Page 87 - Miracles of the Qur'an

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 variations chance to occur. 30

Lamarck's Impact

So, how could these "favourable variations" occur? Darwin tried to

answer this question from the standpoint of the primitive understanding of
science in his age. According to the French biologist Lamarck, who lived before
Darwin, living creatures passed on the traits they acquired during their
lifetime to the next generation and these traits, accumulating from one
generation to another, caused new species to be formed. For instance,

according to Lamarck, 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, and in his book The Origin of Species,
for instance, said that some bears going into water to find food transformed
themselves into whales over time. 31

However, the laws of inheritance discovered by Mendel and verified by
the science of genetics that flourished in the 20th century, utterly demolished
the legend that acquired traits were passed on to subsequent generations.
Thus, natural selection fell out of favour as an evolutionary mechanism.

Neo-Darwinism and Mutations

In order to find a solution, Darwinists advanced the "Modern Synthetic
Theory", or as it is more commonly known, Neo-Darwinism, at the end of the
1930's. Neo-Darwinism added mutations, which are distortions formed in the
genes of living beings because of external factors such as radiation or

replication errors, as the "cause of favourable variations" in addition to natural
mutation.
Today, the model that stands for evolution in the world is Neo-
Darwinism. The theory maintains that millions of living beings present on the

The Evolution Misconception 87