Ninth Edition CoverGraziano & Raulin
Research Methods (9th edition)

Jean Baptiste Pierre Lamarck (1744-1829) was a French botanist and zoologist who wrote several influential books on botany and zoology and was a major contributor to the science of taxonomy. 

Lamarck is best known for his theory of evolution. He argued that species are not static, but continue to change, and complex organisms have developed or evolved from simpler organisms. His theory was based on four major assumptions: (1) there is a natural “force of life” that normally works to increase the volume of every living body; (2) new organs are produced in the face of new needs; (3) continued development of the new organs depends upon the amount of their use; (4) changes that are brought about in each organism are transmitted to all of the offspring of that organism.

This last point, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, suggests a purposeful element in evolution. Ultimately, Lamarckian theory was supplanted by the Darwin-Wallace theory of evolution, in which the origin of species is explained by mechanisms of natural selection. Unlike Lamarck’s model, the newer theory was supported by a mass of carefully-gathered empirical data.

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