BIOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY ^if 



the spirit and the method of science. Moreover, the majority of people in 

 some of our states, through their legislatures, pass "anti-evolution" laws, 

 as if the course of events of the past could be altered by legislative dicta 

 of today. 



It is still a common practice of man, so-called civilized man, to follow 

 post hoc reasoning; that is, because one event may sometimes follow an- 

 other, the two events are, therefore, necessarily causally related. Man- 

 kind as a whole, and even leaders in business, industry, and government, do 

 not yet thoroughly understand or follow the principle of control, the prin- 

 ciple of experiment. Post hoc reasoning is one of the commonest sins against 

 the scientific method, and we still see it occasionally in those who have 

 been trained in science; for example, modern physicians. As an example 

 of post hoc reasoning in medicine, I can cite the case of a physician who 

 had practiced medicine honestly, if not intelligently, in a far western state 

 for forty years. A number of years ago he told me in all seriousness that 

 he had discovered a specific remedy for influenza. I was naturally curious, 

 because influenza is one of the maladies which has so far largely defied 

 modern scientific control. On being asked what his remedy was, he re- 

 phed, "Good whiskey and plenty of it." The doctor was apparently per- 

 fectly sincere about it. When I asked him how many influenza patients 

 he had treated without whiskey and how many of these recovered, he 

 looked at me in surprise and said: "You understand, I have treated every 

 one of my influenza patients with whiskey during the last forty years, and 

 I have had a high percentage of recovery." This physician, though stupid, 

 was too honest and venerable to poke fun at. I was tempted to ask him 

 how many recoveries from influenza he thought he would have had if he 

 had ordered his patients to read Mary Baker Eddy's Science a?id Health at 

 an angle of 45 degrees, practice Coueism, or have their spines or toes twisted 

 according to the chiropractor's cult. Another example is that of another 

 honest physician in a southern state using a remedy whose virtue, if any, 

 was essentially twenty percent, alcohol, a so-called female tonic, a southern 

 counterpart of Lydia Pinkham's "u^ell-known vegetable compound. The 

 case was that of a young girl working twelve hours a day in a factory in a 

 southern city at low pay. She lived in a garret room, with poor food, and 

 poor sanitation. She had a high degree of anemia. The doctor wrote: "I 

 took this girl out of the factory, sent her to the country for three months 

 with relatives and gave her this female tonic. After three months she had 

 nearly recovered from her anemia, thanks to this tonic." It is not surpris- 

 ing that even physicians fall into this error of reasoning, because in the not 

 distant past medical education was only partly scientific. 



To what extent or m ivhat sense is science i?i conflict with society? I 

 think there is much confusion, misunderstanding, and unwarranted general- 

 ization on this point. Not so many years ago the American Association for 

 the Advancement of Science declared, by resolution: "Science is wholly 



