Lamarckism is a theory of evolution proposed by French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829). It suggests that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring. This is often referred to as the inheritance of acquired characteristics or soft inheritance. The theory was an attempt to explain the observed adaptation of organisms to their environment without requiring the accumulation of useful mutations over many generations, as proposed by Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Lamarckism has been largely discredited since the modern understanding of genetics and the central role of DNA in storing genetic information was established in the 1950s.Lamarckism is the belief that an organism can pass on traits that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring. An example of this would be a giraffe stretching its neck to reach leaves in the trees. According to Lamarckism, this giraffe would pass on a longer giraffe neck to its offspring, thus making them better adapted to eat the leaves in the trees.
lamarkism