Page Six 



EVOLUTION 



December, 1927 



1914 against natural selection that Bryan understood 

 him to be opposing evolution. Yet nothing was further 

 from Bateson's thought. During the rest of his life he 

 declared vehemently that the evolution theory was ines- 

 capably true and that he had referred only to a mode of 

 explaining the process. The Batesonians are now a 

 small minority. No rival theory to Darwinism has yet 

 been proposed, much less accepted. 



The evolution theory, whatever may be finally ap- 

 proved as the process of it, accounts for all the present 

 forms of plants and animals as developments from 

 earlier forms. It is nowadays as fundamental to all 

 study of organic life as gravitation is to astronomy. A 

 biologist can no more conceive that it will be disproved 

 than an astronomer can imagine that the earth will one 

 day be proved to be flat. 



But evolution is a very limited theory. It is purely 

 biological. No astronomer can reason from it to the 

 history of nebulas; no sociologist can argue from it to 

 any law of social development. No philosopher can 

 prove from it anything about metaphysics or theology. 

 The evolution theory is like all advance in knowledge: 

 it shows the operation of invariable natural law, and 

 thus frees us from superstitious fears. To oppose it is 

 to oppose the whole enterprise of liberating the human 

 mind. 



John Daniel, 2nd 



By Albert G. Ingalls 



'PHE Philadelphia Zoo has a new gorilla, a little chap 

 only about a year old. At present, says the Bulletin 

 of the Zoological Society of Philadelphia, it is the only 

 living specimen in any American Zoo, the well known 

 youth, John Daniel 2nd, having succumbed to illness 

 despite tlie remarkably expert and sympathetic care of 

 his owner. Miss Alyse Cunningham. 



The writer recalls an interesting and lively hour spent 

 with John Daniel 2nd when he was about three years 

 old. He was every inch a monkey and set out from 

 the start to prove it. Even a "kid" gorilla — 80 pounds — 

 is a capable roughhousing partner and John, with 100 

 pounds disadvantage in weight, was certainly capable 

 enough. 



Had I been able to muzzle his teeth, with which he 

 insisted on playfully, but much too enthusiastically, 

 nipping my neck and legs, I felt I might have coped with 

 him, as long as he kept his temper — which he did, 

 though I tried no experiments to find the disposition 

 border line! — for his shoulders, torso and hands were 

 just the size of mine. 



John pretty nearly wore me out, and he enjoyed it 

 to just about the same extent that a college boy enjoys 

 roughhousing with his "roomy." Likewise, he acted 

 about the same, continually chuckling as he breathed. 



A number of people, accustomed, I suppose, to seeing 

 grind-organ monkeys giving continual attention to pa a- 

 sitic pursuits, have shuddered when told that I scuffled 

 with this "filthy" gorilla. Well^the gorilla was about 

 like a well-washed pet dog, and a darn sight cleaner 

 than some humans. Isn't this belief that all anthro- 

 poids are dirty why some people who accept evolution as 

 a principle refuse to accept it as applied to man? Or 

 have I got the cart before the horse? 



Predicting by Evolution 



By Maynakd Shipley 



A LTHOUGH we still speak of the "theory" of evolu- >l 



tion, or the "doctrine" of evolution, the gradual de- 

 velopment of higher forms of plants and animals from 

 lowly ancestors is now regarded as an established fact. 



Stating the view of the vast majority of living scien- 

 tists. Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn, President of 

 the American Museum of Natural History, declares that 

 evolution has "long since ceased to be a theory; it is 

 a law of Nature as universal in living things as is the 

 law of gravitation in material things." 



It might be objected that by the law of gravitation the 

 astronomer accurately predicts the position of a planet 

 "but who can tell which way a cat will jump?" 



No doubt we could predict the direction of a cat's 

 response to internal and external stimuli, if we possessed 

 the necessary data and knew how to interpret the factors 

 involved. The cat jumps under "law" — determinism — 

 as surely as the moon causes a particular kind of eclipse 

 of the sun at a predictable time. Just so, numerous 

 accurate predictions of the existence of then unknown 

 facts or even anatomical structures have been made on 

 the theory of evolution. 



For example, it was predicted that more careful study 

 would reveal in the human wrist a central bone. If the 

 theory of evolution, which assumes that the species living 

 at any time are the result of the modification of pre- 

 existing species, is valid — that is, if evolution is a fact — 

 at least a vestige of such a bone should be inherited by 

 man from his pre-human ancestors. It was subsequently 

 found to be present in the wrist of the human foetus. 



Again, the presence of an extra pair of rudimentary 

 ribs was predicted and later found in the unborn in- 

 fant — making thirteen pairs, as in the adult gibbon and 

 gorilla. Occasionally a thirteenth pair of ribs appears 

 in the adult neck, just below the thorax, a reversion 

 to a primitive type. In the same way, a fourth molar 

 tooth sometimes appears, the usual number in some 

 of the lower mammals. But while such reversions to 

 ancestral structures might reasonably be expected, they 

 are only occasional, not predictable in a given case. 



A notable example of prediction on theory is that 

 made by the German poet-scientist Goethe. In mam- 

 mals below man there are two little bones in the center 

 gf the upper jaw, below the nose. These hold the four 

 upper cutting teeth. In man they had not been known 

 to exist. Goethe, as an evolutionist, insisted that this 

 "mid- jawbone" should be present, a heritage from man's 

 pre-human ancestor. The Fundamentalist anatomists 

 of the period cited their apparent absence as showing 

 that man and the higher apes, gorilla, gibbon, orang, 

 < himpanzee, were not genetically related. 



The presence of such bones was emphatically denied 

 by the special-creationist anatomist Peter Camper — at 

 that time the highest authority on comparative anatomy. 

 The great poet-philosopher determined to find the pred- 

 icated bone. At last he did find it. It is seldom recog- 

 nizable except in the skulls of youths, since it usually 

 coalesces at an early age with the adjoining upper 

 jawbone; but it is always discernible in the human 

 foetus, as recapitulating in accordance with the bio- 

 genetic law, a stage in the earlier evolution of man. 



So, we may safely say, with Professor Maynard M. 

 Metcalf, that it "can be only the uninformed who fail 

 to accept evolution as a fact established beyond doubt." 



