Jean-Baptiste Lamark was a French botanist. His most noteworthy contribution to the
science community is his theory of the inheritance
of acquired characteristics. Lamark
suggested that species acquired certain characteristics as their environment
changed.
“How does evolution
work?
·
If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that
environment will be different. Organisms with those new adaptive traits will
have greater reproductive success than others and those new beneficial traits
will spread, producing a change in the population. This is the process of
natural selection, essentially the process of the natural environment selecting
the organisms that will be most successful.”
The bullet point listed above was
influenced by Lamark’s theory in a profound way. Lamark’s idea opened the door to the fact
that there was a significant link between organisms and their outside
environment in the course of evolution.
Darwin may have never developed his
theory of natural selection if it were not for Jean-Baptiste Lamark. Lamark was definitely a positive influence
towards Darwin’s theory. Darwin was mindful of Lamark’s work throughout his
college years. Lamark’s theory gave
Darwin a starting point and allowed him to build from there.
The attitude of the church affected
Darwin’s publication of his book On the
Origin of Species in a huge way, so much so that Darwin delayed its
publication. Darwin’s book was very
controversial, as society viewed the talk of evolution as atheism. Darwin also did not want to disappoint his
wife who was very religious. The church
was afraid that if ideas of evolution were accepted amongst society it would
fall apart and the church would no longer exist.
Ciochon, Jurmain, Kilgore, and Trevathan, Wenda, Introduction to Physical Anthropology. Belmont:
Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2014.
Print.
I liked the point where you said Lamarck's ideas showed that there was "a significant link between organisms and their outside environment in the course of evolution". I agree that without influences such as Lamarck his theory of Natural Selection wouldn't have been formed. He needed these types of influences and fresh ideas to shape his own ideas around. And I definitely agree with your last paragraph. He was definitely afraid that things would fall apart regardless of how accurate his information was.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Lamarck's idea that species change over time greatly influenced Darwin's work, but I don't think Lamarck was Darwin's greatest influence. With Thomas Malthus's idea the resources are limited, the idea that species change over time would have been irrelevant to Darwin's theory of natural selection.
ReplyDeleteI myself also have the same thoughts as Adam Castro, the 2nd commenter to this post. I think Lamarck's ideas tremendously influenced Charles Darwin as did the other scientists our professor had listed for us, but without Thomas Malthus' idea Darwin would have never came to the conclusion of his theory on Natural Selection.
ReplyDeleteYour post has made me doubt my decision. I honestly thought that Lyell was most influential to Darwin. I agree, Lamarck was his starting point. His inspiration definately came from "a significant link between organisms and their outside environment in the course of evolution". Darwin definately was not the only controversial scientist.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Lamark suggested that species acquired certain characteristics as their environment changed."
ReplyDeleteTo clarify, it isn't that they acquired certain specific traits, but that their existing traits changed to work better in the environment. A little short on information here. More explanation of Lamarck's mechanism and how it was similar to and different from Darwin's theory would have been good to include here.
Yes, that bullet point applies, but there are others that apply as well, such as the point on heritability and reproduction.
In general, I agree with your discussion on how Lamarck influence Darwin. I am cautious about assigning too much significance to any scientist in particular. There were many scientists of that time working on the idea of evolution. Lamarck may have been the first to propose a mechanism, but he was not the only one to offer input. (Two exceptions: I tend to argue that the ideas developed by Lyell and Malthus were indispensable to Darwin's work.)
In general, good explanation on the concerns Darwin may have had with regard to publication.
"society viewed the talk of evolution as atheism"
I'm seeing that quite a bit and I just wanted to push back on this as it is iin question. Within the scientific community, this was not the case and it is important to understand the distinction. Outside of science, teachings that went against the teachings of the church weren't necessarily associated with atheism... just that they were perhaps heretical notions. Careful about applying today's language to historical events.