DARWINISM.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 September 1927, Page 3

DARWINISM.

SIR A. KEffH’S BELIEF. [Australian & N.Z. Cnblo Association.] LONDON, August 31. The British Association to-day held its ninety-sixth meeting, and Sir Arthur Keith devoted his presidential address to the subject ol "'I lie Present Position of Charles Darwin’s 'theory of the Descent of .Man.” The speaker said: The transformation of outlook on Man’s origin was one of the marvels of the nineteenth century.’ We were now able to fill in pages which Darwin-had to leave bi’ank alter the detail of his narrative ; hut the fundamentals of Darwin’s theory were still unshaken.

Sir A. Keith said: Our tracing of man, by means of fossils and implements had carried us hack two thousand centuries. Perhaps it had carried us back six thousand centuries. Evidence of man’s evolution from an ape-like being, no higher on tlio zoological scale than the ehimaznee was definite and irrefutable. Evidence collected by anatomists, embryologists, physiologists and phyehologists r'ni'l confirmed the theory that Darwin was right in holding that man, under the action of biological forces which could be observed and measured, had been raised from a place among the anthropoi apes to his present status Sir A. Keith added he was convinced Darwin’s theory could never be shaken. Sir A. Keith also announced that the Council of the Association had decided to endeavour to purchase Charles Darwins’ home at Downehouso, in Kent, and its surroundings, for the nation. He said a five-figure sum would possibly he required. The Daily Telegraph, in an editorial on Sir A. Keith’s speech, recalls that Sir Richard Owen, in his presidential address at the British Association at Leeds in 1858, had no difficulty in convincing the audience that the theory which traces man’s ancestry to the apes was not only untenabi'e, but ridiculous. The paper continues: Sir A. Keith’s revelations are not calculated to rouse wrath and horror in any modern listener or reader. Many of us probably prefer that man should have first appeared on earth by the special net of the Creator, hut we are willing to he led where truth is to he found, even when the light hurts our eyes.

A PROPHET OE EVOLUTION. LONDuN, August 81. At the British Association’s meeting, Professor F. G. Parsons, in his presidential address to the Anthropology Section, indulged in some interesting prophecies concerning the . Englishman of the future. He sketched a growing knowledge of hygiene and of study of child welfare, and pointed out that each generation was more sanely brought up than its predecessor For instance, rickets, opthalmia and ear disease had almost disappeared. Bad teeth, adenoids and septic tonsils woidd soon he extinct.

He said the children of London’s poorest districts were now cheerful and fairly healthy. London was doing its utmost to change its ‘‘C3 population” into an “A 1 population”. The average height of the Englishman today was five feet five inches, fii the better classes it was five feet nine inches, which latter was probably the maximum average attainable. He said that general mental ability seldom accompanied great .size. The heights of tlie better-class women bad increased in twenty years from five feet three inches to five feet four inches and nine-tenths, which was not necessarily xho maximum. It might reach the five feet seven inches.