Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744 - 1829)

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Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744 - 1829)

Jean Baptiste Lamarck was one of the first people to propose a theory of evolution to the public. Although his ideas were not widely accepted they paved the way for others to do work in that field. Even before his work on evolution he did extensive work with invertebrates. His work on invertebrates inevitably led him to his theory of evolution. This theory was not accepted at his time and has since been proven wrong. The way he was raised and the institutions he attended gave him the opportunity to perform his work.

BACKGROUND

Jean Baptiste Lamarck was born in the village of Bazentin-le-Petit in northern France on August 1,1744. He was born into a military family as the youngest of eleven children. Around 1756 Lamarck joined a Jesuit seminary at Amiens, but left to join the French military after his fathers death in 1761. He remained in the army until illness forced him to leave in 1768. Not too long after leaving the army Lamarck started to study medicine and plants. (Waggoner 2) Lamarck took many excursions with Jean-Jacques Rousseau which led him to an interest in plants rather than medicine. (Weber 49) Ten years later he gained attention and notoriety from his book Flore Francaise, about the plants of France. He had the help of well known botanist Buffon on this book, which helped with his credibility. From this book he was given the position of assistant botanist at the royal botanical garden, the Jardin des Plantes. This position was not well paid and Lamarck was forced to live in poverty. (Clifford 1) But in 1793 the Jardin des Plantes was reorganized to become the National Museum of Natural History. This museum was run by twelve professors in twelve different scientific fields. Lamarck was appointed to the professorship of the natural history of insects and worms. Lamarck later gave these organisms the term invertebrates. (Waggoner 1-2)

WORK WITH INVERTEBRATES

Lamarck knew nothing about the subject of invertebrates at this time in his life. Not many scientists did know anything about invertebrates. Some even included snakes and crocodiles in this classification. The name invertebrate did not even exist at this time, Lamarck coined the phrase after he had done his research.

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