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    A Critique of the Theory of Evolution
    A Critique of the Theory of Evolution
    A Critique of the Theory of Evolution
    Ebook182 pages1 hour

    A Critique of the Theory of Evolution

    By Thomas Hunt Morgan

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateAug 10, 2009
    A Critique of the Theory of Evolution

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      Book preview

      A Critique of the Theory of Evolution - Thomas Hunt Morgan

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Critique of the Theory of Evolution, by

      Thomas Hunt Morgan

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: A Critique of the Theory of Evolution

      Author: Thomas Hunt Morgan

      Release Date: December 17, 2009 [EBook #30701]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRITIQUE OF THEORY OF EVOLUTION ***

      Produced by Bryan Ness, Keith Edkins, and the Online

      Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. Pages

      scanned by Bryan Ness.

      Princeton University

      THE LOUIS CLARK VANUXEM FOUNDATION

      LECTURES FOR 1915-1916

      The Louis Clark Vanuxem Foundation of Princeton University

      was established in 1912 with a bequest of $25,000 under the will of Louis Clark Vanuxem, of the Class of 1879. By direction of the executors of Mr. Vanuxem's estate, the income of the foundation is to be used for a series of public lectures delivered in Princeton annually, at least one half of which shall be on subjects of current scientific interest. The lectures are to be published and distributed among schools and libraries generally.

      The following lectures have already been published or are in press:

      1912-13 The Theory of Permutable Functions, by Vito Volterra

      1913-14 Lectures delivered in connection with the dedication of the Graduate College of Princeton University by Emile Boutroux, Alois Riehl, A. D. Godley, and Arthur Shipley

      1914-15 Romance, by Sir Walter Raleigh

      1915-16 A Critique of the Theory of Evolution, by Thomas Hunt Morgan

      LOUIS CLARK VANUXEM FOUNDATION

      A CRITIQUE

      OF THE

      THEORY OF EVOLUTION

      BY

      THOMAS HUNT MORGAN

      PROFESSOR OF EXPERIMENTAL ZOOLOGY IN

      COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

      LECTURES DELIVERED AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

      FEBRUARY 24, MARCH 1, 8, 15, 1916

      PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

      PRINCETON

      LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD

      OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

      1916

      Copyright, 1916, by

      Princeton University Press

      Published October, 1916

      PREFACE

      Occasionally one hears today the statement that we have come to realize that we know nothing about evolution. This point of view is a healthy reaction to the over-confident belief that we knew everything about evolution. There are even those rash enough to think that in the last few years we have learned more about evolution than we might have hoped to know a few years ago. A critique therefore not only becomes a criticism of the older evidence but an appreciation of the new evidence.

      In the first lecture an attempt is made to put a new valuation on the traditional evidence for evolution. In the second lecture the most recent work on heredity is dealt with, for only characters that are inherited can become a part of the evolutionary process. In the third lecture the physical basis of heredity and the composition of the germ plasm stream are examined in the light of new observations; while in the fourth lecture the thesis is developed that chance variation combined with a property of living things to manifold themselves is the key note of modern evolutionary thought.

      T. H. Morgan

      July, 1916

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      CHAPTER I

      A REVALUATION OF THE EVIDENCE ON WHICH THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION WAS BASED

      We use the word evolution in many ways—to include many different kinds of changes. There is hardly any other scientific term that is used so carelessly—to imply so much, to mean so little.

      Three Kinds of Evolution

      We speak of the evolution of the stars, of the evolution of the horse, of the evolution of the steam engine, as though they were all part of the same process. What have they in common? Only this, that each concerns itself with the history of something. When the astronomer thinks of the evolution of the earth, the moon, the sun and the stars, he has a picture of diffuse matter that has slowly condensed. With condensation came heat; with heat, action and reaction within the mass until the chemical substances that we know today were produced. This is the nebular hypothesis of the astronomer. The astronomer explains, or tries to explain, how this evolution took place, by an appeal to the physical processes that have been worked out in the laboratory, processes which he thinks have existed through all the eons during which this evolution was going on and which were its immediate causes.

      When the biologist thinks of the evolution of animals and plants, a different picture presents itself. He thinks of series of animals that have lived in the past, whose bones (fig. 1) and shells have been preserved in the rocks. He thinks of these animals as having in the past given birth, through an unbroken succession of individuals, to the living inhabitants of the earth today. He thinks that the old, simpler types of the past have in part changed over into the more complex forms of today.

      He is thinking as the historian thinks, but he sometimes gets confused and thinks that he is explaining evolution when he is only describing it.

      Fig. 1.

      A series of skulls and feet. Eohippus, Mesohippus, Meryhippus, Hipparion and Equus. (American Museum of Natural History. After Matthews.)

      A third kind of evolution is one for which man himself is responsible, in the sense that he has brought it about, often with a definite end in view.

      His mind has worked slowly from stage to stage. We can often trace the history of the stages through which his psychic processes have passed. The evolution of the steam-boat, the steam engine, paintings, clothing, instruments of agriculture, of manufacture, or of warfare (fig. 2) illustrates the history of human progress. There is an obvious and striking similarity between the evolution of man's inventions and the evolution of the shells of molluscs and of the bones of mammals, yet in neither case does a knowledge of the order in which these things arose explain them. If we appeal to the psychologist he will probably tell us that human inventions are either the result of happy accidents, that have led to an unforeseen, but discovered use; or else the use of the invention was foreseen. It is to the latter process more especially that the idea of purpose is applied. When we come to review the four great lines of evolutionary thought we shall see that this human idea of purpose recurs in many forms, suggesting that man has often tried to explain how organic evolution has taken place by an appeal to

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