316 proceedings: anthropological society 



Concerning the heredity of many other traits, such as feeble-minded- 

 ness, we have enough knowledge to be of great social value. Most of 

 our knowledge of the general principles of heredity will have to be 

 learned through experimentation with plants and lower animals. Work 

 with them has resulted in the elaboration of the "factorial hypothesis" 

 of heredity, which is accepted by most advanced workers today; it 

 assumes that every transmission of traits is due to the transmission of 

 hypothetical "factors" in the germ-plasm and that each one of these 

 factors influences an indefinitely large number of factors. These hy- 

 pothetical factors are perhaps to be looked on as chemical reactions, 

 one of which gives rise to another and so on in an unbroken chain dur- 

 ing the development and differentiation of the embryo. 



The present knowledge of heredity in man is sufficiently ample to 

 form the basis for much sociological action — to guide a program of 

 national eugenics; but it will be a long time before we can confidently 

 give very much advice as to individual marriage matings. 



Several speakers in discussing the paper maintained that environ- 

 ment is of more weight than heredity, notwithstanding the geneticists' 

 claim to the contrary. Dr. Folkmar suggested that the evolution of 

 man would be more rapid in the distant future than in the past, be- 

 cause it will be the result, in part, of artificial and not, as in the past, 

 merely of natural selection. In the future, "evolution per saltum" will 

 be possible, although it cannot explain the appearance of the Java man 

 or the Neanderthal, or any other race that has evolved in the past. 



Following the suggestion that alcoholic drinks hasten the survival of 

 the fit by killing off the unfit, and that Indians are killed off faster than 

 the whites by the use of alcoholic liquors because their race has not 

 been weeded out through centuries of drinking, Dr. Anderson and 

 others stated that many American tribes did have alcoholic drinks be- 

 fore the Discovery. Mescal was found in the Southwest, and the chi- 

 cha, made from corn or bananas, still farther south. Dr. Michelson 

 said, however, that alcoholic beverages were known but slightly north 

 of Mexico prior to the Discovery. 



Daniel Folkmar, Secretary. 



