Abstract

At the origin of the inheritance of acquired characters: from Erasmus Darwin to Jean Baptiste de lamarck to remember their true legacy The terms "Lamarckism" and "Lamarckian inheritance" are today widely present in the scientific literature, as a consequence of the recent discoveries in the field of epigenetic inheritance. This article analyzes the different forms of inheritance of acquired traits present in the work of Erasmus Darwin and in other naturalists that anticipated the Lamarck’s proposal in order to show that the current reference to alleged Lamarckian legacies is incorrect both from a historical and epistemological point of view.