MEN AND MONKEYS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 137, 7 December 1938, Page 4

MEN AND MONKEYS

It comes as rather a surprise to find that the Japanese are not so wholly immersed in their war that they cannot find time, and opportunity for what may be called private fights, says the "Manchester Guardian." But it is reported that there is quite a [ little, "shemozzle" over a phase of evor lution in a district near the base of Fujiyama. A tourist association, wishing to protect a tribe of wild monkeys from the stone-throwing and even gunning of visiting trippers, has put up a notice which reads: "Be Kind to Our Ancestors." This action has revealed that Japan, as well as the United States, has plenty of fundamentalists, and they have demanded the sign's removal. Apparently, however, the tourist association is sticking to its guns. If the Japanese antiDarwinians get together they will doubtless do their best to beat the American record for f)hilosophical folly. An example of -what they will have to beat lies is this advertisement of a Baptist service at Minne-j sota in 1932. After announcing a lec-i ture entitled "Evolution: The Fake1 Science," it adds: "Hear little Dorothy Johnson sing 'The monkey is no relation of mine.'" Dorothy Johnson's is perhaps the more truly anti-Darwinian position, for Darwin held that the] monkeys and ourselves had common J ancestors, which would make us cousins a number of times removed. It is quite another think to maintain that monkeys were our actual ancestors.