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into obscurity when he tried to test Lamarck’s theory that organisms pass on survival-oriented traits acquired through their interaction with the environment. In one of Weismann’s experiments, he cut off the tails of male and female mice and mated them. Weismann argued that if Lamarck’s theory were correct, the parents should pass on their tail-less state to future generations. The first generation of mice was born with tails. Weismann repeated the experiment for 21 more generations, but not one tail-less mouse was born, leading Weismann to conclude that Lamarck’s notion of inheritance was wrong.

But Weismann’s experiment was not a true test of Lamarck’s theory. Lamarck suggested that such evolutionary changes could take “immense periods of time,” according to biographer L. J. Jor-danova. In 1984, Jordanova wrote that Lamarck’s theory “rested on” a number of “propositions” including “the laws governing living things have produced increasingly complex forms over immense periods of time.” (Jordanova 1984, page 71) Weismann’s five-year experiment was clearly not long enough to test the theory. An even more fundamental flaw in his experiment is that Lamarck never argued that every change an organism experienced would take hold. Lamarck said organisms hang on to traits (like tails) when they need them to survive. Although Weismann didn’t think the mice needed their tails, no one asked the mice if they thought their tails were necessary for survival!

Despite its obvious flaws, the study of the tail-less mice helped destroy Lamarck’s reputation. In fact, Lamarck has been mostly ignored or vilified. Cornell University evolutionist C.H. Wadding-ton wrote in The Evolution of An Evolutionist (Waddington 1975, page 38): “Lamarck is the only major figure in the history of biology whose name has become to all intents and purposes, a term of abuse. Most scientists’ contributions are fated to be outgrown, but very few authors have written works, which, two centuries later, are still rejected with indignation so intense that the skeptic may suspect something akin to an uneasy conscience. In point of fact, Lamarck has, I think, been somewhat unfairly judged.”

Waddington wrote those prescient words thirty years ago. Today Lamarck’s theories are being reevaluated under the weight of a body of new science that suggests that the oft-denounced biologist was not entirely wrong and the oft-lauded Darwin not entirely correct. The title of an article in the prestigious journal Science in 2000 was one sign of glasnost: “Was Lamarck Just a Little Bit Right?” (Balter 2000)

One reason some scientists are taking another look at Lamarck is that evolutionists are reminding us of the invaluable role cooperation plays in sustaining life in the biosphere. Scientists have long noted symbiotic relationships in nature. In Darwin’s Blind Spot (Ryan 2002, page 16), British physician Frank Ryan chronicles a number of such relationships, including a yellow shrimp that gathers food while its partner gobi fish protects it from predators and a species of hermit crab that carries a pink anemone on top of its shell. “Fish and octopuses like to feed on hermit crabs, but when they approach this species, the anemone shoots out its brilliantly colored tentacles, with their microscopic batteries of poisoned darts, and stings the potential predator, encouraging it to look elsewhere for its meal.” The warrior anemone gets something out of the relationship as well because it eats the crab’s leftover food.

But today’s understanding of cooperation in nature goes much deeper than the easily observable relationships. “Biologists are becoming increasingly aware that animals have coevolved and continue to coexist, with diverse assemblages of microorganisms that are required for normal health and development,” according to a recent article in Science called “We Get By With A Little Help from Our (Little) Friends.” (Ruby, et al, 2004) The study of these relationships is now a rapidly growing field called “Systems Biology.”

Ironically, in recent decades, we have been taught to wage