ipl-logo

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's Theories Of Evolution

1038 Words5 Pages

Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, born on August 1, 1744 served in the army before being discharged, and later starting his scientific career as a botanist. Lamarck studied medicine and botany, at which he rapidly became expert, later publishing a series of books on invertebrate zoology and paleontology. Of these, Philosophie zoologique, published in 1809, most clearly states Lamarck's theories of evolution. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had put forth a theory that laid the early foundations for the study of evolution. His theory is alternatively referred to as the theory of transformation or simply Lamarckism. Lamarck proposed that the positive evolutionary changes result from changing needs or changes to the environment. …show more content…

Basically, when environments changed, organisms had to change their behavior to survive. The classic example used to explain the concept of use and disuse is the elongated neck of the giraffe. According to Lamarck's theory, if a giraffe stretched its neck for leaves, a "nervous fluid" would flow into its neck and make it longer. Its offspring would inherit the longer neck, and continued stretching would make it longer still over several …show more content…

He came to believe that species survived through a process called "natural selection," where species that successfully adapted to meet the changing requirements of their natural habitat thrived, while those that failed to evolve and reproduce died off. This is very different from Lamarck's incorrect idea that the environment altered the shape of individuals and that these acquired changes were then inherited.
Very often, Darwin's use of the phrase "survival of the fittest" is misunderstood. Many people assume that "the fittest" refers to the strongest, biggest, or smartest organism, however, from an evolutionary perspective, the fittest individuals are simply the ones who have the combination of traits that allow them to survive and produce more offspring that in turn survive to reproduce. What makes an individual fit all depends on the environment at the time and the combination of traits that are most suited to flourishing in

Show More
Related
618 Words | 3 Pages

As a young boy, while growing up in New York, one of his daily hobbies was analyzing species and sub species characteristics. He developed this habit after discovering Darwin’s writings at an early age. He attended Harvard and attained an undergraduate degree. In Harvard, he objectively studied nature

Read More
1156 Words | 5 Pages

Over the eras, many scientists have expressed concerns with Darwin's evolution theory and in "Was Darwin Wrong?" by David Quammen one can learn about the proof behind the theory of evolution. Many people do not believe in evolution due to an overall unawareness about the theory and religious upbringing. However, Quammen clarifies the truth behind evolution in his article. The article states five positions of evidence biogeography, embryology, morphology, paleontology, and the bacterial resistance to antibiotics discovered in humans.

Read More
155 Words | 1 Pages

Considering that creationism had been ingrained into virtually every facet of English culture and society for the last one thousand years going back all the way into the dark ages of Europe, it wasn 't easy for naturalist theories to prevail. The Renaissance during the 1400 's and 1500 's certainly threw a wrench into the status-quo but it wasn 't until the Darwinian Evolution during the mid-1800s that these evolutionary beliefs became widely accepted. Early scientists and thinkers like Georges Cuvier, Comte De Buffon, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck built the foundation of evolutionary principles that Charles Darwin would later capitalize on in his research. After the publication of his famous book On the Origin of Species, a backlash, especially

Read More
761 Words | 4 Pages

And shows that animals indeed did evolve from lager extinct animals. The voyage as so important to the development of his theory because it shows that fossils were evidence of evolutionary

Read More
759 Words | 4 Pages

In order to open our eyes to the realities of biology, Marlene Zuk, a professor of ecology, evolution and behavior at the University of Minnesota, USA, wrote his work "Paleofantasy." Marlene Zuk by writing this book was motivated by the deep desire to update the exact facts about everything around us and understand our present nature through the knowledge of our ancestors. Among others his first goal was to allow to all his readers to understand the evolution of man as complicated as it may be. through this literary work and scientific at the same time, Zuk enlightened us on the truths of evolution of the human race. While showing the increasing speed at which man continues to evolve at the same time she denies the common erroneous thoughts.

Read More
129 Words | 1 Pages

Georges Cuvier, ironically a colleague of Lamarcks at the Natural History Museum was his biggest opponent. Cuvier stated "These evolutionary principles once admitted, it will easily be perceived that nothing is wanting but time and circumstances to enable a monad or a polypus gradually and indifferently to transform themselves into a frog, a stork, or an elephant.... A system established on such foundations may amuse the imagination of a poet.” The criticism of Lamarck was revolved around two major points: first, was the idea that Lamarck's work derived from over imaginative and unrealistic speculation-it was not scientific progress. Second, was the relationship between the mind and the body-Cuvier felt Lamarck was mischaracterizing the relationship

Read More
503 Words | 3 Pages

This programme views species as a group of separate parts and each of these parts have been enhanced by natural selection. The followers of adaptationist programme create a unique adaptation story to explain the part’s origin which Gould and Lewontin mentions as “just-so stories” in the article. In the beginning of the article, the authors demonstrate their understanding of adaptationist programme and explain how the supporters view the growth of the diversity of life. And the authors end the article by giving an alternative approach to understanding how life has “developed by using phyletic and developmental constraints as the center of analysis rather than adaption,” (Barnes). And finally, Gould and Lewontin conclude the paper by underlining that the adaptationist’s opinion is not well matched with the idea of an integrative

Read More
384 Words | 2 Pages

In philosophy, many works are built upon previous ones to expand on the ideas and formulate new concepts. Influenced by many philosophers and their ideas, Charles Darwin formulated many theories that remain essential to our understanding how life on Earth developed and metamorphosed. Darwin’s main concern was to research and find out how the organisms in the world came about and why they were successful in surviving to date. He believed all life is related and has descended from a common ancestor and over time branched out into different species. The mutations in genetic code that are beneficial to the organism are preserved because they aid survival, and the organism becomes more complex.

Read More
1004 Words | 5 Pages

Both Acquired Traits and Evolution tried to solve the same problem of where did all the species come from. They both came to a fairly similar conclusion, that environmental factors shape the physical traits that are expressed causing changes in a population. The main difference between the two competing theories was the mechanism for how the change was accomplished. The main mechanism for how traits are spread in Lamarck's theory of Inheritance of Acquired Traits is, environment pressure causes a species to adapt to the changing environment by either using or not using a particular trait.

Read More
1050 Words | 5 Pages

Only the offspring with certain traits that were suitable with the environment survived. This led him to believe that species evolve from a common ancestor because he saw that many organisms had similar traits and that they eventually accommodate to their surrounding

Read More
858 Words | 4 Pages

Humans have forced evolution in the natural world due to manmade circumstances such as deforestation and climate change. “In biology, evolution is the change in the characteristics of a species over several generations and relies on the process of natural selection.” (yourgenome.org) Evolution usually takes hundreds of millions of years to accomplish, and usually does this to protect

Read More
878 Words | 4 Pages

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist best known for his contributions to the evolutionary theory. He was definitely not the only person who hypothesized an evolutionary theory. Lamarck, who was also a naturalist, supported that biological evolution came about and progressed aligning with the laws of nature. Lamarck’s evolutionary idea was the theory that the environment affects the form and organization of animals implying that when the environment changes it causes the animals to adapt according to the modification. The major changes in the environment of animals’ causes great changes in their needs necessarily leads to other changes in their activities.

Read More
775 Words | 4 Pages

Lamarck has a few very popular ideas on evolution. His most famous being that organisms driven to greater complexity which means as organisms adapted to their surroundings, nature also drove them from simple forms to increasingly complex ones. Another very popular theory of Lamarck is the change through use and disuse which is when the environment changes organisms and then they had to change their behaviour to survive, if the organism began to use an organ more than they had in the past it would therefore increase its lifetime. An example of use and disuse is how giraffes got there long necks, according to Lamarck giraffes started off with small necks but had to reach higher for leaves on the tree, this has resulted in the evolution through generations of giraffes reaching for leaves. Lamarck also crated the theory of evolution by natural a process which is when life took its current form through natural processes and not through miraculous interventions.

Read More
1557 Words | 7 Pages

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution i.e. “survival of the fittest” and the “process of natural selection“, was written in 1859 and was a theory based on the behaviour of animals. This theory was adapted by Herbert Spencer and resulted in the ideology that is known today as Social Darwinism. The latter is based on Darwin’s theory but instead of being based on animal behaviour it is applied to humans. It implied that certain races were superior to others because of their technological advancements. This lead people to believe that certain races, such as white/European people, were the “fittest” of all the races.

Read More
464 Words | 2 Pages

WEEK 5 GUIDE QUESTIONS (answers to be uploaded on CANVAS prior to the start of class) Each answer is expected to be 2-5 lines long. Include the page(s) in the text where you found your answer. Please retype the question before answering it. Number each question.

Read More

More about Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's Theories Of Evolution

Related Topics

Open Document