Jean-Baptiste Lamarck lived from 1744 until 1829 and was a scientist from France. He lived before Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882) and was also interested in how organisms had developed into the form that they had. His ideas were the start of scientists thinking about evolution but he did manage to get it wrong in a rather major way.
He thought that animals and plants adapted to their changing surroundings in their lifetime and then passed on these changes to their offspring. The classic example that he cited was a giraffe – he said that a giraffe's neck got longer as it stretched for leaves higher up on trees. This made its neck and bit longer, so its offspring had necks a bit longer too.
This theory, often called Lamarckism, is a mistake often repeated by biology students when they first learn about evolution. The true mechanism of natural selection was explained by Darwin and others a few decades later.
He thought that animals and plants adapted to their changing surroundings in their lifetime and then passed on these changes to their offspring. The classic example that he cited was a giraffe – he said that a giraffe's neck got longer as it stretched for leaves higher up on trees. This made its neck and bit longer, so its offspring had necks a bit longer too.
This theory, often called Lamarckism, is a mistake often repeated by biology students when they first learn about evolution. The true mechanism of natural selection was explained by Darwin and others a few decades later.