Fatal Objections to the Evolution Hypothesis

Fatal Objections to the Evolution Hypothesis

BY ROBERT C. WEBB

[Third of a series of articles written for the Era by Dr. Webb, on allied subjects. Each article is complete in itself, but students should read the whole series. Editors.]

In the passage previously quoted from Professor Huxley we find him expressing the opinion that the class of birds "may have been evolved" from some representatives of the extinct reptilian order known as Ornithoscclida. This opinion he then attempts to enforce by a fairly detailed examination of the points of anatomical resemblance between the two types of life-forms, with particular attention to one of the smaller species, known as Compsognathns, which "was a bipedal animal," whose limbs, "in some respects, are more completely birdlike than those of the Ornithoscclida." On the basis of such resemblances as he points out, some zoologists have confidently stated that the ancestry of birds, is settled, and that, whether the "intermediate forms" be discovered or not, the indications are too strong to permit of further doubt or discussion. The fact remains, however, that, in spite of all the actual and seeming resemblances between birds and saurians of the order mentioned, there is one all-essential point which has positively not been illuminated — and this is the derivation of the bird wing, not to mention the subsidiary, although highly important, matter of its feathers. The wing, together with its involved power of flight, is so serious an obstacle to the hypothesis of organic evolution that the failure of anatomists to give it detailed attention is worthy of remark. As is familiar to most intelligent readers of the present day, the wings of all vertebrate flying animals, both living and extinct, are merely modified hands. That is to say, the wing of such an animal, structurally considered, is strictly the homologue of a five-fingered hand, the fingers of which have been very greatly lengthened; so as to act as a framework for the flying surface, intended to support the body of the animal in the air, as well as to assist in propelling him forward in flight. Such a "flying surface" may consist either of a teguminous membrane, as in the bat, presumably also in the extinct pterodactyls, or, as in birds, of a number of light, flattened, filamentose, overlapping, modified-bristle structures, known as feathers. There are also three types of wing structure, differing acording to the number of the fingers

THE EVOLUTION HYPOTHESIS 1131

involved in forming the framework, also according to their positions. The first is the bat-type, in which the four fingers are arranged to spread out, and thus support the continuous membrane constituting the flying surface, leaving the thumb standing out at the top, to afford a means by which the animal can take hold of any object to which it may wish to attach itself, usually by the use of the claw. The second type of wing structure may be called the pterodactyl type, because found on representatives of the extinct reptilian order Pterosauria, and shows an immensely elongated fifth finger (the "little finger"), which acts as one side of the framework supporting the flying surface membrane, attached, probably, between it and the body and hind limbs of the animal leaving three fingers and the thumb free for pur- ;

Fig. 1. Skeleton of the Compsognathns, an extinct reptile, standing about two feet high in the position shown. It is supposed to have walked habitually on its hind legs only.

poses of prehension. The third type of wing is that of the birds, which resembles the bat wing in the fact that the four fingers o{ the "hand" are involved in forming the rigid support of the flying surface, leaving the thumb alone free, but differs from the bat type in the fact that the flying surface is composed entirely of the overlapping feathers, the inner ends of which are inserted in the length of the "pinion," formed by anchylosis of the four fingers into a straight and inflexible unit. In most typical bird wings there are to be distinguished rudiments of but two fingers, ap-

1132 IMPROVEMENT ERA parently, although in others, as is claimed, the suggestions of four fingers mav be discerned in the bones. Now, although the wing of every vertebrate type is quite homologous to the five-fingered hand, so far, at least, as the bony framework is concerned/ the demand of enthusiastic theorists that we accept the proposition that it was actually developed from a true hand — which is to say that an animal possessing only a true hand, useful either for prehension, or for elastic support of the body, actually begat, by natural generation, remote descendants having the primitive hand elaborated and enlarged so as to — form a wing capable of flight is merely making an enormous demand upon human credulity. This statement gains particular force when we consider that the geological record, be it perfect or imperfect, furnishes not one remotest suggestion as to any supposititious stages of development, through which an original true hand grew into a wing, nor even the smallest element of circumstantial evidence that any such process ever took place on earth.

In addition to this, as a moment's reflection will show, the development of the power of flight demands the production, not only of an efficient wing, of such expanse of surface as would enable the animal to lift its weight from the ground, but also such fur-

ther modifications of the total structure of the body, as would enable it to assume a position in the air, in which it could propel itself forward, with a minimum of resistance from the condensation of the atmosphere in front of it. The importance of this consideration increases considerably in view of the experience of engineers with practical flying- machines, or "aeroplanes," by which it has been demonstrated according to published calcula- tions — that the pressure of the air, condensed by continuous dis- placement in the forward move- ment of the apparatus, shows an increase, expressed in pounds per square inch of flying surface, in direct ratio as the square of the

. Skeleton of the Pterodactyl, velocity of the _ machine, ex- one of the Pterosaurs, or flying reptiles pressed in foOt-pOUnds per SeC-

iiS^rSU^H^tS^ Sout and. Human ingenuity has taken twelve inches from top of skuii to tip of advantage of this fact to so shape tail. It had mebranous wines, the web o, . , .

being supported by one greatly elongated the artificial flying Surface, Or while the other four digits of each digit, wing were free and clawed. plane „ .. — it is really a trn , ;. true "<ypn- geo • '11',. „ „ _

metric curve," or projected "helicoid," set with the smaller arc to the front that the — front pressure really co-operates with the thrust-velocity imparted by the movement of the propeller, to support the contrivance in

THE EVOLUTION HYPOTHESIS 1133

the air. Nature has accomplished the same ends by somewhat different devices, but, in both cases, as we find, the smallest possible vertical resistance is offered by the horizontally-moving "flyingmachine ;" and this is a mechanical necessity in successful flight by any form of apparatus. From data furnished by the science of mechanics, therefore and this is the department of knowledge which has been foremost in the work of building the fabric of our civilization we may — confidently assert that, while it is possible to conceive that, given an efficient wing and a general physical structure calculated to reduce resistance in flight, the power of flying could have been increased from the merest beginnings to the highest reach, it remains true, nevertheless, that a structure, in some real and effective sense, calculated for this form of travel, must have existed before even the humblest beginnings could have been attempted. But, as is perfectly evident, mere specialists in anatomy, ancient or modern, could hardly be expected to realize such conditions and ;

the geological record is utterly silent upon transition forms in the

Fig. 3. Skeleton of the Fruit Bat, Pteropsus. Note that each membranous wing is supported by four digits, the remaining digit or "finger" being free and provided with a claw. Compare with Fig. 2.

alleged development of birds, bats or pterodactyls from previouslyexisting flightless ancestors. Professor Huxley, to be sure, has large hopes in the analogies offered by the order Omithoscelida, particularly by the representative known as Compsognathus, in which he finds a birdlike conformation of the sternum (Dreast bone) and greatly elongated hind limbs, like "the short-winged, flightless, ostrich tribe among birds." He fails to specify the fact, however, that his Compsognathus' was, in all probability, a jumping animal, such as is the kangaroo, and possessed much short-

1134 IMPROVEMENT ERA ened fore limbs, which furnish very unpromising beginnings for wings of any degree of efficiency. Such animals, like the "ostrich tribe among birds," with which he compares them, might have been degraded forms, which, on the theory of variation, have lost the power of flight, with persistence in the habit of running on the ground, or of jumping, or hopping, like passerine birds. In such animals, as in the "ostrich tribe," the consequent immense development of the legs would largely embarrass any efforts of nature to increase the power of flight. Thus, if the "ostrich tribe" is a transition form, it is certainly, a transition in the process by which — — some particular structure in this case the wing is undergoing a modification essentially toward atrophy and ultimate disappearance as is well demonstrated in such closely allied, or analogous, ;

forms as the extinct Diiwrnis of New Zealand, or the Apteryx, in which the fore limbs, as wings or arms of any kind, have utterly disappeared. Such facts evidence also that, in structures most closely suggesting the possibility of derivative variation, the evidence points to the conclusion that such variation is in the direction of degradation in some particular function — thus the horse loses four of his toes, apteryx loses his fore limbs and whales lose their hind limbs — which is in no sense typical, or even indicative, of the supposed process by which such functions or organs were originally developed out of simpler elements. Until, therefore, we learn of some evidences more conclusively convincing than mere anatomical analogies and resemblances, we may safely rely upon the statement that the wing of the flying animal of any order furnishes the one all-sufficient refutation of the doctrine of des- -

cent in the sense assumed by Spencer. It is more than that me- :

chanically considered, it is an excellent argument for "purposive design" and "special creation," although, as already admitted such theory of origins need not compel us to deny all possibility of variation. There seems to be good "presumptive or circumstantial evidence" in favor of considerable variation in the direction of degradation and atrophy of function and structure. Indeed, cases of this kind of variation furnish by far the greater number of "evidences for organic evolution" (of the Spencerian type) offered by anatomists, from Huxley to the present day. There are, however, several other structures and organisms in nature, in the examination of which precisely similar conclusions seem nearly inevitable to the observer who bears in mind the fundamental principles of physics and mechanics, which certainly enter into such matters as properly as any consideration of structural resemblances. In short, in judging of the sufficiency of any such theory as that of organic development, which assumes a steady progress from simple to complex, from "low" to "high" in the structural scale, we are very much in the position of jurymen

THE EVOLUTION HYPOTHESIS 1U5

set to determine the guilt or innocence of an accused criminal on the basis of "circumstantial evidence." The whole question before their minds lies in the consideration of the possibility of a "reasonable doubt," which implies that some other explanation than that argued by the prosecutor may be assumed. In the case of derivative descent, the total silence of the geological record on the matter of "transition forms" where they are most sorely needed the conclusion of ;

Huxley and other competent anatomists that some of the most suggestive "intermediate types," as already seen, are more properly "intercalary," or exceptional, rather than "linear ;" and the total failure of some of his most confidently urged analogies of structure to account for the supposed variations in form, throw the whole matter into the category of "circumstantial evidence." Nor are the most serious of "reasonable doubts" eliminated. Another example of this is to be found in the following passage from the late Duke of Argyle, who, Skeleton of Fig. 4. although "a lord of high degree," was a sci- the Dinomis,an exentist of no mean equipment. In course of dis- tinct wingless bird of the Quaternary Age or cussing several leading difficulties in the way Recent Epoch of geo- logic history. The speof the evolution theory, he writes cies here shown (Diti- ornis giganteus) lived "The case which presents all these problems in New Zealand; it probably attained a in the most striking form is the case of the height of twelve feet. Whales, and especially the case of that species which, from the commercial products of its organism, is most widely known. Both the organs which in this creature are present as rudiments alone, and those which, on the contrary, are very highly developed and most wonderfully specialized, are equally significant. Constructed exclusively for oceanic life, it yet possesses in a rudimentary form some of the most characteristic bones of the terrestrial mammalia. Upon the assumption that no organic structure can possibly have any other origin than ordmary generation, and tha, they can never have been originated except by actual use, nor be found incomplete except as the consequences of disuse, then of couise the conclusion seems unavoidable that the Whale is the lineal descendant, by ordinary generation, of some animal that once walked upon the land. Accordingly, I have heard a very high authority on biological science declare that not only did he accept this conclusion, but that he could conceive no other solution of the problem presented by the facts. "Yet it is evident that it rests entirely on the two preliminary assumptions above specified. Of the first of these two assumptions that no organic structure has ever come into existence except by or- — dinary generation we cannot even conceive it to be true. But putting this aside, of the second of the two assumptions, namely, that organic structures can never have been developed except by actual use, it may be confidently said that it is certainly unfounded. We cannot be sure

1136 1MPROVKMKNT ICKA

that the calling into existence of new germs — a process in which the — whole animal world must confessedly have begun is a process which was adopted only once, and has never been repeated in the whole course of time. We cannot, therefore, be certain that the Cetacea, which constitute a very distinct division in the animal kingdom, have not thus begun, with predetermined lines and laws of growth which stand in close relation to the development of all the terrestrial mammalia. But, even if we adopt the assumption that this alternative is impossible or inconceivable, the second assumption is certainly unjus- — tifiable that by the methods of ordinary generation rudimentary organs can never have arisen except by actual use, nor can have been atrophied except by subsequent disuse. The whole course of organic nature contradicts this assumption absolutely. All organs pass through rudimentary stages on their way to functional activity. And if ordinary generation has been made to do the work of forming new species, the original germs in which the process began must presumably have passed through the same characteristic steps.

"There is, perhaps, no creature so highly specialized. The baleen in the mouth is one of the most wonderful cases of an organic apparatus expressly made for one definite and very peculiar work— namely, that of forming a net or sieve for entangling and catching the millions of minute crustaceans and other organisms which swarm in the Arctic seas. It is one of the structures which classifiers call aberrant— cases in which the directive agency — evidently supreme in all organic development has — pursued a certain line of adaptation into the rarest and most extreme conditions determined by a very peculiar food. In the pursuit of that line of adaptation it is really not much of a puzzle that one particular element in the vertebrate skel- eton [teeth] should be passed over and left, as it were, aside, because it is a part of the original plan which could be of no service here. There is no rational ground for supposing that this particular bit of internal structure must necessarily have been developed into functional use in some former terrestr al progenitor. O - ;

Fig. 5. The Apteryx, a wing- ganic beings are full of structures which less bird of New Zealand; not are variously used, and of others which yet extinct though diminishing in are so embryonic that they can never numbers. It in size about have been of any use at all. On the other is equal to an ordinary domestic hen. hand, it is a very violent supposition that the external structure of the Whale can ever have been inherited from a terrestrial beast by the normal processes of ordinary generation. The changes are not only too enormous in amount, but too complicated in direction, to lend themselves to such an explanation. The fish-like form of the whole creature — the provision of an enormous mass of oily fat, called blubber, completely enveloping the internal organs, for the double purpose of protecting from cold those organs which are dependent on a warm mammalian blood, and of so adjusting the specific gravity of the whole creature as to facilitate flotation on the surface of the ocean, where alone respiration can be effected by the mammalian lunp r — the development of a caudal appendage which does not represent the mammalian tail, but is constructed on an entirely different type — the assigning to that tail

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a function — which it never serves in the mammalia that of propulsion in — the medium which is its habitat all these, together with the baleen in the mouth, constitute an asemblage of characters departing su widely from the whole mammalian class, that if the rreature possessing them has acquired them through no other process than ordinary descent from parents which were terrestrial beasts, then we are attributing to ordinary generation everything which is intelligible to us as a truly creative power. The stages through which such an enormous metamorphosis could only have been conducted, if they were sudden and rapid, would have been visibly a creative work; and if they were slow and gradual they must have followed certain lines of growth as steadily, as surely, and with as much prevision, as we can conceive in any intellectual purpose of our own. Nothing, therefore, is gained by those who dislike the idea of rudimentary organs being regarded as provisions for a future in some one original Plan, when they try to escape from that idea by supposing that this rudimentary condition

Fig 6. Skeleton of a Whale. Note the absence of hind limbs, and of teeth; also observe the greatly developed tail. The tail is horizontally flattened and serves as a means of propulsion; its movements are vertical, thus presenting a marked contrast to the lateral motion of the vertically flattened tails of fishes.

can be due to nothing but degeneration. That element of prevision of, and provision for, the future, which they choose to call the supernatural, pursues them through every step of their substituted fancies and that, too, in the case of the Whales in a more immanent degree." — "Organic Evolution Cross-Examined."

In reading this passage, one must be impressed with the fact that the belief in the hypothesis of evolution, as a sufficient explanation for the appearance of all life-forms on the earth, partakes very essentially of the nature of a "faith that could remove mountains" —except, as is evident, it does not remove them. When we attempt by a merely empirical theory to explain the facts of life, we speedily find, as the writer above quoted sufficiently indicates, that we are ascribing to our "mere natural agency" the acts and attributes of a -transcendent and supernatural Creator. This may seem no particularly strong objection in the minds of some readers, who will doubtless seize such an opportunity to enlarge upon the near-miraculous power of the "evolutionary force" in nature. It is well to understand, however, that, if this is the case, we may assert that science (codified knowledge) has nothing to do with it., and that in making such exaggerated claims for any alleged "natural force," we are fairly outriding the strict and proper bounds of science, have developed a cerebral "short-circuit," and become philosophical speculators. Science has nothing to do with discussing divine and supernatural creative activities, "under an-

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other name :" that is lexicology, not natural science. It .should treat nature precisely as an engineer treats a machine, calculating the contrivance by the possibility, under given conditions, of producing the known effects to be ascribed to known causes, the several forms of energy, etc. If one claims or assumes a form of energy not familiar to science, and whose effects arc not understood in its laws, and demonstrated capable of producing the desired, or supposed, results, he has merely contrived a new kind of "Keely motor," which will not "mote," as the newspapers used to express it facetiously and that, in spite of the fact that, like Keely, ;

he is able to persuade a Leidy, or other scientists, that he is "on the track of some tremendous, undiscovered form of energy," he has not made good his claim. The whole question is, then, as to whether any definition of the "natural forces" supposed to be back of the avowedly "mechanical" theory of evolution, there has been presented any scientifically consistent and intelligible explanation for wings, whales, and other "aberrant structures." If not, the theory is proved, in so far forth, insufficient, illogical and unscientific

hence, also, untrue.

BOYS' HALF-ACRE OF TOTATOES In a field at Rigby, Idaho. W. S. Burton, Stake Vocation Supervisor. The boys are Kenneth and Golden Groom, xhey have a field to be proud of.