Orthogenesis also known as orthogenetic evolution is an obsolete biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a unilinear fashion due to some internal mechanism or "driving force".-wikipedia
Makes sense to me. As opposed to the theory that we are a random accident.
Yes, evolution driven by entirely random/ unguided mechanisms made sense, within the Victorian age understanding of reality when Darwinism was conceived.
But the more we understand, the more non-random mechanisms are getting more attention again e.g. epigenetics, 'natural' engineering. Where an individual's genes can be expressed/ passed on depending on their own individual circumstances
in other words, Giraffes necks got longer because they literally wanted longer necks... this would be a far more plausible process that waiting around for a longer neck to randomly appear by accidental mutation!
The problem remains though, the oldest known Giraffe ancestors necks were just as long as today, we don't see the gradual progression happening by any mechanism- and this pretty much goes for the rest of the fossil record