Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
Acquired characteristics—characteristics gained after birth—cannot be inherited.a For example, large muscles acquired by a man in a weight-lifting program cannot be inherited by his child. Nor did giraffes get long necks because their ancestors stretched to reach high leaves. While almost all evolutionists agree that acquired characteristics cannot be inherited, many unconsciously slip into this false belief. On occasion, Darwin did.b
However, stressful environments for some animals and plants cause their offspring to express various defenses. New genetic traits are not created; instead, the environment can switch on genetic machinery already present. The marvel is that optimalc genetic machinery already exists to handle some contingencies, not that time, the environment, or “a need” can produce the machinery.d
Also, rates of variation within a species (microevolution, not macroevolution) increase enormously when organisms are under stress, such as starvation.e Stressful situations would have been widespread in the centuries after a global flood.