Page 136 - Allah's Art of Detail

134 ALLAH'S ART OF DETAIL

vive. Therefore, the deer herd will be comprised of faster and strong-
er individuals. However, unquestionably, 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 evolution-
ary 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 differ-
ences or variations occur. 7

Lamarck’s Impact
So, how could these "favorable variations" occur?
Darwin tried to answer this question from the stand-

point of the primitive understanding of science at that
time. According to the French biologist Chevalier de
Lamarck (1744-1829), who lived before Darwin, liv-
ing creatures passed on the traits they acquired
during their lifetime to the next generation. He as-
serted that these traits, which accumulated from

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