THEORY OF EVOLUTION

Taranaki Daily News, 22 March 1935, Page 7

THEORY OF EVOLUTION

A PROBLEM FOR BIOLOGISTS. CONUNDRUM OF POPULATION. “The problem which the evolutionist has to face is to explain how it comes to pass thht if men and the anthropoid apes have a common ancestor, all the astonishing powers and faculties should be present in ever-advancing degree in man and totally absent in the collateral animal, the ape. “We have not merely, to account for the bodily form; we have to explain the appearance of these immensely progressive psychical and spiritual powers as well. Modem anthropology furnishes no sufficient answer to this question. “We can quite appropriately assert that the origin of man is to be looked for in the creative power of a self-conscious Creator, and Supreme' Intelligence and Will. We cannot, however, assume that a mere abstract term such as evolution, which merely connotes gradual change, is a vera causa in a scientific sense. Accordingly, it is no explanation at all to assert that man has been evolved from an animal form.” The above statement, made by Sir Ambrose Fleming, the octogenarian scientist, at a meeting of the Philosophical Society, has created a great deal of interest. Later in the week he made a further statement in the London Daily Telegraph. Sir Ambrose writes:— “We know for certain that the present human population on this earth is about 2,000,000,000 persons, or, let us say, 1,000,000,000 couples. We know from certain evidence (see article on ‘Population’ in the Encyclopaedia Britannica) that in 1914 it was estimated at 1,900,000,000, and in 1845 at 1,009,000,000. THE FACTS WE KNOW. “We have sufficient evidence to show that since the beginning of the Christian era it has doubled in number many times over. Sir George Knibbs, a great authority, has shown that the progeny of a single human couple, multiplying at the rate of 1 per cent, per annum, would amount to 1,900,000,000 in 1900 years. “There is evidence, then, that, as far as historic time is concerned, the true human population has not increased more slowly than to double in a period varying from 75 to about 300 or 400 years. “If, however, we hypothecate a span of continuous human procreation of 100,000 or 1,000,000 years at no slower rate, we can easily prove at once that the land surface of the earth would not hold the merest fraction of-the resulting human progeny of an original single couple, whereas the numbers are, in fact, a bare 2,000,000,000. “This shows incontestably that if human origin extends so far back aS 1,000,000 years, the rate of increase of numbers on the average must have been vastly slower than at present. “This implies that what is called the crude death rate must have been nearly equal to the crude birth rate in the far past, because it is on the difference that the population increase depends, EXTENT OF DARWIN THEORY. “If, then, it has taken thousands or tens of thousands of years for the population, human or semi-human, to double its numbers in pre-historic time, the important question to consider is whether this fact does not limit the extent to which Darwinian natural selection can have operated to produce the great differences in bodily structure or psychical endowment between modem man and some ancient mammal. “The Darwinian theory, if I understarid it rightly, is that there are small accidental differences in the germ-cells of any class of living organisms, and that those individuals which happen to possess qualities or powers in concordance with their environment have a better chance of survival than those which do not. They then have a better chance in the struggle tor existence to live and procreate, and pass on these useful modifications to a succeeding generation. “To do this they must have a fair expectation of reaching adult life, because neither humans nor anthropoid mammals procreate in infancy. If, however, the death rate Is nearly equal to the birth rate, it must surely limit very greatly the opportunity or chance to pass on advantageous qualities or powers.”