RACE OF TAILED MEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17031, 3 May 1923, Page 1

RACE OF TAILED MEN.

BRITISH SCIENTIST’S CLAIM. WHERE EVOLUTION IS LEADING. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.—Aus. and. N.Z. Cable Assn, (Received May 3, 9.40 a.m.) LONDON, May 2. Sir Arthur Keith, lecturing before the Royal Institution, said that Evolution was not working in the direction of supermen with swollen heads and small faces. There was positive evidence in some countries that brains were growing smaller. “ Not one person in fifty of the present generation uses his brain to half its capacity,” said Sir Arthur. “ Most of us have* more brain than we know what to do with. The most plastic bone in the human body is that under the gums in which the teeth are rooted. In thirty per cent, of British people to-day, this bone, instead of spreading outwards and giving the mouth a wide low vault as in prehistoric races, is growing vertically, giving a narrow palate. Wisdom teeth are thus often crowded out, giving the nose and chin undue prominence.” Sir Arthur Keith states that Dr Kammerer is a scientist whose theories are worthy of every consideration, but so far he has never produced a new faculty. The newt originally possessed sight and’ had only lest the faculty of seeing. His experiments applied to human beings might restore dormant faoulties, and if so, instead of supermen, we might become jungle people again. The animal instincts would be restored and would become dominant. " I could, by experiment, produce a race of tailed rnsn,” concluded Sir Arthur. Professor W. E. Mcßride, the biclogist, and Drs F. H. Marshall, and C. Elliott Smith, also speak highly of Kammerer’s investigations.