Darwin believed that evolution worked through natural selection. If an individual has a characteristic that allows it to survive, then that characteristic will be passed to its children. If other individuals without this characteristic die, only the survivors with the characteristic will pass their genes down. This difference is small in the long run, but leads to big changes over millions of years. An example of this is giraffes with longer necks being able to get more food and survive, which means, as more and more short neck giraffes don't live to reproduce, the population of giraffes get longer necks. Another example of this is the birds Darwin found on the Galapagos having beaks suited to the food on certain islands.
Lamarck believed that certain characteristics will become more pronounced in a population if they're used more often. An example of this would be a population of giraffes stretching their necks out so much that their offspring have longer necks, which is preposterous.
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