| Jean Baptiste Lemarck 1744-1829 |
Jean Baptists Lamarck was a French botanist and invertebrate zoologist who formulated one of the earliest theories of evolution. Lamarck was born in Bazentin-le-Petit. He was sent to a Jesuit school in Amiens where he received a classical education until 1759. That year, his father died and Lamarck entered the military and began to study plants. In 1768, he left military service and studied medicine in Paris for four years, during which time he became interested in meteorology, chemistry and shell collecting. At the same time, he wrote a work on his botanical observations which was published in 1779 as Flore François (Plants of France). As a result of the book, Lamarck was elected to the Academy of Sciences. He became an Associate Botanist in 1783, but his most significant work was done when he began to work at the Jardin du Roi (King's Garden) in 1788. When the garden was reorganized in 1793, Lamarck's ideas helped to frame the structure of the new Museum of Natural History. Ironically, the reorganization resulted in removing Lamarck from botany and making him Professor of insects and worms, a division he named invertebrate zoology. While Lamarck's contributions to science include work in meteorology, botany, chemistry, geology and paleontology, he is best known for his work in invertebrate zoology and his theoretical work on evolution. He published an impressive seven volume work between 1815 and 1822 called Histoire Naturelle des Animaux Sans Vertèbres (Natural History of Animals Without Backbones). Lamarck's theoretical observations on evolution preceded his extensive observational work on invertebrates. Lamarck accepted the view that animals in nature were arranged on one continuous natural scale. According to Lamarck, once nature formed life, the arrangement of all subsequent forms of life was the result of time and environment interacting with the organization of organic beings. From the simplest forms of life, more complex forms emerged naturally. These ideas were initially presented in 1809 in Lamarck's major theoretical work, Philosophie Zoologique (Zoological Philosophy), which he elaborated on them throughout his career. In his multi-volume work on invertebrates, Lamarck explains nature as being controlled by three biological laws: environmental influence on organ development, change in body structure based on use and disuse of parts and the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Lamarck died with little scientific recognition of his work or his ideas. Not until the second half of the 19th century were Lamarck's ideas seriously considered by the scientific community. It should be noted that his extensive work on evolution would greatly assist in the formulation of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. |
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