Joseph Thomas Cunningham (1859–1935) was a British marine biologist and zoologist known for his experiments on flatfish and his writings on neo-Lamarckism.
[3] According to science historian Peter J. Bowler the idea held by Cunningham that hormones transferred from one generation to the next independent of the germ plasm was seen at the time by neo-Lamarckians as a plausible hypothesis, however "its advocates were unable to get beyond the stage of providing indirect evidence for the effect they postulated.
He discovered that light causes the production of pigments on the lower sides of flatfishes, and gave his results a Lamarckian interpretation.
[8] George Romanes wrote approvingly of Cunningham's interpretation, but the geneticist William Bateson was not convinced that the cause of the increase in pigmentation was from the illumination.
[12] The chemist Raphael Meldola noted in a review for Nature that "although many of us may arrive at the conclusion that Mr. Cunningham has not succeeded in establishing his case, it will be generally admitted that he has discussed the problem, on the whole, in a more or less scientific spirit.