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Evolutionary Family Tree myth of evolution thus came together in
ancient Greece, whence they were trans-
— See Tree of Life and Imaginary
planted to Roman culture.
family tree of Man, the.)
The idea that all living things had
one common ancestor, maintained by the
theory of evolution, was put forward by
Evolution Theory, the
the French biologist the Comte de Buf-
Many people imagine the theory of fon in the mid-18 th century. (See Buf-
evolution to have been formulated by fon, Comte de.) Charles Darwin’s
Charles Darwin and to be based on sci- grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, developed
entific evidence, observations and expe- de Buffon’s idea and came up with the
riments. However, the source of the the- first basic propositions representing the
ory is not its intellectual founding father, concept we today know as the theory of
Darwin, nor any scientific evidence. evolution. (See Darwin, Erasmus.)
At a time when pagan religions do- After Erasmus Darwin, the French
minated Mesopotamia, many beliefs and natural historian Jean Baptiste Lamarck
myths abounded regarding the origin of proposed the first wide-ranging theory
life and the universe. One of these, sur- of evolution at the beginning of the 19th
prisingly, was a belief in evolution! Ac- century. (See Lamarck, Jean Baptiste.)
cording to an inscription from Sumerian According to him, evolution operated
times, known as the Enuma-Elish, there through “acquired characteristics being
was initially watery chaos, out of which passed on from generation to generati-
two gods, Lahmu and Lahamu, suddenly on.” In his view, the changes that living
emerged. According to this myth, these things underwent during the course of
deities first brought themselves into be- their lives were permanent and could be
ing and then gave rise to other substan- passed on genetically to their offspring.
ces and living things. In other words, ac- Lamarck’s theory enjoyed enormous
cording to the Sumerian legend, life success at the time it was launched. But
emerged suddenly out of watery chaos afterwards, that popularity declined ra-
and developed by way of evolution. pidly. People with justified doubts regar-
The evolution myth later flourished ding Lamarck’s theories began carrying
in another pagan civilization—ancient out their own research.
Greece. Athenian philosophers regarded In 1870, the British biologist Weis-
matter as the only absolute entity. They mann proved that acquired characteris-
turned to the myth of evolution, inheri- tics could not be passed on to subsequent
ted from the Sumerians, to explain how generations and therefore, Lamarck’s
life arose. Materialist philosophy and the theory was wrong. Therefore, the teac-

Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)