On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life is a work of scientific literature by the English naturalist Charles Darwin that
Title page of the 1859 edition
Darwin pictured shortly before publication
On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, 2nd edition. By Charles Darwin, John Murray, London, 1860. National Museum of Scotland.
American botanist Asa Gray (1810–1888)
Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use o
On the Origin of Species
…Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection, although Lamarckism was also included as a mechanism of lesser importance. The book presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through…
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck repeated the ancient folk wisdom of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
The long neck of the giraffe is often used as an example in popular explanations of Lamarckism. However, this was only a small part of his theory of evolution towards "perfection"; it was a hypothetical illustration; and he used it to discuss his theory of heredity, not evolution.
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard tried to demonstrate Lamarckism by mutilating guinea pigs.