Protein Synthesis Blog Post

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Week 1 Post: Jean-Baptiste Lamark

1. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had the most influence over Darwin. Lamarack was incredibly close to creating the idea of evolution. He noted that species changed according to how their environment changed, which is essential to Evolution. His theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics was taught to Darwin in schooling and gave him the basis for his work. The only thing Lamarck missed was genetic information, which was what Darwin needed to pick up on.

2. Lamarck claimed that life changes through a natural process instead of a divine power. He also claimed that organism adapt to their environment forcing organism to increase in complexity from their early simple forms.

Source: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_09

3. If the environment changes, the traits that are helpful or adaptive to that environment will be different. This was the main idea Lamarck discovered. He came up with idea that species adapted to their environment

4. It is possible but not probable. The basis of Evolution is the fact that species change to adapt to their environment. This essential fact is what Evolution revolves around, and while Lamarck could not figure out the genetics portion of Evolution he put Darwin in the right direction.

            5.The attitude of the church definitely affected Darwin. The church, at the time, never has good initial             interactions with ideas that disagreed with basic principles of the church. Previous thinkers have been             killed, exiled, and arrested for speaking revolutionary thoughts. Darwin must have had to word his book       in a way to minimally upset the church.