Page 125 - Darwinist Propaganda Techniques

Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)

als. However, unquestionably, this mechanism will not cause deer to

evolve and transform themselves into another living species, for in-
stance, horses.
Therefore, the mechanism of natural selection has no evolu-
tionary 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 favorable individual differ-
ences or variations occur. 11

Lamarck's Impact
So, how could these "favorable variations" occur? Darwin tried
to answer this question from the standpoint of the primitive under-
standing 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 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. 12

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 selec-
tion fell out of favor as an evolutionary mechanism.

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