the claim that epigenetics is resurrecting “Lamarckian” processes is false. This is because Lamarck did not suggest that environmental exposure causes heritable changes. Darwin did say something like this, however.Lamarck indeed suggested that environment causes heritable changes. Chapter VII of his Philosophie Zoologique is titled “On the influence of the circumstances on the actions and habits of animals, and the influence of these living bodies in modifying their organisation and structure”, and he follows by stating his two laws (as cited by Wilkins in the 1st comment) as an explanation (or description) of the process of evolution by the inheritance of acquired traits.

the inheritance of acquired characters more generally is not “Lamarckian” either. It was the common position in his time and it persisted to an extent in Darwin’s thinking.True. But, in your post “Natural selection before Darwin”, you proposed that “… [T]he idea [of natural selection] had been around for at least six decades before Darwin published the Origin, and it was not until someone of Darwin’s genius developed the idea that evolution assumed its position as the underlying theme of all biology”.

Likewise, the idea of inheritance of acquired traits (I.A.T.) had been around for a long time, but it was not until someone of Lamarck’s genius developed the idea that it has been seriously incorporated into the evolutionary thought of XIX century. As Darwin put it in the 3rd edition of The Origin, “Lamarck was the first man whose conclusions on [the evolution of species] excited much attention”, adding that “he attributed something to the direct action of the physical conditions of life, something to the crossing of already existing forms, and much to use and disuse, that is, to the effects of habit”. If we are to use the same standard to judge both case, Lamarck must be viewed as the champion of I.A.T. just the same way that Darwin is the champion of Natural Selection.

Wilkins, John S. 2001. The appearance of Lamarckism in the evolution of culture. In Darwinism and evolutionary economics, edited by J. Laurent and J. Nightingale. Cheltenham UK: Edward Elgar.

As to your second question, oddly, no. You might make a start here:

Hull, David L. 1984. Lamarck among the Anglos. In Introduction to reprinted edition of J. B. Lamarck’s Zoological Philosophy: An Exposition with Regard to the Natural History of Animals. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

However I can’t say right now how well that has stood up in the light of more recent scholarship.

You may — ref?

One, that the claim that epigenetics is resurrecting “Lamarckian” processes is false. This is because Lamarck did not suggest that environmental exposure causes heritable changes. Darwin did say something like this, however. I am not giving Darwin credit for it, I am criticizing the claims that epigenetics is “Lamarckian”.

Two, the inheritance of acquired characters more generally is not “Lamarckian” either. It was the common position in his time and it persisted to an extent in Darwin’s thinking.

Three, use and disuse was not thrown out when Darwin came. Darwin maintained some aspect of it also.

I am not claiming that Darwin was just a Lamarckian; my point is just that the history implied in claims of “Lamarckian” processes is vastly oversimplified.

Darwin did think that use and disuse influenced heredity, but it was not the source of the traits. It merely “strengthened or weakened” the inheritance of traits that occurred for other reasons, which we independent of the lifstyle of the organisms. So using eyesight meant it would be more strongly inherited, and not using it meant that it would tend to disappear as in cave fishes. But the origins of eyesight are not based on the acquisition of sightedness by exercise during the animal’s life.

Lamarck, at least as he is often interpreted, held that by the action of the organism under “besoin” (or need) novel traits would be acquired and passed on. Darwin did not hold that.