Jean Baptiste Lamark

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was a French naturalist in the early 19th century who proposed that organisms evolve over time through acquired characteristics. He suggested that traits developed during an organism's life—like a giraffe stretching its neck—could be passed on to its offspring. Although his ideas were later replaced by Darwin's theory of natural selection, Lamarck's work was important in recognizing that species change over generations and contributed to the development of evolutionary science.