448 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1451 



Professor Egbert Morris Ogden, of Cor- 

 nell University, has been appointed lecturer on 

 education at Harvard University for the second 

 half of the academic year 1922-23. 



Dr. Uhlenhuth, director of the Behring 

 Institute for Experimental Therapy in Mar- 

 burg, has received a call to the chair of hygiene 

 in Bonn, as the successor of Professor Neu- 

 mann, who has accepted the position left vacant 

 in Hamburg by the death of Professor Dunbar. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPOND- 

 ENCE 

 THE PRODUCTION OF SPECIES 



To THE Editor of Science: It is often re- 

 marked by biologists who have never studied 

 organisms in the field, that it is easy "to de- 

 velop forms at will indistinguishable from 

 actual species." 



To my mind, this is one of the most decep- 

 tive of the anti-Darwinian heresies. A species 

 is not merely a foi-m or group of individuals 

 distinguished from other groups by definable 

 features. A complete definition involves 

 longevity. A species is a kind of animal or 

 plant which has run the gauntlet of the ages 

 and persisted. Spreading across or around 

 barriers, a species may break up into parallel 

 or geminate species, each having run a special 

 gauntlet of its own, its primitive qualities 

 altering through selection, usually slowly, in 

 the progress of the centuries. A new form 

 inaugurated through change of surroundings, 

 through persistent selection and segregation, or 

 through hybridization, is not a "species" until 

 it can hold its own with the rest. None of the 

 created "new species" of plant or animal I 

 know of would last five years in the open, nor 

 is there the slightest evidence that any new 

 species of field or forest or ocean ever orig- 

 inated from mutation, discontinuous variation 

 or hybridization. 



Garden or greenhouse products are im- 

 mensely interesting and instructive, but they 

 throw little light on the origin of species. To 

 call them species is like calling dress-parade 

 cadets "soldiers." I have heard this definition 

 of a soldier — "one that has stood." It is easy 

 to trick out a group of boys to look like sol- 

 diers, but you can not define them as such until 



they have "stood." A greenhouse variant is 

 easily secured; with some plants excessive vari- 

 ability is itself a specific character. But tem- 

 porary variations have no taxonomic value. A 

 form is not a species until it has "stood." 



The production of species from ancestral 

 forms is a process which has striking analogies 

 to the formation of words from older roots. 

 It is easy to make a new word, as a variant or 

 mutation from an older root, or even to create 

 one without a root. But these creations are 

 not words. They do not get into the dictiona- 

 ries until they have "stood." They must have 

 held their own in the gauntlet of speech which 

 every word has to run. The new words may 

 look as good as old ones. Riley's "gems tliat 

 laugh hysteric lights, the glitteiing quespar, 

 guenk and pleocynth," sound technical enough, 

 but these are freaks of the poet, not real words. 

 Being artificial and unreal they are not actual 

 words, never having "stood" in the linguistic 

 struggle for existence. 



David Starr Jordan 



THE TEACHING OF EVOLUTION 



Eeaders of Professor Pickett's article on 

 "The Teaching of Evolution"^ will agree that 

 "the teaching of science, particularly of biology 

 or related subjects, in the high school is the 

 chief area of stress." The teaching of intro- 

 ductory biology demands great tact, and, of 

 course, not all teachers have tact. However, 

 the responsibility for the conflict between reli- 

 gious teaching and scientific teaching can not be 

 placed on those teachers. 



Opposition to the doctrine of evolution by 

 Mr. Bryan and those of similar views is not 

 opposition to what Professor Pickett calls the- 

 ories of evolution. It is opposition to the doc- 

 trine of evolution in any form whatever. The 

 dispute between Neo-Danvinian and Neo- 

 Lamarkian does not interest them except as 

 cause for encouragement. To them Darwinism 

 means evolution, nothing more. With an un- 

 bending mind they recognize disagreement be- 

 tween the plain literal biblical account of crea- 

 tion and tlie doctrine of evolution. They em- 

 brace the former and are unable to accept any 

 of the compromises that have been offered. 



1 Science, September 15, 1922, LVI, 298. 



