Jean Baptiste de Lamarck

He invented the term invertegrates, and in 1801, he published Système des animaux sans vertèbres. In 1802 he was the first to use the term biology in its modern sense.

In the modern era, Lamarck is primarily remembered for a theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics, called soft inheritance or Lamarckism. Prior to Darwain, Lamarck's contribution to evolutionary theory consisted of the first truly cohesive theory of evolution.

Background

Jean Baptiste de Lamarck was born in Bazentin, Picardie, northern France. He enrolled in a Jesuit college in Amiens in the late 1750s. In 1760 he joined the French army. Later he studied medicine for four years, but gave it up when he became interested in botany,

On August 8, 1778, Lamarck married Marie Anne Rosalie Delaporte. He gained membership to the French Academy of Sciences in 1779, and a commission as a Royal Botanist in 1781. Lamarck's first son, André, was born on April 22, 1781.

On January 7, 1786, his second son, Antoine, was born. On April 21 of the following year, Charles Rene, Lamarck's third son, was born. He was appointed curator and professor of invertebrate zoology at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in 1793. During his time at the herbarium, Lamarck's wife gave birth to three more children.

Evolution

At a lecture at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle is when he first outlined his newly developing ideas about evolution.In 1801, he published Système des Animaux sans Vertebres, a major work on the classification of invertebrates, and in 1802 Lamarck published Hydrogéologie.

Jean Baptiste de Lamarck became one of the first to use the term biology in its modern sense. That year, he also published Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps Vivants, which explained his theory of evolution.

He believed that all life was organized in a vertical chain, and that there was a gradation between the lowest forms and the highest forms of life. This demonstrated a path to progressive developments in nature.

Much Controversy

Even though Darwain was the most famous evolutionist, Lamarck was the first to establish evolution as a scientific fact fifty years before Darwain. Lamarck’s theory was much less harsh, suggesting evolution was an “instructive”, cooperative interaction between the environment and organisms. In fact, his hypothesis conforms to modern cell biology in how immune systems adapt to their environment.

Hi theory immediately became the target of the Church. It was pure heresy from their standpoint. He was also ridiculed by his fellow scientists who were creationists. Many flawed experiments over the years were used as proof to negate his findings. His reputation was destroyed.

Let’s Cooperate

His work has been mostly ignored or vilified. But today it is being reevaluated as suggested by an article in 2000 in the journal Science: “Was Lamarck Just a Little Bit Right?” One reason for this is that we are being reminded by evolutionists of the significant role that cooperation plays in sustaining life.

Although symbiotic relationships in nature have long been recognized, today scientists understand that cooperation in nature far surpasses the easily observable relationships. The study of these relationships has become a rapidly growing field called Systems Biology.

For many years we have been instructed to battle bacteria with antibiotics and other means, but that type of thinking ignored the fact that there are many types of bacteria essential to our health and well being. Antibiotics indiscriminately kill the good with the bad bacteria. And that good bacteria is essential to our health and survival.

Much of Jean Baptiste de Lamarck’s work, for so long ridiculed, and ignored, is now being validated in the fields of epigenetics and systems biology. He displayed much courage and determination in putting forth his theories amidst much rancor, criticism, and disrespectful gestures from the Church and fellow scientists. Only now is his true contribution being recognized for its validity and worth.

Jean Baptiste de Lamarck has been honored by having species named after him. The honeybee subspecies Apis mellifera lamarckii, the Bluefire jellyfish (Cyaneia lamarckii) and a number of plant species have also been named after him, including Amelanchier lamarckii (Juneberry), Digitalis lamarckii, Aconitum lamarcki and the grass genus Lamarckia.

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