Page 118 - Basic Tenets of Islam

BASIC TENETS OF ISLAM

Therefore, the mechanism of natural selection has no
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
differences 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
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. 8
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 selection fell out of favor as an evolutionary mechanism.

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