MAN AND APE

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 78, 2 April 1935, Page 7

MAN AND APE

TEACHING OF THEOEYj EVOLUTION PROTEST MEETING A resolution protesting against the continued teaching of the theory of evolution in the schools, colleges, and pulpits of Great Britain and the Dominions, on the ground that it was not established as a scientific truth, was carried with few dissentients at a meeting held in London recently. The meeting had been organised by the Evolution Protest Movement for this purpose, states the "Manchester Guardian." Sir Ambrose Fleming presided, and a number of messages from scientists, ministers, and business men were received. Sir Ambrose said that the discoveries of fragments of skeletons in and after 1891 gave new impetus to the discussion of the Darwinian^ theory, and it began to be expounded as a definitely ascertained truth that the human race was a direct development from animal ancestors, and not a special creation. The. theory was distorted till the general public believed that men were descended from monkeys, though a competent naturalist would have put it that men and anthropoid apes had & common ancestor. The Darwinian theory had been forced on public attention in such a fashion 1 as to create a belief that it was a settled scientific truth. Objections to, it were treated as though they were the result of ignorance or bigotry, and the fact that many eminent naturalists did not agree with Darwin's theory was generally repressed. "MAN'S COUSIN." The effect on the minds of young people and non-scientific older people had been to confirm the opinion that the difference' between man and the ape was merely one of degree, and this belief was enforced by crude pictures in many publications showing the gorilla and (he chimpanzee as "man's cousin or near relation." The inference among people young and old was that their personal existence, like that of the,animals, ended with death, and that they must therefore get as much material pleasure as possible out of life.. If there had been no Creation it was unnecessary to assume the existence of a Creator; the chief basis for all religion was .taken away, and morality reduced to mere expediency. ' "Many competent and careful thinkers are agreed," Sir Ambrose said, "that this evolutionary philosophy prepared the way for the Great War by; instilling into the minds of the German nation, under the influence of such writers as Nietzsche, the belief that force was the great source of progress, that the prizes of life should. go to the strong, and that the weals must be exterminated." NIGHTMARE-LIKE PICTURES. Sir Ambrose showed slides of the fragmentary skulls of prehistoric man and pictures from magazines that reconstructed the skulls and clothed them with flesh. "We protest," he said, "against this one-sided teaching of the animal origin of man by imaginary1 or nightmare-like pictures which attach importance merely to certain similarities in bones, body, blood, and behaviour, but ignore altogether^ immense actual or potential dissimilarities mental and spiritual. We also condemn that collateral doctrine which, asserts that the human soul or mind is nothing but the brain in operation and perishes with it." The arguments of Darwinian anthropologists were defective, and did not give the proof they assumed. There was no justification for. broadcasting this theory of the ape origin of man to schools and children. A large number of thoughtful persons thought it was of national importance to try to counteract the effects of this reckless and indiscriminate popularisation of the theory. Captain Bernard Ackworth, R.N., one of the founders of the movement, objected, to the theory that progress in human affairs was inevitable. He believed half our present trpubles wera due to that theory. ' Mr. Douglas Dewar, who has published many scientific books, said that if evolution were true it should be possible to prove it, but no evidence had been found to indicate that" any one type of fauna or flora had been changed into its successor. The Rev. W. Talbot Hindley, headmaster of Seaford College,.like several other speakers, strongly condemned the teaching of evolution as a proved scientific truth to boys in public schools and young men at universities. "If you are going to take away from' the boys of England the rock of God's word and the inviolability of God's Christ on which they are to / build, God help England," he said.