Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Jean-Baptiste de Monet knight de Lamarck

(born Aug. 1, 1744, Bazentin-le-Petit, Picardy, France — died Dec. 18, 1829, Paris) French biologist. He is credited with the first use of the word biology (1802). He was one of the originators of the modern concept of the museum collection, an array of objects whose arrangement constitutes a classification under institutional sponsorship, maintained and kept up-to-date by knowledgeable specialists. He seems to have been the first to relate fossils to the living organisms to which they corresponded most closely. His notion that acquired traits could be inherited (called Lamarckism) was discredited after the 1930s by most geneticists except in the Soviet Union, where it dominated Russian genetics until the 1960s (see Trofim Lysenko). See also Charles Darwin; Darwinism.

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Scientist: Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de

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Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet,
chevalier de Lamarck
(a.k.a. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck)

Library of Congress

[b. Bazantin-le-Petit, France, August 1, 1744, d. Paris, December 28, 1829]

Lamarck was the first person to propose a theory of evolution. He suggested that evolution, which he called transformation, of a species takes place as the result of "a new need that continues to make itself felt" and that acquired characteristics gained during an organism's life can be inherited by the organism's offspring -- a concept later disproved. Similarly, Lamarck correctly noted that Earth's surface is constantly transformed, resulting in dramatic changes over time.

Biography: Chevalier de Lamarck

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The French naturalist Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (1744-1829), is best known for his theory of organic evolution and his work on invertebrate animals.

Jean de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck, was born Aug. 1, 1744, at Bazentin-le-Petit in Picardy. He studied for the priesthood, but on the death of his father in 1760 he joined the French army. When his military career ended because of illness in 1768, he went to Paris, where he began to study medicine. He also became interested in meteorology, chemistry, and botany.

Jardin des Plantes

Lamarck's scientific reputation was established with the publication of his Flore française (1778; French Flora), in which he combined the best of two competing systems of plant classification. This work brought him to the attention of the French naturalist the Comte de Buffon, who helped gain Lamarck's admission to the French Academy of Sciences in 1779. Buffon also secured an appointment for Lamarck as a representative of the Jardin des Plantes; in this capacity he traveled through Europe from 1780 to 1782 collecting botanical and mineralogical specimens. Then he began to write the Dictionnaire de botanique (3 vols., 1783-1789; Dictionnaire of Botany) and the Illustration des genres (1791-1800; Illustrations of the Genera) for the Encyclopédie méthodique (Methodical Encyclopedia). From 1784 to 1792 Lamarck also published many botanical articles, but the only botanical work to show the influence of Lamarck's theory of evolution was his Histoire naturelle des végétaux (1803; Natural History of Vegetables).

The Jardin des Plantes in Paris was an important scientific center for work in botany, zoology, chemistry, and mineralogy. At the time of the French Revolution, when all the institutions of the Old Regime were being examined, proposals were also made for the reorganization of the Jardin. However, in 1793, when the Academy of Sciences was suppressed for being too aristocratic, the Jardin was transformed into the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (National Museum of Natural History). Because the posts in botany were filled by someone else, Lamarck was named professor of "Insects and Worms" (Carl Linnaeus's terms for invertebrates). Thus, at almost 50 years of age, Lamarck began a career in a completely new field.

Physical and Earth Sciences

Lamarck's chemical theories are usually dismissed as the product of unfortunate speculation because they represented the "old chemistry" overturned by Antoine Laurent Lavoisier and the "chemical revolution." However, they provide the key to his conception of nature and are essential features of his theory of evolution. Lamarck began his work in chemistry in the 1770s, when the four-element theory of matter (earth, air, fire, water) was still generally accepted in France. The fact that the most important element in his system was fire in its various states of modification allowed Lamarck to explain most of the known chemical and physical phenomena. His chemistry was also used to explain the mechanical interaction of individuals with the environment and, thus, evolution and the emergence of higher mental faculties.

The chemistry is presented in all of Lamarck's works dealing with evolution and in three main studies on the subject: Recherches sur les causes des principaux faits physiques (1794; Research on the Causes of the Principal Physical Facts); Réfutation de la théorie pneumatique (1796; Refutation of the Pneumatic Theory); and Mémoires de physique et d'histoire naturelle (1797; Memoirs on Physics and Natural History).

Lamarck's interest in meteorology dates from his early years in Paris. In fact, Lamarck's first known work in any field was the "Memoir on the Principal Phenomena of the Atmosphere" (1776); he later published a number of articles on the subject. Lamarck's work in this field is also generally dismissed as a collection of unfounded theories. He speculated that atmospheric change was caused by a tidal effect on the earth's atmosphere produced by the sun and the moon. He adhered to the characteristic 18th-century belief that there was a simple law which would describe and predict the weather; this course seemed possible after Benjamin Franklin's work with lightning and the progress of various sciences in the century.

The work in meteorology was also related to Lamarck's interests in biology; weather was a major environmental factor important to his theory of evolution. He believed that the importance of this field was that climate had a great influence on living organisms.

The Hydrogéologie (1802; Hydrogeology) presented Lamarck's geological views. He held that the earth was much older than the biblical account indicated. The history of the earth was one of continuous change brought about by the eroding effect of water followed by sedimentation as organic materials decayed. Great amounts of time were needed for the slow process of organic development. Evolution also required that the same factors producing geological change in the present had operated throughout the history of the earth; this view was later called uniformitarianism. These geological theories were necessary for Lamarck's theory of evolution.

Work on Invertebrates

When Lamarck accepted his appointment as professor of "Insects and Worms," a category comprising most of the animal kingdom, very little was known about invertebrates (a term introduced by Lamarck) or how to classify them. Lamarck began to study the many specimens in the Muséum, and he developed a system of classification. His work was publicized through his lectures, a number of monographs, and books, the most important of which were Système des animaux sans vertèbres (1801; System of Invertebrate Animals) and his seven-volume major work, Histoirenaturelle des animaux sans vertèbres (1815-1822; Natural History of the Invertebrate Animals). Lamarck's study of the invertebrates had important influences on the development of his theory of evolution, for the lower invertebrates, representing life in its simplest form, helped him to formulate his ideas on the nature of life.

Lamarck laid the foundations of invertebrate paleontology in his Mémoires sur les fossiles des environs de Paris (1802-1806; Memoirs on the Fossils of the Paris Area). His treatment of fossils as organic remains and his recognition of their similarities to living forms were significant for the formulation of his views on evolution.

Theory of Evolution

Lamarck's first suggestion of evolution appeared in 1800, and he went on to develop his evolutionary ideas in Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivans (1802; Research on the Organization of Living Bodies). The Philosophie zoologique (1809; Zoological Philosophy) is his most famous full-length treatment of evolution. Some of his ideas were clarified and expanded in the "Introduction" to his Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres (1815; Natural History of Invertebrate Animals), the last presentation of his theory.

In the 18th century it was generally believed that God had created all living beings within the framework of a hierarchy or chain of being. At the bottom of the chain were the simplest forms of life; above them were the various kinds of plants, then animals, and finally man as the most complex creature of creation. Lamarck transformed this static chain of being into an evolutionary one; the complex organisms, he maintained, had evolved from simpler ones over a very long period of time.

A crucial question was the origin of the simplest form of life; Lamarck gave a materialistic definition of life and then, using his chemistry, explained that it originated spontaneously from the action of heat, light, electricity, and moisture on certain inorganic materials. He held that there were actually two forms of life produced, plant and animal, which then evolved along two separate paths. In the animal kingdom, there was not a straight line of development but, rather, a branching family tree.

To maintain that all animals, including man, had been produced in this fashion rather than having been created by God, Lamarck had to account for the origin and development of the higher mental faculties. Again his chemistry was essential; he held that the nervous fluid (a modified form of fire) was the physical cause of these phenomena at various levels in the evolution of the nervous system.

To complete his theory of evolution, Lamarck formulated four laws (1815) to explain how complex life forms arise from simpler ones: "Law 1: Life, by its own forces, continually tends to increase the volume of every body which possesses it and to enlarge the size of its parts up to a limit which it brings about itself. Law 2: The production of a new organ in an animal body results from the appearance of a new want or need, which continues to make itself felt, and from a new movement which this want gives birth to and maintains. Law 3: The development of the organs and their strength of action are constantly in proportion to the use of these organs. Law 4: All that has been acquired, impressed upon, or changed in the organization of individuals during the course of their life is preserved by generation and transmitted to the new individuals that come from those which have undergone those changes." It should be noted that Lamarck's theory of evolution is completely materialistic in the context of its time.

Lamarck died in Paris on Dec. 18, 1829, blind, impoverished, and almost ignored by his countrymen. The eulogy read by his enemy Baron Cuvier condemned all of Lamarck's "fruitless" speculations, but it did offer faint praise for his biological classifications. The Neo-Lamarckians, who adopted only part of Lamarck's theory and changed much of it to suit their needs, were important toward the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Born	August 1, 1744(1744-08-01) Bazentin, Picardie
Died	December 18, 1829 (aged 85) Paris
Nationality	French
Institutions	French Academy of Sciences; Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle; Jardin des Plantes
Known for	Evolution; inheritance of acquired characters, Influenced Geoffroy

Biography

Lamarck was born in Bazentin, Picardie, northern France,^[2] as the eleventh child in an impoverished aristocratic family.^[6] Male members of the Lamarck family had traditionally served in the French army. Lamarck's eldest brother was killed in combat at the Siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, and two other brothers were still in service when Lamarck was in his teenage years. Yielding to the wishes of his father, Lamarck enrolled in a Jesuit college in Amiens in the late 1750s.^[2] After his father died in 1760, Lamarck bought himself a horse, and rode across the country to join the French army, which was in Germany at the time. Lamarck showed great physical courage on the battlefield in the Pomeranian War with Prussia, and he was even nominated for the lieutenancy.^[2] Lamarck's company was left exposed to the direct artillery fire of their enemies, and was quickly reduced to just fourteen men - with no officers. One of the men suggested that the puny, seventeen year-old volunteer should assume command and order a withdrawal from the field; but although Lamarck accepted command, he insisted they remain where they had been posted until relieved. When their colonel reached the remains of their company, this display of courage and loyalty impressed him so much that Lamarck was promoted to officer on the spot. However, when one of his comrades playfully lifted him by the head, he sustained an inflammation in the lymphatic glands of the neck, and he was sent to Paris to receive treatment.^[2] He underwent a complicated operation, and continued his treatment for a year.^[7] He was awarded a commission and settled at his post in Monaco. It was there that he encountered Traité des plantes usuelles, a botany book by James Francis Chomel.^[2]

An engraving of Lamarck at 35 years of age.

With a reduced pension of only 400 francs a year, Lamarck resolved to pursue a profession. He attempted to study medicine, and supported himself by working in a bank office.^[2] Lamarck studied medicine for four years, but gave it up under his elder brother's persuasion. He was interested in botany, especially after his visits to the Jardin du Roi, and he became a student under Bernard de Jussieu, a notable French naturalist.^[2] Under Jussieu, Lamarck spent ten years studying French flora. After his studies, in 1778, he published some of his observations and results in a three-volume work, entitled Flora française. Lamarck's work was respected by many scholars, and it launched him into prominence in French science. On August 8, 1778, Lamarck married Marie Anne Rosalie Delaporte.^[8] Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, one of the top French scientists of the day, mentored Lamarck, and helped him gain membership to the French Academy of Sciences in 1779 and a commission as a Royal Botanist in 1781, in which he traveled to foreign botanical gardens and museums.^[9] Lamarck's first son, André, was born on April 22, 1781, and he made colleague André Thouin the child's godfather.

In his two years of travel, Lamarck collected rare plants that were not available in the Royal Garden, and also other objects of natural history, such as minerals and ores, that were not found in French museums. On January 7, 1786, his second son, Antoine, was born, and Lamarck chose Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, Bernard de Jussieu's nephew, as the boy's godfather.^[10] On April 21 of the following year, Charles Rene, Lamarck's third son, was born. René Louiche Desfontaines, a professor of botany at the Royal Garden, was the boy's godfather, and Lamarck's elder sister, Marie Charlotte Pelagie De Monet was the godmother.^[10] In 1788, Buffon's successor at the position of Intendant of the Royal Garden, Charles-Claude Flahaut de la Billaderie, comte d'Angiviller, created a position for Lamarck, with a yearly salary of 1,000 francs, as the keeper of the herbarium of the Royal Garden.^[2]

In 1790, at the height of the French Revolution, Lamarck changed the name of the Royal Garden from Jardin du Roi to Jardin des Plantes, a name that did not imply such a close association with King Louis XVI.^[11] Lamarck had worked as the keeper of the herbarium for five years before he was appointed curator and professor of invertebrate zoology at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in 1793.^[2] During his time at the herbarium, Lamarck's wife gave birth to three more children before dying on September 27, 1792. With the official title of "Professeur d’Histoire naturelle des Insectes et des Vers", Lamarck received a salary of nearly 2,500 francs per year.^[12] The following year on October 9, he married Charlotte Reverdy, who was thirty years his junior.^[10] On September 26, 1794, Lamarck was appointed to serve as secretary of the assembly of professors for the museum for a period of one year. In 1797, his second wife Charlotte died, and he married Julie Mallet the following year; she died in 1819.^[10]

In his first six years as professor, Lamarck published only one paper, in 1798, on the influence of the moon on the Earth's atmosphere.^[2] Lamarck began as an essentialist who believed species were unchanging; however, after working on the molluscs of the Paris Basin, he grew convinced that transmutation or change in the nature of a species occurred over time.^[2] He set out to develop an explanation, and on 11 May 1800 (the 21st day of Floreal, Year VIII, in the revolutionary timescale used in France at the time), he presented a lecture at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in which he first outlined his newly developing ideas about evolution.

Lamarck, late in life.

In 1801, he published Système des Animaux sans Vertebres, a major work on the classification of invertebrates. In the work, he introduced definitions of natural groups among invertebrates. He categorized echinoderms, arachnids, crustaceans and annelids, which he separated from the old taxon for worms known as Vermes.^[13] Lamarck was the first to separate arachnids from insects in classification, and he moved crustaceans into a separate class from insects. In the class Crustaces, Lamarck proposed two orders. The first group was Crustaces pediocles, classified by the animals' two distinct stalked eyes. This categorization included crabs, shrimps and hermit crabs. The second group Crustaces sessiliocles were classified by the animals' distinct pair of eyes, or single, sessile eyes. Members of this order included amphipods, isopods, cyclops, cladocerans, xiphosurida and amymones.^[14]

In 1802 Lamarck published Hydrogéologie, and became one of the first to use the term biology in its modern sense.^[3]^[15] In Hydrogéologie, Lamarck advocated a steady-state geology based on a strict uniformitarianism. He argued that global currents tended to flow from east to west, and continents eroded on their eastern borders, with the material carried across to be deposited on the western borders. Thus, the Earth's continents marched steadily westward around the globe.

That year, he also published Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps Vivants, in which he drew out his theory on evolution. He believed that all life was organized in a vertical chain, with gradation between the lowest forms and the highest forms of life, thus demonstrating a path to progressive developments in nature.^[16]

During Lamarck's lifetime he became controversial, attacking the chemistry proposed by Lavoisier. He also came into conflict with the widely respected palaeontologist Georges Cuvier, who was not a supporter of evolution:

"[Cuvier] ridiculed Lamarck's theory of transformation and defended the fixity of species." Bowler.^[17]^[18]

"Cuvier was clearly hostile to the materialistic overtones of current transformist theorizing, but it does not necessarily follow that he regarded species origin as supernatural; certainly he was careful to use neutral language to refer to the causes of the origins of new forms of life, and even of man." Rudwick.^[19]

After his death, Cuvier used the forum of a eulogy to denigrate Lamarck:

"His [Cuvier's] éloge of Lamarck is one of the most deprecatory and chillingly partisan biographies I have ever read—though he was supposedly writing respectful comments in the old tradition of de mortuis nil nisi bonum." Gould.^[20]^[7]

Lamarck died in Paris on December 18, 1829.^[21] When he died, his family was so poor they had to apply to the Academie for financial assistance. Lamarck's books and the contents of his home were sold at auction, and he was buried in a temporary lime-pit.

Lamarckian Evolution

Main article: Lamarckism

Lamarck stressed two main themes in his biological work. The first was that the environment gives rise to changes in animals. He cited examples of blindness in moles, the presence of teeth in mammals and the absence of teeth in birds as evidence of this principle. The second principle was that life was structured in an orderly manner and that many different parts of all bodies make it possible for the organic movements of animals.^[16]

Although he was not the first thinker to advocate organic evolution, he was the first to develop a truly coherent evolutionary theory^[22]. He outlined his theories regarding evolution first in his Floreal lecture of 1800, and then in three later published works:

Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivants, 1802.
Philosophie Zoologique, 1809.
Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres, (in seven volumes, 1815-1822).

Lamarck employed several mechanisms as drivers of evolution, drawn from the common knowledge of his day and from his own belief in chemistry pre-Lavoisier. He used these mechanisms to explain the two forces he saw as comprising evolution; a force driving animals from simple to complex forms, and a force adapting animals to their local environments and differentiating them from each other. He believed that these forces must be explained as a necessary consequence of basic physical principles, favoring a materialistic attitude toward biology.

Le pouvoir de la vie: The complexifying force

Lamarck referred to a tendency for organisms to become more complex, moving 'up' a ladder of progress. He referred to this phenomenon as Le pouvoir de la vie or la force qui tend sans cesse à composer l'organisation (The force that perpetually tends to make order). Like many natural historians, Lamarck believed that organisms arose in their simplest forms via spontaneous generation.

Lamarck ran against the modern chemistry promoted by Lavoisier (whose ideas he regarded with disdain), preferring to embrace a more traditional alchemical view of the elements as influenced primarily by earth, air, fire and water. He asserted that the natural movements of fluids in living organisms drove them toward ever greater levels of complexity:

The rapid motion of fluids will etch canals between delicate tissues. Soon their flow will begin to vary, leading to the emergence of distinct organs. The fluids themselves, now more elaborate, will become more complex, engendering a greater variety of secretions and substances composing the organs.

- Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertebres, 1815.

He argued that organisms thus moved from simple to complex in a steady, predictable way based on the fundamental physical principles of alchemy. In this view, simple organisms never disappeared because they were constantly being created by spontaneous generation in what has been described as a 'steady-state biology'. Lamarck saw spontaneous generation as being ongoing, with the simple organisms thus created being transmuted over time becoming more complex. He is sometimes regarded as believing in a teleological (goal-oriented) process where organisms became more perfect as they evolved, though as a materialist, he emphasized that these forces must originate necessarily from underlying physical principles.

L'influence des circonstances: The adaptive force

The second component of Lamarck's theory of evolution was the adaptation of organisms to their environment. This could move organisms upward from the ladder of progress into new and distinct forms with local adaptations. It could also drive organisms into evolutionary blind alleys, where the organism became so finely adapted that no further change could occur. Lamarck argued that this adaptive force was powered by the interaction of organisms with their environment, by the use and disuse of certain characteristics.

First Law: In every animal which has not passed the limit of its development, a more frequent and continuous use of any organ gradually strengthens, develops and enlarges that organ, and gives it a power proportional to the length of time it has been so used; while the permanent disuse of any organ imperceptibly weakens and deteriorates it, and progressively diminishes its functional capacity, until it finally disappears".^[23]

This first law says little except "an exaggerated generalization of the belief that exercise develops an organ".^[24]

Second Law: All the acquisitions or losses wrought by nature on individuals, through the influence of the environment in which their race has long been placed, and hence through the influence of the predominant use or permanent disuse of any organ; all these are preserved by reproduction to the new individuals which arise, provided that the acquired modifications are common to both sexes, or at least to the individuals which produce the young.^[23]

The last clause of this law introduces what is now called soft inheritance. "The second law was widely accepted at the time..[but] has been decisively rejected by modern genetics." ^[24]

Legacy

Statue of Lamarck by Léon Fagel in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris.

Lamarck constructed one of the first theoretical frameworks of organic evolution. Stephen Jay Gould argues that Lamarck was the "primary evolutionary theorist", in that his ideas and the way in which he structured his theory set the tone for much of the subsequent thinking in evolutionary biology, through to the present day.^[25]

Lamarck is usually remembered for his belief in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, and the use and disuse model by which organisms developed their characteristics. Lamarck incorporated this belief into his theory of evolution, along with other more common beliefs of the time, such as spontaneous generation. The inheritance of acquired characteristics (also called the theory of adaptation or soft inheritance) was rejected by August Weismann^[26] when he developed a theory of inheritance in which germ plasm (the sex cells, later redefined as DNA) remained separate and distinct from the soma (the rest of the body); thus nothing which happens to the soma may be passed on with the germ-plasm. This model underlies the modern understanding of inheritance.

Charles Darwin allowed a role for use and disuse as an evolutionary mechanism subsidiary to natural selection, most often in respect of disuse.^[27] He praised Lamarck for "the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability of all change in the organic... world, being the result of law, not miraculous interposition". ^[28] Lamarckism is also occasionally used to describe quasi-evolutionary concepts in societal contexts, though not by Lamark himself. For example, the memetic theory of cultural evolution is sometimes described as a form of Lamarckian inheritance of non-genetic traits.

In contrast to the eventual general rejection of his proposed mechanism for evolution, Lamarck's seven-volume work on the natural history of invertebrates is recognised as a lasting contribution to zoology.

The honeybee subspecies Apis mellifera lamarckii is named after Lamarck, as well as the Bluefire jellyfish (Cyaneia lamarckii): a number of plant species have also been named after him, including Amelanchier lamarckii (Juneberry), Digitalis lamarckii and Aconitum lamarckii.

Major Works

Lamarck's writings are available in facsimile and in word format (fr) at www.lamarck.cnrs.fr. Search engine allows full text search.

1809. Philosophie zoologique, ou Exposition des considérations relatives à l’histoire naturelle des animaux..., Paris.

On invertebrate classification:

1801. Système des animaux sans vertèbres, ou tableau général des classes, des ordres et des genres de ces animaux; présentant leurs caractères essentiels et leur distribution, d'après la considération de leurs..., Paris, Detreville, VIII : 1-432.
1815-1822. Histoire naturelle des animaux sans vertèbres, présentant les caractères généraux et particuliers de ces animaux..., Tome 1 (1815): 1-462; Tome 2 (1816): 1-568; Tome 3 (1816): 1-586; Tome 4 (1817): 1-603; Tome 5 (1818): 1-612; Tome 6, Pt.1 (1819): 1-343; Tome 6, Pt.2 (1822): 1-252; Tome 7 (1822): 1-711.

The standard author abbreviation Lam. is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.^[29]

References

^ Damkaer, David M. (2002). The Copepodologist's Cabinet: A biographical and bibliographical bistory. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. pp. 117. ISBN 0-87169-240-6.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m Packard, Alpheus Spring (1901). Lamarck, the founder of Evolution: his life and work with translations of his writings on organic evolution. New York: Longmans, Green..
^ ^a ^b Coleman, William L. (1977). Biology in the Nineteenth Century: problems of form, function, and transformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–2. ISBN 0-521-29293-X.
^ The term "biology" was also introduced independently by Karl Friedrich Burdach (in 1800) and Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus (Biologie oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur, 1802).
^ Gould, Stephen Jay (2002). The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Harvard: Belknap Harvard. pp. 187. ISBN 0-674-00613-5.
^ His noble title was Chevalier, which is French for knight.
^ ^a ^b Cuvier, Georges (January 1836). "Elegy of Lamarck". Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 20: 1–22. http://www.victorianweb.org/science/science_texts/cuvier/cuvier_on_lamarck.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-09.
^ Mantoy, Bernard (1968). Lamarck. Paris: Seghers. pp. 19.
^ Packard (1901), p20-21.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d (French) Raphaël Bange and Pietro Corsi. "Chronologie de la vie de Jean-Baptiste Lamarck". Centre national de la recherche scientifique. http://www.lamarck.cnrs.fr/chronologie/. Retrieved 2007-07-10.
^ Damkaer (2002), p118.
^ Szyfman, Léon (1982). Jean-Baptiste Lamarck et son époque. Paris: Masson. pp. 13. ISBN 222576087X.
^ Damkaer (2002), p118.
^ Damkaer (2002), p119.
^ Osborn, Henry Fairfield (1905). From the Greeks to Darwin: an outline of the development of the evolution idea (2 ed.). New York: Macmillan. pp. 159.
^ ^a ^b Osborn (1905), p160.
^ Bowler P.J. 2003. Evolution: the history of an idea. California. p110
^ Burkhart R.W Jr 1970. Lamarck, evolution, and the politics of science. J. Hist Biol 3, 275–296.
^ Rudwick M.S.J. 1997. Georges Cuvier, fossil bones, and geological catastrophes: new interpretations of primary texts. Chicago. p83
^ Gould, Stephen J.1993. Forward to Georges Cuvier: an annotated bibliography of his published works. Compiled by Jean Chandler Smith. Smithsonian, Washington.
^ Yves Delange (1984). Lamarck, sa vie, son œuvre. ISBN 2-903098-97-2.
^ Gould, Stephen Jay (2002). The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. Harvard: Belknap Harvard. pp. 187. ISBN 0-674-00613-5.
^ ^a ^b Lamarck, J.B. (1914). Zoological philosophy. London.
^ ^a ^b Bowler, P.J. (2003). Evolution: the history of an idea. California.
^ Gould (2002), pp. 170-197.
^ It was rejected during Lamarck's lifetime by William Lawrence, whose remarkable anticipation of hard inheritance has often gone unnoticed.
^ Ernst Mayr commented: "Curiously few evolutionists have noted that, in addition to natural selection, Darwin admits use and disuse as an important evolutionary mechanism. In this he is perfectly clear. For instance,…on page 137 he says that the reduced size of the eyes in moles and other burrowing mammals is 'probably due to gradual reduction from disuse, but aided perhaps by natural selection'. In the case of cave animals, when speaking of the loss of eyes he says, 'I attribute their loss wholly to disuse' (p137) On page 455 he begins unequivocally, 'At whatever period of life disuse or selection reduces an organ…' The importance he gives to use or disuse is indicated by the frequency with which he invokes this agent of evolution in the Origin. I find references on pages 11, 43, 134, 135, 136, 137, 447, 454, 455, 472, 479, and 480." [pages xxv-xxvi of Mayr’s Introduction to the 1964 Harvard University Press publication of the 1859 Origin.]
^ Darwin, Charles. Origin of Species, editions 3 to 6, 'Historical sketch'
^ "Author Query". International Plant Names Index. http://www.ipni.org/ipni/authorsearchpage.do.

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The Imaginary Lamarck: A Look at Bogus "History" in Schoolbooks by Michael Ghiselin
Epigenetics: Genome, Meet Your Environment
Science Revolution Followers of Lamark
A. P. Packard. Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution, His Life and Work at Project Gutenberg
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck: works and heritage, online materials about Lamarck (23.000 files of Lamarck's herbarium, 11.000 manuscripts, books, etc.) edited online by Pietro Corsi (Oxford University) and realised by CRHST-CNRS in France.
Biography of Lamarck at University of California Museum of Paleontology
Larry Feig et al., Transgenerational Rescue of a Genetic Defect in Long-Term Potentiation and Memory Formation by Juvenile Enrichment, The Journal of Neuroscience, 2009 (transgenerational, i.e. Lamarckian, effects in mice offspring).
"Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.

The standard author abbreviation Lam. is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.

v • d • e Basic topics in evolutionary biology

Evidence of common descent

Processes of evolution	Adaptation · Macroevolution · Microevolution · Speciation

Population genetic mechanisms	Natural selection · Genetic drift · Gene flow · Mutation

Evolutionary developmental biology (Evo-devo) concepts	Phenotypic plasticity · Canalisation · Modularity

The evolution of…	DNA · Sex · Aging · Human intelligence · The Ear · The Eye · Flight · Plants · Fungi · Life · Humans · Dolphins and whales · Birds · Horses · Spiders · Sirenians (sea cows) · Insects · Molluscs · Dinosaurs

Modes of speciation	Anagenesis · Catagenesis · Cladogenesis

History	History of evolutionary thought · Charles Darwin · On the Origin of Species · Modern evolutionary synthesis · Gene-centered view of evolution · Life (classification trees)

Other subfields	Ecological genetics · Molecular evolution · Phylogenetics · Systematics

List of evolutionary biology topics · Timeline of evolution

Persondata
NAME	Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	de Monet, Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine, Chevalier de Lamarck
SHORT DESCRIPTION	French naturalist, proto-evolutionary
DATE OF BIRTH	August 1, 1744
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bazentin-le-Petit, Picardy, France
DATE OF DEATH	December 28, 1829
PLACE OF DEATH	Paris, France

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	acquired characteristics (in biology)
	Lamarckism
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