How is Lamarck’s theory viewed by the scientific community today?

Even before Darwin, a French naturalist Lamarck had said that evolution of life forms had occurred but driven by use and disuse of organs. He gave the examples of Giraffes who in an attempt to forage leaves on tall trees had to adapt by elongation of their necks. As they passed on this acquired character of elongated neck to succeeding generations, Giraffes, slowly, over the years, came to acquire long necks. Nobody believes this conjecture any more. Is evolution a process or the result of a process? The world we see,inanimate and animate, is only the success stories of evolution. When we describe the story of this world we describe evolution as a process. On the other hand when we describe the story of life on earth, we treat evolution as a consequence of a process called natural selection. We are still not very clear whether to regard evolution and natural selection as processes or end result of unknown processes.