THE AMERICAN NATURALIST 



[Vol. L 



lished data leaves no alternative to this) I should reject it, and 

 this decision would not be influenced by the consideration that 

 Morgan, Doncaster, Johannsen and Plate accept it, because it 

 accords with the conception of the pure-line which they have 

 adopted. Authority does not count in science. Majorities do 

 not decide what is true. If they did, Mendelism would have 

 been false in 1868 and true in 1900. If Morgan and Johannsen 

 should next week decide against the pure line idea, as Jennings 

 has already done, what could the rest of us then do except change 

 our minds too, if we base our scientific judgments on authority 1 

 Dr. Pearl, I am sure, would be the last to advocate such an idea. 



I grant to Pearl the legitimacy of his method in attacking the 

 problem of the inheritance of fecundity and the necessity of estab- 

 lishing arbitrary categories of winter egg production in which 

 his birds are then classified. But I regret what seems to me to 

 be the needless restriction of his published data to the contents 

 of these categories. Pearl points out that I too have made use 

 of arbitrary categories in dealing with the rat statistics, but I 

 would call attention to this difference in our procedure. My cate- 

 gories, -f 1, -f 2, etc., are indeed arbitrary, but I have not limited 

 the reader's information to their contents. I have published the 

 data in such form that the reader may, if he chooses, form new 

 categories with different inclusiveness, subdividing each category 

 and then subdividing these again down to the lowest limit of 

 observation which can be made with certainty. Pearl has not 

 made it possible for us thus to deal with his data. We may take 

 it or leave it, but we can not change it. We have no means of 

 knowing how many pullets laid 1-10 eggs in their first winter, 

 how many laid 11-20, or 21^0 eggs. In what particular are 

 these original records" which Pearl withholds "valuable" ex- 

 cept as proof of the conclusions which he sees fit to base on them? 

 It he decides, as announced, that the data are not to become pub- 

 lic property until he has finished his own study of them, he is 

 .well wrthin his rights, but what is the hurry about forcing the 

 conclusions upon a waiting public? Would not the public be 

 stifled in deferring its decision as to the validity of those con- 

 elusions until data as well as conclusions are available? 



i earl seeks to offset his own sin of omission bv charging a like 

 ottence upon me, maintaining that the scientific public withholds 

 acceptance from my conclusions concerning the rat selection ex- 

 penments solely because I have never presented my results "in 



