Lamarck’s Opponents :

Lamarck’s scientific theories were largely ignored or attacked during his lifetime. He never won the acceptance and esteem of his colleagues. Cuvier, his colleague at the Museum, appears to have done much to undermine Lamarck and any ideas about transformism. For whatever reason, perhaps owing to an unwillingness to accept scientific innovations, Lamarck found little respect among his peers. Cuvier was revered from all sides, yet Lamarck could count only Geoffroy Saint Hilaire among his eminent friends. Cuvier once wrote that no one deems Lamarck’s views dangerous enough to attack them.

Lamarck's views were never clearly presented nor coherently argued; as a result, his ideas were not seriously entertained during his lifetime. His theory of evolution suffered at the hands of Cuvier, who championed his own ideas from a more powerful scientific and political position.

His later critics argued that, whereas environment undoubtedly evokes responses in the organism, the latter does not invariably respond with useful modifications. They also pointed out that all attempts to verify the transmission of acquired characteristics experimentally gave negative results.

The chief reason why Lamarckism survived the mounting onslaughts from his enemies was that it offered a seductively simple explanation of various biological facts; for example, of the structure of the bones of hereditary collosities and the blindness of cave-dwelling animals.