Mention any four drawbacks of Darwinism.

Answer:

1. Darwin could not explain the origin and inheritance of variations; he did not distinguish between heritable and non-heritable variations.
2. He did not explain the role of sudden, large variations (mutations) that appear in organisms.
3. Natural selection explains the survival of the fittest but not the arrival (origin) of the fittest.
4. It does not explain the presence of vestigial organs and of over-specialised organs (e.g. huge antlers of the Irish deer) that are not useful.
5. It does not explain the inheritance of variations, since the mechanism of heredity (Mendel’s work) was not known to Darwin; he wrongly accepted pangenesis.