MARCH RADIO MESSAGES/EVOLUTION: FACT OR FANCY
K e c e n t in v e s t ig a t io n s have shown that by treating certain plants with a particular chemical a mutation of the species is produced. Experiments have shown that these mutations will continue to reproduce indefinitely un der controlled or laboratory conditions. This fact is accepted by some observ ers as irrefutable evidence of the theo ry of evolution, it being assumed that such mutations would lead to the de velopment of new species. Mutations have also been produced by means of X-rays and other methods. It has been presumed that such mutations occur spontaneously throughout nature and that from such beginnings new species are ultimately evolved. These claims are, however, unwar ranted, for such mutations could never survive if left to the elements in their natural state. As the late President David Starr Jordan, of Leland Stanford Universi ty, has so well expressed this truth: “A form inaugurated through change of surroundings, through persistent selec tion and segregation, or through hy bridization, is not a ‘species’ until it
can hold its own with the rest. None of the created ‘new species’ of plant or animal I know of would last five years in the open, nor is there the slightest evidence that any new spe cies of field or forest or ocean ever originated from mutation, discontinu ous variation or hybridization.” Mutations are freaks and only under controlled conditions is it possible to preserve such biological monstrosities indefinitely. This, of course, does not detract from the economic value of such developments. The reason why such mutations could not survive under natural conditions is because, as Prof. Sewall Wright of Chicago says, “the one systematic effect of mutation seems to be a tendency toward degenera tion.” Realizing the inherent tendency to degeneration in all mutations, the only question would be whether there is any evidence that mutations have ever in the past survived under natural con ditions. It would be only reasonable to suppose that the surviving mutations would ultimately develop into new (Continued on next page) 7
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker