Abstract: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) was the author of the first scientific hypothesis about the inheritance of characteristics. He proposed that the changing environment causes changes in bodily organs (e.g., the giraffe's elongating neck in response to the growth of taller trees) that are transmitted to the offspring. Darwin's theory and the discovery of DNA led to the eclipse of this theory. Recently, however, his ideas in a modified form have received a degree of support. It is now recognized that environmental epigenetic factors, that leave...
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Topics: 
Evolutionary biology
Genetics
Computational biology