Page 320 - The Glad Tidings of the Messiah

318 The Glad Tidings of the Messiah (pbuh)

evolutionary 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. 24

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 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 trans-
formed themselves into whales
over time. 25
However, the laws of inher-
itance discovered by Gregor

Mendel (1822-84) and verified by
the science of genetics, which
flourished in the twentieth cen-