Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use o
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck repeated the ancient folk wisdom of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.
The long neck of the giraffe is often used as an example in popular explanations of Lamarckism. However, this was only a small part of his theory of evolution towards "perfection"; it was a hypothetical illustration; and he used it to discuss his theory of heredity, not evolution.