FACT OF EVOLUTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTIONISM 347 



thals on one branch and modern European man on the other, 

 we find surprising fossil documentation of descent with modifi- 

 cation of the human body.'^ To the physical anthropologist, 

 the weakness lies not so much in this series of developments, 

 but rather in the lack of fossils connecting Australopithecus 

 wdth the fossil hominoids (great apes) of the Pliocene and Mio- 

 cene eras. Le Gros Clark admits that mere extrapolation back- 

 wards in the absence of concrete fossil evidence is not a satis- 

 fying procedure.^" This hiatus is disturbing, but not of such 

 proportions as to shake the general conviction that homo 

 sapiens is biologically related to the rest of the animal kingdom 

 in a natural continuum, even though much important evidence 

 remains to be uncovered. What the paleoanthropologist does 

 have by way of documentation of the " fact of physical evolu- 

 tion " of man is very good. 



The Fact of Cosmic Evolution 



In the Darwin Centennial Celebration papers, as has been 

 stated, the question whether evolution is a fact was barely 

 alluded to. It was taken for granted. ^^ The issue of the Cen- 

 tennial was far more extensive in scope. The burden of the 

 papers and the panel discussions was to show that the concept 

 of evolution (and especially the neo-Darwinian interpretation) 

 was valid in every major scientific discipline. The " fact of evo- 

 lution," it was asserted, can and should be extended to the 

 origin of mind, culture, life, the cosmos itself and all it contains. 

 It was in this extension of evolutionary thought to the problem 

 of origins in every field that the Centennial papers. Evolution 

 After Darwin, provided expert commentaries of great value. 



A careful analysis of the way the concept " fact of evolu- 

 tion " is used in the fields outside biology reveals a fact of con- 

 siderable importance. The concept " fact of evolution," valid 

 in the matter of organic origins and diversity as described 



*^ W. E. Le Gros Clark, The Fossil Evidence jor Huinan Evolution (Chicago, 

 1955). 

 " Ibid., p. 163. " EAD, III, 107. 



