IS MANKIND DOOMED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 2 August 1924, Page 15

IS MANKIND DOOMED.

THEORY THAT CIVILISATION IS DESTROYING ITSELF. Man,as a race, has declined, but there is no warrant in fact for the statement that civilisation is plunging downward, according to Edwin Grant Conklin, head of the- Department of Biology at Princeton University and world famous biologist, reports the New York Times. Dr. Conklin replied recently to statements by Albert Edward Wiggam, in his new book, “The New Decalogue of Science,” that the civilised races of the world are biologically plunging downward, and that the civilisation of the present day is self-destructive. “There is not sufficient evidence of the actual conditions of civilisation for the period even a hundred years ‘ago to warrant a statement that our civilisation is plunging downwards,” Dr. Conklin said. “In modern times we have had no such disastrous epidemics as those of the middle ages, which wiped out half the population of Western Europe in the fourteenth century. Although the influenza epidemic in 1918 killed about 600,000 individuals in the United States, the proportion of fatalities to the total population cannot be compared to those of plagiies of the middle ages. “We are learning to control epidemic diseases, and in this respect our civilisation to-day is certainly in advance of the civilisation of previous ages. Nor is there enough evidence to say that the number of cases of insanity, epilepsy, and imbecility are increasing. On the other hand there is no marked improvement in our times Compared with the period of the ancient Greeks, we may be said to have declined. We probably are less healthy of body and vigorous of mind than were the leaders of that period. “Measures which we have taken in modern times to save the weak and per. mit them to propagate may be lowering the stamina of our race. I should certainly say, and I believe Mr. Wigga.m would agree with me, that natural selection must be replaced by intelligent human selection. Civilisation can save itself only if the people themselves can be directed to make the effort and can be made aware of the dangers which threaten.” Dr. Joseph E. Raycroft, professor of hygiene and head of the Department of Physical Education at Princeton, said that despite a decrease in the infant mortality rate, he believes W'ggam’s statements to be very largely true, and that degenerative diseases are increasing after middle life.