| Evolution |
| Finding Design in Nature |
| July 7, 2005 Finding Design in Nature |
| New York Times |
| By CHRISTOPH SCHÖNBORN Vienna |
| EVER since 1996, when Pope John Paul II said that evolution (a term he did not define) was "more than just a hypothesis," defenders of neo-Darwinian dogma have often invoked the supposed acceptance - or at least acquiescence - of the Roman Catholic Church when they defend their theory as somehow compatible with Christian faith. |
| But this is not true. The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things. |
| Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science. |
| Consider the real teaching of our beloved John Paul. While his rather vague and unimportant 1996 letter about evolution is always and everywhere cited, we see no one discussing these comments from a 1985 general audience that represents his robust teaching on nature: |
| "All the observations concerning the development of life lead to a similar conclusion. The evolution of living beings, of which science seeks to determine the stages and to discern the mechanism, presents an internal finality which arouses admiration. This finality which directs beings in a direction for which they are not responsible or in charge, obliges one to suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator." |
| He went on: "To all these indications of the existence of God the Creator, some oppose the power of chance or of the proper mechanisms of matter. To speak of chance for a universe which presents such a complex organization in its elements and such marvelous finality in its life would be equivalent to giving up the search for an explanation of the world as it appears to us. In fact, this would be equivalent to admitting effects without a cause. It would be to abdicate human intelligence, which would thus refuse to think and to seek a solution for its problems." |
| Note that in this quotation the word "finality" is a philosophical term synonymous with final cause, purpose or design. In comments at another general audience a year later, John Paul concludes, "It is clear that the truth of faith about creation is radically opposed to the theories of materialistic philosophy. These view the cosmos as the result of an evolution of matter reducible to pure chance and necessity." |
| Naturally, the authoritative Catechism of the Catholic Church agrees: "Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason." It adds: "We believe that God created the world according to his wisdom. It is not the product of any necessity whatever, nor of blind fate or chance." |
| In an unfortunate new twist on this old controversy, neo-Darwinists recently have sought to portray our new pope, Benedict XVI, as a satisfied evolutionist. They have quoted a sentence about common ancestry from a 2004 document of the International Theological Commission, pointed out that Benedict was at the time head of the commission, and concluded that the Catholic Church has no problem with the notion of "evolution" as used by mainstream biologists - that is, synonymous with neo-Darwinism. |
| The commission's document, however, reaffirms the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of design in nature. Commenting on the widespread abuse of John Paul's 1996 letter on evolution, the commission cautions that "the letter cannot be read as a blanket approbation of all theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which explicitly deny to divine providence any truly causal role in the development of life in the universe." |
| Furthermore, according to the commission, "An unguided evolutionary process - one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence - simply cannot exist." |
| Indeed, in the homily at his installation just a few weeks ago, Benedict proclaimed: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary." |
| Throughout history the church has defended the truths of faith given by Jesus Christ. But in the modern era, the Catholic Church is in the odd position of standing in firm defense of reason as well. In the 19th century, the First Vatican Council taught a world newly enthralled by the "death of God" that by the use of reason alone mankind could come to know the reality of the Uncaused Cause, the First Mover, the God of the philosophers. |
| Now at the beginning of the 21st century, faced with scientific claims like neo-Darwinism and the multiverse hypothesis in cosmology invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science, the Catholic Church will again defend human reason by proclaiming that the immanent design evident in nature is real. Scientific theories that try to explain away the appearance of design as the result of "chance and necessity" are not scientific at all, but, as John Paul put it, an abdication of human intelligence. |
| Christoph Schönborn, the Roman Catholic cardinal archbishop of Vienna, was the lead editor of the official 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church. |
| One of the most important questions for every educated Catholic of today is: What is to be thought of the theory of evolution? Is it to be rejected as unfounded and inimical to Christianity, or is it to be accepted as an established theory altogether compatible with the principles of a Christian conception of the universe? |
| We must carefully distinguish between the different meanings of the words theory of evolution in order to give a clear and correct answer to this question. We must distinguish (1) between the theory of evolution as a scientific hypothesis and as a philosophical speculation; (2) between the theory of evolution as based on theistic principles and as based on a materialistic and atheistic foundation; (3) between the theory of evolution and Darwinism; (4) between the theory of evolution as applied to the vegetable and animal kingdoms and as applied to man. |
| (1) Scientific Hypothesis vs. Philosophical Speculation |
| As a scientific hypothesis, the theory of evolution seeks to determine the historical succession of the various species of plants and of animals on our earth, and, with the aid of palæontology and other sciences, such as comparative morphology, embryology, and bionomy, to show how in the course of the different geological epochs they gradually evolve from their beginnings by purely natural causes of specific development. The theory of evolution, then, as a scientific hypothesis, does not consider the present species of plants and of animals as forms directly created by God, but as the final result of an evolution from other species existing in former geological periods. Hence it is called "the theory of evolution", or "the theory of descent", since it implies the descent of the present from extinct species. This theory is opposed to the theory of constancy, which assumes the immutability of organic species. The scientific theory of evolution, therefore, does not concern itself with the origin of life. It merely inquires into the genetic relations of systematic species, genera, and families, and endeavours to arrange them according to natural series of descent (genetic trees). |
| How far is the theory of evolution based on observed facts? It is understood to be still only an hypothesis. The formation of new species is directly observed in but a few cases, and only with reference to such forms as are closely related to each other; for instance, the systematic species of the plant-genus Œnothera, and of the beetle-genus Dimarda. It is, however, not difficult to furnish an indirect proof of great probability for the genetic relation of many systematic species to each other and to fossil forms, as in the genetic development of the horse (Equidæ), of ammonites, and of many insects, especially of those that dwell as "guests" with ants and termites, and have adapted themselves in many ways to their hosts. Upon comparing the scientific proofs for the probability of the theory of evolution, we find that they grow the more numerous and weighty, the smaller the circle of forms under consideration, but become weaker and weaker, if we include a greater number of forms, such as are comprised in a class or in a sub-kingdom. There is, in fact, no evidence whatever for the common genetic descent of all plants and animals from a single primitive organism. Hence the greater number of botanists and zoologists regard a polygenetic (polyphyletic) evolution as much more acceptable than a monogenetic (monophyletic). At present, however, it is impossible to decide how many independent genetic series must be assumed in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. This is the gist of the theory of evolution as a scientific hypothesis. It is in perfect agreement with the Christian conception of the universe; for Scripture does not tell us in what form the present species of plants and of animals were originally created by God. As early as 1877 Knabenbauer stated "that there is no objection, so far as faith is concerned, to assuming the descent of all plant and animal species from a few types" (Stimmen aus Maria Laach, XIII, p. 72). |
| Passing now to the theory of evolution as a philosophical speculation, the history of the plant and animal kingdoms upon our globe is but a small part of the history of the entire earth. Similarly, the geological development of our earth constitutes but a small part of the history of the solar system and of the universe. The theory of evolution as a philosophical conception considers the entire history of the cosmos as an harmonious development, brought about by natural laws. This conception is in agreement with the Christian view of the universe. God is the Creator of heaven and earth. If God produced the universe by a single creative act of His will, then its natural development by laws implanted in it by the Creator is to the greater glory of His Divine power and wisdom. St. Thomas says: "The potency of a cause is the greater, the more remote the effects to which it extends." (Summa c. Gent., III, c. lxxvi); and Suarez: "God does not interfere directly with the natural order, where secondary causes suffice to produce the intended effect" (De opere sex dierum, II, c. x, n. 13). In the light of this principle of the Christian interpretation of nature, the history of the animal and vegetable kingdoms on our planet is, as it were, a versicle in a volume of a million pages in which the natural development of the cosmos is described, and upon whose title-page is written: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." |
| (2) Theistic vs. Atheistic Theories of Evolution |
| The theory of evolution just stated rests on a theistic foundation. In contradistinction to this is another theory resting on a materialistic and atheistic basis, the first principle of which is the denial of a personal Creator. This atheistic theory of evolution is ineffectual to account for the first beginning of the cosmos or for the law of its evolution, since it acknowledges neither creator nor lawgiver. Natural science, moreover, has proved that spontaneous generation–i.e. the independent genesis of a living being from non-living matter–contradicts the facts of observation. For this reason the theistic theory of evolution postulates an intervention on the part of the Creator in the production of the first organisms. When and how the first seeds of life were implanted in matter, we, indeed, do not know. The Christian theory of evolution also demands a creative act for the origin of the human soul, since the soul cannot have its origin in matter. The atheistic theory of evolution, on the contrary, rejects the assumption of a soul separate from matter, and thereby sinks into blank materialism. |
| (3) The Theory of Evolution vs. Darwinism |
| Darwinism and the theory of evolution are by no means equivalent conceptions. The theory of evolution was propounded before Charles Darwin's time, by Lamarck (1809) and Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. Darwin, in 1859, gave it a new form by endeavouring to explain the origin of species by means of natural selection. According to this theory the breeding of new species depends on the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. The Darwinian theory of selection is Darwinism–adhering to the narrower, and accurate, sense of the word. As a theory, it is scientifically inadequate, since it does not account for the origin of attributes fitted to the purpose, which must be referred back to the interior, original causes of evolution. Haeckel, with other materialists, has enlarged this selection theory of Darwin's into a philosophical world-idea, by attempting to account for the whole evolution of the cosmos by means of the chance survival of the fittest. This theory is Darwinism in the secondary, and wider, sense of the word. It is that atheistical form of the theory of evolution which was shown above–under (2)–to be untenable. The third signification of the term Darwinism arose from the application of the theory of selection to man, which is likewise impossible of acceptance. In the fourth place, Darwinism frequently stands, in popular usage, for the theory of evolution in general. This use of the word rests on an evident confusion of ideas, and must therefore be set aside. |
| (4) Human Evolution vs. Plant and Animal Evolution |
| To what extent is the theory of evolution applicable to man? That God should have made use of natural, evolutionary, original causes in the production of man's body, is per se not improbable, and was propounded by St. Augustine (see AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, SAINT, under V. Augustinism in History). The actual proofs of the descent of man's body from animals is, however, inadequate, especially in respect to paleontology. And the human soul could not have been derived through natural evolution from that of the brute, since it is of a spiritual nature; for which reason we must refer its origin to a creative act on the part of God. |
| For a thorough exposition, WASMANN, Modern Biology and the Theory of Evolution (Freiburg im Br., 1904). Of the older literature, MIVART, On the Genesis of Species (London and New York, 1871). |
| E. Wasmann |
| Transcribed by WGKofron |
| With thanks to St. Mary's Church, Akron, Ohio |
| The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume V |
| Copyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton Company |
| Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Knight |
| Nihil Obstat, May 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor |
| Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York |
| The Catholic Encyclopedia: www.NewAdvent.org |
| (History and Scientific Foundation) |
| The world of organisms comprises a great system of individual forms generally classified according to structural resemblances into kingdoms, classes, orders, families, genera, species. The species is considered as the unit of the system. It is designated by a double name, the first of which indicates the genus, e.g. canis familiaris, the dog, and canis lupus, the wolf. Comparing the species of the present day with their fossil representatives in the geological layers, we find that they differ from one another the more the farther we retrace the geological record. To explain this remarkable fact two theories have been proposed, the one maintaining the stability and special creation of species, the other the instability and evolution, or genetic relation, of species. As is plain from the preceding section of this article, the principal difference between the two theories consists in this: that the theory of evolution derives the species of today by a progressive development from one or more primitive types, whilst the theory of constancy insists upon the special creation of each true species. It is generally admitted that the determination of genetic forms depends largely on the subjective views and experience of the naturalist. |
| We shall here continue our attention to the history and scientific foundations of the biological theory of evolution, leaving all purely philosophical and theological discussions to others. The entire subject will here be divided into the following parts: I. HISTORY OF THE SCIENTIFIC THEORIES OF EVOLUTION; II. DEFINITION OF SPECIES; III. VARIABILITY AND EXPERIMENTAL FACTS RELATING TO THE EVOLUTION OF SPECIES; IV. THE PALÆONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT; V. THE MORPHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT; VI. THE ONTOGENETIC ARGUMENT; VII. THE BIOGEOGRAPHICAL ARGUMENT. |
| Before we begin, we wish to remind the reader of the important distinction brought out in the preceding essay, that the general theory referring to the mere fact of evolution must be well distinguished from all special theories which attempt to explain the assumed fact by ascribing it to certain causes, such as natural selection, the influence of environment, and the like. In other words, an evolutionist–that is, a defender of the general scientific theory of evolution–is not eo ipso a Darwinian, or a Lamarckian, or an adherent of any special evolutionary system. No less important are the other definitions and distinctions emphasized above under A. |
| I. HISTORY OF THE SCIENTIFIC THEORIES OF EVOLUTION |
| The historical development of the scientific theories of evolution may be divided into three periods. The main figure of the first period is Lamarck. The period ends with an almost complete victory of the theory of constancy (1830). The second period commences with Darwin's "Origin of Species" (1859). The idea of evolution, and in particular Darwin's theory of natural selection, enters into every department of the biological sciences and to a great extent transforms them. The third period is a time of critical reaction. Natural selection is generally considered as insufficient to explain the origin of new characters, while the ideas of Lamarck and G. Saint-Hilaire become prevalent. Besides, the theory of evolution is tested experimentally. Typical representatives of the period are Bateson, Hugo de Vries, Morgan. |
| First Period.–Linnæus based his important "Systema naturæ" on the principle of the constancy and special creation of every species–"Species tot numeranus quot diversæ formæ in principio sunt creatæ" ("Philosophia botanica", Stockholm, 1751, p. 99). For, "contemplating the works of God, it is plain to every one that organisms produce offspring perfectly similar to the parents" ("Systems", Leipzig, 1748, p. 21). Linnæus had a vast influence upon the naturalists of his time. Thus his principle of the constancy of species was universally acknowledged, and this all the more because it seemed to be connected with the first chapter of the Bible. Georges Louis Leclerc Buffon (1707- 88), the "suggestive" author of the "Histoire naturelle générale et particuliére", was the first to dispute the Linnæan dogma on scientific grounds. Till 1761 he had defended the theory of constancy, but he then became an extreme evolutionist, and finally held that through the direct influence of environment species could undergo manifold modifications of structure. Similar views were expressed by the German Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus in his work "Biologie oder Philosophie der lebenden Natur" (1802), and by "the poet of evolution", J. W. Goethe (1749-1832). However, none of these men worked out the details of a definite theory. The same must be said of the grandfather of Charles Darwin, Erasmus Darwin (1731- 1802), physician, poet, and naturalist, the first who seems to have anticipated Lamarck's main views. "All animals undergo transformations which are in part produced by their own exertions in response to pleasures and pains, and many of these acquired forms and propensities are transmitted to their posterity" (Zoonomia,a 1794). Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (b. 1744) was the scientific founder of the modern theory of evolution and its special form, known as Lamarckism. At the age of forty-nine Lamarck was elected professor of invertebrate zoology at the Jardin des Plantes (Paris). In 1819 he became completely blind, and died ten years later in great poverty and neglected by his contemporaries, socially and scientifically. The main ideas of his theory are contained in his "Philosophie zoologique" (1809) and his "Histoire des animaux sans vertèbres" (1816-22). Lamarck disputes the immutability of specific characters and denies that there is any objective criterion for determining, with any degree of accuracy, which forms ought to be considered as true species. Consequently, according to him, the name species has only a relative value. It refers to a collection of similar individuals "que la génération perpétue dans le même état tant que les circonstances de leur situation ne changent pas assez pour fair varier leurs habitudes, leur charactère et leur forme" (Phil. zool., I, p. 75). But how are species transformed into new species? As to plants, Lamarck believes that all changes of structure and function are due to the direct influence of environment. In animals the changed conditions of the environment first call forth new wants and new activities. New habits and instincts will be produced, and through use and disuse organs may be strengthened or weakened, newly adapted to the requirements of new functions, or made to disappear. The acquired changes are handed down to the offspring by the strong principle of inheritance. Thus the web in the feet of water birds was acquired through use, while the so-called rudimentary organs, e.g. the teeth of the baleen whale, the small eyes of the mole, were reduced to their imperfect condition through disuse. Lamarck did not include the origin of man in his system. He expressed his belief in abiogenesis, but he maintained at the same time that "rien n'existe que par la volouté du sublime Auteur de toutes choses" (Phil. zool., I, p. 56). |
| Lamarck's theory was not sufficiently supported by facts. Besides, it offered no satisfactory explanation of the origin and development of new organs, though he did not ascribe the effect to a mere wish of the animal. Finally, he offered no proof whatever for his position that acquired characters are inherited. Lamarck had very little influence upon his own time. Shortly after his death the famous discussion took place between Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier. As professor of vertebrate zoology Saint-Hilaire (1722-1844) had long been the colleague of Lamarck. Saint- Hilaire held the mutability of species, but ascribed the main influence in its evolution to the "monde ambiant". Besides, in order to account for the discontinuity of species, he imagined that the environment could produce sudden changes in the specific characters of the embryo (Philosophie anatomique, 1818). In 1830 G. Saint-Hilaire presented to the French Academy of Sciences his doctrine of the universal unity of plan and composition in the animal kingdom. Cuvier opposed it with his celebrated theory of the four "embranchements", and showed that his adversary had mistaken resemblance for unity. Cuvier brought convincing facts in support of his attitude; Saint-Hilaire did not. That settled the issue. The theory of evolution was officially abandoned. Naturalists left speculation and returned for a few decades to an almost exclusive study of positive facts. A single writer of some celebrity, Bory de Saint-Vincent (1789-1846), took up Lamarck's doctrines, but not without modifying them by insisting upon the final constancy of specific characters through heredity. Isidore Saint-Hilaire (1805-61), who shared the views of his father concerning environment and heredity, defended a very moderate theory of evolution. He assumed a limited variability of species according to the variability of the environment. |
| Second Period.–Charles Robert Darwin's book, on the "Origin of Species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life", published 24 November, 1859, marks a new epoch in the history of the evolution idea. Though the principal factors of Darwin's theory, namely "struggle, variation, selection", had been enunciated by others, it was mainly Darwin who first continued them into a system which he tried to support by an extensive empirical foundation. Assisted by a number of influential friends, he succeeded in obtaining an almost universal acknowledgment for the general theory of evolution, though his special theory of natural selection gradually lost much of the significance attached to it, especially by Darwin's extreme followers. Charles Robert Darwin was born at Shrewsbury, 22 February, 1899. From 1831-36 he accompanied as naturalist an English scientific expedition to South America. In 1842 he retired to his villa at Down in Kent, where he wrote his numerous works. He died on 19 April, 1882, and was buried in Westminster Abbey a few feet from the grave of Newton. Biogeographical observations on his voyage to South America led Darwin to abandon the theory of special creation. "I had been deeply impressed", he says in his Autobiography, "by discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil animals covered with armour like that on the existing armadillos; secondly by the manner in which closely allied animals replace one another in proceeding southward over the continent; and thirdly by the South American character of most of the productions of the Galapagos archipelago and more especially by the manner in which they differ slightly on each island of the group.… It was evident that such facts could only be explained on the supposition that species gradually became modified." In order to account for the transformation, Darwin began with a systematic study of numerous facts referring to domesticated animals and cultivated plants. This was in July, 1837. He soon perceived that selection was the keystone of man's success in making useful races, namely, by breeding only from useful variations. But it remained a mystery to him how selections could be applied to organisms living in nature. In October, 1838, Darwin read Malthus's "Essay on Population" and understood at once that in the struggle for existence described by Malthus "favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed, and that the result of this selection or survival would be the formation of new species". The struggle itself appeared to him as a necessary consequence of the high rate at which organic beings tend to increase. The result of the selection–that is the survival of the fittest variations–was supposed to be transmitted and accumulated through the principle of inheritance. In this manner Darwin defined and tried to establish the theory of natural selection. Long after he had come to Down he added an important complement to it. The formation of new species implies that organic beings tend to diverge in character as they become modified. But how could this be explained? Darwin answered: Because the modified offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become adapted to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature. In short, according to Darwin, species are continuously transformed "by the preservation of such variations as arise and are beneficial to the being under its conditions of life", that is, by the survival of the fittest, which is to be considered "not the exclusive", but the "most important means of modification". |
| As his studies and observations progressed, Darwin lost his almost exclusive belief in his own theory, as he held it in 1859, and gradually adopted, at least as secondary causes in the origin of species, the Lamarck factor of the inheritance of the effects of use and disuse and the Buffon factor of the direct action of the environment, especially in case of the geographical isolation of species. As to the human species, Darwin was, as early as 1837 or 1838, of the opinion that it was likewise no special creation, but a product of evolutionary processes. The numerous facts which, according to Darwin, might be adapted to substantiate his views are contained in his work, "The Descent of Man" (1871). As a supplementary work to "The Origin of Species", Darwin published, in 1868, "The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication", which contains many valuable facts and theoretical discussions concerning variation and heredity. The principle of natural selection is certainly a very useful factor in removing variations not well adapted to their surroundings, but the action is merely negative. The main point (that is the origin and teleological development of useful variations) is left untouched by the theory, as Darwin himself has indicated. Moreover, no proof is brought forward that variations must accumulate in the same direction and that the result must be a higher form of organization. On the contrary, as we shall point out below, the experimental evidence of the post-Darwinian period has failed to substantiate Darwin's claim. It is, however, well to note that Darwin did not wish to ascribe the origin and survival of useful variations to chance. That word, he declares, is a wholly incorrect expression which merely serves to acknowledge plainly our ignorance of the cause of each particular variation. Later on, it is true, he seems to have abandoned the idea of design. "The old argument", he says in his "Autobiography" (1876) … "fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered." Similarly, his belief in the existence of God, which was strong in him when he wrote the "Origin", seems to have vanished from his mind in the course of years. In 1874 he confessed: "I for one must be content to remain Agnostic". |
| Of the numerous friends of Darwin who contributed so much to the development and spread of his theories, we mention in the first place Alfred Russel Wallace, whose essay on natural selection was read before the Linnæan Society, in London, 1 July, 1858, together with Darwin's first essay on the subject. The main work of Wallace, "Darwinism, an Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection with Some of its Applications" (1889), "treats the problem of the origin of species on the same general lines as were adopted by Darwin; but from the standpoint reached after nearly 30 years of discussion." In fact the book is a defence of pure Darwinism. Wallace, too, assumed the animal origin of man's bodily structure, but, contrary to Darwin, he ascribed the origin of man's "intellectual and moral faculties to the unseen Universe of spirit" (Darwinism). Thomas H. Huxley (1825-1895) was one of the most strenuous defenders of Darwin's views; his book on "Man's Place in Nature" (1863) is a defence of man's "Oneness with the brutes in structure and in substance". Besides Wallace and Huxley, there were the geologist Sir Charles Lyell, the zoologist Sir John Lubbock, and the botanists Asa Gray and J. D. Hooker, who supported Darwin's theory almost from the beginning. Quatrefuges and Dana accepted it in part, but declared that there were no arguments in favour of the animal origin of man. Spencer's views are not very much different from those of Darwin's later years. Natural selection is more aptly called by him "the survival of the fittest" ("Principles of Biology", 1898, I, p. 530). Trying to harmonize the Lamarckian and Darwinian factors of evolution, he was among the first to defend the so-called neo-Lamarckian theory, which insists upon the direct influence of the environment and the inheritance of newly acquired characters. |
| Before we enter upon the last phase in the development of the evolution idea, it is necessary to devote some space to the extreme defenders of Darwinism in Germany. Ernst Haeckel, of Jena, is in some sense the founder of the science of phylogeny, which seeks at least by way of hypothesis, to determine the genetic relation of past and present species. In 1868 Darwin wrote to Haeckel: "Your boldness makes me sometimes tremble". This refers especially to the phylogeny, which is in fact an aprioristic structure often contradicted, and at almost no point supported, by experiment and observation. The tetrahedral carbon atom is, according to Haeckel, the external fountain head of all organic life. Through abiogenesis certain most primitive organisms are said to have been formed, such as "moners", which Haeckel described as unicellular beings without structure and without any nuclear differentiation. During ages of unknown duration these simple masses of protoplasm have been evolved into higher plants and animals, man included. As one of his main arguments, Haeckel refers to the so-called "biogenetic law of development". The supposed law maintains that ontogeny is a short and rapid repetition of phylogeny, that is, the stages in the individual development of an organism correspond more or less to the stages which the species passed through in their evolution. The causes of development are, according to Haeckel, the same as were proposed by Darwin and by Lamarck; but Haeckel denies the existence of God and rejects the idea of teleology. |
| Our leading scientists do not care to support the unfounded generalities of Haeckel's doctrines. They have even, most severely, but justly, censured Haeckel's scientific methods, mainly his frauds, his want of distinction between fact and hypothesis, his neglect to correct wrong statements, his disregard of facts not agreeing with his aprioristic conceptions and his unacquaintance with history, physics, and even modern biology. They have also pointed out that the biogenetic law of development is by no means a trustworthy guide in retracing the phylogenetic succession of species, and that many other theories suggested by Haeckel are without foundation. But above all we must reject Haeckel's popular writings because they contain numerous errors of every kind, and ridicule in a shameful manner the most sacred convictions and moral principles of Christianity. It is a sad fact, that especially through the influence of "Die Welträtsel" great harm was done to religion and morality, especially in Germany and in the English-speaking countries. |
| The present leader of extreme Darwinism is August Weismann of Freiburg (Vortrage über Descendenztheorie, 2d ed., 1904), the energetic opponent of Lamarck's idea that acquired characters are inherited. According to Weismann, every individual and specific character which may be transmitted by heredity is preformed and prearranged in the architecture of certain ultra-microscopical particles comprising the chromatin of the germ-cells. On account of qualitative differences the various groups of these ultimate particles or "biophores" have a different power of assimilation. Besides, they are present in different numbers. In consequence thereof an intracellular struggle for existence will arise, especially after the germ-cells are united in fertilization. The outcome of the struggle will be that the weaker particles always or at times succumb. Thus the principle of the survival of the fittest is transferred to the germ-cells. Weismann, moreover, admits an indirect influence of the environment upon the germ-cells. In order to account for the facts of regeneration and reorganization established by Driesch, Morgan, and others, Weismann appeals at times to unknown forces of vital affinities, without, however, dismissing his thoroughly materialistic and antiteleological suppositions. It will be superfluous to add that Weismann's theory is a mere hypothesis whose foundation can probably never be controlled by observation and experiment. But it must be acknowledged that Weismann was among the first to point out the intrinsic connection between the evolution of species and the science of the cell. As extreme scientific opponents of Darwinism and evolution we mention above all the botanist Albert Wiegand and the zoologist and palæontologist Louis Agassiz, the well-known adversary of Asa Gray. These men produced many an excellent argument against the extreme defenders of pure Darwinism, but probably by attending too much to the exceedingly weak foundations of the current theory of the general development by small changes, they rejected evolution almost entirely. The most recent representative of such extreme views is the zoologist Albert Fleischmann, who has become a complete scientific agnostic. |
| Third Period.–The third period in the history of the biological evolution theory has only in recent years assumed the form which marks it as a new epoch. Its path was prepared by the fact that two classes of naturalists had in course of time been drawing nearer to one another. On the one hand were those whose work was mererly critical, by discriminating clearly between Darwinism and evolution, and on the other hand those who gave their undivided attention to the work of experimental investigation. Only in recent years have the two classes joined hands and, in men like de Vries, Bateson, Morgan, have gained very efficient assistance. At the present time the greatest importance is laid on the explanation of the gaps in species, on the adaptation of organisms to environment, and on the inheritance of characters thus acquired, and above all on the idea of the segregation and the independence of biological characters, as was pointed out almost fifty years ago by Gregor Johann Mendel. |
| As far back as 1865, K. von Nägeli decided in favour of the general theory of evolution and against Darwinism. According to him progressive evolution required intrinsic laws of developmnent, which, however, as he added, were to be sought for in molecular forces. Natural selection alone could only eliminate, that is to say, could only explain the survival of the more useful, but not its origin. Like Spencer, Nägeli was a determined precursor of neo-Lamarckianism. This theory, which is now defended by many evolutionists, attempts to reconcile Lamarck's principle of the use and issue of organs with Saint-Hilaire's theory of the influence of external circumstances. There are many evolutionists, such as Th. Elmer, Packard, Cunningham, Cope, who defend this view. However, the experimental evidence for the foundation of neo-Lamarckianism–namely the inheritance of acquired characters–is still wanting, or at least strongly debated. Nägeli's most important work, "Mechanisch- physiologische Theorie der Abstammungslehre", appeared in 1884. The embryologist K. E. von Baer, who did not share the antiteleological views of Nägeli, opposed no less energetically Darwin's theory of natural selection, because, as he argued, that theory does not explain teleology and correlation, and is at the same time in contradiction to the persistence of species and varieties. He also vigorously controverted Haeckel's system, especially his biogenetic law of development. But he maintained the transformation of species within certain limits through the agency of gradual and sudden changes. This leads us to the theory of saltatory evolution which is today most strongly defended by Bateson, de Vries and others. Some of the first scientific expositors of this view were R. von Kölliker and St. George Mivart. In his work "On the Genesis of Species" (1871) Mivart proposed a number of convincing arguments against the opinion of the power of natural selection as a prevailing factor. According to him species are suddenly born and originate by some innate force, which works orderly and with design. Mivart concedes that external conditions play an important part in stimulating, evoking, and in some way determining evolutionary processes. But the transformation of species will mainly, if not exclusively, be produced by some constitutional affection of the generative system of the parental forms, an hypothesis which Mivart would extend also to the first genesis of the body of man. Hugo de Vries (Die Mutationstheorie, 1901-02) is, with Bateson, Reinke, and Morgan, a typical representative of the exponents of the modern theory of saltatory evolution. He first endeavoured to show experimentally that new species cannot arise by selection. Then he attempted to demonstrate the origin of new forms by saltatory evolution. The principal illustration to establish his theory of "mutation" was the large flower, evening primrose (Œnothera Lamarckiana). Th. H. Morgan ("Evolution and Adaptation", 1903) summarizes this view as follows: "If we suppose that new mutations and 'definitely' inherited variations suddenly appear, some of which will find an environment to which they are more or less well fitted, we can see how evolution may have gone on without assuming new species to have been formed through a process of competition. Nature's supreme test is survival. She makes new forms to bring them to this test through mutation and does not remodel old forms through a process of individual selection." We shall see that de Vries overrated the importance of his experiments. Still it is not to be denied that he has become through his method a master for the experimental investigation of the problems of evolution. Of special value is his analysis of the concept of species, though probably his greatest service is the rediscovery of Mendel's laws and their introduction into the realm of biological investigations. |
| The earliest forerunners of Mendel were the first scientific hybridists J. G. Köhlreuter (1733- 1806) and T. A. Knight (1758-1838). Köhlreuter's results are of special interest because, through the repeated crossing of a hybrid with the pollen or ovules of one of the parents, forms appeared which more and more reverted to the characteristics of the respective parent. K. F. von Gärtner (1772-1850) was the most prolific writer on hybridism of his time, though he did not surpass Köhlreuter as to the positive results of his experimental research. C. Naudin's essay on the hybridity in plants (1862) represented a considerable advance. The author pointed out that the facts of the reversion of the hybrids to the specific forms of their parents, when repeatedly crossed with the latter, are naturally explained by the hypothesis of the segregation of the two specific essences in the pollen grains and ovules of the hybrids (Leck). This formed in after years no small part of Mendel's discovery, which is indeed one of the most brilliant results of experimental investigation. |
| Gregor Mendel was born 22 July, 1822, at Heinzendorf near Odrau (Austrian Silesia). After finishing his studies he entered, in 1843, the Augustinian monastery at Brünn. Having been for fourteen years professor of the natural sciences, he was elected abbot of the monastery in 1868, and died in January, 1894. Mendel's celebrated memoir, "Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden", appeared in 1865, but attracted little attention, and remained unknown and forgotten till 1900. It was based on experiments that had been carried out during the course of eight years on more than 10,000 plants. The principal result of these experiments was the recognition that the peculiarities of organisms produced entities independent of one another, so that they can be joined and separated in a regular way. As we have said above, H. de Vries was the first to recognize the value of Mendel's paper. Other investigators who have taken up the same line of work are Correns, Tschermak, Morgan, and, most of all, Bateson, the principal founder of "Mendelism", or the science of genetics. |
| II. DEFINITION OF SPECIES |
| Before Linnæus's time genera were considered to be the units of the plant and animal kingdoms, and it was assumed these had been created by God, while the species were descended from them. By the nomen specificum was understood the more or less short description by which Tournefort and his contemporaries distinguished the various species of genera. Linnæus introduced the binomial system establishing the species as the unit of the organic world. There are as many species as there were different forms created in the beginning. The same theoretical norm had already been adopted before Linnæus by the English physician John Ray (died 1678). The practical criterion for determining genera and species was taken from characteristic morpholigical features. For instance, the essential generic characteristic of the quadrupeds was derived from the teeth; that of birds from the bill. The species was designated in a similar manner "by retaining the primary characteristic among the various differences which separated two individuals of the same species." The establishment therefore of a genus or of a species depended ultimately, then as now, on the knowledge and subjective views of the systematizer. The whole system was an artificial one precisely because it took note of one single feature alone, leaving the rest out of consideration; for instance, in the vegetable kingdom the character of the flower alone was taken into consideration. Later on Linnæus entertained the idea that originally God created only one species of each genus, and that the rest had been derived from these original species by cross-breeding. Linnæus's conception of species was strengthened by Georges Cuvier, who defended the unchangeableness of the categories beginning with the species up to the four types (embranchement). He was supported in this, as was later L. Agassiz, by the absolute dearth of intermediate forms in geological strata. Hence arose his Theory of Catastrophes, which in turn gave way to his Migration Theory. Cuvier came victorious out of the controversy with Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who maintained the unity of the plan of animal structure and the continuous transition of forms in the animal kingdom. |
| The views prevailing under Linnæus and Cuvier were then divided into two main branches. (1) The more moderate Transmutationists held that genera were the originally created units, and that from these all species and varieties were derived. (2) The followers of Linnæus, on the other hand, affirmed that the Linnæan species were the created units, and the subdivisions of these were the derived ones. Then followed the Jordan schools, which asserted that within the Linnæan species were what they called "small species", individually variable, but specifically immutable (not connected by intermediate forms), and, as such, to be considered the true units or "elementary species". Linnæus's Draba verna, for instance, comprehends about 200 "elementary species". The norm or criterion of the elementary species is the experimentally proved constancy of the features (it is quite immaterial how small they may be) during a series of generations. |
| How are we to regard these opinions? Before answering this question we must strongly emphasize the fact that the biological idea of species has nothing whatever in common with the Scriptural conception or with that of Scholastic philosophy. The Mosaic story of Creation signifies nothing more than this, that ultimately all organisms owe their existence to the Creator of the world. The concrete how has nothing to do with the proposition of faith regarding creation. The enumeration of certain popular groups of organisms, such as fruit-trees, draft-animals, and the like, could have no other design than to manifest to the simplest as well as to the most cultivated mind the action of the Creator of all things; at least, there can be no question of a scientific conception of genera and species. The biological concept of species is likewise removed from the philosophical concept which designates either the metaphysical or the physical species. The former is identical with the integra essentia (Urraburú)–"integral essence"–of a being; the latter is founded on the essence (fundatur in essentiâ–T. Pesch), and is to be recognized by some attribute (gradus alicujus perfectionis) which remains constant and unchangeable in every individual of every generation and so appears to be necessarily connected with the most intimate essence of the organism (necessario cum rei naturâ connecti–Haan). The concept, therefore, of species according to Holy Scripture, Philosophy, and Science, is by no means a synonymous one for the natural units of the organic world. And particularly, the first chapter of Genesis should not be brought into connection with Linnæus's "Systema naturæ". |
| As far as the biological concept of species is concerned there is not up to the present time any decisive criterion by which we may determine in practice whether a given group of organisms constitute a particular species or not. Genuine species are differentiated from one another by the fact of their possessing some important morpholigical difference which remains constant during a series of generations without the production of any intermediate form. If the differences are of less importance, but constant, we speak of sub-species (elementary species, Jordan species), while intermediate forms and all deviations which are not strictly constant are set down as varieties. Are such distinctions and criteria acceptable? Expressions such as "considerable", "essential", "more or less considerable" signify relative propositions. Hence it follows that the morphological determination of species depends to a great extent on the subjective estimate of the naturalist and on his intimate knowledge of the geographical distribution and habits of the organism concerned. In fact, the force of the term species differs greatly in the different classes of organisms. On this account the fact that species do not cross- breed, or at least that after a cross they do not produce fertile descendants, was added as an auxiliary criterion. This criterion, however, is an impracticaable one in the case of palæontological species, and in the plant world in particular has many exceptions. In botany, therefore, the auxiliary criterion has been limited in the sense that within the species itself the fertility always maintains the same general level, while by the crossing of different species it diminishes very materially–propositions which do not admit of conversion and in their generalization can scarcely be called correct. Consequently, it would almost appear that Darwin was right when he said that the idea of species was "undefinable". Still, it is not to be denied that there are in nature definite and often important gradations and gaps by which the "good species", in contradistinction to the "bad species", are separated from one another. The same is also proved by the modern "mutation theories" which, on account of unconnected differences, admit a development of species by jumps. |
| The Darwinian principle of indefinite variability is contrary to facts, which in general show that both in living nature and in geological strata,a there exist types sharply discriminated from one another. However, it is quite impossible to say how many types compose the organic world. It will be the task of future research to determine the affinity which exists between the various groups of organisms, beginning with the lower limit of similar sub-species and ascending to the highest forms whose common ancestry can be proved. These highest forms, which per se have nothing in common with the Linnæan species or genera, or with any other systematic groups, are the true units of nature; for they are composed of those organisms only which are related among themselves without being connected with the rest by common descent. We may, if we wish, identify these highest units with Wasmann's "natural species", or primeval ancestral forms, but, according to our opinion, neither the Linnæan species nor any other of the so-called systematic groups can be considered as the natural subdivisions of it. The Linnæan species are indeed indispensable for an intelligible classification of organisms, but they are not suitable for the solution of the problems of development. In concluding this section we may add that the best example of a natural species, and one ratified by revelation, is the species Man, which, by reason of its wide range of variation and the relative constancy of its races, may offer many a happy point of comparison for defining the limits of the species in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. |
| In the following sections we shall see that there cannot be any doubt as to the evolution of species, if by species we understand such groups of organisms as are generally styled by botanists and zoologists systematic, or Linnæan species. But if by the term species we are to understand groups of organisms whose range of variability would correspond to that of "the human species", then we believe that up to the present day there are no clear facts in favour of specific evolution. In particular, it will be seen that thus far there is no evidence of fact as to an ascending development of organic forms, though we do not deny the possibility of it provided an innate power of development be assumed, which operates teleologically. |
| III. VARIATION AND EXPERIMENTAL FACTS RELATING TO THE EVOLUTION OF SPECIES |
| By variation we generally understand three groups of phenomena: (1) individual differences; (2) single variations; (3) forms produced by crossing and Mendelian segregation. The question is, what influence these variations actually have on the formation of species. |
| (1) Individual Differences. Individual differences include all fluctuating inequalities of an individual and of its organs–e.g., the size of the leaves of a tree, the percentage of sugar contained in the beet, and even more important morphological and physiological features. These differences may be quantitative (according to size and weight), meristic (as to numbers), and individually quantitative (e.g., the mountain and valley forms of a plant). They are generally recognized from the fact that they oscillate around a certain mean, from which they deviate in inverse proportion to their frequency, a rule which primarily pertains only to quantitative differences. According to Darwinians, useful individual differences can be increased indefinitely by selection and may finally become independent of it. In this manner new species would result: Darwin himself sometimes considered single variations as of greater importance. The same view is strongly defended by modern evolutionists, who defend, at the same time, a direct influence of environment to which an organism adapts itself. |
| In order first of all to obtain a just estimate of the influence of selection, it must be pointed out that not everything that is attributed to selection has originated through selection. The origin of many pure breeds (e. g., of pigeons) is unknown, and cannot therefore without further investigation be ascribed to selection. Furthermore, many cultivated forms have arisen through crosses and segregation of characters, but not through merely strengthening individual characters. If we restrict our examination only to well attested facts, we find, first, that nothing new is brought about by selection; secondly that the maximum amount in quantitative modification is obtained in a few generations (mostly in three to five) and that this amount can only be maintained through constant selection. In case selection is stopped, a regression will follow proportional to the length of time required for the progress. In short, as far as facts teach us, new species do not arise by selection. But if qualitative changes were produced by some other cause, selection would probably be a potent principle in order to explain why some peculiarities survive and others disappear. The question is: Whether changes in the environment may furnish such a cause. There can be no doubt that the environment does influence organisms and mould them in many ways. As proof of this we need only draw attention to the different forms of Alpine and valley plants, to the formation of the leaves of plants according to the humidity, shadiness, or sunniness of the habitat, to the influence of light and temperature on the formation of pigment and colouring of the surface, to the strange and considerable differences produced, for instance, in knotweeds by merely changing the environment, and so forth. But as far as actual experiments show, the changes of characteristics and niceties of adaptation go to and fro, as it were, without transgressing definite ranges of variation. Moreover, it is not at all clear how discontinuity of species could have arisen "by a continuous environment, whether acting directly, as Lamarck would have it, or as a selective agent, as Darwin would have it" (Bateson), unless one takes into account the accidental destruction and isolation of intermediate forms. |
| In spite of these conclusions it has been assumed that individual differences might lead to the formation of new species under the continuous influence of natural selection. Wasmann's well-known Dinarda-forms may serve as an example. The four forms of the rove-beetle, Dinarda, namely D. Mäkeli, D. dentata, D. Hagensi and D. pygmæa, bear a certain relation with regard to size to the four forms of ants, Formica rufa, sanguinea, exsecta, fusso-rufibarbis, and to their nests, in which they live as tolerated guests. D. Märkeli, which is 5 mm. long, dwells with F. rufa, which is comparatively large and builds spacious hill-nests. D. dentata, which is 4 mm. long, lives with F. sanguinea, which is comparatively large, but builds small earth-nests. D. Hagensi, which is 3-4 mm. long, lives with F. exserta, which is smaller than F. sanguinea, but builds a fairly roomy hill-nest. D. pygmæa, which is 3 mm. long, lives with F. fusso-rufibarbis, which is relatively small and builds small earth-nests. Moreover, the three first-named ants are two-coloured (red and black), and so are the corresponding Dinarda. The last-named ant, however, is of a more uniform dark colour, as is also the corresponding Dinarda. Now comparative zoogeography contains some indications according to which the similarity of colour and proportion of size must be attributed to actual adaptation. For (1) there are regions in Central Europe in which only F. sanguinæa with D. dentata, and F. rufa with D. Märkeli are found, whereas F. exserta and F. rufibarbis do not harbour any Dinarda- forms at all. Secondly, there are districts in which the four forms of Dinarda are living with their four hosts and yet hardly ever showing transitional forms. Thirdly, in other parts there are more or less continuous intermediate forms. D. Dentato- Hagensi living with F. exserta, and D. Hagensi- pygmæa living with F. fusco-rufibarbis. The nearer a Dinarda approaches the form of D. pygmæa, the more frequently it is found with F. fusco-rufibarbis. To all this must be added, that the adaptation in general appears to have kept pace with the historical freeing of Central Europe from ice, though numerous exceptions must be explained by local circumstances, especially by isolation. Considering these facts, we are inclined to believe that D. pygmæa especially presents an example of real adaptation in fiori, though this adaptation cannot be called a progressive one, since the more recent forms, Hagensi and pygmæa, are only smaller in size and of a more uniform colour. But at the same time it seems to us that the adaptation of the Dinarda cannot be considered as an example to illustate specific evolution, because, as we have shown elsewhere, there are many instances in nature–we mention only the races and other sub- divisions of the human species–that likewise present different degrees of adaptation far more pronounced than that found in the Dinarda, but which are not, and cannot on that account be, quoted as examples of the formation of new specific characters. |
| (2) Single Variations are presumably of far greater importance for the solution of the evolution problem than individual differences; for they are discontinuous and constant, and are therefore capable of explaining the gaps between existing species and those of palæontology. We use the term single variation when, from among a large number of offspring, some one particular individual stands out that differs from the rest in one or more characteristics which it transmits unchanged to posterity. It is said to be peculiar to the single variations that they cannot be reduced to crosses. If this is possible, we speak of "analytical variations". Favourable conditions for the appearance of single variations are altered environment, a liberal sowing of seed, and excellent nourishment. It is a remarkable fact that the fertility of single variations decreases considerably, and this the more so the greater the deviation from the parents. Besides, the newly produced forms are comparatively weak. This weakness and inclination to sterility are facts which must be carefully weighed when determining the probable importance of single variations for specific evolution. Besides, it is–to our knowledge–in no case excluded that the suddenly arising form may be traced back to former crossings. Probably the only case which is quite generally interpreted to demonstrate specific evolution experimentally is that of the primrose observed by de Vries. After many failures with more than 100 species, de Vries, in 1886, determined to cultivate the evening primrose (Œnothera Lamarckiana), whose extraordinary fertility had attracted his attention. He chose nine well-developed specimens and transplanted them into the Botanical Garden of Amsterdam. The cultivation was at first continued through eight generations. In all he examined 50,000 plants, among which he discovered 800 deviating specimens, which could be arranged in seven different groups, as shown in the following table:– |
| Generation O.xgigas albida oblonga rubrinervis Lamarckiana nanella lata Scintillans |
| I. 1886-87 II. 1888-89 III. 1890-91 IV. 1895 V. 1896 VI. 1897 VII. 1898 VIII. 1899 |
| –––1– –– |
| –––15 2511–5 |
| –––1761352991 |
| ––1820 3–– |
| 91500010000140008000 180030001700 |
| –53604991121 |
| –5373142 5–1 |
| –––16 1–– |
| The specimen of O. gigas (1895) was self-fertilized and yielded 450 O. gigas forms, among which there was only one dward form, O. gigasnanella. The three following generations remained constant. O. albida was a very scaly form, though it succeeded, thanks to regular attention, in breeding constant offspring. Among the O. oblonga descendants there was one specimen, albida, and in a later generation one specimen of O. rubrinervis. O. rubrinervis proved to be as fertile as Lamarckiana, and yielded besides a new variation, leptocarpa. The offspring of O. nanella was constant, though among the 1800 descendants of nanella in 1896 three specimens showed oblonga characteristics. O. lata was purely female; but, fertilized with pollen of other variants, it yielded 15 to 20 per cent O. lata descendents. O. scintillans was not constant. According to de Vries' observtions (since 1886), new forms also originated in nature, but they succumbed in the struggle for existence. the differences between the single forms relate to various parts and degrees of development, though in several they are very slight. The plants become either stronger or weaker, with broader or narrower leaves; the flowers become larger and darker yellow, or smaller and lighter, the fruit longer or shorter, the outer skin rougher or smoother, etc. |
| It may be conceded that the Œnothera has developed constant forms corresponding to the so-called "small or elementary species". The question, however, is, whether the forms are really new ones or whether they owe their origin to some unexpected original cross. In fact, if we are to suppose a previous cross, perhaps O. Lamarckiana and O. sublinearis, then the O. Lamarckiana of Hilversum had contained the different variations in a latent form and through cultivation gradually reverted by throwing off the different variations . At any rate, there cannot be any question of a progressive development, for the reason that none of the new forms shows the slightest progress in organization or even development of any kind advancing in that direction. |
| (3) Crosses and Mendelian Segregations. Cross-breeding can in nature hardly be considered as a factor in the progressive development of species; in particular, forms of different degrees of organization do not cross, and if they did, all deviations would soon be equalized according to the laws of chance and probability. All the greater seems to be the importance of the Mendelian segregations. It may be known to the reader that the famous experiments of the Abbot Mendel were carried on with seven different pairs of characters which he crossed with one another, and then, by letting the cross-breeds self-fertilize, he continued the cultivation of the plants through a series of generations. In the first generation it was found that the offspring exhibited without exception the character of one of the parents, that of the other parent not appearing at all. Mendel therefore called the former–the prevailing–character the "dominant" and the other the "recessive". In the following generation, which was produced by letting the cross-breds fertilize themselves, the recessive character appeared and, moreover, in a definite proportion. On an average this proportion was 2.89:1 or 3:1. In the second generation 75 per cent of the whole number of plants exhibited the dominant character, and 25 per cent the recessive. No intermediate forms were observed in any case. In the third generation the offspring of the recessives was constant and remained pure recessives, but among the offspring of the dominants some remained constant dominants, while others were hybrids. The average proportion of the constant dominants (D) to variable cross-breds (DR) was as 1:2. Thus, besides the 25 per cent of constant recessives (R), there was also 25 per cent (one- third of 75 per cent) constant dominants (D) and 50 per cent (two-thirds of 75 per cent) variable crossbreds (DR) or 1D+2DR+1R. The same proportion resulted from the following generations of the crossbreds, and since 1900 this has been confirmed by other investigators in the case of other plants (e. g. maize) and also of animals (e.g. gray and white mice). |
| Mendel's rule of segregation, therefore, runs thus: The hybrids of any two different characters produce seeds, one half of which again develop the hybrid forms, while the other half yield offspring which remains constant, and possess the dominant and recessive characters in equal proportion. A simple analysis of this rule shows that it consists of three parts: (a) By fertilization the characters of the parents are united, without, however, thereby losing their purity and independence; (b) In the offspring the characters of both parents may again be separated from each other; (c) The character of one of the parents may completely conceal that of the other. This last part of the rule is not, according to later investigators, necessarily conected with the other two parts. We may add that Mendel's rule also holds good for the offspring of hybrids in which several constant characters are combined, and that in it there is found a splendid confirmation of the modern theory of the cell. Cross-breeding, therefore, does not not by any means lead to the mixing of characteristics. These, on the contrary, remain pure, or, at most, form new combinations or split up into simpler components. Hence, the idea that gaps in nature originate through such segregation is well founded. But the question, whether the idea is to be applied to the formation of species, and how this is to be carried out, can scarcely be answered at present. This much, however, is evident: that there is no progress in organization any more than there is any progressive specific development, brought about by segregation. |
| Hence this important conclusion follows: That the central idea of modern evolution theories–namely, progressive specific development–has not up to the present received any confirmation from observation of the world of organisms as it now exists. It is quite true, however, that the plasticity of organisms has been proved by a number of experiments to be very considerable; so that, in a constant environment, and by single variations, changes may be brought about which a systematist would classify as specific or even generic, if it were not clear from other sources that they are not such. In the same way forms could be developed by segregation, the characteristics of which would suffice "to constitute specific differences in the eyes of most systematists, were the plants or animals brought home by collectors" (Bateson). Yet such criteria are meaningless for the demonstration of the formation of species. The question as to the transmission of acquired characters is not by any means decided. It follows from the doctrine of propagation that only such characters can be transmitted as are contained in the germ-cells or which have been either directly or indirectly transmitted to them. Hence it is clear that all peculiarities acquired by the cells of the body through the influence of environment, or by use or disuse, can only be inherited if they are handed over, as it were, to the germ-cells. But it is useless to discuss the question before we have sufficient experimental evidence that acquired characters are at all inherited. |
| IV. THE PALÆONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT |
| (1) Historical Method. Before entering upon the discussion of the evidence furnished by palæontology we must briefly refer to the method which ought to be employed in the interpretation of the palæontological records. The great archives of the geological strate are very incomplete. Almost three-quarters of the earth's surface is covered with water, and another part with perpetual ice, while of the rest but a fraction has remained free from the ravages of water and the elements; of this small portion, again, only certain regions are accessible to the investigator, and these have been but partially examined. Besides, in most cases only the hard portions of organisms are preserved, and even these are often so badly mutilated that their correct classification is sometimes difficult. Many of them, especially in the oldest rocks, must have perished under the crushing force of metamorphic processes. Further, the geographic distribution of plants and animals must have varied according to climatological and topographical mutations. It may suffice to cite the glacial periods of which there are clear indications in various geological epochs. Finally, the geological strate themselves underwent many violent strains and displacements, being upheaved, tilted, folded again, and even entirely inverted. It is evident that every one of these phenomena increases the chaos in its own way and makes the work of classifying and restoring all the harder. It gives at the same time to the scientist the right to formulate hypotheses probable in themselves and adapted to bridge over the numerous gaps in the work of reconstruction in the organic world. But these working hypotheses ought never to assume the form of scientific dogmas. For after all, the documents which have really been deciphered are the only deciding factor. At all events, the chronological succession and the genetic relation of organisms cannot be determined by aprioristic reasoning, or by means of our present system of classification, or by applying the results of ontogenetic studies. One illustration may suffice. Some maintain that trilobites are descended from blind ancestors because certain blind forms exhibit a number of simple characteristics which are common to all specimens. And yet we know that, e.g., Irinucleus possesses eyes in the earlier stages of its development, and only becomes blind in the later stages. The non-existence of eyes is, therefore, due to degeneration, and does not point to a former eyeless state. As a matter of fact, specimens of trilobites possessing eyes are found side by side with eyeless specimens in the lower Cambrian strata. Other examples of false à priori conclusions are to be found in the extraordinary genealogies constructed by extreme evolutionists, and which dissolve like so many mists in the light of advancing investigations. In fact, up to the present the agrement on ontogeny and phylogeny has not been proved in any single instance. In short, if we disregard observation and experiment on living organisms, it is the historical method alone which can decide the limits of evolution and the succession and genetic relations of the different forms. "In the substitution of the hypothetical ancestors by real ones lies the future of true phylogenetic science" (Handlisch). |
| (2) The Oldest Fossils. Now let us turn to the documents themselves and see what they have to show us. The foundation of the Archives is formed of gneiss and crystallized slate, a rigid mass containing no trace of organic life, and one which offers to the palæontologist the hopeless outlook that his science must remain in a very incomplete state, perhaps forever. Immediately above this foundation, nature has imbedded the multitudinous, highly- developed Cambrian fauna, without leaving the slightest trace of their antecedents, origin, birth, or age. Some 800 species of this remotest period are known to us. They belong almost without exception to marine fauna, and are distributed over all the chief groups of the invertebrates. Nearly one-half of them are arthropods. They are the well-known trilobites which occupy a position about the middle of the scale of animal development. Other groups belong to cœ;lenterates, brachiopods, gastropods, and cephalopods. Sponges, too, and traces of worms are found, as also very imperfect fragments of scorpions and other insects. Moreover, there can be no doubt that various types of fishes must have existed, since in the Silurian age numerous representatives, such as selachians, ganoids, marsipobranchs, dipnoans, are found from the very beginning side by side. Where are the ancestors of these highly specialized beings? The one thing we may affirm is that we know absolutely nothing whatever of a primitive fauna and of the numberless series of organisms which must have followed them up to the Cambrian era, for the simple reason that we possess absolutely no evidence. Moreover, there is not the least trace of palæontological evidence in favour of the spontaneous awakening of protoplasmic masses up to the time of the Cambrian era. The Cambrian types were all of them specialized forms perfectly adapted to time and environments, and not generalized types of zoological systems. The origin of the plant world is also shrouded in impenetrable darkness for the palæontologist. The enormous layers of anthracite and graphite are, according to the most recent investigations, of inorganic origin. Clearly established evidence of plant life only dates from post-Silurian times, and consists of contents of the oldest turf moors–giant-ferns and horsetails, plants akin to the club-mosses, like the Lepidodendron, and Gymnosperms, like the slender Cordaites. One is astounded at the rich forms of this long-lost flora, and we search in vain for their ancestors. |
| It is certainly remarkable, and a fact which clearly proves the transformation of species, that plants belonging to these remote times vary considerably from their later representatives. But, as Kerner von Marilaun insists, the "fundamental structure of the type" is never obliterated, and the degree of organization has at least remained the same. In particular, the present dwarf-forms of the horse- tails and club-mosses are but miserable remains of their mighty ancestors, and the Cordaites, though different from the present conifers, were as highly organized as they. To this must be added the recently discovered fact that seed-bearing plants, which constitute a considerable part of the fern flora of the Carboniferous, are found among the ferns of the Devonian era. |
| (3) Angiosperms and Vertebrates. But how did the undoubtedly higher forms of a later period originate? To begin with the angiosperms, we are confronted with the fact that these organisms appear quite suddenly in the Cretaceous era and, what is more remarkable, in forms as highly organized as their present representatives. It is a fact that principally the dicotyledons (at least those in the more recent strata) correspond more and more to the present- day forms, clearly indicating the relationship they bear to one another. But whence the earliest forms of the cretaceous came, is shrouded in mystery. Similarly, the gradual transformation of one species into another cannot be proved in any concrete case. Only this much is certain, that if evolution took place, it involved a change which did not imply attainment to a higher stage of organization. It must be borne in mind, moreover, that we know of no intermediate forms capable of justifying even as much as a hypothesis that angiosperms were evolved from lower plants. If the origin of the angiosperms is for the present an insoluble problem, the genesis of the vertebrates is no less so. However, in order not to pass entirely over the post-Cambran history of the invertebrates, we must at least make mention of the significant fact that this fauna seems to be constantly changing, but without ascending to higher forms of organization. The modification is especially manifest in the shell-bearing groups, owing to the changed size, form, and ornamentation of their shells, and in this offers a very acceptable basis for the establishment of a series of kindred forms–e.g., with the gastropod genus Paludina of the Slavonian tertiary strata. But since such structures depend almost entirely on the calcareous nature of the medium, and on the varying kind and amount of movement, we can scarcely be inclined to regard an increased ornamentation of the shell as a mark of real progress in organization, but at most as a temporary development of actual dispositions due to varying conditions of life. |
| The first authenticated ancestors of the vertebrates are the fish-remains of the lower Silurian era. Widely removed from them we find in the carboniferous strata the oldest remains of the amphibian quadrupeds and, associated with them, forms of reptiles whose sudden appearance and equally sudden disappearance belong to the unsolved problems of palæontology. Among the Mesozoic fishes we encounter old forms together with teleosts which suddenly appear in the limestone strata without producing any transitional forms. It is generally supposed that the teleosts represent a higher grade of organization than the ganoids; as a matter of fact, the teleosts, it would seem, have no structural advantage over the cartiliginous fishes in the lesser hardness of the scale and the greater hardness of the skeleton. This is, however, but a shifting, as it were, of development, as the disappearance of the rigid body-covering is compensated for by the ossification of the skeleton. At any rate, the origin of the teleosts is an unsolved problem, as is that of the Silurian ganoids. The appearance of birds and mammals is likewise very mysterious. The first known bird is the famous "bird-reptile" Archæopteryx of the Jurassic strata at Soluhofen. In spite of some characteristics that remind one of reptiles–as for instance the twenty homologous caudal vertebræ, the talons, the separated metacarpal bones and the toothed jaw–yet the true bird nature is evinced by the plumage, the pinions, and the bill. In fact, Archæopteryx is far removed from the reptiles, nor does it constitute any connecting link with the later birds, not even with the toothed Ichthyornis and Hesperonis of the upper Cretaceous era. Certainly the two isolated specimens from Soluhofen indicate that birds must have existed a long time before; but where their place of origin is, none can tell. |
| Palæontology is silent likewise about the early history of mammals. The mesozoic representation of this class may have some connection with marsupials, monotremes, and insectivorous animals, but as to the early history of the great majority of placental mammals we have no evidence whatever. A vast number of intermediate forms would certainly be required to connect the mammals with the reptiles. No such series of forms is known. Even the genealogy of the horse, which is con sidered the most striking example of an evolutionary series within a mammalian family, is scarcely more than a very moderately supported hypothesis. Let the reader consider the accompanying table of differences in the palæontological representatives of the Equidæ. Upon the facts embodied in this table, which chiefly refer to fossils found in North American strata, the following comments are suggested: The genera of the Equinæ lived contemporaneously, though it must be conceded that in some sedimentary deposits their series seems to be continuous. Secondly, the sub-families show great differences between one another. Of the Merychippus, which connects the Equinæ with the Pæleotherinæ, we know only the teeth. Thirdly, if we take the European material into consideration as well, we are confronted with widely divergent opinions, so much so that the brilliant pedigree becomes greatly dimmed. In particular, the Eocene forms and the still more remote genus Phenacodus are avowedly very dubious ancestors of the horse. Lastly, it is well within the range of possibility that the ancestors of the Equinæ and the descendants of the older sub-families have remained undiscovered up to the present time. |
| (4) Man. It remains for us briefly to examine the historical records to see if we can obtain reliable information concerning the last and most important "ascent" to Homo sapiens. The oldest authenticated traces of man consist of stone implements, and they are derived from the lower Quaternary strata. Whether the so-called "eoliths" of the Tertiary Era are really the handiwork of man, cannot be decided with certainty. Eminent scientists, as Boule, Obermaier, de Lapparent, in their works published in 1905, have denied the human origin of these objects. Concerning the first stages in the civilization of diluvian man little can be said. The period, according to Hoernes, falls under three sub-groups, separated from one another and preceded by a glacial period. The first intermediate epoch (époque du grand ours) lies close to the Pliocene age and is called, after the principal place of its discovery, the stage of Tilloux-Taubach (Krapina), or ChelléoMoustérian. The fauna is mostly tropical and includes, among others, Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros Merckii, and, most important of all, Ursus spelœ;us. Taubach's field of discovery was a camp in which the fireplace, remnants of food, and the simple utensils of Germany's first inhabitants were found in situ (Hoernes). The second intermediate epoch (époch du mammouth) is named the Solutréen stage, after the place where important discoveries were made in France. It contains, besides the mammoth, the wild horse and numerous predatory animals such as Leo, Ursus, Hyœ;na, etc., though the numbers greatly decrease as we draw to the end of the period, while the Ursus spelœ;us becomes entirely extinct. A large number of the stone implements are of fine workmanship and there are, besides these, various kinds of carving on bone and ivory plastic figures of men, and drawings of animals on the walls of the caves. The cave of Combarelles (Dordogne), for example, is decorated with 109 drawings of animals. The ornamentation in the Solutréen, with its wavelike curves and spirals, indicates an almost enigmatical degree of development which would appear to be more in keeping with the culture of the metal age than with the more remote stone age. The third intermediate epoch (époque du renne) had a bleaker climate. It is called the Magdaleine stage, after La Magdaleine, in France. The stone implements are homely, but often very finely constructed, "small implements made for delicate hands by delicate hands" (Hoernes). Pointed and hooked hunting weapons were also found, as well as numerous instruments of various kinds manufactured out of bone and horn, and all of them reveal considerable artisan taste and judgment. Real frescoes adorn the walls of the Font- de-Faune cave. In all, eighty figures are represented, of which number forty-nine are those of bisons. |
| From what has been said we may conclude that man, in the first stage of civilization known to us, appears as a true Homo sapiens; but how he arrived at that stage is a problem we are quite unable to answer, because all records are wanting. The bones, too, which are supposed to date from the primeval age of man are little calculated to solve the problem. A short résumé of the results of recent investigations will make this clear. Pithecanthropus erectus, the famous ape-man of Trinil (Java), cannot be considered "the long-sought missing link in the chain of the highest Primates". As is well known, we have to do with a cranium of 850 sq. cm. capacity, a thigh-bone, and two molar teeth; the skull and the thigh-bone were found lying about 16 yards apart. It is true the skull differs somewhat from the skulls of present-day anthropods; it is, however, in general characteristics thoroughly apelike, as was pointed out recently by Schwalbe, Klaatsch, Macnamara, and Kohnbrugge. The thigh- bone, according to Bumüller, bears the closest resemblance to the femur of the ape Hylobates. Hence the appelation erectus is a misnomer. Add to this that, according to the latest researches, Pithecanthropus must have been a contemporary of primitive man, since the strata in which the bones were found are diluvial. Hence Pithecanthropus cannot belong to the ancestral line of man. The bones of the Neandertal race of the Homo primigenius are undoubtedly human, and have given rise to renewed interest through the valuable discoveries made in Krapina. The Neandertal skull itself serves as a type which, owing to the low, receding forehead and the strongly developed supra-orbital ridges, appears to be very primitive, though no one knows the actual geological conditions of the place where it was originally deposited. We pass over the fact that twenty scientists have expressed twelve different opinions on this mysterious cranium, and confine ourselves to the latest opinion of Schwalbe, who says that the Neandertal cranium exhibits forms which are never found in either a normal or a pathologically altered Homo sapiens, whether Negro, European, or Australian, and yet at the same time the skull does exhibit human characteristics. In a word, the Neandertal skull does not belong to any variety of Homo sapiens. Kohnbrugge very aptly compares Schwalbe's hypothesis to an upturned pyramid balancing on a fine point, since a single Australian or Negroid skull which may be found to agree with the Neandertal skull suffices to overthrow the hypothesis. Such a skull has not as yet been found, but there are other factors which suffice to shake Schwalbe's hypothesis. These have reference to the other diluvial bone remains of Homo primigenius, amongst others to the petrified Gibraltar skull, to two molar teeth from the Taubach cave, to the two fragments of a skull from the mammoth caves of Spy, and the jawbones from La Naulette, Schipka, Ochos, and, finally, to considerable remains of bones, such as fragments of skulls, lower jawbones, pelvic bones, thigh and shin bones, from a cave near Krapina in Croatia. To these must be added the "Moustier skull" which was dug up in August, 1908, in Vézèretal (Dordogne). All these fragments possess fairly uniform characteristics. Especially worthy of note are, above all, the cranium with its prominent supra-orbital ridges and receding forehead. These qualities, however, are not infrequently found in men of the present day. Australians exhibit here and there even the genuine supra-orbital ridges (Gorjanowic-Kramberger). It cannot be clearly decided whether we are dealing with purely individual characteristics or with peculiarities which would justify us in classifying the Krupina fragments as belonging to a special race. But this much is clear, that the formation of the skull and the degree of civilization of that race are quite sufficient to permit of our designating Homo primigenius not as a species of itself, but merely as a local sub-division of the Homo sapiens. The Galley Hill skull, from England, which is still older than the Krupina bones, points to the same conclusion and corresponds with the more recent skulls of post- diluvial man. Hence, to sum up, we may affirm that we are acquainted with no records of Tertiary man, that the most ancient remains of the Quaternary belong to the Galley Hill man, whose skull worthily represents Homo sapiens. The same is to be said of the oldest traces of civilization as yet known to us. |
| Palæontology, therefore, can assert nothing whatever of a development of the body of man from the animal. It may be added that Haeckel's curious "Progonotaxis", or genealogy of man, is a pure fiction. It consists of thirty stages, beginning with the "moners" and ending with homo loquax. The first fifteen stages have no fossil representatives. As to the rest, we may concede that many of these groups actually exist, but we do not see a single argument of any probability for Haeckel's assertion that these groups are genetically related. As to the age of the human species, no assertion can be made with any degree of certainty; thus far there are no indications whatever that would justify an estimate of more than 10,000 years. Still, less are we enabled to say anything definite as to the probable age of life. The numbers given by different authors vary between twenty-four and upwards of one hundred million years. De Vries's calculation is of especial interest because it is based on his Œnothera studies. Mainly to show the superiority of the mutation theory to the selection theory, de Vries assumes that the primrose contains 6000 characteristics, and that a "mutation", or acquisition of a new character, takes place after every 4000 years; so that 4000x6000 = 24,000,000 (=Lord Kelvin's average value) would represent the biothronic equation, which of course consists of unknown variables only, and rests, moreover, on the unproved assumption that a mutation consists in the acquisition of a new character and that such mutations have really occurred. |
| V. THE MORPHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT |
| (1) In General.–The groups and sub- groups of the plant and animal world are built up according to the same fundamental plan of organization. This important fact, on which all classification rests, is said to be explained by the hypothesis that the different groups (e.g. the vertebrates) have been evolved from forms possessing the peculiarities of the type, while the differences are said to have been brought about by modifications (e.g. adaptation to the environment). The original form or type is imagined to be as primitive as possible, while its modification is said to mark progress, so that those organisms which have the simplest structure are said to correspond to the most ancient forms, the more perfect specialized forms being the most recent. |
| Are these conclusions well founded?–The plain facts are these: (a) Groups of organisms exhibit similar fundamental forms, which, however, (b) show similar divisions with a more or less perfect degree of organization. In the first place it is difficult to understand why the lower organized forms should be historically the older. According to the evidence furnished by palæontology, this is in many instances positively false, and in no case is it demonstrable, while philosophically it is only possible in as far as the simple forms actually possess the peculiarities of their descendants at least in some latent condition. Secondly, it is hard to see why similarity of structure should prove common origin. As a matter of fact, palæontology knows nothing of common primeval forms; on the contrary, it points to parallel series whose origins are unknown. It is not improbable, moreover, that resemblances of structure and function in nature frequently represent instances of convergence, through which widely different organisms assume similar modifications of form under similar conditions of life. For example, certain species of the asclepiadaceæ (Stapelia), euphorbiaceæ (Euphorbia) and cactus have, in all probability, acquired their similar fleshy form from the adaptation of leafy forms to the aridity of the locality in which they grew, and only preserved the different family characteristics in the structure of the flower. The similarity which exists between whales and fishes can be considered merely as an instance of convergence, and no one will assert that the whale has developed from the fish because it happens to be provided with fins. As a matter of fact there are numberless analogies which no serious student would ever dream of reducing to a common origin. Take, for example, the cell-division in plants and animals, the method of fertilization, and other analogies of structure and function in vastly different groups. Finally, the chief problem, which refers to teleology of adaptive modifications, is not even touched by the doctrine of descent from common ancestors. |
| (2) Man and the Anthropoids.–Palæontology knows of no records that point to the relationship between the body of man and that of the anthropoid. Hence it follows that the argument of analogy and classification is of little worth. But, as ever and again attempts are made to discover analogies between every bone of man and the corresponding part of the ape (e.g. Wiedersheim), it will be useful to gather a few of the more important morphological discrepancies which exist between man's body and that of the anthropoids (orang-utang, chimpanzee, gorilla). It is, however, far from our intention to attribute to these differences any great argumentative force, especially against those who suppose that there was a common primeval ancestor from which both man and ape finally descend; nor do we wish to deny that zoologically the human body belongs to the class of the mammalia, nor that within this class there is any representative more similar to it than the anthropoids. |
| Of these differences the most important lies in the development of the brain of man and of the anthropoid, which is seen from the comparison of the weights. According to Wiedersheim we are forced to admit that the relative mass of the human brain is twice that of the chimpanzee, while, absolutely, it is from three to four times as great. The same is probably true of the orang-utang, while the brain of the gorilla, which, according to Wiedersheim, is the most humanlike of any of the anthropoid brains, is relatively only one-fifth that of man's. The human skull is from three to four times as large as that of the anthropoids. The difference becomes much more striking still when we compare the cerebral hemispheres and their convolutions. The weight of the brain of a male Teuton of from thirty to forty years of age is on the average 1424 grammes, that of a female 1273 grammes, and that of a full-grown orang only 79.7 grammes (Wundt). The proportion is therefore from 18:1 to 16:1. If we measure the superficial area of man's brain with all its convolutions and that of the orang we have, according to Wagner, from 1877 sq. cm. to 2196 sq. cm. for the human brain and 533.5 sq. cm. for that of the orang–that is a proportion of 4.4:1. It is further to be taken into consideration that, as Wiedersheim points out, the human brain is not to be looked upon as an enlarged anthropoidal one, but as a "new acquisition with structures which the anthropoidal does not as yet [!] possess". These new acquisitions are presumably qualitative and refer mainly to the centre within the great cerebral hemispheres. Intimately connected with the development of the brain is the moderate development of the dentition of man in comparison with the chinless snout of the monkey, which is armed with powerful teeth. Again, "the human face slides as it were down from the forehead and appears as an appendix to the front half of the skull. The gorilla's face, on the contrary, protrudes from the skull, which on return slides almost entirely backwards from the face.… It is only on account of its protruding, strongly developed lower parts that the small skull-cap of the animal can mask as a kind of human face" (Ranke). |
| A second group of differences is obtained by comparing the limits of man and the anthropoid. Owing to his upright stature, man's appendicular skeleton is quite different in form and structure from that of the anthropoid. This is shown not merely by the length of the single parts, which, strangely enough, exhibit inverse proportions, but also in the ianterior structure of the bones, as was proved by Walkhoff (1905) in the case of the femur. If we suppose the length of the body to be 100 we have, according to Ranke, the following proportions:– |
| Part Gorilla Chimpanzee Orang Negro German |
| Arm and handLeg |
| 64.934.9 |
| 67.735.2 |
| 80.734.7 |
| 45.1648.5x |
| 45.4348.8 x |
| Special measurements taken from the skeletons of an adult Frenchman and an orang, represented in the accompanying plate, gave the following particulars:– |
| x Humerus Radius |
| Ulna |
| Femur Tibia |
| ManOrang |
| 28 cm.36 x"x |
| 22 cm39.8 " 25 cm.41 x" 47 cm.31 x" 37 cm.25 x" |
| The sponge-like structure in the femur of man and anthropoid exhibits considerable difference, so that it could be established by means of radiogrammes whether the femur was that of an upright walking individual or not; e.g., it was possible to prove the Neandertal and Spy femora to be human. The foot of man is, moreover, very characteristic. It is not furnished with a thumb that can be bent across the whole member, and hence it does not represent a typical prehensile organ, as is the case with the hind feet of the monkey. In general, each bone and organ of man could in some sense be styled ape-like, but in no case does this similarity go so far that the form peculiar to man would pass over into the form which is peculiar to the ape. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that, according to Ranke and Weisbach, all the efforts to discover a series of bodily formations which would lead from the most apelike savages to the least apelike Caucasians have till now resulted in utter failure, since the apelike forms of organs actually found in some individuals are not confined to a single race or nation, but are distributed throughout all of them. Tailed ape-men, in the proper sense of the word, have no existence. If sometimes tail-like appendages occur, they are genuine deformities, pathological remnants of the individual's embryonmic life. Cretins and microcephali are likewise pathological cases. The theory that such were the ancestors of the human species is certainly excluded by the fact thaty they are unable to procure independently the necessary means of existence. |
| (3) "Blood Relationship" between Man and the Anthropoid–In 1900 Friedental thought that he was able to prove the kinship of man and the anthropoid biochemically by showing, first, that the transfusion of human blood-serum into the chimpanzee was not followed by any signs of blood-poisoning, as usually happens on the introduction of foreign blood, and, secondly, that human serum did not produce a reaction when introduced into a solution of the blood of the orang and gibbon, while on the other hand it dissolved the blood corpuscles of the lower apes. A little later Nutall and others proved that anti-sera exercised an opposite effect. An "anti- man-serum" was prepared by injecting subcutaneously sterile human serum into a rabbit till the animal became immune to poisoning from the foreign blood-serum. The "anti-man-serum" of rabbit-blood thus prepared gave a precipitate with the blood- serum of man or of an animal with chemically similar blood, for instance anthropoids, but not with the serum of chemically different blood. The force of the argument lies, therefore, in this, that the chemical reaction obtained seems to be on the whole proportional to the degree of their chemical affinity. |
| What follows from these facts?–Only this, that the blood of man is chemically similar to that of the anthropoids; but it does not follow that this chemical similarity must be attributed to any kinship of race. The mistake arises from the confusion of the ideas "similarity of blood" and "blood-relationship" in the genealogical sense of the term; otherwise it would be at once perceived that the fact of chemical similarity of blood is of no more importance for the theory of evolution than any other fact of comparative morphology or physiology. |
| (4) Rudimentary Organs.–One of the special arguments commonly cited in favour of the evolution theory is based on the frequent occurrence of rudimentary structures in organisms. As examples we may mention the following: Pythons and boas possess vestiges of hind legs and of a pelvis separated from the vertebral column.–The slow-worm is without external limbs, and yet possesses the shoulder-girdle and the pelvis, as well as a slightly developed breast-bone.–The ostrich has merely stunted wing-bones, while the nearly extinct kiwi (apteryx) of New Zealand has only extremely small stumps of wings, which are clothed with hair-like feathers.–The gigantic birds of New Zealand which became extinct in past ages were entirely wingless.–Well worthy of note, also are the rudimentary organs of the whale (Cetacea), since of the hind limbs only a few minute bones remain, and these are considered to be the pelvic bones, while the Greenland whale (Balœ;na mysticetus) also possesses thigh and leg bones. The bones of the fore-limbs are not movable independently of one another, being bound together by means of tendons–.Other remarkable vestigial structures are the teeth of the Arctic right whale, which never penetrate the gums and are reabsorbed before birth, the upper teeth of the ox, the milk teeth and the eyes of the mole. The deep sea fish, like the Barathronus, have instead of eyes "two golden metallic concave mirrors" (Chun).–Nor is man devoid of rudimentary organs. Wedersheim mentions no fewer than one hundred. But of these only a few are genuine. The vermiform appendix may serve as an example, though according to recent research it is not entirely functionless. Its length oscillates between 2 cm. and 23 cm., while its breadth and external form vary exceedingly. Probable reasons for its partially rudimentary character are, besides its extreme variability, especially two facts in particular: the length of the organ compared with that of the large intestine is as 1:10 in the embryo, and as 1:20 in the adult; secondly, in 32 per cent of all cases among adults of over twenty years of age the appendix is found to be closed. |
| Do such rudimentary organs furnish us with an acceptable proof for the theory of evolution?–It is to be admitted that in many instances the organs were formerly in a more perfect condition, so as to perform their typical functions–e.g., the eyes of the mole as organs of sight; and the limbs of the kiwi as means of locomotion for running or even for flying. Hence those individuals which now possess rudimentary organs are descended from ancestors which were in possession of these same organs in a less degenerated condition. But it cannot be ascertained from the structures whether those ancestors were of another kind than their offspring. The vermiform appendix in man is fully explained by supposing it to have had in antediluvian man a more perfect function of secretion, or even of digestion. Until the palæontological records furnish us with evidence we can only conclude from the occurrence of rudimentary structures that in former ages the whale possessed better developed limbs, that the moles had better eyes, the kiwi wings, etc. In short, rudimentary organs per se do not prove more than that structures may dwindle away by disuse. |
| Haeckel's endeavour to invalidate the teleological argument has no foundation in fact. In many cases the function of rudimentary organs has been discovered–e.g., the rudimentary teeth of the whale are probably of use in the growth of the jaw; the breast-bone of the slow-worm as a protection of the chest. But even in instances in which we have not succeeded in discovering the function of such structures, it must not be forgotten that degeneration may be eminently teleological in furnishing material for other organs whose functions become more important. Moreover, as long as rudimentary organs remain, they may become, under altered circumstances, the starting-point for an appropriately modified reorganization. It is indeed difficult to see how "dysteleology", as Haeckel calls it, follows from the fact that an organ adapted to specified means of livelihood disappears, probably in order to strengthen other organs when those means of livelihood are changed; and, until the contrary is proved, we may assume that we have to deal with instances of teleological adaptation and correlation, as has already been demonstrated in many cases–e.g., in the development of amphibians. |
| VI. THE ONTOGENETIC ARGUMENT |
| Comparisons between the embryos of higher forms and the adult stages of lower groups were made long before the evolution theory was generally accepted by biologists. But it was only after 1859 that the facts of embryology were interpreted by means of that theory. Fritz Müller (1864) was one of the first to advance the view that the ontogenetic development of an individual is a short and simplified repetition of the stages through which the species had passed. Haeckel modified the proposition by introducing the term "kenogenesis", which should account for all points of disagreement between the two series of development. In its new form the theory of recapitulation received the name "the biogenetic law of development". Later on Hertwig reformed the law a second time by changing the expression "repetition of form of extinct ancestors", into "repetition of forms necessary for organic development and leading from the simple to the complex". Besides, considerable changes, generally in an advancing direction, are said to have been brought about by the action of external and internal factors, so that in reality "a later condition can never correspond to a preceeding one". Both Haeckel's and Hertwig's views were rejected by Morgan, who does not believe in the recapitulation of ancestral adult stages by the embryo, but tries to show that the resemblance between the embryos of higher forms might be due to "the presence in the embryos of the lower groups of certain organs that remain in the adult forms of this group". According to Morgan, we are justified in comparing "the embryonic stages of the two groups" only–a theory which he calls "the repetition theory". |
| Perhaps the most striking fact to illustrate the ontogenetic argument is the resemblance between the gill-system of fishes and certain analogous structures in the embryos of the other vertebrates, man included. However, contrary to the statements of most scientists, we do not think that the resemblance is such as to justify us in concluding "with complete certainty that all vertebrates must in the course of their history have passed through stages in which they were gill- breathing animals" (Wiedersheim). The embryos of fishes are at a certain very early stage of development furnished with vertical pouches which grow out from the wall of the pharynx till they fuse with the skin. Then a number of vertical clefts (gill- slits) are formed by the fact that the walls of the pouches separate. In the adult fishes the corresponding openings serve to let water pass from the mouth kthrough the gill-slits, which are covered by the capillaries of the gill-filaments. In this way the animal is enabled to provide the blood with the necessary oxygen and to remove the carbon dioxide. Now it is quite true that in all vertebrates there is some resemblance as to the first formation of the pouches, the slits, and the distribution of blood-vessels. But it is only in fishes that real gill- structures are formed. In the other vertebrates the development does not proceed beyong the formation of the apparently indifferent pouches which never perform any respiratory function nor show the least tnedency to develop into such organs. On the contrary, the gill-slits and arches seem to have, from the very beginning, a totally different function, actually subserving, at least in part, the formation of other organs. Even the amphibians that are furnished with temporary gills form them in quite a peculiar manner, which cannot be compared with that of fish-embryos. Besides, the distribution of blood-vessels and the gradual disappearance of seemingly useless structures, as the "gill-systems" of vertebrates seem to be, may likewise be observed in cases where no one would seriously suspect a relation to former specific characteristics. In short, there is (1) no evidence that the embryos of mammals and birds have true incipient gill-structures; (2) it is probable that the structures interpreted as such really subserve from the very beginning quite different functions, perhaps only of a temporary nature. |
| In general it may be said that the biogenetic law of development is as yet scarcely more than a petitio principii. Because (1) the agreement betrween ontogeny and phylogeny has not been proved in a single instance; on the contrary–e.g., the famous pedigree of the horse's foot begins ontogenetically with a single digit; (2) the ontogenetic similarity which may be observed, for instance, in the larval stages of insects may be explained by the similarity of the environment; (3) the ontogenetic stages of organisms are throughout specifically dissimilar, as is proved by a careful concrete comparison. The same conclusion is indicated by Hertwig's and Morgan's modifications of the biogenetic law, which, in turn, are of a merely hypothetical nature. In addition to this a short reference to Weismann's "confirmation" of Haeckel's law may be useful. Weissmann knew that in the larval development of certain butterflies transverse stripes were preceded by longitudinal ones. Hence he concluded that in certain similar butterflies, whose early larval stages were then unknown, a similar succession of markings ought to be found. Ten years later the "predicted" marking was discovered. It is plain that such facts are no confirmation of the biogenetic law, but find their simple explanation in the fact that similar organisms will show similar ontogenetic stages. This fact, too, seems to account sufficiently for the observations advanced by Morgan in support of his theory of repetition. |
| THE BIOGEOGRAPHICAL ARGUMENT |
| The biogeographical argument is a very complex one, composed of a vast number of single facts whose correlation among one another, and whose bearing upon the problem of evolution, can hardly be determined before many years of detailed research have gone by. The theories established, for instance, by Wallace are certainly not sufficiently supported by facts. On the contrary, they have serious defects. One of them is the well-known "Wallace line"; another, much more important, the unfounded assertion that the higher vertebrates must have originated from marsupials and monotremes because these animals are almost entirely extinct in all countries except in isolated Australia, where they survive, as the highest representatives of the Australian vertebrates, in greatly varying forms till today. Besides, in most cases we have no sufficient knowledge of the geographical distribution of organisms and of its various causes. But in order to give the reader an idea of the argument, we shall briefly refer him to a group of facts which is well adapted to support the view of evolution explained in the preceding pages. Volcanic islands and such as are separated from the continent by a sea or strait of great depth exhibit a fauna and flora which have certainly come from the neighbouring continents, but which at the same time possess features altogether peculiar to them. The flora of Sacotra, in the Indian Ocean, for instance, comprises 565 systematic species; among these there are 206 endemic ones. Similarly, on Madagascar there are 3000 endemic plant-species among 4100; on the Hawaian Islands, 70 endemic species of birds among 116; on the Galapagos, 84 among 108. Many such facts are known. They certainly form an excellent demonstration in favour of the proposition defended throughout this article: that such forms as the endemic species, which may well be compared with the races of the human species, were not directly created, but arose by some process of modification which was greatly facilitated by their complete isolation. |
| VIII. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS |
| The most important general conclusions to be noted are as follows:– |
| 1. The origin of life is unknown to science. |
| 2. The origin of the main organic types and their principal subdivisions are likewise unknown to science. |
| 3. There is no evidence in favour of an ascending evolution of organic forms. |
| 4. There is no trace of even a merely probable argument in favour of the animal origin of man. The earliest human fossils and the most ancient traces of culture refer to a true Homo sapiens as we know him today. |
| 5. Most of the so-called systematic species and genera were certainly not created as such, but originated by a process of either gradual or saltatory evolution. Changes which extend beyond the range of variation observed in the human species have thus far not been strictly demonstrated, either experimentally or historically. |
| 6. There is very little known as to the causes of evolution. The greatest difficulty is to explain the origin and constancy of "new" characters and the teleology of the process. Darwin's "natural selection" is a negative factor only. The moulding influence of the environment cannot be doubted; but at present we are unable to ascertain how far that influence may extend. Lamarck's "inheritance of acquired characters" is not yet exactly proved, nor is it evident that really new forms can arise by "mutation". In our opinion the principle of "Mendelian segregation", together with Darwin's natural selection and the moulding influence of environment, will probably be some of the chief constituents of future evolutionary theories. |
| Many works referring to the subject have been mentioned in the body of the article. We shall here enumerate mainly such as are of more recent date and will be of special value for further study. |
| General.–GERARD, The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer (London, 1908); GUTBERLET, Der Mensch, sein Ursprung und seine Entwicklung (Paderborn, 1896); KERNER VON MARILAUN, Pflanzenleben (Leipzig and Vienna, 1890-91), II; MIVART, On the Genesis of Species (London, 1871); WASMANN, Die moderne Biologie und die Entwicklungstheorie (Freiburg, 1906); ID., Der Kampf und das Entwicklungsproblem in Berlin (Freiburg, 1907); QUATREFAGES, L'espèce humaine (Paris, 1880); ZAPLETAL, Der Schöpfungsbericht (Freiburg, 1902); MORGAN, Evolution and Adaptation (New York, 1903); LOTSY, Vorlesungen über Descendenztheorien (Jena, 1908); KOHLBRUGGER, Der Morphologische Abstammung des Menschen (Stuttgart, 1908); Die Deszendenztheorie (Leipzig, 1901); OSBURG, From the Greeks to Darwin (New York, 1905); HARTMANN, Das Problem des Lebens (Bad Sachsa, 1906); BROOKS, The Foundation of Zoology (New York, 1899); WILSON, The Cell (New York, 1906); HERTWIG, Allgemeine Biologie (Jena, 1906); ID., Die Elemente der Entwicklungslehre der Wirbelosen Tiere (Jena, 1902-03); REINKE, Einleitung in theoretische Biologie (Berlin, 1901); F. DARWIN, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (London, 1887); ID. and SEWARD, More Letters of Charles Darwin (London, 1908); WEISMANN, Vorträge über Deszendenztheorie (Jena, 1904); FLEISCHMANN, Die Darwinische Theorie (Leipzig, 1903); PLATE, Selectionsprinzip und Probleme der Artbildung (Leipzig, 1908). |
| Experimental Evidence.–LOCK, Recent Progress in the Study of Variation, Heredity, and Evolution (London, 1907); MUCKERMANN, Variabilität und Artbildung in Natur und Offenb. (Münster, Jan., 1909); DE VRIES, Die Mutationstheorie (Leipzig, 1901003); JOHANNSEN, Ueber Erblichkeit in Populationen und in reinen Linien (Jena, 1903); WASSMANN, Gibt es tatsächlich Arten, etc., in Biol. Zentralbl. (1901); GALTON, Natural Inheritence (London, 1889); MENDEL, Versuche über Pflanzenhybriden, in Ostwolds Klassiker, No. 121; BATESON, Mendel's Principles of Heredity (Cambridge, 1902); ID., The Progress of Genetics since the Rediscovery of Mendel's Papers, in Progressus Rei Botanicæ (Jena, 1907), I, 386; CORRENS, Ueber Vererbungsgesetze (Berlin, 1906); PADTBERG AND MUCKERMANN, Mendel und Mendelismus Munich, 1909); GROSS, Ueber eineige Beziehungen zwischen Vererbung und Variation, in Biol. Zentralbl. (1906); STRASSBURGER, Die stofflichen Grundlagen der Vererbung (Jena, 1905); ZIEGLER, Die Vererbungslehre in der Biologie (Jena, 1905). |
| Historical Evidence.–MUCKERMANN, Paläontologische Urkunden und das Problem der Artbildung, in Stimm. aus Maria Laach, Jan, 1909); STEINMANN, Die geologischen Grundlagen der Abstammungslehre (Leipzig, 1908); LAURENT, Les progrés de la paléobotanique angiospermique dans la dernière décade, in Progr. R. Bot. (Jena, 1907), I; KOKEN, Die Vorwelt und ihre Entwichlungsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1893); ID., Paläontologie und Deszendenzlehre (Jena, 1902); ZITTEL, Paläozoologie (Munich and Leipzig, 1876-93); SCHIMPER AND SCHENK, Paläophytologie (Munich and Leipzig, 1890); DE LAPPARENT, Traité de géologie (Paris, 1900); DANA, Manual of Geology (New York, –); GEIKIE, Text-book of Geology (London, 1893); COPE, the Primary Factors of Organic Evolution (Chicago, 1895); STEINMANN, Einführung in die Paläontologie (Leipzig, 1907); CREDNER, Elemente der Geologie (Leipzig); KAYSER, Geologische Formationskunde (Stuttgart, 1908); NEUMAYR, Erdgeschichte (Leipzig, 1887); SCHARFF, European Animals: their Geological History and Geographical Distribution (London, 1907); WARD, Sketch of Paleobotany (Washington, 1885); HANDLIRSCH, Die fossilen Insekten und die Phylogenie der rezenten Formen (Leipzig, 1908); HOERNES, Der diluviale Mensch (Brunswick, 1903); SCHIMPFER, Pflanzengeographie (Jena, 1908); LYDEKKER, A Geographical History of Mammals (London, 1896). |
| H. Muckermann |
| Transcribed by WGKofron |
| With thanks to St. Mary's Church, Akron, Ohio |
| The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume V |
| Copyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton Company |
| Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Knight |
| Nihil Obstat, May 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor |
| Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York |
| The Catholic Encyclopedia: www.NewAdvent.org |
| * * * * * * * * |
| I admit that I just find it hard to understand how scientists can be sending signals into outer space, expecting extra-terrestrials to recognize some intelligent design in their morse like code, and, at the same time, not see in the genetic code, intelligent design. An extra-terrestial farmer out there may begin to discern a design, but if their scientists insist that these signals are purely random electro-physical phenomena, they are not only going to be denying the messenger but the message as well. It's one thing to say that something is just a "S" and an "O" and another "S"; it's quite another to say that it's "SOS". And that's the whole point of the intelligent design debate. It's not about the messenger at all, it's only about the message. Maybe you don't want to go beyond the intelligent message by the conclusion that there must be a messenger, but you should not try to insist that there is no message, and even less should you try to insist that there can't possibly be a messenger. |
| On September 9, 38 Nobel prize winners, joined an "initiative" of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, and signed a statement regarding evolution which in part reads as follows: |
| "Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution |
| is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned |
| process of random variation and natural selection." |
| The laureates insist on evolution as an "unplanned process". If evolution is planned, you may, of course, discover the plan; if, on the other hand, evolution has no plan, there would be no way of knowing that. So after making a philosophically pointless statement, the laureates go on to define what they believe to be the laws of that plan that they claim doesn't exist. What, at least, they could have said, is that: concerning what might be on the other side of eternity, it is not, according to the limits of the method we adopt, in our ability to say. Isn't the science that they presume to be defending, suppose to be, after all, about "falsifiable statements"? |
| On a very fundamental level, the question of whether or not you must admit intelligent design has to do with this ability to communicate and what that implies. Epistemology, which studies the conditions of knowledge (and some would hold to be the first step in the philosophical journey), recognizes that intelligent communication presupposes an intelligible reality. If we are able to talk intelligibly about the world, nature and ourselves, it is in fact because they actually are intelligible to the human intellect. This intelligibility of our world is available to our minds as forms or some type of structured information that can be grasped by the mind. To say that nothing in the world can be recognized as intelligible, would mean that nothing in our discourse would be intelligible either. If everything is randomly happening then we only could be randomly talking about it as well. |
| Someone may want to argue that man is intelligent randomly, but they can't question that he is intelligent; that much has to be admitted in order for him to make his argument, and that is all that the proponents of intelligent design are insisting on. |
| The universe which the laureates assert, is not one that can that be mentally conceived. It's a world where intellects are not intelligent, where biological systems are not systematic, where gene codes can not be de-coded. |
| Systems and systems of systems are continually affirmed in biology: You have the circulatory system, the respiratory system, the nervous system, the reproductive system and so forth, and these systems are admitted to form part of an even larger system, namely, the living organism. You have as well the eco-system on a macro level and similar systems on the micro or cellular level. Biologists define the genetic code as "the system that contains information needed by the cell for proper functioning". |
| Biology is about living organisms and the major observable characteristic of living organisms is not mutations, but development unfolding according to an ordered predictable form, which is the opposite from random variations. Even a mutation is a mutation of that ordered development which in fact must be and is recognized and assumed as the basis of our knowledge of mutation itself. |
| No one would deny that if the subject of a course were evolutionary theory, then the study of mutations would be at the center of the course. On the other hand, a course in biology must study organisms' developmental process without which these organisms cannot be classified accurately. If the development is not known, then one might, for example, think that a caterpillar and a butterfly are two different species. We don't say that a caterpillar evolves into a butterfly; we say that a caterpillar develops into a butterfly; that is to say, from a potential that already exists in the caterpillar, its life cycle unfolds and becomes a butterfly. Yes, with the help of an electron microscope you could, by a snapshot of the cell, know that as well, but only because it is a still-picture of that plan that unfolds. A still-photo of a comet doesn't mean that it is not traveling in its orbit and a sonogram shot of a baby, doesn't mean that it is not developing in the womb. |
| Biology is indeed concerned with change, but not the change that is meant by random mutation or variation. The change in organisms is the change of growth or development that occurs as a result of an internal principle. The living things that we observe in experience, do change, but not into other things. They remain the same thing at different stages of their development extended over time. The "change" that occurs in a developmental process cannot be considered "random changes". These are orderly predictable changes that are following a universal law, a process defined by the inherent composition of a particular species. When an organism's growth does not unfold according to the universal rule, it is usually because of causes, external or internal, that, once identified and considered in isolation, and known by controlled experimentation, provide the explanation for the deviation from normal development. These internal and external causes, sicknesses or traumas, may indeed be considered accidental or random, but they are not the changing factors supposedly operative in evolution. The change of a developmental process is change that does not change, change that is carefully described by biology and makes up the morphology of a particular species. |
| The saddest part of this whole debate is the extent to which the position of the proponents of intelligent design is misunderstood and subjected to caricatures. It is not a debate on the philosophical question of a "first cause", nor the theological question of a "creator", but rather on a rational analysis of organization in biological phenomena based on an accurate scientific description of that phenomena. |
| Science is about explaining effects by causes. In a causal chain, the farther back you go, the more the cause is termed a "remote cause"; the closer to the present, the more the cause is termed a "proximate cause". Michelangelo designed the dome of Saint Peter's basilica. Would that mean that Michelangelo's great-grandparents were the remote cause of his dome design? Michelangelo's great-grandparents would certainly be a remote cause of Michelangelo, and, without doubt, a condition of Michelangelo being able to think and design, but they would not be even a remote cause of his thoughts, and designs. Causality would not extend to the ideas and imaginations in his head. |
| Similarly the causal action of a parent organism does not extend to the new organism's developmental process which results from causes within the organism gradually unfolding. |
| Evolutionary theory ultimately is based entirely on physical causality. Sometimes time-lines or trees trace up or down the progress of evolution one species |
| after another. A model of pure physical causality, however, is not what is happening in reproduction. In physical causality, something of a cause, whether matter |
| or energy, passes into its effect, otherwise it wouldn't be the cause of that effect, but the causal input in the reproductive act is not what is operative in the development of an organism. The development that unfolds over time occurs, not from the causal force of the reproductive act which produced the cell but, from the activity of the cell's components acting unitedly according to a code or plan. In other words what is being passed on in the reproductive act is not an effect that, in turn, becomes the cause of the next effect in a causal chain; what is being passed on in the effect is a complex of horizontal causes. It is not sufficient that the material components in the cell have been passed on from the parent organism. This new casual action is not after the prior cause, it is within it. It is a switch in causal action on a different level. Matter cannot organize itself by physical causality. What is passed on in reproduction is not simply organized matter, it is organizing matter. |
| What happens in life? One individual arises from another, and the parent organism or organisms can be considered the physical cause of that individual. But now what happens? A gradual development over the course of time occurs and that development results from interacting causes that are dependent not upon the parent organism but upon each other. What is passed on in reproduction is not a causal force, but a complex plan, blueprint or design that, over the course of |
| time, unfolds. |
| This is all that the proponents of intelligent design want recognized, nothing about an intelligent designer. Some may hold that there is no intelligent designer, some may hold that the intelligent designer is God, some may hold that the intelligent designer is the original protozoan. That's all irrelevant to the particular point of intelligent design. |
| Common experience and established principles of human psychology recognize in human behavior the ability to engage in purposeful activity, activity that is directed toward a goal, a purpose or an end. Acts that are directed towards an end, namely acts that are undertaken as the means and steps toward that end, are said to be intelligent, distinctly human acts. There is nothing controversial about this, and scientists need not accept principles that they don't already accept. Evolutionists already admit the tests of intelligence. They admit them, for example, when they examine orangutans or chimpanzees for how much intelligent behavior they exhibit. In order to be "human" in this use of the word, the end or goal, in some way, has to be present at the beginning of the process before the goal is actually present, working or operational. It is said to be present intentionally or in the intention. |
| A teleological argument is saying that when activity from its beginning is directed toward a finality, then that activity is purposeful, that activity has a purpose, and purposeful activity implies intelligence or intelligent design. |
| Applied to biology, these same criteria of directed activity and the relationship of means to ends, is observed in development. The stomach, for example, when |
| it starts its development is not digesting food. It is not something growing until, by chance, it happens to find a use. Its development is directed toward an absolutely critical and necessary future need. A major theme in biology is the relating of morphology or structure to function; because, however, structure is not static but develops, the relationship of morphology to function already implies the truth of teleology. Often a developing structure does not function in the early stages, and, moreover, when it does begin to function, it remains more or less the same, without developing any further, for the whole rest of the life span of that organism, except perhaps to grow larger. You can't have a biology book filled with teleological affirmations and then insist that there is no teleology in biology. |
| Goal-directed activity per se is not what is in question. Purposeful acts are generally recognized both by the "common man" as well as by most philosophical systems. People don't plant an apple seed because they want a maple tree. What then is at issue here? The question is whether this recognized type of teleological activity has an application beyond the human experience; whether, that is, purposeful activity can be projected into biological development. This is really the heart of the question because it requires us to see the difference between the laureates' macrocosmic march onwards of "random variations" with the biological world of plant and animal kingdoms mutating their way into existence, and, on the other hand, the actual world of billions of organisms each having |
| their own self-enclosed programmatic development, and yet, nonetheless, having to interact within their environment or bio-eco system. The argument for intelligent design does not necessarily require a speculation regarding an intellect behind the design, but it does require one to distinguish in biological phenomena, a difference between random variations and planned and guided development. In physical causality what is happening in the present, is the result of what happened in the past; whereas in teleological activity, what is happening in the present, is the result of what will happen in the future. What is happening is the result of a form or design that is absolutely distinguishable from the material elements that it is happening to. This type of activity is, in fact, already known in what is termed intellectual or, if you will, intelligent activity. |
| Even starting from the premise that species produce other species, a close analysis of the causality in biological phenomena would lead more to the conclusion that a life principle is causing evolution than that evolution is causing life. |
| The problem of causal switch in evolution, exists not only after the reproductive act, but in the reproductive act as well. |
| Actually, when you analyze it, the biggest "mutation" occurring, would be in a female giving birth to a male offspring. Other humans do not result directly or indirectly, in a linear way, from a 46 chromosome cell, the defining double set of human chromosomes (except in the case of identical twins with the splitting of a zygote, which itself presupposes meiotic reproduction). |
| Human offspring are not caused by the one defining human cell, but by two 23 chromosome gametes and these two, in fact, come from two separate sources. Where two distinct causes are responsible for something, that necessarily implies a third cause. When two separate causes combine, a third cause must exist to account for the combining. And one would have to say that this third cause is at least ontologically prior and superior. The combined material components in the fertilized egg now make up the necessary human configuration of 46 chromosomes, but it only arrives at that, by means of a process which was not the result of any of those material components. |
| Some scientists criticize the argument from complexity, maintaining that complexity is not a fact but a judgment and that different observers will judge it differently, or that complexity is a relative concept. The question of "intelligent design" in life, however, is not about the chemical components of life, it is about the activity of life. |
| We can make a distinction between apparent design and teleological design. Apparent design may be thought of as a kind of order or pattern. We know that patterns may result from what is, at least in appearance, a random force. How complicated does the pattern or design have to be, before we judge it to require an intelligent agent? To be accurate the argument for intelligent design based solely on complexity is qualified as an "irreducible complexity" that is already present in the most primitive forms of life. This argument may have more obvious force as a proof against the theory of gradual mutations than as a proof in itself for intelligent design. The "irreducible complexity" certainly is meant to include the detailed activity going on at the cellular level and to that extent is undeniable proof of intelligent design. |
| Here, however, we are not maintaining that intelligent design is based on a certain "level of complexity". We are saying that intelligent design is based on predictable development. The design here is not in an orderly arrangement of parts, but in an orderly arrangement of means towards ends. |
| Nor are random variations relevant to the discussion, to begin with. It matters little if or whether a random mutation changes one intelligent plan into another intelligent plan, the fact of the matter is, that there is gradually unfolding a design. Oddly enough evolutionary theory itself doesn't even claim that that specific plan, now mutated, does not unfold, it merely maintains that, at some future point over the long run, it is not likely to be naturally selected and therefore to survive. It is, nevertheless, a solid enough plan to exist at least for a time, whatever may be it's long term survival prospects. |
| Ironically intelligent design is the most agreed upon point in this whole debate. When describing DNA, RNA, chromosomes and the genetic code, biologists extolling the intricacies, sound more like mystics than scientists. It is only when logical conclusions start to be made, that some scientific apologists defensively revert to the language of random variations. |
| Evolution, according to the laureates' statement, is by "random variations", that is to say, with variations by chance. |
| Often the randomness of the universe (which actually means a unified system) is thought to be based on the seeming random motion of atomic and sub |
| atomic particles. The fact of the matter is, that reality at the atomic level is gathered and unified into things governed by known and knowable regularities, |
| making the world of things, even by the most narrow interpretation, an ordered randomness or an ordered disorder, if you must. Likewise it is not accurate to create a picture of dueling or multiple principles, some random and some organizing, as if equal aspects of phenomena; when, in fact, the apparent randomness is organized. |
| Whatever may be said scientifically for a process of "random variations", the randomness is not something that science can in any way prove, but arises out of the belief system of the individuals who signed the manifesto, a personal judgment super-imposed upon the experimental facts, contradicting the signers' stated intention of keeping people's religious beliefs out of science class. |
| To toss into a general explanation of the universe the word "randomness" is, in any case, philosophically naive. It breaks into the discussion only in the |
| middle. An arc of probabilities presumes a realm of possibilities, and while philosophers are by no means in agreement as to the precise existential nature of this "realm of possibilities", they are generally of accord that it has to be assigned at least a logical value, the lack of which would result in an apparent explanation that does not explain. Long and deep has been the centuries' old meditation on this point: the concept of intentionality, the concept of potentiality and the like. What is certain is that probability implies conditions. |
| Just how bizarre the debate regarding cosmic evolution or the evolution of the universe is, can be seen by the number of more or less hastily passed over assumptions that already have to be made: namely regarding pre-exisitng material, successive attempts, time, why what happened, didn't happen earlier, and what or who is doing the triggering? How many "big bangs" really were there, before an ordered universe resulted? Since the explosions with which we are familiar, result in greater disorder and chaos, was a "second chance" even possible? How many planets are there where nothing is selected? How many things on this planet are quite un-naturally selected? |
| In truth, chance is never a cause; it is, rather, an unpredictable effect, at least practically so. We often hear that the positing of a God or an "intelligent designer" is merely a stop-gap assumption destined to become unnecessary once the real cause is understood. Actually we have to say exactly that about "chance". Forces that may be too complicated to track today may be described as "random", but once all the elements are able to be mapped out, we realize that it was not "chance" at all, but the result of perfectly definable laws, and not ones of statistical probability, but laws of physics yielding certainty and therefore predictability as well. |
| There are more than one aspect of evolutionary theory that run contrary to philosophical truths which have been analyzed and defended for centuries, such as the principle that the greater can not arise from the lesser. Presenting evolution as a fact, it is often advanced as the proof against this principle, but that is to assume as true, what in fact you must prove. |
| The most basic and primordial stage in the evolutionary journey, namely the passage from inorganic matter to organic matter should be the most easily verifiable and commonly witnessed, and yet that remains unverified. There is simply no experimental support for such a passage, notwithstanding the forced evolutionistic interpretation of viruses. This is where the laureates' claim that evolution is "logically derived from confirmable evidence" is most factually deceptive. |
| Notwithstanding the apparent difficulties of evolutionary theory, the spectrum of organisms lined up, one next to the other from the most simple to the most complex, remains so impressive as to form, it would seem, almost an argument in itself. This stepping stone vision of the natural world is not particular to the Darwinian view. A common medieval maxim, tracing back even further to at least Dionysius, states that "the highest of a lower order touches the lowest of a higher order". What can be the interpretation of this gradual rise from lesser forms to greater forms? |
| I remember a murder mystery with a plot something along these lines: A wife becomes suspicious that her husband is arranging to have her killed. There were secretive telephone calls. There were the times when the caller hung up when she would answer the phone. It all sort of climatically worked up, you might say, with great tension, to an evening when her husband actually lays a large knife on the counter even though supper was already over. As it turned out, the husband had planned a surprise birthday party for his wife and set out the knife to cut the birthday cake! |
| There is a possibility that we may be doing the same thing in relation to species time-lines and "evolutionary trees". Yes, one explanation may be that one thing evolved into the next thing, but another explanation can very well be found in the requirements of the food chain. We now recognize (at least those who eat organic foods), more than in the past, all that has to be taking place in the soil before healthy plants even sprout, and all that has to be going on under the sea before there can be a healthy tuna fish. It might be possible to scavenger for elements in the soil in order to survive, but instead, all the scavenging is done by plants, and we merely have to pluck a delectable fruit that could hardly be duplicated by eating a combination of nutrient elements. |
| Evolutionary theory has undergone a certain evolution. The premise that some substance or gas evolved into the human species originally would have been met with an understandable incredulity. The credibility problem was minimized by the introduction of gradualism. What may seem to be impossible looked at in its bare bones outline, was stretched out long enough in small enough steps to appear plausible. Now, of course, with the idea of evolution being fixed more firmly in the common psyche, reliance on tiny steps is less important, and theories such as "punctuated equilibrium" , or the progress of evolution by bigger steps may be met with less disbelief. This new approach has the advantage of responding to a difficulty of evolution regarding fossil evidence. The first principle of evolution, mutations that happen by chance, results in many species arriving at existence but not surviving because of the second principle of evolution, natural selection. But where is the fossil evidence for all these unsuccessful species? Well, there's your answer: The new theory of evolution doesn't require all these troublesome intermediate steps. Like a "catch 22", however, this lessed reliance on gradualism always comes at the expense of the overall plausibility of the theory for those who are inclined to forgive inconsistencies so long as they are tiny enough. |
| In their declaration the laureates state: |
| "We, Nobel Laureates, are writing in defense of science. |
| We reject efforts by the proponents of so-called “intelligent |
| design” to politicize scientific inquiry and urge the Kansas |
| State Board of Education to maintain Darwinian evolution as |
| the sole curriculum and science standard in the State of Kansas. . . . |
| We are also concerned by the Board’s recommendation of August |
| 8, 2005 to allow standards that include greater criticism of evolution. . ." |
| The great impetus for the scientific method began with Francis Bacon rejecting the dependence of science upon the argument from authority; and now we have come to this: 38 Nobel laureates demanding that evolution be the only theory presented in biology class! |
| The ancients used to affirm that the first principles of a science and a critique of them, come not from that science, but from a higher science. We are not maintaining that pupils in biology class have to, first, take a philosophy course, but it does seem appropriate for students in biology to be able to distinguish the legitimate scientific evidence for evolution from philosophical claims about evolution that outstrip or out-run the scientific data. |
| Scientists battling the voices of intelligent design should be consoled to know that there are even people of religion arguing against it. The astronomer Rev. George Coyne, for example, argues that belief in God requires a leap outside anything science can describe or prove. In this, Coyne confuses the theological virtue of faith, whereby we believe all that God has revealed (especially those mysteries impervious to human reason), and the ability to reason to "the invisible things of (God) from the creation of the world" as Saint Paul affirms in his letter to the Romans. |
| For believers, God is truth and can neither deceive or be deceived; so it follows logically that one must accept and believe by faith all that He has revealed. On the other hand, to present to students, as frozen dogmas, the controversial theories of men, obviously would only have the effect of stifling creative thinking and the proposal of alternate theories, fresh hypotheses and new models; all to the detriment of intellectual progress. It would, as well, run counter to current widely held pedagogical thinking. |
| Popular for hundreds of years, was the theory of the Greek thinker, Empedocles, that earth, air, fire and water were the basic "roots". It may be that to future generations the theory of evolution will sound just as simplistic. In the meanwhile educators should try not to close the doors on debate but to allow an open discussion of competing theories. |
| Father Thomas Carleton |
| Feast of Guadalupe, 2005 |
| * * * * * * * * |
| What an impressive thing! Modern science can take you today and trace your origins all the way back to some initial cosmic event: an explosion, an implosion, |
| a bang of some sort, or just a big active hole in space! We need not be skeptical. There might be "a few gaps here and there" that scientists still have to work out, but basically the over all outline is considered to be very "scientific". |
| Firstly, it should be pointed out that even scientists who do not favor offering in the classrooms alternative views on evolution, have been critical of the biased way that it is presented, namely, without due note of the problems and contradictions that evolutionary theory has been unable to resolve. So the presentation of evolution in the schools, even within its own context and by its own standards, is, at present, already incomplete and somewhat disingenuous. |
| In any case, back at the beginning of the evolutionary road, there are always the intriguing left over questions: Where did the initial gas or substance come |
| from? What or who triggered the explosion? Why did it not happen earlier? And so on. On the one hand, this has given to religious people who would like to make their peace with evolutionary theory, the opening to insert God, and, on the other hand, it has allowed those who wish to keep any immaterial or supernatural aspect out of the explanation, the possibility of looking upon the inclusion of this initial step as a totally hypothetical tack-on. This, however, is not what the current debate on "Intelligent Design" is concerned with. |
| The claims of Intelligent Design do not arise from the as yet un-answered questions back at the beginning of the evolutionary trail. In a more traditional formulation, Saint Thomas explains it this way: |
| "We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, |
| act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly |
| always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is |
| plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. |
| Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move toward an end, unless |
| it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and |
| intelligence." |
| Note carefully from where the argument departs: "We see that things . . .such as natural bodies . . .". It begins with the examination of experience. Proponents of intelligent design, in fact, are not calling for a recognition of "an intelligent designer" either as a premise, or, for that matter, as a conclusion, at least not one that the text-book itself would have to draw. They are merely calling for an impartial examination of the experimental data or evidence, if you will, in order to determine whether a natural or biological process should be characterized as a random activity or as one implying a predetermined end, that is to say, implying teleology, to use the philosophical term. It is an a posteriori argumentation no different from when scientists tells us that if certain molecular constructions (that is to say, molecules organized in a certain way) were to be found on Mars, it would imply the possibility of life having existed on the planet. If, in fact, natural processes were random, then there would be no basis for concluding that these constructions were necessarily pre-life forms. The claim that "intelligent design is not science" is absurd. |
| The argument does not seek to fill in, gratuitously, a gap at the conclusion of the scientific explanation, nor does it seek to hypothesize regarding the data of experience. The argument seeks to allow people to analyze evidence and, if they choose, to draw, by logical inference, from the examined facts, the conclusion warranted. There is nothing unusual about this in science. The science of criminology, for example, is based on the assumption that a crime implies a criminal. |
| Design is integral to science which, in fact, is about regularities and laws. Without regularities there is no science but only a heap of data. When, from collected data, patterns are identified or an order emerges, then you have a science. Even the most materialistic evolutionist arrives at laws such as Darwin's "preservation of favored races", "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest". The very choice of subject matter that will form the object of a scientific field, already contains design. In setting the boundaries of our area of research, we have to say: all these objects are the same. In other words, they are not randomly chosen, but selected because they form a class and conform to a pre-accepted criterion. |
| Prescinding from whatever scientists consider to be the proper material of their field and likewise prescinding from whatever they consider to be their method of research, they cannot exempt themselves from logical forms and logical inference, nor can they stand in the way of others reasoning in these natural or co-natural forms. Children in schoolrooms especially must not be systematically blocked from the right to decide for themselves whether they consider a logical inference necessary or not. This is not "an unwarranted incursion into religion", this is a requirement of all free and honest exploration. |
| Science can say: "We shall only study what can, by the senses or with the help of instruments, be measured or quantified", but what it can't say, is: "All reality is measurable by science". That would be a conclusion, itself not verifiable by the scientific method and would be, you'd have to say, the ultimate case of thinking completely "inside the box". Conscious of its own parameters, science should be saying: "By means of the method by which we work, we are able, so far, to establish this amount of information, but we cannot preclude that further understanding on the subject may be gained by other means". Scientists should be comfortable with their method of drawing conclusions without prejudice to other forms of rational inquiry, that, in truth, they themselves have to use. |
| The recognition of non-material aspects of reality is not particularly religious nor confined to "another world". Most philosophers have identified immaterial elements in the natural world itself and particularly in the processes of knowing and consciousness. Whether these be Plato's ideas, Aristotle's forms, or Hegel's spirit, they are a legitimate and necessary attempt to account for all aspects of reality as they are experienced in life. The ordinary man also (the ordinary man especially), even while not articulating it in a theory, is well aware of many things in his experience, such as virtues like courage and love, or one's own consciousness ultimately, which can not be seen, heard or quantified and yet, nevertheless, exist just as surely as rocks or trees. |
| Let's examine the matter more closely. There are in fact two types of causes. One type fits perfectly into a physical sequence that allows us to depart from the present and travel backwards step by step tracing what preceded each scientifically explainable phenomenon. |
| There is however another type of cause, sometimes called in Philosophy a "transcendental cause". It is called "transcendental" because it is non-material and has no traceable physical antecedent. A first "uncaused cause" would be of this type. They must, by logic, be inferred since the physical sequence of causes and effects comes to a halt without, at that point, having given an adequate accounting of the phenomenon to be explained |
| But let's take another more familiar example: free-will decisions are causes of this second type. Each free-will decision is an entirely new thing in the universe, unexplainable in terms of a prior physical antecedent. Big or small, each decision of the will in some way can alter whatever deterministic chain of causes may be unfolding. |
| There are, of course, entirely materialistic explanations of free-will. Take, for instance, the theory of "competing attractions", that is to say, for example, that if a man is placed between two "big macs", he would starve to death because he would be so equally attracted to both of them that he would be unable to make a decision on which to eat! No doubt there are physiological components surrounding even this type of cause par excellence, but no matter how much additional understanding we can gain from identifying and isolating these accompanying material or chemical aspects of the process, there will always remain that irreducible witness at the center of the free choice of the will. |
| Scientists, for example, can tell you very precisely the chemical cause of your heart burn: "acid reflex"! On the other hand: Was it because you decided, by a completely free decision of the will, to eat a burrito? After all, nobody compelled you to eat the burrito. Which was the real cause? Well it's both causes and that's exactly the point. Reality and life are an intricate mixture of both types of causes. By an a priori exclusion of a passage from material and physical phenomena to an immaterial cause, one is not protecting science from religion or preventing a blind leap into an unknown supernatural world; one is excluding, on principle, the most common experience of man: your mind says: "go", and your foot moves! |
| The most frequent argument that you hear against adding intelligent design to the curriculum is that its proponents are all theistic believers. That conclusion may well be, for all I know, a true statement induced by the scientific method, but, it is, let's face it, totally irrelevant to whether or not biology should try to identify design in living forms. |
| In the final analysis you would have to say that seeing design in the workings of nature is very obvious and that it would require quite a concerted effort on the part of someone in a classroom insisting that it is not scientific in order to de-program yourself as to its presence. |
| Kids should be able to examine closely the existence and nature of design in the processes of the universe and should be able to decide for themselves what they make of it, even if scientists don't wish to. |
| Father Thomas Carleton |
| Aug. 18, 2005 |
| Great-Ideas.info Editorial |