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Christians Must Heed
Jesus

Lamarck's Impact

So, how could these "favorable variations" occur? Darwin tried to
answer this question from the standpoint of the primitive understand-
ing 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 gen-
eration. 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. (Charles Darwin,
The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard Universi-
ty Press, 1964, p. 184.)
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

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