«And Lamarck created Darwin»

Why does a giraffe have a long neck? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck was the first person to provide an answer. It's because it has to eat the leaves on the highest branches of trees that this animal has acquired a long neck. Environment and behavior determine the species.

This staggering discovery may seem rather banal in an age when the theory of evolution is seen and seen again. And when we think of evolutionary theory, we think of Charles Darwin. And yet, while Darwin is indeed the man who formulated the theory of evolution as we know it, with his famous notion of «natural selection», it is often - if not always - forgotten that the hypothesis that all species have evolved over the ages, going back to one or more common ancestors, had already been put forward by a scientist fifty years earlier: Lamarck.

Everyone has heard that man descended from the ape, but only a few have been told that Darwin descended from Lamarck. Fabien Gruhier has chosen to devote a book to this subject, And Lamarck created Darwin, published this year by Editions Slatkine & Cie, in which the author does justice to the scientist in accessible language, with in-depth knowledge, sparing humor and palpable emotion.

In addition to the epigenetics revolution, you'll learn that it was Lamarck who invented the word «biology», that he was hated by the Pope and Napoleon, and that he was the originator of modern meteorology. In the author's words, he «remains the greatest and most misunderstood of French scientists.» A certain tenderness inevitably overcomes the reader for this scientist who died poor, blind - and whose «memory is reduced to a Paris metro station he shares, who knows why, with General Caulaincourt». So, to your bookshops.

A quick aside: as you read this editorial, did you picture a female giraffe when I talked about the giraffe? Did you object to this discrimination? Probably not. And rightly so: grammatical gender is not the same as sex. This example shows that the current debate on sexism in language represents the height of absurdity. Between the French language and haphazard ideology, Le Regard Libre has chosen its camp.

Philosopher by training and journalist by profession, Jonas Follonier is the editor-in-chief of Regard Libre. Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com.

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