Lamarckian revival: organisms remake worlds

Jessica Riskin’s account argues that Lamarck’s central claim — that living organisms actively shape their own evolution and even the physical world around them — is not merely a historical curiosity but maps onto modern ideas (niche construction, organism–environment feedback). The book shows how the Jardin des plantes’ mix of art, music, literature and experiments seeded a conception of biology as an active, world-making force. — Reframing Lamarck as a prescient thinker shifts public and educational narratives about evolution, agency in nature, and the institutional origins of biology.