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Definition:
A now discredited evolutionary mechanism, Lamarkism argued that evolutionary changes
are acquired. Through the course of an individual's life, changes are acquired
which aid in survival. These changes are then genetically encoded and passed along to
offspring which, in turn, go through their own changes.
Lamarkism is named after its originator, Jean Baptiste Lamark (1744-1829), An 18th-century naturalist, zoologist, and botanist who is well known for his study and classification of invertebrates. He and those who agreed with his theories regarded animals in nature as if they were arranged in a hierarchical order which he referred to as marche de la nature or scala naturae (scale of nature).
This order, according to Lamark, was controlled by three principles: environmental influences on the development of organs, changes in body structures do to the changes in how body parts are used, and the inheritance of new characteristics.
During his life Lamark's ideas did not receive a great deal of support and scientific attention - that did not occur until the latter part of the 19th century. The most support, however, came after his ideas were discredited. In the Soviet Union it was believed that Lamarkism was the biological equivalent of Marxism; as a consequence, Lamark's faulty ideas about biology and evolution were imposed with the help of agronomist Trofim Lysenko. The consequences of this were disasterous for Soviet agriculture, not to mention the persecution experienced by scientists who objected to Lamarkism and who were thus regarded as bad Marxists, if not stooges of the capitalist West.
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