120 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



evolutionary preconceptions. When a given formation fails 

 to fit into the accepted scheme by reason of its fossil anachro- 

 nisms, or when, to quote the words of Price, "species are found 

 in kinds of rock where they are not at all expected, and where, 

 according to the prevailing theories, it is quite incredible that 

 they should be found . . . the not very honorable expedient 

 is resorted to of inventing a new name, specific or even generic, 

 to disguise and gloss over the strange similarity between them 

 and the others which have already been assigned to wholly 

 different formations." ("The New Geology," p. 291.) The 

 same observation is made by Heilprin. "It is practically cer- 

 tain," says the latter, "that numerous forms of life, exhibiting 

 no distinctive characters of their own, are constituted into 

 distinct species for no other reason than that they occur in 

 formations widely separated from those holding their nearest 

 kin." ("Geographical and Geological Distribution of Animals," 

 pp. 183, 184.) An instance of this practice occurs in the fore- 

 going list, where a fossil brachiopod identical with a modern 

 species receives the new specific name ''striata.'^ Its influence 

 is also manifest in the previously quoted apology of Scott for 

 calling teleost-like fish "ganoids." 



We must also take into account the imperfection of the fos- 

 sil record, which is proved by the fact that most of the ac- 

 knowledged "persistent types" listed above "skip" whole 

 systems and even groups of "later" rocks (which are said to 

 represent enormous intervals of time), only to reappear, at 

 last, in modem times. It is evident that their existence has 

 been continuous, and yet they are not represented in the inter- 

 vening strata. Clearly, then, the fossil record is imperfect, 

 and we must conclude that many of our modern types actually 

 did exist in the remote past, without, however, leaving behind 

 any vestige of their former presence. 



Again, we must frankly confess our profound ignorance with 

 respect to the total number and kinds of species living in our 

 modern seas. Hence our conventional distinction between "ex- 

 tinct" and "extant" species has only a provisory value. Future 



