Well, this is what happens, particularly in the conditions propitious for "punctuational shifts," alluded to above. Lamarckism was really an early attempt by a sincere naturalist to explain what he saw. Without the knowledge of Mendelian genetics, which would come later, a classic case of Lamarckism would be observed sandpipers, for example: long-billed sandpipers stretched their bills to reach further and further down to get at more deeply embedded surf-worms; these acquired changes are then passed on to the next generation of sandpipers, which would then have longer bills. This is Lamarckism. Or, in his own words (I got this from Wiki): However, there are some proponents of the theory when it comes to simpler life forms, in a process named adaptive mutagenesis, precisely what you are saying, Josh. Bacteria are simply weird (any living thing that can be incorporated into industrial use in telecom, microchips, silicon, and so forth, gets my vote for "trippy!"), and a rich area for study. If you are interested, I'd suggest the wiki article, and its discussion on single celled organisms, as a start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism.
Tires are wonderfully recycled nowadays. They make asphalt which has a higher quality then the regular one and is half the price. Unfortunately corruption is hindering a wider usage all over the globe. Don't you think corruption is an issue in the States?