Page twelve 



E \ O L U T I O N 



JuxE, 1930 



Fundamentalist Follies 



In this Monthly Feature Edwin Tenney Brewster will 

 fundamentalist objections to evolution. 



refute all 



AMONG the most aggressive of Anti- 

 evolution magazines ranks De- 

 fender, organ of Winrod, Revivalist. 

 Its motto is "Back to the Bible." 

 But it dabbles also in natural science. 

 Thus, for example (July. 1929, p. 14) 

 "Time after time sedimentary strata 

 which are alleged to be very old lie 

 smoothly and seemingly undisturbed 

 on top of rock, likewise undisturbed, 

 which is alleged to be much younger. 

 I could cite instance after instance 

 of this." 



The same notion appears widely in 

 Fundamentalist writings — as for ex- 

 ample in Reverend Chester K. Leh- 

 man's little book, The Inadequacy of 

 ETolution as a Uorld View (pages 14- 

 15) and in the debate in New York 

 early in 1924, between the late John 

 Roach Straton, D. D. and Charles 

 Francis Potter. But all such rest on 

 the authority of one George McCready 

 Price, teacher of a wide variety of 

 subjects in an equally wide range of 

 Second Advent schools, and a prolific 

 writer for the last quarter century 

 on scientific topics, though he himself 

 appears to have no scientific training 

 whatever. 



Doubtless, therefore, one "could 

 cite instance after instance ' ' — from 

 the writings of clergymen and of 

 Fundamentalist laymen who write for 

 denominational journals attacking 

 evolution. But the queer thing about 

 these alleged instances of undisturbed 

 rocks in the wrong order is that no 

 geologist has ever seen a single one of 

 them. They occur innumerably in 

 sermons — but no working geologist, 

 accustomed to looking at real rocks, 

 has ever discovered anything of the 

 sort. 



What geologists do find is always 

 precisely what they have been finding 

 from the first beginnings of geologic 

 science: The strata of mountain dis- 

 tricts are wont to be broken and 

 twisted and shoved about and even 

 sometimes turned completely upside 

 down — as anybody can see for him- 

 self, just keeping his eyes open in a 

 rough country. AVhere the strata are 

 flat and in place, just as when they 

 were first laid down under water, 

 then the district is a level country 

 and no proper mountains; and every 

 single layer is precisely where it ought 

 to be on evolutionary grounds. 



Broken rocks, then, in mountain 

 country, may exhibit all sorts of 

 visible dislocations — that is, in tact, 

 precisely what make mountains. 

 Among other dislocations, one sees 

 places where one mass of rock has 

 been pushed sideways over another. 

 This is not a matter of theory. 

 Anybody can see it. There is a crack, 

 an inch or two wide or a foot or two, 



commonly filled with broken rock — 

 the "fault breccia" of geologists — 

 and always with the surfaces that 

 have slipped over one another smooth 

 ed and polished like a mirror," as 

 one geologist describes the great over- 

 thrust at Chief Mountain, Montana, 

 that is a special bone of contention 

 in the Fundamentalist press. But 

 one does not need to travel to Mon- 

 tana. One sees these "overthrusts," 

 in the right sort of country, some- 

 times a half-dozen in a single cliff. 

 Nearly always, one can run his hand 

 over the "slickensided" surface where 

 the rocks have slid, and make out 

 which way the fault has gone by the 

 fact that the rubbed surface is smooth- 

 er in one direction than in the other, 

 like a cat's fur. All this, on a small 

 scale, anybody can see. 



Necessarily then, where great sheets 

 of rocks have been sliding over one 

 another, it must often happen that an 

 older stratum is shoved up over a 

 younger one. Fundamentalists, fol- 

 lowing Price, make great play with 

 this. "Strata which are alleged to 

 be very old do undoaibtedly often 

 lie on top of rock" which is alleged 

 to be much younger. 



But not "smoothly and seemingly 

 undisturbed!" That part is pure inven- 

 tion of the Fundamentalist. Anybody 

 can see the crack. Anybody can run 

 his hand over the polished surface 

 where the rocks have slid. But, of 

 course, if one refuses to look and 

 will not tooich, then naturally he will 

 not see and feel. And what the 

 Fundamentalist has not seen and 

 felt, he insists is not there! 



So we have this extraordinary sit- 

 uation. Professional geologists by 

 the hundred have examined these 

 localities where old rocks lie on top 

 of younger ones. They report having 

 located the "fault" where the upper 

 rock mass has slid up over what is 

 really younger strata. But that does- 

 n't suit Fundamentalist dogma. So 

 Fundamentalists deny the facts. They 

 have not seen any fault. Isn't their 

 testimony just as good as that of the 

 geologists? 



All geologists, in short, testify that 

 they have seen something. Many 

 Fundamentalists testify that they have 

 not seen it. 



For my part. I believe them both. 



BRYAN UNIVERSITY, Dayton, Ten- 

 nessee is to open its doors in Septem- 

 ber as a fundamentalist monument to 

 the great anti-evolution champion. Re- 

 member the fate of that other "fun- 

 damentalist university" at Des Moines? 



ANOTHER LIE NAILED 



The Rocky Mountain News reported 

 a Catholic Lenten sermon as follows: 



"Father McMenamin recounted the 

 story of the skull of the original 'Java 

 Man,' which eventually turned out 

 to be the knee of an extinct elephant. 

 ■Just think' he explained, 'we came 

 near hanging the picture of an ex- 

 tinct elephants knee in the gallery 

 of our ancestors." 



Mr. Whitenaek, secretary of the 

 Colorado Rationalist Association, im- 

 mediately wrote the good Father: 



"Such ignorance places you in the 

 class with such clerical falsifiers 

 as Rev. W. B. Riley, Dr. Arthur I. 

 Brown and Prof. George McCready 

 Price. The skull of the 'original Java 

 Man' was found in 189.S by Dr. Dubois 

 whose son is now living in Denver. 

 That it is the fossil of a very prim- 

 itive man who lived at least a mill- 

 ion years ago has not been questioned 

 by any scientist for a quarter of a 

 century. 



"The elephant's knee, with which 

 you fooled your audience and sought 

 to discredit the work of HONEST 

 men, was found a few years ago near 

 where the Java skull was discovered. 

 At first, in an incompetent and sensa- 

 tional news report, it was called a 

 fragment of human skull. Had it 

 been found near Mount Arrarat by 

 the clergy it would, no doubt, have 

 been mistaken for the skull of Noah 

 and highly prized as a relic of the 

 Church before which people would be 

 cured of all manner of diseases. But 

 upon careful examination by an HON- 

 EST scientist the fragment was easily 

 identified as part of an elephant's 

 humerus." 



THE WORLD FAIR in Chicago in 1933 

 is to be the greatest scientific expos- 

 ition ever held. Its keynote will be 

 "The Century of Science" under direc- 

 tion of the country's most eminent 

 scientists. A large number of In- 

 terntational and Natiajnal scientific 

 congresses will be held there. 



AN APE FARM of 200 acres is being 

 established In Florida by Yale Uni- 

 versity where a special study will be 

 made of the habits, social relations, 

 life history and psycho-biological de- 

 velopment of the anthropoid apes in 

 their rel.ntinn to man under the direc- 

 tion of Professor Robert M. Yerkes. 



PRIZES OF FROM $50 TO $200 worth 

 of hooks are offered by the Committee ^' 

 on The Place of Science in Education 

 of the American Association for The 

 Advancement of Science to the librar- 

 ies of secondary schools whose students 

 produce the best essays on a specified 

 list of subjects. Details may be se- 

 cured from Otis W. Caldwell, Chair- 

 man, 433 West 123rd Str. New York 

 City. 



