The theory that new organs or characteristics develop in organisms when there is a need for them was postulated by

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The theory that new organs or characteristics develop in organisms when there is a need for them was postulated by Jean Lamarck. Lamarck believed that an organism's characteristics can be changed during its lifetime in response to its environment and these changes could be passed on to its offspring. For example, he proposed that a giraffe's long neck evolved because its ancestors stretched their necks to reach high leaves and this characteristic was passed on to their offspring. This idea is now known as the inheritance of acquired characteristics and has been largely discredited, but it was an important early attempt to explain the process of evolution.