Page Eight 



EVOLUTION 



February, 1928 



EUOLUT(ON 



A Journal of Nature 



To combat bigotry and superstition and 



develop the open mind by popularizing 



natural science 



Published monthly by 



Evolution Publishing Corpobation 



96 Fifth Ave., New York. N. Y. 



Telephone: Watkins 7587 



L. E- Katterfeld, 



Managing Editor 



Subscription rate: One dollar per year 



In lists of five or more, fifty cents 



Single copy 10c; 20 or more 5c each 



Application as second class mail pending 

 at Post Office in New Yorl;, N. Y. 



NUMBER 3 



FEBRUARY, 1928 



DARWIN WAS RIGHT 



On this anniversary of Charles Darwin's 

 birthday let us bring to the attention of 

 our neighbors the verdict rendered on 

 Darwin's work by the recent Congress 

 of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science through its President, 

 Sir Arthur Keith. 



After summing up in masterful fashion 

 the unanimous evidence from a dozen 

 fields of science, based on half a century 

 of painstaking investigation, he concludes: 



"Was Darwin right when he said that 

 man, under the action of biological forces 

 which can be observed and measured, has 

 been raised from a place among anthro- 

 poid apes to that which he now occu- 

 pies? The answer is YES. And in re- 

 turning this verdict I speak but as fore- 

 man of the jury — a jury which has been 

 empaneled from men who have devoted a 

 lifetime to weighing the evidence." 



The efforts of fundamentalist fanatics 

 will prove futile. As the human race de- 

 velops and progresses Charles Darwin will 

 be honored more and more as the great 

 emancipator of the human intellect. 



NASHVILLE 



Our hope that from the convention of 

 the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, held recently at 

 Nashville, Tennessee, there would come a 

 courageous call to action to rally the 

 friends of academic freedom against the 

 fundamentalist reaction was not realized. 

 The leaders of the organization seem to 

 feel that by shutting their eyes to the 

 danger it will disappear. 



However, at this Nashville convention 

 a number of very notable contributions 

 were made to the evolution literature. 

 These will be reviewed in our next issue. 



THERE ARE OTHERS WHO 

 CAN'T TELL 



By John M. Work 



T NOTICE that Edwin Tenney Brewster 



wants S. Parkes Cadman to tell when 

 the soul entered into man. 



I should like to ask Mr. Brewster how 

 evolution got started ; also when and how 

 life entered into matter. 



There are multitudes of things which 

 nobody knows. I believe in evolution, and 

 I can ask Mr. Brewster as many unan- 

 swerable questions as he can ask Mr. Cad- 

 man. 



The present existence of the soul is as 

 evident as the existence of the body. 

 Whether or not the soul is immortal is 

 a disputed question, but there is nothing 

 in evolution which precludes its immor- 

 tality, and many great thinkers — scientists 

 and otherwise — believe it to be immortal. 



In short, this is just another way of 

 saying that I do not see any good rea- 

 son why different believers in evolution 

 should attack one another's views upon 

 extraneous questions in your periodical; 

 but if you are going to let evolutionists of 

 one type of religious or anti-religious 

 views attack and ridicule the others, then 

 I take it that you will let the others make 

 reply in your columns too. 



ONCE MORE WE SAY IT 



In view of the mountainous mass of 

 manuscripts received it is necessary to 

 re-slate our policy: 



"Evolution will be non-political, so that 

 all upholders of academic freedom can 

 support and use it no matter how they 

 differ on other sissues. It will be non- 

 religious, never making any effort to re- 

 concile science with religion. Nor will it 

 make atheism its mission. It will carry 

 thc' positive message of facts from every 

 field of natural science and leave it to the 

 reader to make his own mental re-adjust- 

 ment." 



Articles "proving evolution by the bible" 

 or claiming that the bible is bunk, or that 

 "properly interpreted" the story of Gene- 

 sis and modern science agree, or that 

 every scientist must be an atheist, are 

 alike foreign to the purpose of EvoLUnoN. 



Evolution is to tell in popular language 

 what scientists have discovered about the 

 processes of nature. 



We welcome articles: 1. Containing spe- 

 cific proofs of evolution. 2. Championing 

 the right of the schools to teach what- 

 ever science has discovered. 3. Scientific 

 news items. 4. News regarding the strug- 

 gle with the fundamentalists. 



EVOLUTION DINNER 

 The First Annual Evolution Dinner 

 has now been set for Monday evening. 

 March 19th. This will give an opportunity 

 for the writers, supporters and readers of 

 Evolution to get acquainted. Details in 

 our next issue. 



INFINITY AT BAY 



By Ernest Untermann 



OCIENTISTS make great efforts to re- 

 ^"^ fute fundamentalist illusions by evi- 

 dences of evolution in skeletons, tissues, 

 organs, limbs, teeth, skulls, vestiges of 

 primitivisra in embryos, and the like. 



Such proofs impress only people who 

 can use their brains freely. A regular 

 fundamentalist suffers from brain paraly- 

 sis due to the malignant growth of a 

 complex which believes in god, free will 

 and immortality. 



This complex is not cured by mere 

 scientific argument or evidence. Hallu- 

 cinations of belief defy science and de- 

 cline proof. A believer always says: Just 

 because my faith cannot prove its divinity, 

 it must be believed. 



This is a case for the doctor, not for 

 the lecturer. Kant said long ago: Even 

 if god. free will and immortality cannot be 

 proved by science, they should be believed 

 for moral reasons. 



This may not impress a savage who 

 makes his own idols by hand and smashes 

 them when they don't deliver the goods. 

 But it works evei7 time with the believer 

 in an immaterial, supernatural, invisible, 

 personal or diffused god. 



The scientist may ask: Why should I 

 have to prove anything to a fellow who 

 refuses to analyze his own belief by rea- 

 .son, and why should not a fundamentalist 

 be required to justify his belief by rea- 

 soned proofs instead of mere assertion? 

 But the fundamentalist will reply: Belief 

 is inspired, not acquired. 



The scientist may counter: You can't 

 believe without your brain. Will that 

 shock the fundamentalist into reason? 

 Not a bit. He will retort: My soul is not 

 in any way attached to my brain. No mat- 

 ter what my brain thinks, my soul knows 

 god in ways independent of natural law. 



Now the scientist proves that any change 

 in normal brain tissue and function by 

 accident or disease makes all reasoning 

 abnormal, and that all personality or soul 

 is wiped out when the brain is wrecked. 

 Does the fundamentalist feel that this hits 

 him in the bull's eye? 



Why shou'd it? Prove to him that his 

 brain with every idea in it. including his 

 god complex, is a natural product of evolu- 

 tion, and he will still cut your science 

 into shreds with a knife that has neither 

 blade nor handle. He believes that his 

 soul can think of god, free will and im- 

 mortality even after his whole body is 

 dust, the earth wiped out. the sun, moon 

 and stars reduced to broken atoms, and 

 the universe a black void. He is face to 

 face with his god even then, a hundred 

 per cent, fundamentalist of twentieth cen- 

 tury coinage in a state of pure inspira- 

 tion, nothing up against nothing, the in- 

 finite at bay against It. 



