The bullet point that refers most to Jean-Baptiste Lamarck is “In order for traits to evolve and change, they MUST be heritable.” Considering that Jean-Lamark is the individual who created to concept of use and disuse, it was discovered over time that these genetics were passed off to offspring. As research became more specific, it was more importantly discovered that these traits must be heritable in order for it to be passed on. In other words, the trait must be consistent from one generation to another.
Considering that all of these individuals had a large impact in scientific research at the same time, or before Darwin’s research, Darwin would not have discovered his theory of natural selection at the time that he did. Without knowing all of the variables these individuals provided, it would be doubted that Darwin could have developed his theory on his own.
Darwin was hesitant on publishing his theory for about 20 years because he was afraid of the possibility of his theory being provoked as a myth. At that time, the church authorities were against scientific beliefs.
Hi, I like your point about Darwin's rebuttal to Lamarckian evolution. I think the fears about the church and natural selection went a bit deeper than simple opposition. There was a common fear that it would destroy the church and cause all civilized society to discombobulate.
ReplyDeletePS: Wikibooks are not a reliable source, as they are a wiki, and thus editable by anyone. Such crowd-written resources can be great for finding other resources, but not as such in and of themselves.
Paris, you lost your text-wrapping function on your post, making it difficult, if not impossible to read. This is common if you write your post in Google Docs and copy it into your blog text box. I will copy it below so others can read (and grade) it, but from now on, you are responsible for checking your post after yo publish to make sure it is correctly visible.
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I would argue that Jean-Baptiste Lamarck influence Charels Darwin them most. Scientist Jean-Lamarck was one of the first scientists to state the fact that species change over time, or evolution. Although, Jean-Lamarck did introduce this concept, he was wrong to think that developed traits cannot be passed on to an offspring. While Jean-Lamark influence Darwin to study evolution, Darwin was unaware that traits were passed on, causing conflict in his research.
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, being the first to create the concept of evolution, believed that change was due to inheritance, use, and disuse (meaning the traits in which was used or not used in that specific species). The thought of use and disuse influenced the scientific community and was carried out through the study of evolution. This information is found at:
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Evolutionary_Biology/Jean-Baptiste_Lamarck
The bullet point that refers most to Jean-Baptiste Lamarck is “In order for traits to evolve and change, they MUST be heritable.” Considering that Jean-Lamark is the individual who created to concept of use and disuse, it was discovered over time that these genetics were passed off to offspring. As research became more specific, it was more importantly discovered that these traits must be heritable in order for it to be passed on. In other words, the trait must be consistent from one generation to another.
Considering that all of these individuals had a large impact in scientific research at the same time, or before Darwin’s research, Darwin would not have discovered his theory of natural selection at the time that he did. Without knowing all of the variables these individuals provided, it would be doubted that Darwin could have developed his theory on his own.
Darwin was hesitant on publishing his theory for about 20 years because he was afraid of the possibility of his theory being provoked as a myth. At that time, the church authorities were against scientific beliefs.
My comments and feedback:
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You have some important points in your first section but they are intermixed with some misconceptions as well. For example, Lamarck was NOT the first to suggest that organisms evolve. The mutability of a species was a common idea at that time... in fact, Darwin's own grandfather, Erasmus, had considered it, but Lamarck was the first to try to *explain how it happens* by producing a mechanism of evolution. That's why Lamarck's theory was such a big deal.
With regard to how Lamarck's theory worked, it might be easier for me to explain it and you can compare it with your own explanation to understand your misconceptions:
For 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."
I agree with your choice of bullet point for Lamarck regarding heritibility, but there are a couple others that needed to be included here as well, including the impact of the changing environment and the point about the importance of reproduction. 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.
While I see your point in the next section, 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.
"he was afraid of the possibility of his theory being provoked as a myth"
Why would this have been a problem? The church might have been able to encourage this in the general populace, but scientific ideas do not rise or fall based upon general popularity. They succeed in science if they are factually sound and can be supported by evidence.
So the problem remains as to why Darwin delayed. 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.