Page 94 - Paradise: The Believers' Real Home

92 PARADISE

Therefore, the mechanism of natural selection has no evo-
lutionary 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 individ-
ual differences or variations occur. 10

Lamarck's Impact
So, how could these "favorable variations" occur? Darwin
tried to answer this question from the standpoint of the prim-

itive understanding 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 ac-
quired during their lifetime to the next generation. He asserted
that these traits, which accumulated from one generation 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 transformed themselves into whales over
time. 11
However, the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor
Mendel (1822-84) and verified by the science of genetics,
which flourished in the twentieth century, utterly demolished
the legend that acquired traits were passed on to subsequent
generations. Thus, natural selection fell out of favor as an evo-
lutionary mechanism.