author
Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de Lamarck
1744–1829
A bold French naturalist, soldier, and scholar, he helped push biology toward the idea that species change over time. He is best remembered for early evolutionary thinking and for his major work classifying plants and invertebrates.
1 Audiobook
Zoölogische Philosophie Of beschouwingen over de Natuurlijke Historie der dieren etc.
by Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de Lamarck
About the author
Born in Picardy in 1744, Lamarck first trained for a religious life, then served in the army before turning to science. His scientific career began in botany, and his work on French flora earned him recognition in Paris and eventually a place at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle.
Over time, he shifted his attention from plants to animals, especially invertebrates. He helped popularize the term invertebrates and became an important figure in organizing and describing groups of animals that had often been neglected by earlier naturalists.
Lamarck is now most famous for proposing one of the earliest broad theories of biological evolution. Some of his specific ideas, especially the inheritance of acquired characteristics, were later rejected by modern genetics, but his larger insistence that living things change through natural processes made him a landmark figure in the history of science.