1. I believe that Jean-Baptiste Lamarck influenced Darwin's theory the most because of his idea that the environment surrounding the species played a large and crucial role in their evolution. Lamarck believed that a species would lose body parts that were not in use and change body parts that were heavily used to further enable their survival.
2. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's view on evolution was one that has been torn down for it's biological inaccuracy for years, but it does have its merits. Lamarck believed that all living things evolved into more "perfect beings", enhancing their strong parts and eradicating their weak ones. He explained a point in which as an organism lives and changes, it's adaptations would be passed down from generation to generation. This was only half true, as only the traits that are able to be passed down would be present in the offspring. This is where Lamarck gets most of the negative critique for his explanation. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/02/3/l_023_01.html
3. The bullet points "Organisms with better access to resources will be more successful in their reproductive efforts", "Who gets better access to these resources?", and "If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment" all are related to Lamarck's idea that as resources and environments change, so do the organisms that rely on them. The population will adapt to survive if one of these variables is altered. The points "In order for natural selection to occur, reproduction must occur" and "In order for traits to evolve and change, they must be heritable" also speak to the part of Lamarck's hypothesis that has warranted him so much criticism. While it may be true that species adapt and change throughout their lifetime, the traits that change also must be able to be passed down through the genetic makeup within the sex cells. So in this case, Lamarck was wrong in saying that any and all adaptations that occurred within an organisms lifetime would be passed down to its offspring.
4. I personally do not think that Darwin would have been able to explain natural select without the ideas of Lamarck. Without his views on adaptation and environmental change, Darwin's hypothesis would not be as testable or falsifiable as it was. It is very simple to alter the environment of a test subject to see what kinds of changes occur. However, it is almost arbitrary what will happen without controlling the environmental change or even having any environmental change at all.
5. Darwin's book was, unsurprisingly, not well-received by the church. As a group of highly religious people, reading a book that indirectly shot down the beliefs that they were raised on threatened them greatly. Even to this day, there is a clear divide between science and religion.
Pretty good background on Lamarck's work with some clarification. Lamarck suggested that evolution occurred when a person, through use or disuse, changed their body in some way and those changes were passed onto their offspring. The problem is that changing the phenotype (the outside) doesn't change the genotype (genes), so changes to a body can't be passed on to offspring.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that Lamarck made that important connection between competition for resources and evolution. That is more of a contribution of Malthus. But Lamarck certainly pull in the ideas on the influence of the environment, the importance of heritability, and the need for reproduction.
While I agree that Lamarck was influential, I don't think I would go so far as to say he was indispensable to Darwin. There were many scientists of that time working on the idea of evolution. Lamarck may have been the first to propose a mechanism, but he was not the only one to offer input.
The final point doesn't ask about how the book was received AFTER it was published. The question asks how the church influenced Darwin's decision to publish at all, first his scientific paper and then the book. Darwin delayed for more than 20 years before publishing. Why? What were his concerns? And what role might the church have played in his decision to delay?
I really enjoyed reading your post, Josh Mayeda. I researched about Thomas Malthus and when you have time, please read it because it is pretty interesting. I liked reading your post because Lamarck is a historical figure that I have read about plenty of times. The connection between his ideas and Darwin's ideas are very similar in terms of importance of heritability and how the environment affects the organism's ability to survive.
ReplyDeleteYour last statement which said that "there is a clear divide between science and religion," is very intriguing for me in terms of evolution. In my opinion, the process and the existence of evolution is very clear; many religion now acknowledges this truth while holding onto their belief of creationism (if they do believe in some kind of reason for life beginning on Earth). I think these days, science and religion are more intertwined than it was during Darwin's times. What are your ideas on that?