Best known for his ideas relating to evolution, French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744 1829) first built his reputation as a botanist and was elected to the prestigious Academie des Sciences in 1779. His career took a new turn in 1793 when he was made professor of 'insects, worms and microscopic animals' at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, although he lacked prior knowledge of the subject area. Undaunted, Lamarck set out to classify organisms which few naturalists had considered worthy of study since Linnaeus. He was the first to distinguish vertebrates from 'invertebrates' a...

Best known for his ideas relating to evolution, French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744 1829) first built his reputation as a botanist and was elected to the prestigious Academie des Sciences in 1779. His career took a new turn in 1793 when he was made professor of 'insects, worms and microscopic animals' at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, although he lacked prior knowledge of the subject area. Undaunted, Lamarck set out to classify organisms which few naturalists had considered worthy of study since Linnaeus. He was the first to distinguish vertebrates from 'invertebrates' a...

Best known for his ideas relating to evolution, French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744 1829) first built his reputation as a botanist and was elected to the prestigious Academie des Sciences in 1779. His career took a new turn in 1793 when he was made professor of 'insects, worms and microscopic animals' at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, although he lacked prior knowledge of the subject area. Undaunted, Lamarck set out to classify organisms which few naturalists had considered worthy of study since Linnaeus. He was the first to distinguish vertebrates from 'invertebrates' a...