Jessica Riskin: The Power of Life

Jessica Riskin: The Power of Life

From Commonwealth Club of California Podcast by Commonwealth Club of California

April 23, 2026 · 1h 1m

About this episode

Jessica Riskin discusses the impact of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's evolutionary theory and its historical significance.

Rarely does a historian of science have the opportunity, in the midst of changing trends in a science, to point backwards in time and explain how dismissive reactions to the ideas of a scientific pioneer might have harmed the accuracy of that science for centuries. Jessica Riskin has seized such an opportunity in her new book about the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), who proposed the first evolutionary theory of life and, with it, a new science: biology. For centuries evolutionary theorists have discredited Lamarck due to his theory of self-transforming organisms, since they rejected (and mocked) the idea that animals could play an active role in shaping their own evolution. But new findings suggest that Lamarck’s basic claim was, in many ways, correct. Riskin also argues that that denial of the agency of living beings led to two centuries of eugenic policies and environmental destruction, encouraging people to regard the living world as so much raw material to be shaped and exploited for economic, industrial, and imperial gain. Riskin’s melding of biography, history, politics, and science sets out to correct this record. She tells the story of Lamarck’s life…

People in this episode

Host: Commonwealth Club of California

Guest: Jessica Riskin

Topics covered

  • history of science
  • evolutionary theory
  • biography
  • politics
  • environmentalism

Keywords

  • Lamarck
  • evolution
  • biology
  • science history
  • eugenics
  • environmental destruction
  • agency of living beings

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