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Lamarck argued, as part of his theory of heredity, that a blacksmith's sons inherit the strong muscles he acquires from his work. [1]Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, [2] is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime.
Lamarck is usually remembered for his belief in the then commonly held theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics, and the use and disuse model by which organisms developed their characteristics. Lamarck incorporated this belief into his theory of evolution, along with other common beliefs of the time, such as spontaneous generation. [26]
Evolutionary progress as a tree of life. Ernst Haeckel, 1866 Lamarck's two-factor theory involves 1) a complexifying force that drives animal body plans towards higher levels (orthogenesis) creating a ladder of phyla, and 2) an adaptive force that causes animals with a given body plan to adapt to circumstances (use and disuse, inheritance of acquired characteristics), creating a diversity of ...
Where the fact of evolutionary change was accepted by biologists but natural selection was denied, including but not limited to the late 19th century eclipse of Darwinism, alternative scientific explanations such as Lamarckism, orthogenesis, structuralism, catastrophism, vitalism and theistic evolution [a] were entertained, not necessarily separately.
Lamarck also recognized that species were adapted to their environment. He explained this observation by saying that the same nervous fluid driving increasing complexity, also caused the organs of an animal (or a plant) to change based on the use or disuse of that organ, just as muscles are affected by exercise.
Initially, the Lamarckian principle of inheritance of acquired traits was considered a legitimate part of evolutionary theory, and Darwin himself recognized its importance. [5] Although the Mendelian view had largely replaced Lamarckism in western biology by 1925, [ 5 ] it persisted in Soviet doctrine.
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Lamarck used the blind mole rat (Spalax) as an example of the loss of function through disuse.The animal's tiny eyes are completely covered by a layer of skin. In the Philosophie zoologique, Lamarck proposed that species could acquire new characteristics from influences in their environment, in two rules that he named as laws.