THE EVOLUTIONARY CONTROL OF ORGAN- 

 ISMS AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE^'"^ 



I. 



A comparatively brief period has passed since the evi- 

 dence brought together by Darwin in connection with the 

 results slowly accumulated from other sources has clearly 

 demonstrated that the diversity of organic life in the 

 world occurs through evolution. It is one thing, however, 

 to clearly diagnose a condition and quite another to under- 

 stand the causes which have brought about the phenom- 

 enon so that similar results may be produced advantage- 

 ously. With the assumption that evolution was merely 

 the survival of those forms which were best adapted to 

 the environment, generation after generation, the ex- 

 planation of the method as well as its practical application, 

 namely the improvement of organisms in any given 

 direction, was apparently a simple matter. It seemed 

 evident that man had modified and adapted to his welfare 

 various plants and animals by a more or less unconscious 

 and haphazard selection long before history records civil- 

 ization." Why then could not civilized man carry for- 

 ward the work and with the knowledge gained since the 

 principles of evolution were recognized, obtain far-reach- 

 ing results within a brief period of time. All that seemed 

 necessary was to have individuals of a particular organism 

 in large numbers, and by continued selection of the varia- 

 tions best meeting the conditions move rapidly forward 

 by a series of increments toward the goal of perfection. 

 What could be more simple? Instead of corn having an 



Presidential address before the twenty-third annual meeting of the Ohio Acad- 

 emy of Science, Oberlin, O., November 28, 1913. 



One need not be a pessimist to assert the actual evidence thus far obtained in- 

 dicates that the supposed progress made in the improvement of domesticated animals 

 and plants is nothing more than the sorting out of pure lines and thus represents 

 no advancement. 



^Reprinted from Science, N. S., vol. 39 (1914), pp. 479-488. 



