PREFACE 



The academic phase of the Bicentennial celebrating the 

 founding of Pittsburgh offered us a welcome opportunity to 

 commemorate the centenary of Charles Darwin's work THE 

 ORIGIN OF SPECIES (1859) by means of a Symposium 

 on Evolution. The furious emotional storms which for many 

 decades raged around this scientific work have largely abated 

 and made room for a more sober and critical appraisal of the 

 revolutionary theory propounded by Darwin. It is from such 

 a detached and undramatic academic standpoint that the 

 content of these pages must be viewed. 



Evidently, it was not possible to treat the whole subject 

 matter of evolution exhaustively in the single day devoted to 

 the Symposium, for the theory profoundly affects not only 

 biology but a host of other sciences. Rather than limit our- 

 selves to the impact of evolution on a single science, we 

 preferred to offer a selective sampling of its implications in 

 several branches of learning. For this purpose specialists in 

 biology, anthropology, philosophy, and theology were invited 

 to lecture about some of the problems evolution raises in their 

 respective fields. These lectures are preceded by a brief 

 address recalling Darwin and his epoch-making work. 



The intrinsic value of the lectures, coupled with their 

 enthusiastic reception by the large audience attending the 

 Symposium, gives rise to the hope that they will be equally 

 welcomed by the public at large. 



Henry ]. Koren, C.S.Sp. 



Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pa., April 14, 1959. 



