INTRODUCTION 5 



game. It would be clearly quite against the rules to ask for 

 evidence against a theory when he had learnt up everything in 

 favour of the theory. He also would take it rather badly when I 

 suggest that he is not being very scientific in his outlook if he 

 swallows the latest scientific dogma and, when questioned, just 

 repeats parrot fashion the views of the current Archbishop of 

 Evolution. In fact he would be behaving like certain of those 

 religious students he affects to despise. He would be taking on 

 faith what he could not intellectually understand and when 

 questioned would appeal to authority, the authority of a " good 

 book " which in this case was The Origin of Species. (It is inter- 

 esting to note that many of these widely quoted books are read 

 by title only. Three of such that come to mind are the Bible, The 

 Origin of Species and Das Kapital.) 



I would then suggest that the student should go away and read 

 the evidence for and against Evolution and present it as an essay. 

 A week would pass and the same student would appear armed with 

 an essay on the evidence for Evolution. The essay would usually 

 be well done, since the student might have realised that I should 

 be tough to convince. When the essay had been read and the 

 question concerning the evidence against Evolution came up, the 

 student would give a rather pained smile. " Well, sir, I looked up 

 various books but could not find anything in the scientific books 

 against Evolution. I did not think you would want a religious 

 argument." " No, you were quite correct. I want a scientific 

 argument against Evolution." " Well, sir, there does not seem to 

 be one and that in itself is a piece of evidence in favour of the 

 Evolutionary Theory." 



At this piece of logic the student would sit back and feel that 

 he had come out on top. After all, I had merely been questioning 

 him whilst he had produced information. 



I would then indicate to him that the theory of Evolution was 

 of considerable antiquity and would mention that he might have 

 looked at the book by Radl, The History of Biological Theories. 

 Having made sure that the student had noted the book down for 

 future reference I would proceed as follows. 



' 



