June, 1937 



EVOLUTION 



Page Fifteen 



Foiidanieiitalist Follies 



FROM COLD TO WARM BLOOD 

 By E. T. Brewster 



Ta\'lor L'nixersity at L'pland, 

 Indiana, is the sort of institution 

 that picks its teachers for the "sound- 

 ness" of their behefs. If. in addition, 

 they turn out to he competent scho- 

 lars, that is so much to the good. 



The Doctor of Philosophy who 

 heads the Department of Biology- is. 

 naturally, no Exolutionist. ^'et. as he 

 remarks {Chrntian Faith and Life. 

 February. 1932) "... a student, in 

 order to be able to hold an\' theory, 

 must know all theories." and there is 

 no use. in these da\s. trxing to suppress 

 information. "Doubtless the theory of 

 evolution should be presented; nor will 

 this be dangerous, since its arguments 

 are so easily met. No one has yet 

 found a single evidence (.wc'l of any 

 form of animal life abridging the gulf 

 between the cold-blooded animals and 

 the warm-blooded ones." 



Oddly enough, it happens that in 

 the Scientific Monthly for ,Ma>-, 1932 

 I pp. 421-428) appears a summar\- of 

 se\enteen years of work b\' Dr. Fran- 

 cis G. Benedict. Director of the Nutri- 

 ' lion Laboratory of the Carnegie In- 

 stitution of Washington dealing with 

 this \ery point. Dr. Benedict stands 

 among the dozen leading men of the 

 world in his field, and his long investi- 

 gation has employed e\ery device of 

 method and apparatus. E\en the 

 familiar thermometer has been replac- 

 ed b\' an elaborate electrical tool: 

 while the number of separate deter- 

 minations approaches a thousand. 



"in this gap between cold-blooded 

 and warm-blooded animals." t h e 

 article concludes "three striking inter- 

 mediary steps have been noted" — in- 

 stead of none as set forth at Ta\lor. 



First, there is an .\frican python, 

 studied in great detail. It is. of course, 

 cold-blooded. That is to say. under 

 ordinary conditions. l\ing quiet, its 

 bod\' temperature is slightl\- lower 

 than the air around it. because, like 

 other living things, it is all the time 

 e\aporating water. But an acti\e 

 snake at once elevates its temperature 

 sometimes as much as ten degrees 

 above its environment. 



This particular serpent is a lady — 

 one should perhaps call her a python- 

 ess — and most fortunatel\' she laid 

 Nome twenty eggs and incubated them. 

 'S She ought, according to Indiana 

 physiology, to have incubated in \ain. 

 not warming her offspring. .'\s a 

 matter of fact, l.\ing quiet, with the 

 air around her at 86. she herself regist- 

 ered 93. as against "^'S.o for a "warm- 

 blooded" creature discharging similar 

 maternal duties. 



So an incubating pythoness does 

 bridge the gulf. .Moreo\er. this fact, 

 though never before so carefully test- 

 ed, has been known for at least a 

 couple of human generations. 



Then there are the tortoises. These 

 'ha\e a much higher heat production 

 . . . than do the snakes, alligators and 

 lizards . . . and hence ma>' be consider- 

 ed to occupy an intermediate stage 

 between these animals and the warm- 

 blooded." 



Finalls', "the hibernating animals 

 likewise represent an intermediate 

 stage . . . Indeed, the body tempera- 

 ture of a hibernating warm-blooded 

 animal ma\' easily be the same as that 

 of the snake, alligator, or fish, for its 

 temperature will fall with that of the 

 environment nearly down to the freez- 

 ing point of water without resulting in 

 the death of the animal." 



Besides these "forms of animal life 

 abridging the gulf between the cold- 

 blooded animals and the warm-blood- 

 ed ones," there is the notorious "duck- 

 bill plat\pus," which Dr. Benedict has 

 not yet studied for heat-production 

 and bod\' temperature, though the 

 general facts concerning it ha\e like- 

 wise been known many years. 



This strange creature, in addition to 

 la\ing eggs like some reptiles and in- 

 cubating them like others, has all sorts 

 of reptilian features of an anatomical 

 sort. In fact, with its eggs and its 

 primitix'e milk apparatus and its beak 

 in place of teeth and its distinctly 

 reptilian bones, it is precisely the 

 "missing link" which the Evolution- 

 ist needs to connect the hair-covered 

 mammals with their scaly ancestors. 

 The important point for us here is 

 that "the duck-bill" though a true 

 mammal and warm-blooded, keeps its 

 blood considerabl\- cooler than less 

 reptilian members of the class. 



Even we men. who carry our heat- 

 regulating devices about as far as any 

 creature ever does, by no means al- 

 wa>s maintain a perfectly constant 

 blood heat. A human being in a fe\'er 

 ma\' run a temperature of 10^ or 106 

 and live to tell the tale. Or he may 

 cool his blood down to 94 or 95 and 

 recover. So even we are just the least 

 bit "cold-blooded." and in our small 

 wa\' another of those non-existent 

 bridges to lower things. 



Once more, then, as so man\' times 

 before, a Fundamentalist theorizer en- 

 counters the Prophet Balaam's old 

 trouble with his ass. The dumb crit- 

 ters will speak — and the\' alwa\s say 

 the wrong thing for Balaam. 



Boiiors From Exams 



I-iniwciilidcU is the father of bacti-i'ia. 



Fuunyiuentals 



■■Animals, which move, have limbs aud 

 muscles ; the earth has no limbs or 

 muscles, therefore it does not move. It 

 is angels ■who make Saturn, Jupiter, the 

 sun. etc., turn round. If the earth re- 

 ■(olves, it must also have an angel in the 

 oeutre to set it in motion ; but only devils 

 live there: it would therefore be a devil 

 who would impart motion to the earth. 



The planets, the sun, the fixed stars, 

 all l)elong to one species — namely, that 

 of the stars. It seems, therefore, to be 

 a grievous -wrong to place the earth, which 

 is a sink of impurity, among these heaven- 

 ly bodies which are pure and divine 

 things." — Scipio t'hiavamonti. quoted in 

 "The Great Astronomers." p. 103. 



"It is generally held among scientific 

 men that it is the action of the sun upon 

 the earth that causes the latter to re- 

 volve upon its axis." — J. C. Derfelt in 

 Fax "Official Organ of the American 

 Science Foundation." March. 1932. p. 6. 



"Then we have Jlendol (sic) who ex- 

 perimented with flowers and discovered a 

 rule and tliought it would apply to human 

 beings but it did not." 



Prof. C. II. Briggs. B. E, idem, p, 9. 



"The order that is called Phizapod (sic) 

 . . . have no cilia, but move about by a 

 queer method called ectoplasm . . ." 

 —Christian Faith aud Life. May. 1932, 



"T»arw-iu with all the fuss and feathers 

 and bluster and insane ballyhoo that he 

 could muster, after admitting the muta- 

 tion of species to be profound ignorance, 

 has employed every art of lying, dishon- 

 esty, superstition, flagrant imagination, 

 misrepresentation, fool guessing, and ig- 

 norant suppositions in order to junk the 

 blood of human beings with the blood of 

 every beast of the field, every reptile of 

 the marsh and vermin of the sewer, all 

 the way from monkeys back to the lar- 

 val ooze of primal seas. 



"Any thinking man, who knows what 

 evolution is, would rather be known as a 

 horse thief, a pirate or a cowardly bush- 

 whacker, than to be known as an evolu- 

 tionist . . . Evolution is a pack of damn- 

 able lies as black as the soot on the 

 walls of hell ; too filthy for carrion, too 

 shameful for dens, too foul for the sewer 

 and too prostitute for Jezebel or Semir- 

 amis." — Rev. R. L. Stephens. Anti-athe- 

 istic Tract I>epot, San Autonio, Texas. 



Asexual reproduction is that kind in 

 which no pleasure or benefit is derived by 

 either party. 



A compound shoreline is one that moves 

 in and out at the same time. 



The chief argument against the nebular 

 hyimthesis is tliat it would make the sun 

 revolve around the earth every few min- 

 utes. 



The axis of the earth is an imaginary 

 line on which the earth takes its daily 

 routine. 



The earthworm has a long elementary 

 canal. 



The Uialto is the business part of 

 Venus. 



The difference between air and water 

 is that air can be made wetter and water 

 can not. 



Teachers are invited to report "Boners". 



