ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Book Roundtable: Jessica Riskin, The Power of Life: The Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

English Abstract

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was the Professor of Insects and Worms at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. Working through the French Revolution, he founded biology, coining the term to name a new science devoted to living things, and authored the first theory of evolution. Lamarck's science was foundational to modern biology, yet its radicalism - he usurped God's monopoly on Creation and re-assigned it to living beings - brought him and his ideas plenty of trouble. Napoleon and his scientific inner circle hated Lamarck and did what they could to undermine him. Darwin then adopted central elements of Lamarck's theory, but his most influential followers eradicated all traces of Lamarckism, rendering organisms once again the passive objects of outside forces, a model that informed two centuries of eugenics and environmental destruction. But recently, Lamarck's conception of organisms as creative agents has been returning to mainstream biology. The publication of Jessica Riskin's book provides a timely occasion to consider some important themes in the history of science, including the resurgence of ideas that have been thrust aside, the virtues of a longue durée approach, and the role of biographies in informing historical understanding.

Panelists:
Chair: Prof. Ludmilla Jordanova, Durham University – Lamarck's afterlife
Prof. Eva Jablonka The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas – Lamarckism in recent and current evolutionary biology
Dr. Perig Pitrou, CNRS and Maison Française d'Oxford – Lamarckism and ecology
Prof. Gregory Radick, University of Leeds – Lamarckism, Darwinism, inheritance and eugenics
Dr. Stéphane Van Damme, Director, Maison Française d'Oxford - Lamarck and environmental history
Prof. Jessica Riskin, Stanford University – responses to the panelists

Sub Unit

• Roundtable

Chair

• Ludmilla Jordanova, Durham University

Participants

• Eva Jablonka, Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science, Tel Aviv University

• Perig Pitrou, CNRS and Maison Française d'Oxford

• Gregory Radick, University of Leeds

• Stéphane Van Damme, Maison Française d'Oxford

• Jessica Riskin, Stanford University