Jean Baptiste Lamarck
Jean Baptiste LamarckJean Baptiste Lamarck a botanist of his day studied various plants, but soon went on to study invertebrate animals. He believed two in his theory of evolution; ise and disuse, and the inheritance of acquired traits. Lamarck was the first to develop a viable evolutionary theory. Unlike Darwin who was all for natural selection Lamarck thought the transformation on an organism sprouted from its own experience within its environment. The rose evolved from having just petals and regular stems, to bearing thorns on the stems that were once rose petals. This helped keep away plant eaters, much like the way cacti do. Lamarck would have said that this is a form of use and disuse inheritance, where characteristics that are not used or needed are lost, and the ones essential for survival are used. The process of petals becoming thorns was essential to the rose’s lives and enabled them to not be eaten. Lamarck had 2 laws in which he wrote in which he wrote;
The two laws of Jean Baptiste Lamarck
First LawIn every animal which has not passed the limit of its development, a more frequent and continuous use of any organ gradually strengthens, develops and enlarges that organ, and gives it a power proportional to the length of time it has been so used; while the permanent disuse of any organ imperceptibly weakens and deteriorates it, and progressively diminishes its functional capacity, until it finally disappears.
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Second LawAll the acquisitions or losses wrought by nature on individuals, through the influence of the environment in which their race has long been placed, and hence through the influence of the predominant use or permanent disuse of any organ; all these are preserved by reproduction to the new individuals which arise, provided that the acquired modifications are common to both sexes, or at least to the individuals which produce the young.
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