Lamarck’s proposal of the inheritance of acquired characteristics included the idea that
A species are fixed and unchanging over time.
B organisms are acted on by the environment.
C the continual stretching of giraffe’s necks to reach leaves led to longer necks.
D species are only produced through special creation.
The correct answer and explanation is:
The correct answer is C: the continual stretching of giraffes’ necks to reach leaves led to longer necks.
Lamarck’s theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics proposed that organisms could change during their lifetime in response to environmental pressures, and these changes could be passed on to their offspring. This idea was based on the notion that traits acquired or modified during an organism’s lifetime could be inherited. For example, Lamarck suggested that giraffes initially had short necks but that those who reached for high leaves stretched their necks. Over time, this “stretching” led to longer necks, and this acquired characteristic would be passed on to subsequent generations, resulting in the long necks observed in modern giraffes.
Lamarck’s theory was one of the early attempts to explain how species might evolve over time. However, it has been largely discredited in favor of Darwinian evolution, which emphasizes natural selection as the primary mechanism of evolution. In contrast to Lamarck’s view, natural selection proposes that traits that increase an organism’s survival and reproduction are more likely to be passed on to the next generation, but these traits are not necessarily acquired during the organism’s lifetime.
Lamarck’s idea that changes in an organism’s body could be directly caused by its interaction with the environment was groundbreaking for its time. However, modern genetics has shown that acquired traits, such as muscle growth or scars, are not passed on genetically to offspring. Instead, genetic mutations that offer advantages in survival and reproduction are inherited.