Lamarck, Jean Baptiste (1744-1829)

Jean Baptiste Lamarck was a French biologist, best known for his attempts to explain Evolution.
He suggested that useful features acquired during the life of an individual could pass to the next generation,
thus making each generation more efficient.
Lamarck believed that giraffes stretched their necks as they reached for leaves, and then passed their longer necks on to their offspring.
According to his theory, a person who trained to become an athlete would have athletic children.
Neither Lamarck nor anyone else could provide any evidence for this kind of evolution and few people believed his theory.
Body cells and reproductive cells are quite separate, and only the genes in the reproductive cells are passed on to the offspring.

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