According to Gould, Darwin did not mention the giraffe’s
neck as an evolutionary example in The Origin of
Species until the 1872 edition.13 And Darwin addressed
the issue of giraffe evolution in the sixth edition only in
response to a critical review of his book by creationist St.
George Mivart.14 In this work it is clear that Darwin never
regarded the giraffe’s long neck as evidence of the superiority
of natural selection (as biology and many other texts that
discuss evolution imply almost without exception).
The textbooks usually claim that the old Lamarckian
theory was refuted and replaced by Darwin’s new theory,
when, in fact, Darwin held to many ideas that were in
vogue in his day which we today know are wrong. The
term ‘Neo-Darwinism’ developed after Darwin died and
is used to describe Darwin’s theory with Lamarckianism
removed. The textbooks rarely, if ever, mention this, thus
leaving a false impression about Darwin and even implying
at times that he was some sort of super-genius who figured
out all the right answers (in contrast to his predecessors,
who often were wrong).