EVOLUTION AND CREATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 244, 15 October 1925, Page 16

EVOLUTION AND CREATION.

(To the Editor.) j Sir,—Your correspondent *E. S Dukes, builds his letter on a misconcep- ' tion. Nowhere in the course of this | correspondence have I either "dropped" ■ Darwin, to use his expression, or stated I that Darwin's particular theory is dis- I credited. I did not discuss the merits : of competing theories. True it is that j theories of evolution by mutation, ! germ plasm, and hormones have each , won eminent ecientific isuppor., <mt ' there are famous biologists who still j support a modification of the Darwinian hypothesis. To say that natural' selection is discredited on all hands is ! a rash assertion without a vesti-r e of justification. I would hazard the° suggestion that your correspondent lias never read Darwin's immortal book "The Origin of Species," else he would scarcely be guilty of making the extraordinary statement that "this theory was a bare and bold (not to say impudent) assumption." Darwin's theory of evolution was the outcome of a lifetime of painstaking and concentrated research into biological problems. Every section of his great work is backed up by a massive and interesting array of facts, that carry conviction to the unbiassed mind. It does not need my pen to write his praises. Not a •biologist to-day, however his conception of the causes of evolution varies from that of Darwin, but acknowledges his immense debt to that genius, who, with his solid basis of facts, in the words of Sir Arthur Keith, made evolution a going concern. lam unable to understand how doctrines of evolution may be classified as harmless and harmful, unless it be that the harmless are forms sufficiently diluted to be incapable of disturbing preconceptions, and the harmful those that burke no facts and for that reason give unpleasant shocks to Bibliolatrous literalism of the Dayton species. Your correspondent may conceivably be able to harmonise the form of evolution outlined by him (a form unsupported, so far as I am aware, by any scientific' authority) with the stories of creation in Genesis, but to mc it appears little '. short of disingenuous to twist and distort the plain features of an ancient ' feemitie myth to fit a modified and fistic conception of the modern theory of evolution.—l am, etc., A-_E.a i

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Your correspondent, Mr. E. S. Dukes, 6tates that A.E.C. and myself "who support 'evolution' liave dropped Darwin." As far as I am concerned such is not the case. As a mere layman on these matters, I have never felt competent enough to decide which method it was by -which, evolution -was brought about. My letter was intended to point out that the rejection by certain scientists of the Darwinian theory in no iray helps the case of the fundamentalist, but indicates rather their belief in the Lamarckian or the "mutation" hypothesis. Mr. Dukes suggests that the air might he cleared somewhat if %ye were to define our terms. Fortunately this need cause no disagreement as the terms "evolution" and "Darwinism" are already as clearly defined as "transport" and "motor car." Any text book on the matter or any encyclopaedia will make clear the distinction. Organic evolution is the doctrine that the many forms of life have all developed or evolved from fewer and simpler forms, and in all probability have their ultimate origin in the simplest form of life—the single cell. Professor Bateson says in his "Problems of Genetics," "that species have come into existence by an evolutionary process no one seriously doubts." "Darwinism" is merely a particular theory of how this evolutionary process has been brought about. It is the theory that life has evolved by mean! of the cumulative effect of natural selection, -or the "survival of the fittest," preserving those variations in an individual which pive liim a better chance of surviving than liis fellows in the struggle for existence. Fifty years before the birth of Darwin Lamarck published his "Zoological Philosophy," in which he expounded the theory that evolution had been brought about mainly as the result of habit. Quite distinct from these two hypotheses, the Darwinian and the ian, is another —-the "mutation" theory of de Vries which holds that new species are largely sudden formations. As regards Mr. Dukes' statement that "Darwinism is discredited on all hands and his theory a bare, bold (not to say impudent) assumption," surely second thoughts will persuade him that it is rather a wild exaggeration when Darwinism can claim the support of such authorities as Weismann and Lankester. —I am, etc., F.YV.C. [This correspondence i 9 closed.—Ed.]