Page 444 - Wisdom and Sound Advice from the Torah

WISDOM AND SOUND ADVICE FROM THE TORAH

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 genera-
tion to anoth-
er, caused new Lamarck
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 extend-
ed from generation to generation.

Lamarck believed that giraffes
evolved from animals resembling
antelopes. In his view, these crea-
tures’ necks grew as they
stretched up to eat the leaves on
trees, and they gradually turned in-
to giraffes. The laws of inheritance
discovered by Mendel in 1865
proved that it was impossible for
characteristics acquired during the
course of life to be handed on to
later generations. Thus Lamarck’s
just-so story was consigned to the
wastebasket of history.

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