The person who I think had the most influence over Darwin’s development of his theory of Natural Selection is Jean- Baptiste Lamarck. When Darwin was studying at Edinburgh, he had professors who were Lamarck supporters, and this was an important period in Darwin’s life which “… was a formative period in his intellectual development.” (Jurmain, Kilgore, Trevathan, and Ciochon 33) Jean Baptiste Lamarck was a naturalist whose contribution to the scientific community was an attempt to try to explain evolution by saying that there is a connection, or better yet a relationship between the environment and the species that live there. And because of this, he believed that if there was a dramatic change in the environment, it would cause the species that lived in it to adapt so that they could survive. For instance, he believed that if a species didn’t use an organ or appendage and it was basically unnecessary, the organ or appendage would just get smaller or disappear from the species. In addition, he believed that if a species “ began to use an organ more than they had in the past, it would increase in its lifetime.” (http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/_0/history_09)
v If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different. Organisms with those new adaptive traits will have greater reproductive success than others and those new beneficial traits will spread, producing a change in the population. This is the process of natural selection, essentially the process of the natural environment selecting the organisms that will be most successful.
This point was influenced by Lamarck because he believed that if an animal adapted to its new environment, and became better in the process, it would immediately pass on its new traits to its offspring. This included the idea that a short necked giraffe could stretch while trying to reach food and pass on its newly acquired longer neck to its offspring. Although Darwin was influenced by Lamarck, he didn’t agree with this part of Lamarck’s theory. Darwin believed that if the long neck giraffes had an advantage over the short necked giraffes in terms of being able to find food, the long neck giraffes would have a better chance of surviving and would therefore pass on their long necks to future generations of giraffes.
The attitude of the church definitely affected Darwin and his eventual publication of his book On the Origin of Species. During this period of reform, some of the people who followed the ideas of Jean- Baptiste Lamarck were atheists. This lead the church to feel that if people started to believe in evolution, it would mean the beginning of the end for the church. This was even evident in Darwin’s own home with his relationship with his wife Emma who felt that “his ideas [were] running counter to her strong religious convictions.” (Jurmain, Kilgore, Trevathan, and Ciochon 36) It was only when he thought that someone else was going to receive credit for his own theories that he hurried and published his work. After he published On the Origin of Species, there was immediately (but not surprising) a backlash and negativity felt from the church which continues to this day.
Christina, great work on explaining Lamarck's theories about how evolutional changes helped Darwin to form his ideas. It is interesting that while Lamarck's ideas influenced both Darwin and Wallace to further explain the theory of evolution, Lamarck's work and social circle also influenced the Church's position against most of the scientists as most of his circle were atheists. So, both positive and negative effects came of his work and were reasons behind it taking so much time for Darwin's work to come to fruition.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with your statement about Lamarck having the most influence over Darwin's development of natural selection. I recognize that he was the 1st person to attempt to explain the evolutionary process. But his explanation fell short because he failed to understand the concept of "Deep Time". Charles Lyell's uniformitarianism theory explains that Evolution took place from one generation to the next before our very eyes, but it worked too slowly for us to perceive. You see, "Deep Time" is the "epicenter" of natural selection. Once it was understood it spread out helping scientist, like Darwin, understand every aspect of evolution clearer then every before. Making Charles Lyell and uniformitarianism the most influential aspects of Darwin development of natural selection.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to come back and leave more of a positive comment for you. I really enjoyed reading your blog. It was really informative and hightlighted all of Lamarck's contributions to the science community.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Lamarck was the most influential, mostly becasue his theory and Darwin's were very close.
ReplyDeleteI feel that reproduction is more important because that is the how natural selection will spread. The offspring will mate and they will carry on the traits and spread it into the next generation.
I disagree with you, and it seems everyone else, that Darwin still would have developed his theory. The process would have taken longer, but he would have developed it while on the Galapagos Islands. If you've ever been to the Galapagos, the theory is extremely visible. On a trip I took to Ecuador, a week was spent on the Galapagos. Even though I had a general idea of what natural selection and evolution was from when I was in elementary school, it was very obvious that Darwin could still have come upwith his theory. It would have just taken a little longer.
I really enjoyed reading your answer because it describes in detail what I wanted to potray in mine. Although I did stated that they all had little influence, Lamarck's idea is everything Darwin came up with but of course Darwin tweeked a bit with other ideas. This summarizes everything the book has to say about Lamarck and your citing is really good.
ReplyDeleteNicely written and very thorough. The emphasis on Lamark's important intellectual connection between biological form and the environment is justified. He was vastly influential to Darwin's early thinking in evolutionary theory, though Darwin was lucky to take the different route away from individuals evolving to populations evolving.
ReplyDeleteWhile Lamark's work was crucial, there were other naturalists out there considering this issue of evolution, including Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus. None put together quite such a comprehensive theory, but I'm sure Darwin had some influence from his grandfather that helped direct his thinking.