Page 193 - Engineering in Nature

Harun Yahya

Lamarck's Impact
So, how could these "favorable variations" occur? Darwin tried to
answer this question from the standpoint of the primitive under-
standing 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. 66
However, the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor Mendel
(1822-84) and verified by the science of genetics,
which flourished in the twentieth century, ut-
terly demolished the legend that acquired traits
were passed on to subsequent generations.
Thus, natural selection fell out of favor as an ev-
olutionary mechanism.

Lamarck believed that giraffes evolved from such animals as
antelopes. In his view, the necks of these grass-eating ani-
mals gradually grew longer, and they eventually turned into
giraffes. The laws of inheritance discovered by Mendel in
1865 proved that it was impossible for properties acquired
during life to be handed on to subsequent generations.
Lamarck's giraffe fairy tale was thus consigned to the waste-
bin of history.

Adnan Oktar
191