CORRESPONDENCE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXI, Issue 16604, 27 April 1916, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

NATBBAL SKLBCTION.

(To thevEditor.)

Sir, —It ia always an advantage when your opponent brings forward an argument that strengthens your side of the case. "Reformer" has done this "when he quotes the exhibits of the progress of the horse at the Yale University. It is, t think, generally admitted that improvements have occurred in different spe_ cies owing to improved surroundings but no change of species from one kind to another. Genesis states that God made "each atter his kind." The contention of the opponents to evolution is that no intermediate form, that is, a form showing a union of different species, has ever been found. He quotes- t&e man ape of Java. Is this the specimen quoted by Jffaeckel? The one where-Haeckel took part of the skeleton of a man and part of a monkey, joined them together, and photographed them and published the Dhoto abroad as the missing link! Haeckel was forced to admit the fraud when the original was examined. Then "Reformer** says that "natural selection" has been made the basis of successful prediction. Prediction is all very well, but what are the facts Let us take the carnivora, the ones who prey upon others and are exempted themselves from being preyed upon. The late Mr. Bartlett, superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, London, said "that every carnivorous species and every prolific herbivorous species' required, before the parturition of the female, to have the male removed, for if this was not done the brood , would be straightway destroyed and devoured by the male." In that sentence we have an answer to the question of natural selection or survival of the fittest amongst the carnivora, as in the wild statfi it would not be the strongest of each brood that would escape, but possibly the weakest, as after the male had destroyed some of the brood the female would endeavour to escape from the attention ol the male and save at least one. which would be the last, and therefore the weakest of the brood, as the last is always the smallest. Take the case of tigers. The average life of a tiget lis believed to be SO years, in whict period a female will breed , seven times, producing iiiree offspring at a birth, or a pair during their lifetime would produce 21 young tigers These again would be also breeding so a calculation will easily tell hoy, many there would be at tne.end ol 30 years. Over a thousand if Nature had not provided a means oi destroying the increase; otherwise al surrounding animal life would be do -3troyed. It is found there is no increase of tigers in their haunts; the] remain about the same. The carnJ vora prey upbti the herbiverous ani tnals not by the law of natural selee tion, but by laying in wait for them and as the strongest leads tho here it is most likely to fall a prey to th< waiting tiger. We see a vast; differ ence in the races of mankind, as fo! instance between the aborigines o Australia and the canny Scotchman—■ one endow.cd with powers useless t< the- other owing to environment," am yet Darwin, Owen, Huxley and other; admit that all life sprung from ai original pair. Any of the races o mankind can intermarry, and thei: offspring can continue to propagate whereas cross any two different spe cies, and they fail to propagate tin new species, vide the mule; and t< support the evolutionist theory the} should do so. Evolution requires a> least a hundred million years to accomplish the supposed improvement! from an atom, whereas Lord Kelvii only allows twenty million years' as the outside age of life on this earth Then where did this atom, electron protoplasm or whatever it is called come from? Where did it have its origin!? One scientist sayss-it is Jus< as difficult to realise howtthe flrsi atom appeared as to accept the Biblf revelation of creation and then fron what .did the world come from? Ii from an atom, why has it not life like the other progeny of the atom? M Hegar, Professor of Philosophy a" the University of Copenhagen, ii 1889, was a well-known apostle o: atheism, but afterwards wrote: "Th< experiences of life, its sufferings anc griefs, have shaken my soul, and bro ken the foundation upon which I for merly built. Full of faith in the suffi <uency of science, I thought to hav< found in it a safe refuge from al contingencies of life.. This illusioi has vanished. When the tempes came, which plunged me in sorrow the moorings, the cables of science broke like a thread. ■ Then I seizec upon that help which, many" befor< me have laid hold of: I sought anc found peace in God. Since then have certainly not abandoned science but I have assigned it to anothej place in my life." "As I am leaving Wanganui for a time I must end thii discussion, but "Reformer" shoufc not speak ill of his own side. I quoted Paulin, an evolutionist, and "Reformre" calls him "a dabbler whe mixes science and religion into ? hotehpptch that is of no use to mar lor beast." Otherwise readers mighi 1 include all evolutionists under the same category. Y,ours, etc., iJ P. BARNARD BROWN.