July. 1928 



EVOLUTION 



Page Three 



sive, meaning bv this that it tends in the direction of 

 improvement. 



It is important to remember here that whereas the 

 general validity of biological evolution is unquestioned, 

 the existing dififerences of opinion referring merely to 

 mechanisms and processes, the theory of social evolu- 

 tion as formulated by Herbert Spencer and in his wake 

 by a host of anthropologists and sociologists, has not 

 withstood further accumulation of data and the emer- 

 gence of a critical attitude. At this time, all three 

 principles of social evolution indicated above must be 

 regarded as obsolete or, at best, inaccurate. For social 

 evolution is neither uniform, nor always gradual, nor is 

 it necessarily or even generally progressive. To this 

 phase of the subject, I shall return in the last article 

 of this series. 



The outstanding contribution of Spencer's "Ethics" 

 comprised in the main in his "Data of Ethics," "Social 

 Statics," and "Man Versus the State," was his negativ- 

 istic theory of government. An extreme individualist. 



both temperamentally and in theory, Spencer resented 

 all infraction of individual freedom. Reluctantly, he 

 was forced to admit that the full exercise of freedom by 

 one individual inevitably conflicts with the equal free- 

 dom of other individuals. Here Spencer felt that a 

 super-individual agency had to step in, so as to keep 

 the exercise of freedom on the part of each within the 

 bounds compatible with the freedom of all. Beyend 

 this, no government should go. This theory, aptly desig- 

 nated by Huxley as "administrative nihilism," immedi- 

 ately became the center of animated discussion, and 

 such it has remained to this day. 



As one turns to Spencer's synthetic philosophy in the 

 perspective of time one cannot but feel that whatever 

 the errors and exaggerations of his over-ambitious 

 scheme, he has earned once and for all a place of honor 

 among those who have led man's thought into natural 

 channels. Natural facts have natural causes. If these 

 are known, the facts are understood. If they are un- 

 known, thev must be looked for. 



The Nebraska Tooth 



By Henshaw Ward 



"TPHE fundamentalists are having a merry time over 

 * the episode of "the Nebraska tooth,"' and we should 

 not begrudge them their fun. The little argument will 

 last for years and will brighten up ten thousand anti- 

 evolution speeches. But the real lesson of this affair 

 will never be mentioned by the enemies of science. 



About six years ago there was discovered in Ne- 

 braska a tooth that looked as if it had come from the 

 skull of some primate. It was most carefully examined 

 by three experts of the American Museum. They all 

 agreed that the tooth had grown in the jaw of some 

 early ape, called "sub-human." The Bulletin of the 

 American Museum for February, 1925, declared with 

 absolute confidence that no tooth had ever been more 

 rigorously scrutinized and that "every suggestion made 

 by scientific skeptics had been weighed and found want- 

 ing." The tooth was made the basis for naming a new- 

 genus and species of anthropoid. Hesperopithecus har- 

 oldcookii, in honor of the finder, Harold J. Cook. 



Henry Fairfield Osborn considered the tooth so im- 

 portant and so well authenticated that he spoke of it 

 thus in his book, The Earth Speaks to Bryan, 1925 : "The 

 Earth spoke to Bryan from his own native state of Ne- 

 braska, in the message of a diminutive tooth, the herald 

 of our knowledge of anthropoid apes in America. This 

 tooth is like the 'still small voice.' . . . This little tooth 

 speaks volumes of truth. . . . This bit of truth con- 

 stitutes irrefutable evidence that the man-apes wandered 

 over from Asia into North America." The newspapers 

 accepted the judgment of the greatest paleontologists 

 and poured upon Bryan a great deal of ridicule for 

 denying the evidence that had been found in his own 

 state. 



But on February 19, 1928, Wm. K. Gregory, of the 



American Museum, gave out to the press a statement 

 that the paleontologists had probably been mistaken. 

 He reported that further investigations in Nebraska had 

 shown the probability that the tooth was not anthropoid 

 at all, but belonged to an extinct peccary, a pig-like 

 animal. He retracted completely his former judgment 

 of five years' standing. He announced his error, know- 

 ing full well the scorn and ridicule that he would bring 

 upon himself from anti-science orators. 



Thus a dreadful blunder was exposed. If ever Dame 

 Science had cause to blush for the rashness of one of 

 her followers, she had it then. John Roach Straton was 

 inspired to real wit by this gruesome revelation; all the 

 cohorts of fundamentalists shouted for joy, and will 

 continue to rejoice as the years go by. They have a 

 right to be happy. 



And the louder they are in mirth the more thev will 

 advertise that they do not understand what mental in- 

 tegrity is, nor what nobility of soul is. When Gregory 

 proclaimed his mistake, he was doing the finest sort of 

 act that human beings can aspire to. He was showing 

 the world that science will not tolerate pride or hypoc- 

 risy. A scientist who palters with truth is infamous, h. 

 scientist must declare the truth as he finds it, even to 

 his own hurt, and spare not. In all the rhetoric of 

 fundamentalism there is not a fraction of the nobility of 

 soul that has been shown by the episode of "the Ne- 

 braska tooth." 



The strength of the evolution theory is in this very 

 fact that at all stages of its development it has been 

 subjected to the most severe tests, that errors bv biolo- 

 gists have been unflinchinglv proclaimed, and tliat the 

 theory has thus been purged of misconceptions. The 

 sternest critics of the theory are the men who make it. 



