Page 281 - Signs from the Qur'an

selves into another living species, for instance, horses.
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 indi-
vidual differences 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, living creatures passed on the
traits they acquired during their lifetime to
the next generation. He asserted that
these traits, which accumulated

Lamarck believed that giraffes
evolved from such animals as an-
telopes. In his view, the necks of
these grass-eating animals gradual-
ly grew longer, and they eventually
turned into giraffes. The laws of
inheritance discovered by Mendel
in 1865 proved that it was impos-
sible for properties acquired dur-
ing life to be handed on to subse-
quent generations. Lamarck's gi-
raffe fairy tale was thus consigned
to the wastebin of history.
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