Page 402 - A Call For Unity

Natural selection only selects out the disfigured, weak, or unfit indi-
viduals of a species. It cannot produce new species, new genetic in-
formation, or new organs.

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 individual dif-
ferences or variations occur. 44

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

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