SCIENCE & THE BIBLE by Bolton Davidheiser, Ph.D., Chairman of the Science Division, Biola College *V&4£t^6 BOOKS BY DR. TALBOT What the Bible says about HEAVEN ...... 50c The Prophecies of Daniel ................... $3.00 Addresses on Romans 3.00 Ephesians ................... 2.00 Six books on the Cults: What's wrong with Jehovah's Witnesses? 50c leopard frogs and not in others. This reminds one of the statement by Professor Romer of Harvard that a close student of evolution might be driven to the logical though absurd position of having to admit that ani mals as similar as a gorilla and a chimpanzee might have evolved from different fish. To complicate things even more, one can usually find some evolutionist seriously proposing the very thing which another calls absurd. In this case there was a scientist named Ivar Broman who published a paper in 1926 in which he presented evidence which he believed showed that mammals and a m p h i b i a n s evolved from different protozoa and, furthermore, that some amphibians evolved from different protozoa than other amphibians. If one thinks of frogs as having evolved from an ancestor which had functional organs of both sexes, this ancestor would be very remote indeed, for the sexes are separate in all ani mals which have a skeleton of bone or cartilage. The sexes are also separate in the famous amphioxus, which has long been held by the writers of text books as a form close to the vertebrate ancestral line. Furthermore, the sexes are separate in the acorn worms, which are still generally considered to represent the link connecting the higher animals with the lower inver tebrates. And finally, the sexes are separate in starfish, sea urchins, and most of the animals in their group. If this seems to be irrelevant it may be pointed out that frogs as well as human beings are thought to be more closely related to these animals than to any other invertebrates in the assumed line of descent except those already mentioned. But all this is really hardly necessary, for in this attempt to trace frog ancestry back to a hypothetical hermaphroditic ances tor we have long since passed types of animals which have no oviducts at all, even in the females, for the lampreys and hagfish have none. We can heartily agree with Profes sor Hooton of Harvard when he wrote concerning the evolution of verte brates from invertebrates, “ All this is complicated, obscure, and dubious.” But then he added, with the faith of an e v o l u t i o n i s t , “ Anyhow there evolved from the invertebrates a tribe of animals which by hook or by crook had acquired backbones.” functional and useful in some distant ancestors. The idea is that as animals changed by evolutionary processes over a long period of time, some of the new types of animals which were thus produced no longer had need of all the organs their ancestors re quired. But instead of completely los ing these organs they retained them in a modified or useless form. How ever, with the increase in knowledge of physiology there has been a corres ponding decrease in the number of organs which are still called vestigial, for one after another has been shown to have an important function. There are also vestigial organs which are not characteristic of all members of a species. For instance, there are organs which are normal and functional in females but rudi mentary in males or vice versa. An example of this is the rudimentary oviducts found in the males of leopard frogs supplied for dissection in biology classes. Oviducts are the tubes through which the eggs pass after their devel opment in the ovaries. If one attaches to these structures the same evolu tionary significance which is granted to other vestigial organs, namely that they represent parts which were func tional in ancestral forms, one merely arrives at the conclusion that these male frogs had females in their ances try. This is certainly not enlightening from an evolutionary standpoint. Another possible assumption is that far-distant hypothetical ancestors of frogs had functional reproductive organs of both sexes at the same time. Later some of these organs became rudimentary and the animals which survived complemented each other in such a way that all organs necessary for reproduction were retained in two types of animals called male and female. Starting with this assumption it seems logical to conclude that the different species of frogs were not derived separately from an ancestry so remote. From these assumptions one might further conclude that rudi mentary oviducts are to be found in the males of all species of frogs. But this is not the case, for they are not found in bullfrogs. And what is even more amazing, we find that within the same species these rudimentary oviducts are found in some races of What wrong with Mormonism? ...............50c What's wrong with Unity? ........................50c What's wrong with Adventism? .............50c What's wrong with Anglo-Israelism? ......50c What's wrong with Christion Science? ..50c DU NH AM PUBLISHING COM PANY Findlay, Ohio F ilm s a n d F ilm s t r ip s Produced by Moody Institute of Science LOS ANGELES 25, CALIFORNIA SPONSOR KOREAN ORPHAN Now caring for over 3000 orphans in our 52 Homes. For only $8 a month you. your Sunday School or other church group will help bring Christ to a chosen boy or girl. Information free. All gifts and sponsorings ore income tax deductible. The Everett Swanson Evangelistic Association, Inc. Dept. K-8, 4848 N. Leonard Dr., Chicago 31, III. SACRED PIANO SOLOS "There's a Wideness In God's Mercy" "Blessed be the Fountain" "Sofe in the Arms of Jesus" Classical arrangements. Original introductions. Rich harmonies. Brilliant cadenzas. Modulations. Chimes. Eoch 35c. ALL THREE FOR $1.00 post paid. Order from GORDON E. HOOKER 13800 Biola Ave., La Mirada, Calif. Ch i ld re n ! 6 Pa g ** — 3 colors 50 for $1.00 PMtpoM 100« for $17.5« ..•tp.ic C H U R C H P R I S t 5.x SS I Glandol., California AUGUST, 1960 25
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