Nature and nurture: Lamarck's legacy

This year (2014) marks the 270th anniversary of Jean‐Baptiste de Lamarck's birth, which presents a good occasion to reflect on the wide‐reaching, although largely ignored, legacy of the French naturalist and its modern‐day renaissance. A discussion is provided of the broad and controversial influence of Lamarckian thought on science, politics and art, with a focus on Lamarck's curious recent comeback to the public and academic eyes in relation to the burgeoning discipline of epigenetics. © 2014 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2015, 114 , 242–247.