Written by #18
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, often known as “Lamarck”, was French man of many talents. He was a soldier, naturalist, academic and an early believer in the idea of evolution. He was born in Bazentin, Picardie, northern France and was the youngest in his family of eleven children. Lamarck started out his life by serving in the French army. He was known to be very physically courageous on the battlefield and was awarded many times for his great bravery. After being injured in the army in 1766 he retired and started to focus on medical studies.
After shortly studying in the medical area, Lamarck became very interested in plant life. He published a three-volume work Flora française (Flora of Fance) and gained membership of the French Academy of Sciences in 1779. His great expressions of knowledge in plant life lead Lamarck to be appointed as a professor of zoology in 1793. Through publishing many successful works, he became one of the first to use the term biology in modern sense.
In 1801, Lamarck began to develop details of his evolutionary theories. “Lamarckism” is often used to refer to the theory that stated traits can be inherited. He believed that a change in the environment causes changes in the needs and behavior of organisms living in that environment. He also believed that when an organism’s behavior alters they are caused to have greater or lesser use of a given structure or organ. Greater use of a structure would cause it to increase in size over several generations, while lesser use would cause it to shrink or even disappear. Lamarck called this belief the “First Law”. His “Second Law” stated that all such changes were heritable. These laws helped explain the continuous, gradual change of all organisms.
Today, Lamarck is remembered to be one of the most important developers for the theory of inheritance of acquired characters, also known as Lamarckism. His broad work on evolution greatly assisted the formulation of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Lamarck is also known for his great contribution to the evolutionary theory and for his beliefs on the effects that the environment has on organisms.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Lamarck
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/lamarck.html
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/klmno/lemarck_jean.html
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#2
ReplyDeleteThe thing I liked most about this post was that I enojyed reading some background on Lamark. It helped me know a little bit where he came from before he came up with his theorys. This was a very well structured post as it includes a great introduction along with body paragraphs and resources. I think you've included some great information in this blog post. One suggestion I would have is to include some of your personal thoughts on your topic.
Overall, great job.