FACT OF EVOLUTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTIONISM 343 



time. They do debate the relative advantages of the mechan- 

 ism of evolution proposed by the neo-Darwinian, the macro- 

 mutation-saltation, or some form of Lamarckian theory. But, 

 as Olson says, even if one or all of these explanations prove 

 inadequate, no one would seriously doubt that the evolutionary 

 series of organic events occurred. ^^ What is the basis for this 

 assurance .f* 



There is not sufficient space here to give an adequate sum- 

 mary of the converging evidence for monophyletic descent with 

 modification, and unless the reader realizes the full impact of 

 each piece of converging evidence, he is quite likely to take a 

 negative and dialectically critical view and reject the evidence 

 as logically inconclusive. As a mere dialectician, he is prone 

 to ask more of the evidence and the inference than possibly can 

 be made available, and fail to appreciate how very convincing 

 the evidence, taken together, really is. The following considera- 

 tions constitute the essential elements of this converging 

 evidence. 



In the first place, the paleontological record needs a natural 

 explanation consistent with neo-biology. Reject this propo- 

 sition and you place the question of origins outside the domain 

 of natural science, and must invoke catastrophic theories, preter- 

 natural influences, divine interventions by miracles, etc. which 

 would be both bad science, bad natural philosophy and bad 

 theology.^" Scientific prehistory shows a series of origins and 

 developments from the pre-Cambrian period over 500,000,000 

 years ago to the present which leaves no doubt among dis- 

 interested observers that there was a series of successive origins 

 of plants and animals. Most of the species of plants and 

 animals that we know today are quite recent in the fossil record, 



^' EAD, I, 527. 



^* The natural philosopher would abhor a jumbled, disorderly concourse of un- 

 related natural events as totally out of keeping with natural laws. Natura non jacit 

 saltus. The theologian would abhor the thought of God specially and immediately 

 creating, for example, distinct species of finches for each of the several Galapagos 

 Islands at different times (multiply this miraculous intervention by the hundreds 

 of thousands!) for it goes directly contrary to the theological axiom that God 

 ordinarily orders all things wisely through secondary causes. 



