ATTACK ON EVOLUTION

Hokitika Guardian, 30 July 1925, Page 2

ATTACK ON EVOLUTION

PITH.ISHFD AFTER DEATH. (Australia A N.Z. Cable Association.; NEW YORK, .July 28. An undelivered speech ol ten thous and words which the late Mr \\ . .J IJrvan had prepared lor his closing ar giinicnt in the Scopes trial has licet published at Dayton, in Tenessec. n Five so-called indictments an brought against evolution as follows:--(1) That the theory of evolution disputes the truth of the Bible account of mail’s creation, and shakes laitli ill the Bible as the word of God. (2) That it disputes every vital truth of the Bible: and that its natural, if not its inevitable, tendency is to lead those who really accept it first to agnosticsim ami then to atheism. The history of Charles Darwin’s spiritual life i> cited in this indictment* also the I .oeb- Leopold case, lengthy quotations being made from Mr Harrows’ speech, in defence ol the young murderers. In this speech Mr Harrow argued that Leopold was a victim ol the Philosophy of Nietzsche, which had been made available to him when he was yet too-voting to guard against its teachings that the super-human is above the law; and that Loch was the victim of a hereditary taint, handed down by some remote ancestor. Mr Bryan commented : " This is the quinttessence of evolution, distilled by one following that doctrine to its logical conclusion. As to the analysis of this dognvt of darkness and death, the evolutionists say that, nwav hack in the twillight of life, a beast whose name and nature are unknown, planted a murderous seed, and that an impulse, originated bv that seed, throbs forever in the blood of the brute’s descendants, inspiring killings innumerable, for which the murderers are not responsible. because they are coerced by fate, and by fixed laws of heredity. It is an insult to reason, and it shocks the heart. The doctrine is as deadly as leprosy.”

3) That evolution diverts attention from pressing problems of great importance to trilling speculations. He says : " One evolutionist recently waxed eloquently over worms. Another predicted that seventy-live thousand years hence, everybody will be bald am! toothless, hut those who are endeavouring to clothe our remote ancestors with hair and those attempting to remove hair front the heads of our remote descendants, ignore the present with its imperative demands.” (4) That by paralysing the hope of reform, evolution discourages those labouring seriously for the improvement of man’s conditions. (6) That evolution, if it were made the basis of one’s philosophy of life, eliminate love, and carry man hack to the struggle with tooth and claw.