Page Six 



EVOLUTION 



June, 1937 



or has not sutficientl\ "adjusted" its teachings to modern 

 knowledge: nor whether one or another of them is good, 

 bad or quite indifferent. But whatever the answer to those 

 questions the present restrictive influence of organized re- 

 ligion on the teaching of the best of biology is intolerable. 

 For moribund traditional beliefs to continue to exercise 

 such influence over the educational program of a country 

 is a confession and declaration either of the apathy, the 

 cowardice, the impotence or the intellectual bankruptcy 

 of enlightened leadership in that country. 



it is here that we meet "the confusion of tongues. ' 

 A hundred \'ears of a germ of truth, or seventy-six years 

 since its bloom in publication, has catalyzed a very wide- 

 ranging body of facts relating worthily to the nature, 

 origin and destiny of man. However, b}' man\ this 

 prime accomplishment of our science is either rejected 

 outright, or its essentials are first thoroughly eviscerated 

 and the husks then accorded an obscure corner in the attics 

 of tradition. The tongues of the traditionalists are heard 

 not merely from pulpits, but they echo also withm our 

 schools — the onl\' possible home of science — and there they 

 now curb or tie the tongues of biologic truth. 



This confusion is partly sustained by the words of 

 great authorities in one or another branch of learning. 

 Today, as at Oxford in 1860, a professor can easily be 

 had to support a bishop against a really good and far- 

 reaching biological advance, where this impinges on tra- 

 ditional beliefs. The public can not fix relative values to 

 the words of different scientific men. But the biologist 

 knows that when physicists and astronomers speak about 

 life, they speak as laymen — and frequently their words are 

 unconsciously filled with tradition, which they also ac- 

 quired as laymen. In addition to these volunteer voices 

 from quite outside life-science, we are all aware that some 

 high authorities in biological science persistently ignore 

 the greater biologic accomplishment, and on some points 

 they too still speak with tongues of a day that is gone. We 



ma_\- as well have it out with them. 



In conclusion, no one need espouse intellectual sterility 

 because many and important mysteries still attach to the 

 living world. The task of serious biological analysis — the ' 

 thrust of obser\ation and experiment against assumption 

 and tradition — was begun only yesterday; and, very un- 

 fortunately and quite inexcusably, it is not until an un- 

 seen to-morrow that even 1 per cent of mankind will 

 become conscious of as much as 10 per cent, of the quite 

 important m\steries which a sharp attack has already 

 swept away. The issue to-day is on the question whether 

 our educational facilities and practice will permit eager 

 youth to examine the results of man's scientific efforts to 

 learn man's own nature and man's place in nature; whether 

 ignorance of manv- fundamental and now satisfactorily ap- 

 praised biological phenomena shall continue to foster diver- 

 gent and irreconcilable thought among great biological 

 human populations which must live together; whether the 

 case and the course of ci\ilization is to be guided by know- 

 ledge or b\- the dead hands of the past; whether the bio- 

 logical investigator of either yesterday or today may be 

 permitted to give his best results to the world or whether 

 he is to be more and more insulated by his own progress; 

 whether, indeed, present man-in-the-mass has evolved sufTic- 

 ientl}' to prefer light to twilight, truth to tradition. Certain- 

 ly until this issue has been definitely decided every zoologist 

 will feel sure that mankind is worthy of much more than his 

 \'ery best efforts; he, along with all other enlightened 

 men, must find, recognize and overcome those forces which 

 now obstruct the release of his best prizes to present gen- 

 erations of man. 



Excerpt, vice presidential address, Section Zoological Sciences, 

 A.A.A.S.. St. Louis. Jan. 1. 26. Printed in Science. 83 : 41 & 

 69. Jan. 17 & 24, 103G. 



CORRECTION 

 The credit lines on pages S and 5 got mixed. Dr. Gregory's 

 arliole is from The Teaching Biologist. Dr. Riddle's from Science. 

 .Vly own fault. L.E.K. 



NATURE'S IPSTART: HOMO SAPIENS 



Continued from Page 4 



Up to the time that the ancestors of man began to 

 become human, the newer type of response may have been 

 almost as uniformly beneficial and successful as it seems 

 to be in other mammals. But at this point the devil ap- 

 pears in the story to wreak havoc on the happiness of 

 simple humans. This devil is nothing more nor less than 

 the habit of unintelligent and uncritical yielding to sug- 

 gestion, that is, to arbitrary association of ideas. The 

 "conditional response" of Pavlow on a lower plane fore- 

 shadows the \ast brood of taboos, phobias, blessings and 

 curses and all the practices of magic and superstition on 

 the plane of social relations. For exam.ple, among man}' 

 primitive peoples, sickness is not the result of some purely 

 physical or physiological disturbance but is sent by the 

 gods as a penalty for the violation of taboos, perhaps by 

 another member of the family. The way to cure the sick- 

 ness, therefore, is to pay a witch-doctor to find the culprit 

 whose sin has brought the sickness and punish the culprit. 



The invention of speech, in which a given sound or a 

 series of sounds is arbitrarily associated with a certain idea, 

 led to verbalized thinking and enormously facilitated the 

 establishment of habits of reaction based on fictitious 

 taboos and rewards. .As a result of this situation the pro- 

 gress of humanity in discovering the causes of disease and 

 curing it was delayed for ages and is still delayed among 

 the less intelligent of all lands. 



.■\nother factor which has contributed greatly to the 

 bedevilment of Homo sapiens is his almost incurable 

 pride and egocentrism joined to a pathetic gullibility. 

 Egocentrism and selfishness are natural in the descend- 

 ant of a long line of vertebrates which are designed by 

 nature to pluck or kill and eat without any regard to 

 propert}' rights. The gullibility follows from the easily 

 imposed habit of acting in masses under the suggestion 

 of leaders. .Also the tendency to believe the oft-repeated 

 printed word. 



In short it seems that a large part of the agony of 

 mankind could have been spared if man had been at the 

 same time less egocentric and less credulous. 

 The Emancipation of Homo Sapiens 



In spite of man's tragic subservience to mass manipula- 

 tion, one must admit that during historic times there has 

 been definite improvement in some individuals and in some 

 communities and even in a few states. The main hope 

 for Homo sapiens seems to lie in the principle enunciated 

 by Lincoln, namely, "thst you can fool some of the people 

 ail the time and all of the people some of the time but p 

 \'ou can not fool all the people all the time". It is the 

 tough-minded residue, as well as those who can learn .by 

 experience, who slowly sift the wheat from the chaff, hold 

 fast to that which is good and press forward steadily to 

 a more rational world; there justice and gentleness shall 

 ameliorate the hard fact that Homo sapiens is the descend- 

 ant of a long line of aggressive vertebrates. 



