1. I chose to write about Jean Baptiste Lamarck, who had a very different view of evolution than Darwin's. Lamarck's view was eventually proven wrong, making his effect an extremely negative one, and due to what his views were, he is the furthest from what we agree with today, causing him to be the most negative influence of the listed people to choose from. His views were completely rejected when Darwin proposed the idea of Natural Selection. Lamarck believes that species did not die out after extinction, they simply became a new species.
2. Lamarck believed that simple life forms contineue to come into existence through dead matter and gradually became more and more thorough and "perfect" as they changed from species to species. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/02/3/l_023_01.html
3. The bullet point "If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be
different." Lamarck believed that their different behavior would be noticed by their organs and then the changes will be passed down to their offspring, which is incorrect according to Darwin who believes that instead of the offspring being given the traits, there are different types of that animal and the selected one that adapt better to their surroundings will live, making it look like they are they offspring, but when really, the other animal that didn't evolve simply died off.
4. I completely believe that Darwin could have developed his theory of Natural Selection without Lamarck, because Lamarck's idea of evolution is completely different from hat of Darwin's. And if Lamarck's view did help Darwin, it was in a way that of which he can test and see as falsifiable and then continue moving forward to find the correct answer.
5. The attitude of the Church affected Darwin's publication on The Origin of Species because many do not understand that religion and evolution is not one or the other. They have absolutely no tie with one another, they argued the book refutable due to its conflict with religion and faith. They pushed Darwin back on publishing the book because at the time if Science did not tie with Religion is was unworthy.
Darwin's theory may not have been where it is today (stands as a universally-known theory) if he thought Lamarck's thoughts would have been helpful to his research and used it to add points to his theory. I like how you pointed out that Darwin could have developed his theory without the help of Lamarck as well as a possible way that Lamarck's view could have helped Darwin in any way.
ReplyDeleteBut as for your fifth point, what did you mean by "many do not understand that religion and evolution is not one or the other?" I think you should clarify on that (Maybe talk about how people accept the statements of the Church as facts--it's the guiding light to most people at this time).
Hi Samantha. I chose Charles Lyell and felt that Lyell's work greatly influenced Darwin. Darwin added to Lyell's beliefs which help to a realization that we adopt to our our homes and work as whole to learn from our pasts. I agree with you that Lamark seems to have ideas than Darwin, according to your post. Lamark is more about the dead than the living, which is the total opposite of Darwin's hypothesis. I agree with you on question #5, i put something like yours, that the Church saw that evolution and religion don't mix, i find that to be true in a way. They are always butting heads to see which one is more accurate or better.
ReplyDeleteLamarck was actually closer to Darwin's idea than I think you are explaining here. There were two key differences, and while they were very important differences, there were many similarities as well. Darwin saw not only what Lamarck did wrong, he also was able to build off of what Lamarck did right.
ReplyDeleteYour section on Lamarck's work was very slim. Lamarck's main contribution was called the "Theory of Acquired Characteristics". Like Darwin, he recognized the role of the environment AND the importance of traits being heritable. The difference is that Lamarck argued that traits can change during an individual's lifetime and that those changes could be passed on to the next generation. They can't. That's the problem. Darwin, in contrast, argued that there is already existing variation in a population and the environment "selects" which is going to have greater success reproducing by which organisms have the traits that are more successful in that environment. So evolution within a generation to evolution between generations. That's the difference that matters.
You do seem to recognize one similarity between Lamarck and Darwin by the bullet point you pick, though the point on heritable traits is also applicable.
I tend to agree that Darwin probably could have developed his theory without Lamarck. This is not to say that Lamarck wasn't influential to Darwin. He just wasn't indispensable.
Remember that the final question is asking how it influenced Darwin in his decision to publish. The church didn't even know about Darwin's work until he published, so the decision to not publish was not one the church made. But Darwin did delay publishing for more than 20 years and it is important to ask why? What was he concerned with? And what role did the church play in this decision to delay?
Lamarck did believe that species did not simply die off but they rather perfected themselves which is a bit different than Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection in which hybrids of the species already exist and the ones with characteristics that better fit the environment will survive while those that do not eventually die off. However i feel that they both had a similar idea when it came to evolution and heredity. Lamarck believed that as time progressed organisms would eventually change their structure in order to better fit nature through reproduction. This is similar to Darwin's theory because the hybrids of animals that survived would reproduce and strengthen the traits they needed as well.
ReplyDeleteI think that its possible Darwin could have created his theory of evolution without the works of Lamarck, however i think Lamarck's work might have been an influence on Darwin's theory using it as a basis and agreeing with the points of heredity but yet disagreeing with his theory of nature perfecting itself and the extinction of species.
Darwin did hold back from publishing his book for the fact that many people who were associated with believing in evolution were atheists. Publishing his work would inevitably portray him in this way which at the time was seen as a form of rebellion since the government was mostly run by the church.
Hi Samantha, I as well wrote about Lamarck and his influence on Darwin. I don't agree necessarily that Lamarck's idea was a negative because it still influenced Darwin so highly. His idea was in fact only invalidated, but he made great points that was fixed. I highly agree on the quote you used because I used the same one as well. :) Although we believed differently in Lamarck's theory, you backed up your reasonings and it was really fun reading your post!
ReplyDeleteAlthough quite a few people disregarded Lamarck's ideas, I feel like Lamarck did not negatively influenced Darwin and his theories. I believe that Darwin might have been inspired by his works and that, like Lamarck who stressed over the different anatomical structures of the species, he also thoroughly examined their structures and questioned it as to why there are differences, just like Lamarck.
ReplyDeleteHowever, your reasons and your answers were quite interesting to read and I enjoyed it :)