. But now, he contends, one can demonstrate in the case of other insects that defective nourishment in no way entails such a degeneration of organs. Flies are insects related to bees. Weismann reared the eggs laid by a female bluebottle in two separate batches, and fed the one plentifully, the other meagrely. The latter grew slowly and remained strikingly small. But they reproduced themselves. Hence it appears that in flies insufficient nourishment does not produce sterility. But then it follows also that in the root-insect, the common ancestral form, which in line with the evolution doctrine must be assumed for the allied species of bees and flies, this peculiarity of being rendered unfruitful by insufficient nourishment cannot have existed. On the contrary, this unfruitfulness must be an *acquired characteristic* of the bees. But at the same time there can be no question of any inheritance of this peculiarity, for the workers which have acquired it do not reproduce themselves, and accordingly, therefore, can pass on nothing by heredity. Hence the cause must be sought for in the bee-germ itself, why at one time queens and at another workers are developed. The external influence of insufficient nourishment can accomplish nothing, because it is not inherited. It can only act as a *stimulus*, which brings to development the preformed disposition in the germ.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"I. Haeckel and His Opponents","site_heading":null,"date":null,"location":null,"word_count":285,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/30/e01/p073","alignment_confidence":"medium","alignment_reason":"beads:length","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"TwoEssays","book_title":null,"publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Articles/GA030/English/TwoEssays/TwoEss_e01.html","evidence":null,"reason":"no_translator_named","note":"Neither the lecture's own page nor rsarchive's lecture list names a translator for it. No translator is established for this lecture: nothing at the level of the lecture names one. Do not attribute this English to a translator, and do not borrow a credit from another lecture of the volume. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/30/e01/p073","paragraph_aligned":true}],"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"e01","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 30/e01/p047","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/30/e01/p047"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":957,"en_words":671,"ratio":0.7,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative, so the same number need not name the same paragraph in the German. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."},"witness_completeness":{"ratio":1.14,"band":"comparable","note":null,"word_count":17236,"original_word_count":15055,"may_be_abridged":false},"witness_quality":{"translator":{"scope":"unit","status":"not_established","translator":null,"identified_edition":"TwoEssays","book_title":null,"publisher":null,"publisher_inferred":false,"match_score":1.0,"source_url":"https://www.rsarchive.org/Articles/GA030/English/TwoEssays/TwoEss_e01.html","evidence":null,"reason":"no_translator_named","note":"Neither the lecture's own page nor rsarchive's lecture list names a translator for it. No translator is established for this lecture: nothing at the level of the lecture names one. Do not attribute this English to a translator, and do not borrow a credit from another lecture of the volume. Cite the German for anything load-bearing.","warning":"No translator is recorded for this edition. An unattributed translation cannot be weighed as a witness: you cannot tell which hand made the choices in it. Cite the German for anything load-bearing."},"entity_parity":{"status":"ok","checked_against":["GA 30/e01/p047"],"missing_from_translation":[],"present_only_in_translation":[],"bead_confidence":"medium","note":"Every load-bearing name in the German counterpart appears in this English passage. That is a check on NAMES only: a translation can keep every name and still reverse who acts on whom, change a number, or soften a claim. Read the German for anything you intend to rest an argument on."},"note":"quote_safe certifies the bytes of this text. This block is about the translation as a WITNESS: who made it, and whether it carries the same names as the original. See witness_completeness for how much of the original this witness holds."}}