Page 87 - The Pains of the False World

THE DECEPTION OF EVOLUTION

this mechanism will not cause deer to evolve and transform
themselves into another living species, for instance, horses.
Therefore, the mechanism of natural selection has no evolu-
tionary power. Darwin was also aware of this fact and had to sta-
:
te this in his book The Origin of Species
Natural selection can do nothing until favourable individual diffe
-
rences or variations occur
7
.
Lamarck's Impact
So, how could these "favorable variations" occur? Darwin
tried to answer this question from the standpoint of the primitive
understanding of science at that time. According to the French bi-
ologist Chevalier de Lamarck (1744-1829), who lived before Dar-
win, living cre a t u res passed on the traits they acquired 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 evol-
ved 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.8
H o w e v e r, the laws of inheritance discovered by Gre g o r
Mendel (1822-84) and verified by the science of genetics, which
flourished in the twentieth century, utterly demolished the le-
gend that acquired traits were passed on to subsequent generati-
ons. Thus, natural selection fell out of favor as an evolutionary
mechanism.

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