The Impact of Lamarck’s Theory of Evolution Before Darwin’s Theory

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• 作者：Andrés Galera
• 关键词：Lamarck ; Zoological Philosophy ; Transmutation theory ; Charles Lyell ; Auguste Comte ; Evolution
• 刊名：Journal of the History of Biology
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：February 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：50
• 期：1
• 页码：53-70
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：History of Science; Philosophy of Biology;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-0387
• 卷排序：50

文摘

This paper analyzes the impact that Lamarckian evolutionary theory had in the scientific community during the period between the advent of Zoological Philosophy and the publication Origin of Species. During these 50 years Lamarck’s model was a well known theory and it was discussed by the scientific community as a hypothesis to explain the changing nature of the fossil record throughout the history of Earth. Lamarck’s transmutation theory established the foundation of an evolutionary model introducing a new way to research in nature. Darwin’s selectionist theory was proposed in 1859 to explain the origin of species within this epistemological process. In this context, Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology and Auguste Comte’s Cours de Philosophie Positive appear as two major works for the dissemination of Lamarck’s evolutionary ideology after the death of the French naturalist in 1829.