Talk:Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

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January 19, 2004 Refreshing brilliant prose Not kept
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This article duplicates Lamarck, but there is much more information there. I think we may suppress this one. --FvdP 23:14 Nov 28, 2002 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Page move

I think this page should be moved to his full name and title, to be of the same form as Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. Comments? (There are a whole bunch of redirects to tidy up as well, but I wasn't going to start those before asking.) Noisy | Talk 12:55, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Absolutely; Lamark was NOT his family name, but a title. Many Wiki names have been shortened from much-used forms (Thomas Henry Huxley) to seldom-used forms which are shorter (Thomas Huxley). But in cases like Lamark it is dreadfully gauche to conflate family names with titles. Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck is accurate, but rather long. I think I'd go for simple Lamark folowed as now by the full name as a sub-title. Macdonald-ross 20:13, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] horrible horrible article

Odd that this article should be about Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, when most of is an unstructured rambling mess mostly duplicating Lamarckism. — Dunc|☺ 16:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

And while we're at it, how does it follow from his family's poverty that he was a Chevalier? Nothing to do with it! Macdonald-ross 11:24, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Extraordinary inaccuracies and misconceptions

It is not those who misunderstand the basic concept of "selection" that reject Lamarck. It is almost without exception that those who defend Lamarck have utterly no concept of selection or fitness. While I agree with the summary of selection given, to say that those who don't understand that definition reject Lamarkianism is the most absurd strawman I have read in quite some time. Also, the fact that memetics is Lamarkian is a case against memetics as a true parallel to evolutionary biology, not a point for Lamarkianism. Evopsycho 20:27, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Algae

"...the first species to be described was the unicellular Porphyridium purpureum (Byssus purpurea Lamark, 1778. Bysus then included colonial as well as filamentous organisma...(Brodie, J.A. and Irvine, L.M. 2003. Seaweeds of the Brtitish Isles. Vol. 1 Rhodophyta part 3B Bangiophycidae. Natural History Museum , London. ISBN 1 898298 87 4 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Osborne (talk • contribs) 12:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC). Osborne 12:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)!

[edit] Urban Myths

This page is absolutely full of scientific "urban myths" about Lamarck;

  • He did not come up with acquired inheritance; it was the standard folk knowledge of his era (and, i might add, Darwin did in fact believe in acquired inheritance, despite the claims of this article).
  • His actual theory of evolution is explained in detail in Gould's "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory", which draws solely upon primary documents - i suggest we set about correcting the myths. A century of hopelessly innaccurate textbook description is long enough!
  • The reference to Weismann's mouse experiments are also a potential urban myth - it needs to be doulbe-checked.

Dissembly 01:49, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I have attempted to rectify all these problems. There is now a section specifically for his evolutionary theory. - Dissembly 04:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
I just started working on the article a few days ago, and I hadn't got to his evolutionary theory yet. I've detailed his early life and his publications in the early 1800s. Just a request, could you find the exact page in Gould's book that you're referencing to? Page 170 to 197 contains a lot of details, and I think it would be easier for readers if the exact page number(s) were provided. Nishkid64 (talk) 16:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
If you want some source info about Darwin's belief in acquired inheritance, see Talk:Vestigiality. According to Leakey, Darwin called it "use-and-disuse heredity" and tried to account for it by his pangenesis theory in his 1868 book Variation of Plants and Animals Under Domestication. .. dave souza, talk 22:12, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Invertebrates?

We have here the great founder of invertebrate biology. So while the attention to his pioneering on evolution is merited, so is at least a little more to the great anatomical and systematic work he did separating out invertebrate groups from the mess of "worms" that Linnaeus had. (In addition, the discussion of the extent to which he was/wasn't the person responsible for promoting inheritance of acquired characters is handled well in the first, shorter telling of his life at the beginning, but not so well in the longer version later). Felsenst 06:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] link, please!!

I cannot access this page from its title Jean-Baptiste Lamark -- what's going on?? Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Awkwardness in opening paragraph.

The flow of this paragraph is awkward and contains seemingly irrelevant information.

"At his post in Monaco, Lamarck became interested in natural history and resolved to study medicine [2] He retired from the army after being injured in 1766, and he returned to his medicine studies.Lamarck showed a particular interest for botany, and he studied the subject under Bernard de Jussieu for nearly ten years. He was one of the main contributors to the Cell Theory."

Is it necessary to say he was in Monaco? Was there something about the flora or fauna there that led to subsequent discoveries?

He resolved to study medicine only to become a botanist. Do we need to know that he studied medicine? Did he study medicine? Either we explain this further here or omit it.

Choosing to omit the detail about medicine, how about the following rewrite?

"While in the army, he found time to explore natural history, and resolved to pursue the subject upon his discharge. In 1766 an injury required that he retire from the army. Lamarck returned to school. He spent the next 10 years under the tutelage of Bernard de Jussieu during which time he demonstrated a particular affinity for botany, and eventually became one of the main contributors to the Cell Theory. " --General Ludd (talk) 03:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)