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What did Jean-Baptiste Lamarck contribute to biology?
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Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (born August 1, 1744, Bazentin-le-Petit, Picardy, France—died December 18, 1829, Paris) was a pioneering French biologist who is best known for his idea that acquired characters are inheritable, an idea known as Lamarckism, which is controverted by modern genetics and evolutionary theory.
Lamarck's contribution to evolutionary theory consisted of the first truly cohesive theory of biological evolution, in which an alchemical complexifying force drove organisms up a ladder of complexity, and a second environmental force adapted them to local environments through use and disuse of characteristics, differentiating them from other ...
- 18 December 1829 (aged 85), Paris, France
Lamarck started his scientific career as a botanist, but in 1793 he became one of the founding professors of the Musee National d’Histoire Naturelle as an expert on invertebrates. His work on classifying worms, spiders, molluscs, and other boneless creatures was far ahead of his time.
Nov 21, 2023 · Learn about the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, his career, and his impact on science. Read about his view on biology and his evolutionary theory. Updated: 11/21/2023.
But Lamarck took on the enormous challenge of learning -- and creating -- a new field of biology. The sheer number and diversity of invertebrates proved to be both a challenge and a rich source of knowledge. As Lamarck lectured his students in 1803, after ten years of research on invertebrates:
Lamarck (1744 - 1829) remains the best known figure of the pre-Darwinian era of evolutionism. Regrettably, he is usually viewed as a mere caricature of his ideas, namely as the person who got it "wrong" for insisting on the inheritance of acquired features as the central mechanism of transmutation.