■age 



Twelve 



EVOLUTION 



March. 1929 



Premature Hosannahs 



HOSANNAHS resounded in all the 

 camps of the fundamentalists on 

 the morning of January 21st when they 

 read the Press dispatches from Wash- 

 ington, relating that Dr. A. H. Clark- 

 had renounced evolution and announced 

 belief in the special creation of Man. 



That these rejoicings were slightly 

 premature is shown by the following 

 comparison of reports: 



First Report: 



WASHINGTON. Jan. 20 (A.P.) Dr. 

 Austin H. Clark, biologist, of the United 

 States National Museum has propounded 

 a new theory of evolution with revolu- 

 tionary implications for biology and 

 related sciences. He differs on vital 

 points with the Darwinian theory of 

 descent of man from a lower animal 

 life and explains evolution as a series 

 of jumps from one major form of 

 life to another, rather than as a process 

 of gradual development. 



"So far as concerns the major groups 

 of animals, the creationists seem to 

 have the better of the argument," Dr. 

 Clark said in announcing his theory. 

 'Tbere is not the slightest'evidence that 

 any one of the major groups arose 

 from any other. Each is a special ani- 

 mal complex, related more or less close- 

 ly to all the rest, and appearing, there- 

 fore, as a special and distinct creation." 



The concept of Dr. Clark has man 

 appearing on earth substantially as he is 

 today, to all intents and purposes a pro- 

 duct of special creation. 



Dr. Clark sees no evidence of a 

 "missing link," or intermediate form, be- 

 tween man and monkey. 



Corrected Report: 



(In New York World, February 3, 1929) 

 By DUDLEY NICHOLS 



When scientific reports are constructed 

 into news the results are only too fre- 

 quently misconstructions, and that ap- 

 pears to have been the fate of the new- 

 theory of animal evolution proposed by 

 Dr. Austin H. Clark a biologist of the 

 Smithsonian Institute at Washington. 



Perusal of Dr. Clark's thesis, now 

 available in full in the Quarterly Re- 

 view of Biology, indicate^ tlie error of 

 the Fundamentalists in seizing the early 

 news reports as weapons against the 

 hated evolutionism. The very title of 

 the biologist's paper is "Animal Evolu- 

 tion" and its aim is to propose an emen- 

 dation, not denial, of man's concept of 

 the evolution of present forms of life. 



The paper may have been unfor- 

 tunately worded, although it would 

 never have been misunderstood by the 

 biologists to whom it was addressed. 

 Excerpts without the full text could be 

 misused to stultify the whole report. 

 The Associated Press dispatches from 

 Washington, as printed in The World 

 of Jan. 20, said, after quoting Dr. Clark : 



"His concept differs with previous 

 evidence of the descent of man from 

 an apelike ancestor and asserts that man 



appeared on earth substantially as he is 

 today — to all intents and purposes a 

 product of special creation. His theory 

 is that man appeared in practically the 

 same form he has today because of an 

 inherent capacity of life to produce a 

 variant, or 'abnormality', having an enor- 

 mously enlarged brain in an environ- 

 ment where it was able to survive." 



Definition Lacking 



The writer is unable to find the re- 

 motest resemblance to such statements 

 in Dr. Clark's own words. 



What the biologist did propose was 

 that "tile creationists" appear to have 

 the better of the argument so far as 

 the "n-ajor groups of animals'' are con- 

 cerned. A more specific statement of 

 what he meant by major groups would 

 have made the matter clear. The ex- 

 planatory diagram which accompanied 

 the paper provides the necessary mean- 

 ing, though it is also sufficiently ex- 

 pressed in the amplified text, and shows 

 that Dr. Clark was referring to enorm- 

 ously comprehensive divisions of the 

 animal kingdom. For instance the most 

 complex group is composed of the verte- 

 brata. and that comprehensive division 

 contains all those animals with a l>ack- 

 bone or segmented spinal column, such 

 as the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphi- 

 bians, fishes, etc. 



These major groups to which he re- 

 ferred, and upon which his new- thesis was 

 focused, are enormously inclusive. The 

 substance of his idea afifects these groups 

 ■•ilone. and he maintains that when once 

 life appeared on earth, in its proto- 

 plasmic form, there were certain inter- 

 nal and external forces which I'd it to 

 develop simultaneously along four lines 

 and produce — i. e. create — the proto- 

 types ill all these groups. 



In short, says Dr. Clark in substance, 

 here were tli? building blocks for e\;o- 

 lution. It was no* iust one humble cell, 

 the amoeba, endlesslv branching up like 

 a growing tree, until it should blossom 

 at the top in man. Instead tliat bumble 

 form immediately .set off on a four way 

 cosmic track to produce the few great 

 group-forms of life, and the tremendous 

 animal kinedom as w? know it could 

 then evolve from these basic forms. 



Threw Off J'arianis 

 The biologist suggests that this process 

 of evolution may not be so gradual as 

 heretofore supposed, and he cites in cor- 

 rol'oration some of the remarkable varia- 

 tions which species and sub-species tend 

 to produce. A changing environment 

 and inner forces as well might combine 

 to throw off a remarkable variant, 

 which could exist more easily than its 

 prog'enitors. and so would multiply and 

 supersede the original type, thus giving 

 the nnpearance of a small jump in the 

 evolutionary process. But that a man 

 suddenly appeared full-brained, as the 

 news despatches told, is too preposterous 

 even ^o contradict. The biologists to 

 whom Dr. Clark w-as speaking will 



trouble themselves with no such chimera, 

 but will question the data upon which 

 he bases his theory that the prototypes 

 of the few biological groups were prod- 

 ucts of a distinct creation. Even this 

 last is but a thesis ; that is, something 

 laid down as a possible explanation of 4 



certain phenomena. 



Before proceeding one might well in- 

 quire more closely into the meaning of 

 these words, creationism and evolution- 

 ism. Philosophically, creationism is the 

 doctrine that the world came into being 

 out of nothing through an act of a trans- 

 cendental Creator; that is a statement 

 which science would not deny but only 

 seek to interpret. 



But commonly speaking creationism is 

 the doctrine that distinct species of 

 animals or plants were separately created, 

 and Dr. Clark no more asserts that than 

 he denies all science. 



Limits Extension of Theory 

 His whole theory is focussed upon the 

 creation of the major groups, and a 

 species is, biologically speaking, but a 

 ^mall categor3^ of classification within a 

 major group. A species is a category 

 lower than a genus or sub-genus and 

 above a sub-species or variety. All ani- 

 mals within a species may interbreed and 

 reproduce. 



While the idea of creationism is up- 

 held by Dr. Clark for the major groups, 

 he disposes of its extension by saying: 

 "But within each major group we see 

 a very different picture. Here the fossil 

 record shows a constant change from ^ 



one horizon to another. These successive ' 



variations are probably simply indica- 

 tions of a direct response to physical 

 alterations in environment favoring now 

 one type or sub-type, now another. 



"This continuous alteration in the 

 elements within the various groups is 

 what is commonly known as evolution. 

 Ii is perhaps best illustrated by the 

 vertebrates, since these are the most 

 familiar of the animals. 



"The evolution of the reptiles from 

 the carboniferous to the end of the cre- 

 taceous, and of the mammals from the 

 end of the basal Eocene to the present 

 day. or rather to the Pleistocene period 

 just past, forms a story of most absorb- 

 ing interest. Here we can trace the 

 gradual development from comparatively 

 insignificant beginnings to a wonderful 

 flowering of specialization and perfec- 

 tion. So much has been written on this 

 subject, especially in recent years, that it 

 seems unnecessary to pursue it further." 

 That sufficiently nails the notion of a 

 specially and suddenly created man. As 

 far as the layman is concerned, it does 

 not alter in the slightest de.gree evolu- 

 tionism as he is able to comprehend it. 

 It leaves his evolutionary tree unaltered, 

 except for some changes far down in 

 the darker roots. There remains the — ^ 

 imposing evolutionary tree of the verte- ■ 

 brates, with a minute ancient, worm-like 

 creature at the bottom and the ten- 

 fingered fuU-craniumed man at the top. 

 What is new and important in Dr. 

 Clark's paper can be intelligentlv weighed 

 and discussed only by trained biologists. 



