64 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



structures, like the wing of a bird and the foreleg of a cat, 

 variation is said to have produced diverse adaptations. In two 

 fundamentally diverse structures, like the head of an octopus 

 and the head of a frog, variation is said to have produced an 

 identical adaptation, namely, the vetebrate type of eye. It 

 appears, therefore, that the essentially diversifying process of 

 variation can become, on occasion, a simplifying process, which, 

 instead of solving environmental problems in an original man- 

 ner, prefers to employ uniform and standardized solutions, and 

 to cling to its old stereotyped methods. Inheritance similifies 

 and diversifies, variation converges and diverges. It is futile 

 to attempt to reduce either of these protean processes to a con- 

 dition that even approximates consistency. The evolutionist 

 blows hot and cold with the same breath. Verily, his god is 

 Proteus, or the double-headed Janus! 



Summa summarum: The evolutionary argument from 

 homology is defective in three important respects: (1) in its 

 lack of experimental confirmation; (2) in its incomplete 

 enumeration of the disjunctive possibilities; (3) in its inability 

 to construct a scheme of transmutation that synthesizes in- 

 heritance and variation in a logically coherent, and factually 

 substantiated formula. The first two defects are not neces- 

 sarily fatal to the argument as such. Though they destroy 

 its pretensions to conclusiveness, they do not preclude the ful- 

 filment of the moderate claim made in its behalf by Prof. T. 

 H. Morgan, who says: "In this sense {i.e., as previously 

 stated) the argument from comparative anatomy, while not a 

 demonstration, carries with it, I think, a high degree of prob- 

 ability." ("A Critique of the Theory of Evolution," p. 14.) 

 The third defect is more serious. The apparently irreducible 

 antagonism which the evolutionary assumption introduces be- 

 tween inheritance and variation has been sensed even by the 

 adherents of transformism themselves, and they have searched 

 in vain for a formula, which, without sacrificing the facts, 

 would bring into concord the respective roles of these discord- 

 ant factors. "It follows," says Osborn, "as an unprejudiced 



