350 RAYMOND J. NOGAR 



50 



and gene complexes but rather in psychological potentialities 

 Kroeber, Washburn, Howell, Hallowell, Critchley, Hilgard, 

 Brosin, Piggott, Steward and Tax asserted in their professional 

 contributions that the " fact of evolution " of man's mind, his 

 language, his culture, his society, has a very limited and equi- 

 vocal usage in comparison to its use in biology, Hallowell 

 rejects, with Hilgard, the notion that there are no differences, 

 except quantitative ones, betwen the learning of lower animals 

 and man," and Steward goes so far as to say: 



This paper is largely an admission of the general uncertainty now 

 surrounding the concept of cultural evolution ... In the physical 

 and biological universes, evolution implies change which can be 

 formulated in principles that operate at all times and places, al- 

 though the particular principles of biological evolution differ from 

 those of the physical realm. Expectably, or at least by analogy, 

 then, cultural evolution should contain its own distinctive prin- 

 ciples, which also underlie cultural change. By this criterion, no one 

 has yet demonstrated cultural evolution. (Italics added.) 



52 



These papers on cultural anthropology, archaeology, psy- 

 chology and language not only show this radical change in the 

 concept of evolution as it is applied to man, but they even show 

 a strong tendency to ignore the concept of man's prehistory and 

 concentrate upon man as he is now known to be the fashioner 

 of his own future. Scientifically, man is best known, not in what 

 he was in his prehistory, but in what he presently is and does. 

 The " fact of man's evolution " is a concept which is most 

 equivocal; it is a concept which seems to be becoming obsolete 

 in the sciences of human behavior and activity. 



53 



The Fact of Evolution: A Summing Up 



When we hear or read the statement that evolution is now 

 no longer a theory but a fact, and should be taught as such, 

 a healthy response to the statement should include neither the 

 panic of complete and irrational skepticism or denial, nor the 



^"For example, Huxley, EAD, I, 19; Tax, EAD, III, 280. 



" EAD, II, 360. " EAD, II, 182-83. "« EAD, II, 16. 



