Redfield Broadens His Offer 
from 1902 to the present time, have been 
directed to showing that the energy 
found in animals is identical with the 
energy known in mechanics, and re- 
sponds on test to the laws that govern 
all other forms of energy known to 
science. As those laws can operate 
from one generation to the next only 
through the inheritance of acquire- 
ments, my writings have been directed 
mainly to that essential and disputed 
point. 
I have published the results of my 
investigations into some thousands of 
cases. On many occasions for more 
than ten years there have been com- 
plaints because I did not also give 
contrary cases, that is, cases which 
showed that Nature violated her own 
laws. I have never found any such, 
but for the benefit of those who think 
that she actually does do so, there is my 
offer of $1,000. As stated, the offer 
requires the evidence to be in a particu- 
lar form, but I now broaden out the 
offer by saying that any evidence of 
any kind or description which will 
cause the American Genetic Association 
to declare officially that the known laws 
of energy are not valid when applied to 
energy in the living animals, will cap- 
ture the money. 
IS EVOLUTION POSSIBLE? 
A parent cannot transmit what he 
does not have. If he can transmit no 
more than he inherited, how can there 
287 
be an evolution (increase) of animal 
power from generation to generation? 
If it be assumed that such increases of 
power capabilities might come by muta- 
tion or advantageous variation,” then 
we would have the case of an offspring 
born with something it did not inherit 
from its parents. That would mean 
that an act of special creation had 
taken place, or that the laws of energy 
had been violated in some way in the 
reproductive process. I will again 
broaden the offer by saying that any 
evidence of any kind or description 
which will cause the American Genetic 
Association officially to declare that the 
laws of energy can be valid in the living 
animal from generation to generation 
and yet not involve the inheritance of 
acquirements, will capture the money. 
In Dynamic Evolution I have given 
a brief statement of the laws of energy, 
and the manner of applying them to the 
energy in animals. For a more com- 
prehensive understanding of energy 
and the laws relating thereto, reference 
must be had to text-books on physics, 
or to those parts of books on mechanics 
or engineering which treat of power 
production and power distribution. 
Reference may also be had to articles 
on “Energy” and “Energetics” in 
Encyclopedia Brittanica, last edition. 
see also “Energy” and ‘Thermody- 
namics” in Cyclopedia Americana. 
C. L. REDFIELD, 
Chicago, Il. 
Left-handedness 
The latest contribution to the much- 
discussed and little understood problem 
of left-handedness is that of Dr. Franz 
Schwerz in the Archiv fur Rassen- und 
Gesellschafts-Biologie, X1, 3, pp. 299-314. 
He finds the statistics of its frequency 
conflicting: Hasse and Dehner, who 
examined 5,141 German soldiers, found 
the left-handed to be 1%; Stier’s figures 
for East Prussia are 2.32%, for Wiurt- 
temburg 6.5%; the author found in 
1,072 Schaffhausen school children 7.9%. 
It is not certain whether the abnormality 
is more common among boys or girls. 
Schwerz alludes to the idea that left- 
handedness is to be classed as one of the 
“stigmata of degeneracy,” and accepts 
the old belief (now hardly tenable) that 
in primitive times left-handed and right- 
handed people existed in equal numbers, 
and that more right-handed people 
survived to leave descendants like 
themselves because in combats with 
men or wild beasts, fighters who held the 
shield in the left hand, thus protecting 
the heart, were more likely to survive. 
