1909 Statue of Lamarck by Léon Fagel in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris.
Image by or Cedricguppy - Loury Cédric. Wikimedia Creative Commons license v4.0.
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.
Recently, Answers in Genesis CEO Ken Ham has produced a lot of propaganda celebrating the fact that the Ark has been open for 10 years in July. Propaganda that fails to acknowledge that the Ark has never come close to the 1.2 to 2.2 million annual visitors projected by Answers in Genesis.
Araneus diadematus – garden cross spider. Dr. Korthof writes: "Spiderwebs are completely invisible and very difficult to detect, except when the sun shines on the web at a certain angle. Then colors similar but not identical to rainbow colors can be observed. The pictures show the web of the garden cross spider, also known as the European garden spider." I have taken the liberty of grouping his three entries as one and display the remaining two below the fold.
The cliff known to the Lakota people as Six Grandfathers, now known as
Mount Rushmore. From Wikimedia, public domain. (We've been using this
for all posts concerning reviews of the 2nd edition of The Design Inference.
That book has a more recent photo of Mount Rushmore on its cover.)
A previous PT post here discussed philosopher of science
Joseph K. Cosgrove’s review of William Dembski and Winston Ewert’s 2nd
edition of The Design Inference. I had some qualms and questions
about Cosgrove’s conclusions. I hoped he would comment in the
discussion. He was kind enough to contribute a substantial
argument in the conmments section of that post. This included
responses to my and John Harshman’s comments on his argument.
(For more links to the earlier posts on reviews of Dembski
and Ewert’s book, and to Cosgrove’s review, see the link I just gave.)
In response to John Harshman’s comment Cosgrove commented:
On John H’s remark about my “trichotomy” of chance, necessity, and design: To our knowledge, blind processes in nature produce two kinds of outcomes:
Chance produces random outcomes and necessity produces ordered outcomes. Both chance and necessity are involved in both types, but the outcomes still
can be categorized in terms of one or the other. A roll of the dice, for instance, follows the laws of physics and so conforms to necessity, but it
produces a chance outcome governed by a probability distribution. By contrast, the atoms of a chemical crystal have to line up in a deterministic
pattern dictated by the equilibrium of forces. That is a necessary outcome although it also involves chance (which particular atoms end up where,
for instance). Neither of these two types is organized (a sequence of coin tosses is complex but not organized; a chemical crystal is ordered,
not organized). So my trichotomy is really chance, necessity, and organized complexity.
If there is a fourth category in addition to chance, necessity, and organization I’m not aware of what it is.
To our knowledge, no mere combination of chance and necessity can produce organized complexity.
John Harshman then said:
Then one must ask what natural selection consists of and whether it is so capable.
I think this exchange is particularly important in evaluating Cosgrove’s argument,
so I have put up this post, in hopes that Cosgrove, Harshman, and our other
commenters can address this issue.
To see the comments, click on the title of this post or on the number of comments.
We will announce the winner next week at this time, noon, Mountain Daylight Time. Meanwhile:
Photograph by Alex Young.
House finch – Haemorhous mexicanus. The photographer writes: "Meet the three baby house finches who hatched in our fake flowers! I've decided to take after The Bloggess (the wonderful author Jenny Lawson) and give animals punny names, so these are Birdie Sanders, Scout Finch, and Charlie Chirplin."
![[Leon Fagel statue of Lamarck]](/uploads/2026/LamarckStatue.JPG)
