Page eighteen 



EVOLUTION 



June, 1931 



Fundamentalist Follies 



In this Monthly Feature Edwin Tenney Brewster 

 will refute all fundamentalist objections to evolution. 



SCIENCE AND THE 

 LEGAL MIND 



The Theory of Evolution, by Nathan 

 G. Moore (Lakeside Press, Chicago) 

 has just come to its third edition, the 

 first only two years old. Written, as 

 the title page informs us, "from a 

 lawyer's point of view," the Fundament- 

 alist press has proclaimed it with one 

 voice as at once the exposure and the 

 refutation of the errors and the fallacies 

 and illogical vagaries of evolutionary 

 science. Here, at last, is a trained legal 

 mind, that can put two and two to- 

 gether, cross-examine testimony, point 

 out contradiction and fraud — in, short, 

 reason! 



One reads as far as page fourteen, 

 and encounters "There are five hundred 

 thousand classified forms of mammalian 

 Hfe and two hundred and fifty thousand 

 cf plant hfe, says Prof. Kellogg (Evolu- 

 tion, p. 8) " 



It sounds fishy! Mammalian species 

 are some what rare birds. Most of us, 

 running over those we know in our own 

 districts, can name something like fifty. 

 Adding all we have seen in museums 

 and read about, will double the number. 

 As a matter of fact, there really are 

 rather less than one percent of the 

 "five hundred thousand classified forms 

 of mammalian life" which Lawyer Moore 

 will have us suppose that Vernon L. 

 Kellogg thinks there are. 



Yet, curiously enough, our learned 

 brother, further along in his book (p. 

 282) quotes — this time correctly — 

 another zoologist, "In round numbers, 

 there are . . . only 36,000 known species 

 of vertebrates." So we have Lawyer 

 Moore quoting an authority on one page 

 for 500,000 mammals; and on another 

 page, another authority for 36,000 verte- 

 brates! Can it be that this champion of 

 the Lord and smiter of evolutionary 

 Philistines does not know what either 

 a vertebrate or mammal really is? 



The plot thickens. One turns to Kel- 

 logg's original text (Evolution, p. 8) 

 and there reads, "We have found and 

 described and clasified and named about 

 500,000 living kinds of animals and 

 250,000 kinds of living plants." 



So it wasn't "mammals" after all that 

 Kellogg really said, but "animals." But 

 "animal" and "mammal" do sound a 

 good deal alike. An author might 

 easily substitute one for the other — 



especially if he hadn't much idea what 

 either word means! 



Our fundamentalist limb of the law, 

 in short, quotes a perfectly plain sentence 

 out of one zoologist; and in it, along 

 with other glaring inaccuracies, manages 

 to substitute "mammal" for "animal." 

 Quoting correctly another zoologist, he 

 gives his readers to understand that there 

 are fourteen times as many mammals in 

 the world as there are vertebrates. He 

 puts these absurdities in his manuscript; 

 which manuscript he revises the cus- 

 tomary number of times. Then he 

 corrects his proof, supposedly twice. 

 Finally, he reads the printed work — a 

 weakness that no author escapes. Later 

 he prepares a second edition. After this, 

 comes a third. 



All three editions go out for review. 

 Fundamentalist editors laud the volumes 

 to the skies. Fundamentalist preachers 

 tap them freely for sermons. Fund- 

 amentalist parents purchase largely 

 hoping to get ahead of their offspring 

 who are taking high school zoology 

 under sinful pedagogs who believe in 

 evolution. 



And nobody notices anything wrong! 

 Moreover, the work has in abundance 

 "more of same" — and some of them 

 are even more obvious and even more 

 absurd than the one selected here as a 

 sample of Fundamentalist science. But 

 no Fundamentalist has spotted any of 

 them, else the author would have been 

 informed of his blunders and corrected 

 them. For Fundamentalist reviewers and 

 editors and clergymen and parents, as 

 for Fundamentalist lawyers, mammals 

 and vertebrates are all "science falsely 

 so-called!" So far as they are not still 

 another invention of Evolutionists they 

 are too nearly the same thing for a 

 Fundamentalist to trouble himself over 

 distinctions! 



What could proclaim with louder voice 

 than the Fundamentalist's own, the 

 mental level of anti-evolutionism? 



BOOKS 



THE STORY OF EVOLUTION. By 

 Benjamin C. Gruenberg. D. Van Nos- 

 trand Co., N. Y. ^4.00. 

 FROM DUST TO LIFE. By Burton 

 P. Thorn. Dutton & Co., N. Y. $5.00. 

 The title of Gruenberg's latest book is a 

 misnomer, for he discusses the Factors of Ev- 

 olution rather than its Story. Aside from this 



and his old disposition to placate the Funda- 

 mentalists, he does a fine job of clear and 

 interesting popular writing of up-to-date _ 

 accuracy. He is to be commended for speak- 

 ing up more courageously than heretofore 

 and for the way he has covered and condensed 

 a vast subject without loss in either clearness 

 or accuracy. The many illustrations maintain 

 the same high standard. 



Thom really writes the Story of Evolution, 

 the whole of it at that, from the very origin 

 of things to Man's evolving mind. He makes 

 a vivid story of it too, almost romantic at 

 times without loss to its science. Here also, 

 the clear style is ably abetted by numerous 

 fine drawings. As a whole, the story is 

 panoramic in its scope, but there is interesting 

 detail and incident throughout. On the 

 scientific side only one exception need be 

 taken. Since the preparation of his opening 

 chapter, our rapidly developing science of 

 sub-atomic physics has greatly modified the 

 account here presented. Otherwise, the book- 

 is a remarkable review of our evolutionary past. 

 Allan Broms. 



THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION. By 

 George Barry O'TooIe, Ph.D., S.T.D. 408 



pp. Macmillan, N. Y. 



Professor O'TooIe differs from all the 

 other authors of recent books opposing evolu- 

 tion, (except L. T. More) in having a 

 scientific training. He differs from all the 

 others in having some real acquaintance with 

 Biology. It is, therefore, interesting to see " 

 what sort cf case he offers. 



There is a specious appearance of fairness 

 in his foreword, in the statement that he is 

 presenting only the negative evidence, as the 

 evidence in favor of evolution is fully presented 

 elsewhere. It is soon evident, however that 

 he is adopting the usual special pleading 

 employed by other authors of this type, 

 but in a more subtle form. For example, he 

 demands the experimental production of a 

 new species under controlled conditions, but 

 arbitrarily defines a species as one existing in 

 nature, which is hardly compatible with produc- 

 tion in a laboratory (p. 4-5.). He entirely 

 ignores the new forms, essentially of specinc 

 grade, which have been produced under con- 

 trolled conditions within the last fifteen years, 

 or those developed under domestication. Again 

 he garbles the meaning of quotations as 

 where he quotes Bather (p. 3) to imply that 

 phyletic series are now discredited, when the 

 actual meaning is that they are steadily 

 becoming more closely linked and more ex- 

 actly demonstrable. 



Mendel, a fellow priest, is deservedly 

 praised, but there is no hint of the fact that 

 the field which he founded. Genetics, is re- 

 sponsible for the appearance, in the laboratory, 

 of distinct physiological species. Mullet has 

 proved that it is not true that all mutations 

 are disadvantageous (p. 44). Hence the ^ 

 argument that mutations can have no evolu- 

 tionary significance falls of its own weight. 



The treatment of the evidence from fossils 

 (chapter III) is particularly unsatisfactory. 

 Quotations, taken out of context, are used to 

 support labored misinterpretations (especially 

 pages 76-96). The existence of any positive 

 evidence contradicting Professor O'Toole's 

 thesis is ignored. 



