i'AGK 



Tkn 



EVOLUTION 



The Beebe Collection 



Two of the most enthusiastic supporters of 

 Evolution are Mr. and Mrs. J. O. Beebe of Los 

 Aiigeles. Akhough they have Ijeen very ill this 

 winter (he is 82 and she is 75) their names 

 have appeared several times in our Evolution 

 llonor Roll. 



Perhaps this is but natural, since theirs is a life 

 time interest in the subject. They have in their 

 home one of the most complete collections of fossil 

 crinoids, starfishes, sea urchins, trilobites, corals, 

 Insects, etc., to be found anywhere in the world. 

 Their collection of over one hundred thousand speci- 

 mens constitutes a most convincing demonstration 

 of the Fact of evolution. 



The collection of fossil crinoids (so-called stone- 



lilies) is particularly interesting. Crinoids are 



J. 0. BEEBb: animals low in the scale of life. They have existed 



in the oceans through the ages for at least forty 

 million years. They grow on roots like vegetables 

 and are reared on stems, their bodies and arms 

 resembling flowers or tiny bushes. Yet each has a 

 stomach, internal organs and a nervous system. 

 They bristle all over with proofs of evolution, plainU 

 visible from age to age. 



One of the strangest specimens is the Antedon 

 ■Crinoid, which still lives in the ocean. This ba- 

 the power of breaking itself away from the stem. 

 lurning mouth downwards and growing into the 

 ■'Comatula", which starfish experts want to call a 

 starfish. 



The illustration, showing only one of the large 

 ■number of cases housing the Beebe collection, gives q BeEBE 



but a faint idea of the treat in store for those who • •*• 



tave opportunity to examine it. It bears proof of evolution, and it gives us great 

 -witness to a lifetime endeavor on the part pleasure, to introduce two such servants 

 of Mr. and Mrs. J. 0. Beebe. who may well of science as an inspiring example to our 

 be proud of having compiled this concrete readers. 



April, 1928 

 DID LIFE BEGIN? 



(From Herald-Tribune, June 10, 1927) 



TN the perennial discussion of where. 

 ■*■ when or how life may have begun on 

 earth, it seems never to occur to the dis- 

 putants to make the first and most obvious 

 (if inquiries, the inquiry whether life be- 

 gan at all. Strict logicians would insist 

 that the very idea of beginning is a hu- 

 man artifact; there is no proof of it in 

 nature. The debate which has raged 

 around so many country store cracker 

 barrels as to which came first, the chicken 

 or the egg. conceals a real uncertainty. 

 Even without venturing into the most 

 rarefied altitudes of philosophic thought, 

 it is obvious that the idea of a beginning 

 slips easily through the fingers of the 

 mind. Every one admits that an acorn may 

 become an oak. At what exact instant 

 does it cease to be an acorn and begin 

 to be a tree? 



Uncertainty about just what constitutes 

 beginning is strictly applicable to the sup- 

 posed beginning of life. There has been 

 life on earth, geologists believe, for at 

 least a billion years. The earth itself is 

 far older. Sometime during the unknown 

 prehistory of a few billion years noa- 

 living matter altered somehow into living 

 matter. There is no biological reason to 

 imagine that the change was sudden. Even 

 if science possessed a perfect record of 

 the missing millenia it would be as im- 

 possible to put a mental finger on a cer- 

 tain moment and say, "Here is when life 

 began," as it is to select the definite sec- 

 ond when an acorn begins to be a tree. 

 Critics will urge that the acorn always 

 possesses the potentiality of being a tree, 

 which is quite true. And how does any 

 one know that this is less true of matter 

 and of life? 



In the adolescence of the earth, newly 

 cooled from the ball of flaming gas which 

 the sun is believed to have cast off, na- 

 tural conditions were not those of today. 

 For one thing, there was probably no trace 

 of free oxygen in the air. The chemicals 

 dissolved in the ocean were different from 

 those of to-day. Very slowly these dis- 

 solved chemicals came to be alive. Some 

 celestial chemist, dipping an exploratory 

 finger into that ancient manufactory of 

 life at intervals of a thousand years, would 

 have perceived no change. Only at time 

 intervals to be measured in millions or 

 billions of years would life be perceived 

 some day to have crept in unnoticed. Par- 

 ents, seeing their children daily, observe 

 no change. It needs the distant uncle, ar- 

 riving for his first visit after a decade, 

 to notice that a new man or woman has 

 begun. 



Ancestral Man. Primitive horse. Primitive fishes and starfishes. Sea animals, 

 among them the Ions stems of stone-lilies or crinoids (really animals). 



WANTED:— 

 Every reader to be a reporter for the 

 Funnymentals column. Send exact quota- 

 tions from fundamentalist speeches and 

 writings, suitable for publication in Fun- 

 nymentals column, being sure to give au- 

 thority. 



