<P> In 1906, the philosopher Eugenio Rignano wrote a book, Sur La Transmissibilité Des Caractères Acquis, that argued for the inheritance of acquired characteristics . He advanced a moderated Lamarckian hypothesis of inheritance known as "centro - epigenesis". However, his views were controversial and not accepted by the majority in the scientific community . </P> <P> In a series of experiments from 1907 to 1910, William Lawrence Tower performed experiments on potato beetles which were said by Ernest MacBride to have provided evidence for the inheritance of acquired characteristics . These were heavily criticized by William Bateson . It was later suggested that his research may have been faked . Tower claimed that the records of his experimental results had been lost in a fire . The geneticist William E. Castle who visited Tower's laboratory was not impressed by the experimental conditions . He later concluded that Tower had faked his data . Castle found the fire suspicious and also Tower's claim that a steam leak in his greenhouse had destroyed all his beetle stocks . </P> <P> Experiments conducted by Gustav Tornier from 1907 to 1918 on goldfish and embryos of frogs and newts were supported by neo-Lamarckians such as Cunningham and MacBride as demonstrating the inheritance of acquired characteristics . The abnormalities were interpreted as the result of an osmotic effect by other researchers . </P> <P> In the late 19th century, Frederick Merrifield exposed caterpillars and chrysalids to significantly high and low temperatures, and discovered permanent changes in some offspring's wing patterns . Swiss biologist Maximilian Rudolph Standfuss (1854--1917) led 30 years of intensive breeding experiments with European butterflies and after several generations, found similar preserved variations even generations after the cessation of exposing them to low temperatures . Standfuss was a neo-Lamarckian and attributed the results of his experiments as direct changes to the environment . In 1940, Richard Goldschmidt interpreted these results without invoking Lamarckian inheritance, and in 1998 Ernst Mayr wrote that results reported by Standfuss and others on the effects of abnormal temperatures on Lepidoptera are difficult to interpret . </P>

Who stated that inheritance of acquired traits caused change in a species over time