Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Lamarck, Jean Baptiste de Monet, Chevalier de (1744-1829). French naturalist. Born into a family of impoverished aristocrats, Lamarck began his career as a soldier, serving in the Seven Years War. He resigned because of illness and went on to study medicine and natural history, becoming professor of invertebrate zoology at the Museum of Natural History, Paris, in 1793. In his Zoological Philosophy (1809) Lamarck put forward his theory of evolution by the inheritance of acquired characteristics. He maintained that a primitive antelope, for instance, by constantly stretching to feed on the leaves of trees; would gradually develop a longer neck and legs. These longer parts would be inherited by its offspring, and in the course of time these antelopes would develop into giraffes. Although Lamarck was the first biologist to propose a theory to explain how species change and develop, his theory was not accepted during his lifetime and he died blind and penniless. Though attempts have been made to revive it, Lamarckism has been generally rejected in favour of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Lamarck also compiled the seven-volume Natural History of Invertebrates (1815-22).
