title: The Impact of Lamarck's Theory of Evolution Before Darwin's Theory.
abstract: This paper analyzes the impact that Lamarckian evolutionary theory had in the scientific community during the period between the advent of Zoological Philosophy and the publication Origin of Species. During these 50 years Lamarck's model was a well known theory and it was discussed by the scientific community as a hypothesis to explain the changing nature of the fossil record throughout the history of Earth. Lamarck's transmutation theory established the foundation of an evolutionary model introducing a new way to research in nature. Darwin's selectionist theory was proposed in 1859 to explain the origin of species within this epistemological process. In this context, Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology and Auguste Comte's Cours de Philosophie Positive appear as two major works for the dissemination of Lamarck's evolutionary ideology after the death of the French naturalist in 1829.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, IH, CSIC Project HAR2013-43048-P, c/Albasanz 26-28, 28037, Madrid, Spain. andres.galera@cchs.csic.es.
authors.forename: Andrés
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Galera
mesh_terms: D005075:Biological Evolution; D049672:History, 19th Century; D008954:Models, Biological; D010811:Natural Science Disciplines / Q000266:history*; D012641:Selection, Genetic
keywords: Auguste Comte; Charles Lyell; Evolution; Lamarck; Transmutation theory; Zoological Philosophy