256 RAYMOND PEARL 



the accompanying text. Whether this is accounted a justifiable 

 procedure or not will depend upon one's point of view in some 

 degree. The investigator is usually expected to reject abnormal 

 material. But in view of the rather hysterical attacks upon 

 geneticists and their method of work now becoming so fashionable 

 in this country, if for no other reason, it seems best to follow 

 the plan of publishing all the data. The opponents to the views 

 which underlie the Mendelian interpretation here advanced are 

 quite welcome to make as much capital as they are able to out of 

 the discrepancies between observation and theory in the several 

 tables. It seems only fair, however, to ask that a judgment of the 

 adequacy of the hypothesis be not formed from this summary 

 table 33, but instead from the detailed data in the body of the 

 paper. 



Possible criticisms 



In consideration of the fact that this paper constitutes one of 

 the first attempts to apply a Mendelian interpretation to the facts 

 regarding the inheritance of an economically productive character 

 of an animal, and in view of the possible application of the results 

 or the methods of this paper to other productive characters of 

 other organisms it is important to examine carefully and critically 

 the nature of the evidence and the objections which may be 

 brought against the conclusions. In the first place it is important 

 to note once more that the data and their interpretation are kept 

 separate throughout, and that the value of the former is not 

 lessened if the latter is later found to be completely invalid, or in 

 need of modification. It is scarcely necessary to say that the 

 Mendelian hypothesis here presented is the only simple one which 

 the writer has been able to discover, after over two years of 

 study directed (whenever the time was available) towards this 

 particular end, which is capable of accounting satisfactorily for 

 all the facts. Very many other MendeUan schemes for the 

 inheritance of fecundity have been tested against the facts in the 

 course of the work and discarded, one by one, because inadequate. 

 Of course, it still remains quite possible, though perhaps not very 

 probable, that there may be an even simpler hypothesis which 



