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I have had to watch with some attention in fact I have been favoured with a good deal of it myself the sort of criticism with which biologists and biological teachings are visited. I am told every now and then that there is a "brilliant article" in so-and-so, in which we are all demolished.
The first is that there shall be marked changes in the environment so that the process of natural selection has full opportunity to do its work. The second is that numerous new forms or mutants, as the biologists call them, shall be produced. Both of these conditions are most fully met in large continents in the temperate zone, for in such places climatic variations are most extreme.
For a while, therefore, biologists gave little attention to it, and were accustomed to speak of it simply as a bit of protoplasm a little more dense than the rest. The cell was a bit of protoplasm with a small piece of more dense protoplasm in its centre appearing a little different from the rest and perhaps the most active part of the cell.
Other biologists, such as Professor Pearl, of Johns Hopkins University, and Professor C. A. Mills, of Cincinnati, have made some interesting experiments which lead them to believe that sperm cells weakened by environmental conditions may affect the vitality of the developing offspring.
Along with larger motives, one motive which has joined in prompting the foregoing articles, has been the desire to point out that already among biologists, the beliefs concerning the origin of species have assumed too much the character of a creed; and that while becoming settled they have been narrowed. So far from further broadening that broader view which Mr.
It is a truth, too often insufficiently appreciated by biologists, that sound reasoning is quite as important in science as fact or experiment. He refers to experiments by Uhlenhuth, who transplanted eyes of young Salamanders into different parts of their bodies where they were no longer connected with the optic nerves.
For while these grand moguls of their sciences were enunciating their dogmas, pioneers here and there were already setting the mines that were to explode them. The experimental method, to the value of which biologists were just beginning to awaken, was destined to be the vehicle of Time's revenges. An application of it to the mysteries of sex was the immediate occasion.
The others have confessed the gravely serious view of our position which they shared with me yesterday, and now we are all hopeful again. As far as one can gather, besides the damage to the bulwarks of the ship, we have lost two ponies, one dog, '10 tons of coal, 65 gallons of petrol, and a case of the biologists' spirit a serious loss enough, but much less than I expected.
Once this was established, biologists cheerfully abandoned the earlier notion. Lester Ward and the biologists of his day in general not only believed in the transmission of acquired characters, but they filled the obvious gaps which occurred in trying to apply this theory to the observed facts by placing a fantastic emphasis upon sexual selection.
"I won't do it again; but one does get a little tired of the social organism." "More people talk about it," answered Wilson, "than really understand it." "Very true," retorted Ellis, "especially among biologists." At this point I began to fear we should lose our subject in polemics; so I ventured to recall Wilson to the real issue.
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