The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1903-03-12
A MELAkGE Of LIVE TOPICS
Penned for Journal Readers
by a Local Scribe.
THE BOGUS SCIENCE.

THE BOGUS SCIENCE.
A writer IL q recent number of
Harper's Magazine while main
tanning that the Darwinian theory
of evolution is now practically es-
tablished having received the al
most unanimous appreciation of
the scientific world, goes on to say
that the theory Of natural selec-
ton held by Darwin involving the
"struggle for existence" and the
survival Of the fittest" must be
modified holding that natural Sc
tction does not account for some
of the changes which have taken
place in animal and vegetable
forms within recent times aud I'M
der the observation Of man. He
mentions certain plants which
nave been evolved from a parent
stem which are Low entirely diff
ferent from the stem, the result
having been accomplished by "a
certain manner of treatment by a
gardener in which treatment the
the plant was not unduly devel-
oped or retarded III whole or in
part. He concluded that organ
isms entirely different from the
sources from which they sprang
came into existence full-hedged
like Minerva from the head of
Jupiter.
The doctrine of natural selection
the struggle for existence and
the survival of the fttest-is the
foundation of the Darwinian the
DRY of evolution; if it be rejected
the whole superstructure falls.
This writer while defending evolu-
ton as the causctive agency of all
forms of animal and vegetable
life thus distinctly rejects OAR
winianism and in doing so he tao
lily admits, it seems to the writer.
that there is no such thing as
chance or accident in the phenom-
ena of nature, but that all things
work out according to fixed i'm
mutable laws. This necessarily
implies that there is a design back
of the laws-a Divine Intelligence
which created the laws, since
blind, unreasoning, impersonal
nature could not have created sys-
TEN and order.
The writer rejects evolution in
all of its forms believing that no
matter how an oak tree and
cornstalk or the eggs of her and
those of a rattlesnake may be
treated no full-tiedged form be-
tween these separate types can
ever be obtained. The plants
treated by this gardener of which
this scientist writes still remained
plants of the same family, though
differing in some details from the
parents.
The writer repeats the formula
which he declares is asked by the
scientists (so-called) of this time.
"If you reject evolution what else
better have you to Offer" This
question fairly illustrates the one
sided and disingenlous spirit of
the so-caIled "searchers after
truth. " Instead of believing that
there is a God who could have
produced all these things they set
about to trump up theory which
no matter how far-fetched and I'M
reasonable it may be, so long as
it is not positively inconsistent
with the phenomena, they ex-
anime, they set up as the explana-
ton of the universe; In effect
they say, Anything to do away
with the necessity of personal
God "
Evolution will always find vota-
rles among certain class-those
who delight to Observation-Disclosures
it is rich field for speculation,
aud most beautiful ideas can be
built upon it, not only III the
physical world but in the intellec-
tual moral and social ones as we'll.
But among the men of true scien-
tific minds the probabilities are
that it will drop out of sight after
a while.
~
THE REASON.