The French biologist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744–1829) is credited as the first person to propose a theory that attempts to explain how and why evolutionary change occurs in living organisms. The mechanism Lamarck proposed is known as “the inheritance of acquired characteristics,” meaning that what individuals experience during their lifetime will be passed along to their offspring as genetic traits. This is sometimes referred to as the theory of “use and disuse.” A classic example of this would be the giraffe’s neck: Lamarckian evolution would predict that as giraffes stretch their necks to reach higher branches on trees, their necks grow longer. As a result, this increase in neck length will be transmitted to egg and sperm such that the offspring of giraffes whose necks have grown will also have long necks. While Lamarck’s idea was analytically based on available data (giraffes have long necks and give birth to offspring with long necks as well), he did not know that, in general, environmental factors do not change genetic sequences in such a direct fashion.