Page 380 - A Helping Hand for Refugees

Therefore, the mechanism of natural selection has no evolutionary
power. Darwin was also aware of this fact and had to state this in his
book The Origin of Species:

Natural selection can do nothing until favourable individual differences or
variations occur. (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natur-
al Selection, The Modern Library, New York, p. 127)

L Lamarck's impact

So, how could these "favourable variations" occur? Darwin tried to
answer this question from the standpoint of the primitive understand-
ing of science at that time. According to the French biologist Chevalier
de Lamarck (1744-1829), who lived before Darwin, living creatures
passed on the traits they acquired during their lifetime to the next gen-
eration. He asserted that these traits, which accumulated from one gen-
eration to another, caused new species to be formed. For instance, he
claimed that giraffes evolved from antelopes; as they struggled to eat
the leaves of high trees, their necks were extended from generation to
generation.
Darwin also gave similar examples. In his
book The Origin of Species, for instance, he said
that some bears going into water to find food

Lamarck believed that giraffes evolved from
such animals as antelopes. In his view,
the necks of these grass-eating ani-
mals gradually grew longer, and they
eventually turned into giraffes.
The laws of inheritance discove-
red by Mendel in 1865 proved
that it was impossible for properti-
es acquired during life to be handed
on to subsequent generations.
Lamarck's giraffe fairy tale was
thus consigned to the wastebin
of history.

378 A Helping Hand for Refugees