OBJECTIONS TO DARWINISM 523 



descended from monkeys, and theologians gradually came to 

 see that a plan in which the multitudinous forms are evolved 

 is just as noble a conception of God as the " Doctrine of Special 

 Creation." 



The scientists offered a number of objections, some of which 

 later investigations have answered. They said that, if evolu- 

 tion by natural selection is now in progress, one should be 

 able to see one species forming from another, but such has never 

 been observed. The absence of forms connecting two related 

 species, and the presence of many apparently useless characters 

 among both plants and animals they said were not accounted 

 for. Again, according to geologists and astronomers, the world 

 has not been in existence long enough for the present forms to 

 be evolved by natural selection. The discovery of mutations 

 enables us to answer the above objections as will be noted 

 later. 



A number of questions in regard to his theory remain to be 

 answered satisfactorily and are receiving much attention at 

 the present time. 



First, as was stated under Lamarck's explanation of evolu- 

 tion, there is much evidence that acquired characters, that is, 

 characters which an individual does not get from its parents 

 but takes on during its lifetime, are seldom if at all inherited. 

 This strikes at Darwin's assumption that useful variations are 

 finally estabhshed as characters through inheritance and selec- 

 tion. 



Second, it is claimed that by the selection of slight variations 

 new species cannot be formed. The individuals of a species 

 can be changed, but they can never be changed so much as to 

 form a new species. In support of this objection, it is claimed 

 that through centuries of artificial selection, plant and animal 

 breeders have not been able to produce new species. 



Third, although the theory assumes that variations are 

 selected because of their advantage to the individual, it also 

 assumes that useful variations may be built up through the 

 selection of variations which are so slight at first that they 

 give the individuals having them no advantage over individuals 

 lacking them. Also the causes of variations Darwin left to his 

 successors to explain, and variations are still a subject of much 

 investigation and discussion. 



