The Ohio Journal of Science 



Vol. XXII May, 1922 No. 7 



SOME COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS OF EVOLUTION* 



RAYMOND C. OSBURN 



Department of Zoology and Entomology, Ohio State University 



The living world embraces such a variety of form and such 

 a range of structure and mode of life that, to the average man 

 without scientific training, it must always have seemed a great 

 unravelable tangle, inexplicable on any other ground than 

 that of special creation — that some omniscient and omnipotent 

 being made the various forms of life and established them 

 in the world, for his own delectation, if for no other purpose. 



But the greater scientific and philosophic minds of the 

 past centuries have been able to discern an order in the midst 

 of this apparent chaos and, from the time of the ancient Greeks, 

 repeated attempts have been made to point out this order and 

 to suggest some more acceptable reason for its existence than 

 to assume that somebody made it all at once and set it up 

 ready to run to the end of time. Naturally, the earlier attempts 

 to convince mankind that there has been a gradual evolution 

 of the present complex order of existence were unsuccessful 

 for want of sufficient knowledge. 



It is probable that Aristotle, Lucretius, St. Augustine, 

 Harvey, Buffon, Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin and other great 

 minds of the past apprehended clearly enough the scheme 

 of gradual development of life on the earth, but they lacked 

 sufficient knowledge of the facts to make a convincing argument 

 on a matter apparently so revolutionary. Furthermore, from 

 Augustine on down, they were confronted by a dogmatic 

 theology which effectually blocked the progress of scientific 

 thought for many centuries. 



* Retiring President's Address before the Ohio Academy of Science, April 14^ 

 1922. 



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