Evening star., 1925-07-03
What Is Evolution?
By Lemuel r. Parton 4.
III

HI.
In the preceding chapter of this
series. the five main contentious with
which the evolutionists support their
theory were given. The first Of these
was given as the record of fossil re-
mains. These fossils are found in va
rious geological strata, which, accord
ing to biologists, may be placed fairly
accurately in time, thus giving, ac-
cording to this Interpretation, a Sc
quential story Of the evolution of life.
The following outlines, roughly, the
main case Of the evolutionists:
Fossil remains recording a tiny
worm on slab of the Proterozoic era
are accepted as the earliest known
record Of animal life. They estimate
that this sea worm was iInbedded in
the slab about S00,000,0o0 years ago.
This Is the beginning Of the story.
The age of the trilobites came next
about 0,000, 900 years ago-accord-
ing to the evolutionary chronology.
The trilobite was a small, shrimplike
creature, and, the evolutionists say
was for millions of years the highest
form of life on the planet. This was
the beginning Of the Paleozoic era,
which also included the age of fishes,
about 500 100000 years ago. 1t was in
this age that the sea scorpion evolved
the beginning of land animals.
Tries a New Model.
The age of coal, about $40, 900 900
years ago, is an important chapter in
the story Of evolution, as here we find
sweeping adaptations by amphibian
animals, living partly on land and
partly in water, with the appearance
Of the first lizards.
90
years ago, nature announced an at
tractive new structural model. Hav-
ing found that the "exo-skeleton" or
hard outer shell of the crabs and mol
lusca was not adaptable to a changing
environment, she tried putting the
skeleton on the inside and brought on
the first of the vertebrates. This was
also the age of the Ammonite, the an
ceStor Of the chambered nautilus. This
age marks the passage into the Meso-
zoic era.
The succeeding Tertiary and Pleisto-
Gene eras were the great ice age, last
ing about 100000 years, about TO-
100000 years ago. It was the age of
mammals. and the fossil remains OF
this period reveal the skull Of the
"ape man" of Java.
The foregoing is the barest outline
of the story, as the evolutionists piece
II together from the fossils found in
the rocks. Libraries could be filled
with the books written on each chap
ter of this story and. regardless Of
cne's views as to the validity Of the
conclusions. 1t is doubtless true that
more painstaking work has been de.
voted to the study of this supposed
sequence of life than to any other
branch Of scientific investigation.
The work of tracing the ascent
from the extinct egg-laying mammals
TO man was much more difficult. as II
embraces much shorter geological
epochs and hence lacks the record OF
the rocks. From the mammals there
was one branch TO primitive hoofed
animals, from which were derived in
one line the mammoths, cotemporary
with the early cave man, and In an
other line the tiny 3-toed horse, or
eohippus, II inches high-the ancestor
of the modern horse and giraffe.
Monkey Held Cousins"
There was another branch TO primi
tive clawed animals, from which de-
scended in one line the dog-cat ami
mails, and in the other tree-dwelling
fruit eating animals. One Of these
was the tiny lemur. Evolutionists are
frankly in doubt as to whether this
creature may be considered as having
been in the direct line Of the ancestry
of man. The weight of opinion holds
that the lemur Is on a side line. The
monkey and gorilla are also now re
garded as branch developments, and
as cousins rather than as direct an
cestors of man. In view Of this con
clusion that man is the outcome of a
great convergence of life forces, reach
ing out and withdrawing in millions
of tentative forms, tracing back to the
prinordial protoplasm, or stuff or life
in the ancient sea, the headline EN-
phasis ,yn the monkey is seen to be a
distortion of the evolutionary theory
The second contention of the evolu-
tionistS-that new species OF plants
and animals have actually been pro-
duced-is positively affirmed by the
proponents of the theory and as stout:
~ denied by the opposition. While
the results obtained by Luther Bur
bank and many others in achieving
new species are indisputable, it is con-
tended that these mutations do not
occur in nature, and that, even II they
do, they have no bearing on the origin
of man. This is still one of the great
controversies of evolution, and II the
Judge at DAYTON allows argument on
the fundamentals of the doctrine of
evolution there will, no doubt, be much
heated discussion on this point. 1t in
wolves too many technical considera-
tions to admit consideration here.
Embryo Reveals History.
The third point, concerning sur
vivals of once useful organs, is one of
the main bulwarks of the theory OF
evolution. In addition TO the pineal
gland, previously mentioned, they cite
the finger nails, as relics of the claws
of animals; muscles that enable one
to twitch the ears, occasionally sur
viving the eustachian tube, relic OF
the gills of fishes; the appendix, the
rudimentary relic of the extra stom-
ach of Illuminating, wood-eating ami
mails; the bones of the tail, at the base
of the spine; bones of the arch of the
foot, still retaining somewhat the
same structure as the bones of the
hand; the toes still retaining some of
the power of grasping.
The fourth consideration-that pre-
natal development parallels organic
evolution-has become what might be
termed a part of the orthodoxy of evo-
luton, although its later application
to post-natal development, as sum.
marking racial and tribal stages. has
been vigorously attacked, even by sci
entists. According to evolutionists,
the progress from a one-celled organ
ism, merely tiny bit of protoplasm,
to the multicellular organisms, Is by
an accretion of cells. with later To-
calization of functions. This process,
they say, is exactly paralleled in the
first stage of the growth of an en-
bryo. There Is multiplication of cells
by direct cell division, until the whole,
at a stage called the bastocele, resem-
bles a tiny, wormlike sea-dwelling
creature, with an imagination mark
ing the beginning of the digestive
tract. A few days later the embryo
resembles a fish, later reptile, and
still later a young calf or pig. The