Page 96 - The Miracle in the Mosquito

Natural selection only selects out the disfigured, weak, or unfit individuals of a
species. It cannot produce new species, new genetic information, or new or-
gans.
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 bi-
ologist 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 se-
lection fell out of favor as an evolutionary mechanism.

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