Which scientist proposed inheritance of acquired characteristics before Darwin’s theory became influential?

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed inheritance of acquired characteristics before Darwin’s theory became influential.

Lamarck published his evolutionary ideas in 1809, the year Darwin was born. He argued that organisms change in response to their environments and that traits acquired during an organism’s lifetime could be passed to offspring. His well-known giraffe example suggested that repeated stretching produced longer necks that descendants inherited.

Modern genetics does not support Lamarck’s general mechanism of inheritance. Changes caused by use or disuse during an individual’s life are not normally written into the DNA of reproductive cells and passed on in the way Lamarck proposed. Evolutionary change is instead explained through inherited variation, mutation, recombination, selection, drift, and gene flow.

Lamarck nevertheless made an important historical contribution by defending the idea that species change over time. His work is often oversimplified as merely a mistaken giraffe story; he also developed an early systematic theory of biological transformation.