HUMAN ORGANIC EVOLUTION: FACT OR FANCY? 



to establish racial differences, because race is dependent 

 always upon measurements from a large population, and of 

 course fossil remains are never to be found in large quantities. 

 Thus differences between individuals of fossil Homo sapiens 

 may be due to individual variation rather than to racial dif- 

 ferences. What is known of measurements and morphological 

 characters of modern races always derives from long series 

 of skeletal materials, not single individuals. From such series 

 it is also known that there is considerable overlap between 

 them making it practically impossible to assign an individual 

 to this or that class. 



Thus the paleontological record is devoid of direct evidence 

 of the divergence of various races. In any event, race forma- 

 tion has been an on-going process for all species at all times. 

 But since races are unstable, that is, isolation which produces 

 racial differences is just as often interrupted by migrations 

 and other changes, the question of the origin of modern races 

 becomes rather academic. This, however, is not to be construed 

 to mean that races are not a reality, but we may defer to a 

 later discussion the development of races, which so closely 

 approximates the development of species. 



The question as to where the species Homo sapiens originated 

 is still unanswered. Fr. de Chardin^^ has high hopes that 

 future work will turn up fossil evidence in Africa. He suggests 

 this from indirect evidence: All expeditions sent out to Asian 

 marginal areas have brought forth no evidence of early man, 

 while at the same time both in East and South Africa more 

 recent researches have brought forth considerable materials 

 which are ancestral to man. Thus he suggests that it would 

 not be unreasonable to look there because of the higher 

 probability of discovering more evidence on the development 

 of man. 



On the other hand Dobzhanskyis feels that such a question 

 on the origin of Homo sapiens is rather meaningless because 

 new species do not arise in any single place but in large 

 territories. A species, he points out, is a Mendelian population 

 which lives in a more or less extensive area and which 

 gradually alters its genetic composition. Mankind, he argues. 



12 Op, cit., pp. 98^99. 



13 Op. cit.. pp. 333^334. 



40 



