An unhappy birthday: Lamarck is misrepresented

Today (August 1) is the 282nd birthday of Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, the Chevalier de Lamarck. He died in 1829, so we do not have him here to answer questions about his thought. To me he was the first evolutionary biologist, even if his mechanism for adaptation was mistaken.

Sadly, his work has often been misunderstood, and is still being described incorrectly today. He invoked two mechanisms of evolutionary change. One was a general tendency for organisms to get more complex. This must have seemed like a possibility back in 1800, at the height of the Romantic era, when grand trends of nature were in fashion.

The other is his mechanism of Use and Disuse. Organisms that made more use of particular organs or features thereby influenced their hereditary substances to have those be bigger and stronger in their offspring. Note that this is not the same as having the effects of the environment influence the hereditary substances. It is the will of the organism that does the job, not just the direct effect of the environment.

There are increasing numbers of misunderstandings of Lamarck’s theories.

Epigenetics?

The discovery of “epigenetic” modifications of genes, ones which can be influenced by the environment has led enthusiasts for them to declare that they vindicate Lamarck’s theory.
Here are some interpretations of Lamarck along those lines promoted by the Discovery Institute

• Michael Flannery, a historian associated with the old-earth creationist site Reasons To Believe, posted this at Science && Culture Today: https://scienceandculture.com/2026/07/re-evaluating-lamarcks-contribution-to-evolutionary-thought/

• Andrew Macdiarmid, a Discovery Institute staff member, has posted here promoting a book on the role of epigenetics by Thomas Woodward and James Gillis, published this year by Discovery Institute Press.

There are a number of other books arguing that evolutionary biologists have been neglecting Lamarckian mechanisms:

Eva Jablonka has written or edited a quite a few books arguing that. Here is an edited volume on this.

Pim Edelaar has recently published a book calling for evolutionary biology to be reconceived with Lamarckian mechanisms in a central role. Here is a post at The Conversation in which he summarizes the book.

And here is an article on a new book by Jessica Riskin arguing that Lamarckian though should be given a central place in evolutionary biology.

I think that all this is wrong. Let’s dicuss …