Page 204 - Global Freemasonry

GLOBAL FREEMASONRY

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 differences or vari-
ations occur. 148

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
French naturalist Lamarck
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 trans-
formed themselves into whales over time. 149
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 traits were passed on
to subsequent generations. Thus, natural selection fell out of favor as an
evolutionary mechanism.

Neo-Darwinism and Mutations
In order to find a solution, Darwinists advanced the "Modern Synthet-
ic Theory," or as it is more commonly known, Neo-Darwinism, at the end of

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