Lamarck contributed greatly to the scientific community by introducing the importance of interactions between organisms and their external environment in the evolutionary process. Below I have added a link that discusses a hypothesis he had on how giraffes necks got to be the length they are now. Though his hypothesis on that was wrong, it helped open a new way of viewing how species change and adapt due to their environments.
A bullet point that shows Lamarck’s influence on Darwin is “If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to the environment will be different”. This is because Lamarck introduced the correlation between species and their environment, and how traits change over time due to Natural selection. This helped Darwin see that when traits changed in a species due to the individuals with bad traits for their environment died off, it was because the good traits were being passed down through generations and being in a sense “perfected” for their environment so that they could prosper and multiply. Populations of species adapted over time through natural selection and reproduction.
I don’t believe Darwin would have developed his theory of natural selection without the influence of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Lamarck opened a new way of thinking about how a species environment was connected with how the population of the species changed, and without that I feel that Darwin may not have thought about Natural selection as it’s what happened when the environment “selects” who will live and who will die based on their inherited traits, picking the stronger to live and the weaker to die.
The attitude of the church affected Darwin’s decision to publish his theory because he was afraid of the consequences of not going by exactly what the Bible says, that “god created every individual as they are” essentially. Back then it was looked down upon to think God wasn’t the reason for every living thing to be as they are, and the idea of evolution was very looked down upon. People who questioned anything about the Bible or the church were usually punished, and Darwin didn’t want his career to be over. He eventually did publish it, and now it has opened doors for new discoveries and to be taught in classes such as this one.
Hello I absolutely agree that Lamarck influence on Darwin assisted him with a stronger understating on how certain species traits change over time. The changes In the traits are aligned to maintain a balance in the species and in the world .A balance in which traits continue to as you stated "Perfected " in order for species to evolve and prosper.
ReplyDeleteHead back to your opening two paragraph and re-read it. What you have written there describes *Darwin's'* theory. How did Lamarck's differ? There were some very key differences and this opening section was your opportunity to describe Lamarck's work so that your readers could understand these differences.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Lamarck's mechanism, called the "Theory of Acquired Characteristics", argued that individual organisms could change their bodies during their lifetime and those changes could be passed on and inherited by their offspring. There are several problems with this concept, but this was the first time anyone had tried to explain *how* evolution worked, not to just say that it happens. This was a big deal. Lamarck also recognized the importance of the environment on shaping organisms and he also understood that the traits must be heritable and passed on through reproduction in order for evolutionary changes to spread. So these are important to explain. The key difference between Darwin's and Lamarck's theories is when the evolutionary process occurs. Lamarck argued that individuals evolve and pass those changes onto their offspring. Darwin understood that this process wouldn't work. He argued instead that natural selection acted on existing natural variation in a population, selecting those variants that competed more successfully in a given environment and produced more offspring as a result. I.e., Darwin argued that "Individuals don't evolve. Populations do."
Note that your links should *support* your own writing, not replace it. In that second paragraph, you should have explained Lamarck's theory in your own words, using the link to allow your reader to confirm that from your source if they wish. But the link isn't sufficient on it's own.
I agree with your choice of bullet point for Lamarck regarding the environment, but there are a couple others that needed to be included here as well, including the importance of reproduction and the point that traits must be heritable. I would also have included the point that "individuals don't evolve. Populations do", not because this was Lamarck's point but because he argued the opposite. Darwin recognized the problem with Lamarck's logic and countered it, so this could be viewed as a negative, oppositional influence by Lamarck.
I suggest that you are giving Lamarck too much credit over Darwin's work. Lamarck should certainly be credited as the first to propose an actual mechanism for evolution. This was a huge step forward, regardless of its inaccuracies, but there were many others discussing and debating evolution during Darwin's time, not to mention by the time Darwin was in school, Lamarck's theory was old news and falsified. Lamarck was important but not necessarily indispensable.
"People who questioned anything about the Bible or the church were usually punished"
By Darwin's time, not overtly, but that doesn't mean the Church couldn't make their lives more difficult. But can we explore, then, what these actual 'consequences' might have been? Darwin delayed publishing for more than 20 years so it is worthwhile to try to understand the reason for this extensive delay. What were Darwin's concerns? And was he only worried about himself or was he also worried about how his family might be impacted by publishing? Remember that his wife was very devout. How might she have been impacted if the church responded negatively to Darwin? Remember that scientists don't work in a vacuum. They can be influenced not just by academics but also by social, cultural and personal issues.
I definitely agree with you that Lamarck had a strong influence on Darwin, but I think you're a bit hyperbolic in how much Darwin relied on him to develop the theory of natural selection. While Darwin's hypotheses saw a lot of development and revision due to his contemporaries, it is likely that he still would have eventually published his hypotheses even without the assistance of Lamarck. However, I agree that Lamarck expanded Darwin's perspective on natural selection and helped to perfect the theory.
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