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Lamarck's Influence on the Development of Darwin's Theory of Evolution

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Lamarck's Influence on the Development of Darwin's Theory of Evolution

Dec. 4 1996
Marc Weinstein

There have been many ideas on the theory of evolution. Some simply take our existence for granted, others prefer to explain all evolution in terms of the bible and the presence of a God. However, there are those who have researched the topic of evolution and have offered an explanation as to where a species comes from and how they evolved in the manner that they did. This type of science has been studied for a very, very long time, and one of the most famous minds in the field of evolution was a man named Charles Darwin. Darwin was not the first one to offer theories on evolution. There have been many scientists who preceded him. These …show more content…

Lamarck's theory on inheritance of acquired characteristics is not that much different, infact, Lamarckism has occasionally been mistaken for Darwinism. Darwin did indeed take Lamarck's inheritance of characteristics theory and modify it so that he improved upon it.
This shows how Lamarck influenced Darwin to create the natural selection theory.
It did not stop there, though. Lamarck also influenced Darwin with the idea of transmutation, and prompted Darwin to theorize on that aspect of evolution as well. Transmutation was an idea resulting in the problem that Lamarck faced when dealing with the apparent extinction of a species. To Lamarck, extinction was not a possibility. Lamarck believed that extinction could not occur because then it would mean that God created an imperfect being, which was not a possibility for Lamarck. One purpose for the theory of transmutation was to offer an explanation for the apparent ‘disappearance' of a species. The theory was that out of inherited characteristics, a species would undergo change. Each generation would continue to change because inheritance of traits would always occur. Eventually, over a very gradual amount of time, the species would evolve so dramatically, that the new adaptations would bear little or no resemblance to the original species.(Ospovat, 1981) Darwin, who incorporated this idea, modified it slightly. To Darwin, extinction was very much a

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