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New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 557, 24 February 1950, Page 5

Sir,-On reading Mr, .Prior’s létter in your issue of January 27 I find that I have abandoned the natural Scierites, and if! Mr, Prior has in "min, piand I doubt) the pseudo-phikisephaco-sci tific premonitions and ‘prephesying of some scientists I\ cheerfully "agrée. However, as it is not my wish "to deny reality, and as it’is reality’ that the. true scientist deals with, I must hasten to assure him that I am not a disciple of Emanuel Kant and steeped in the inanities of subjectivism. Perhaps. I should have made myself clear ‘that ‘in asserting that evolution is not -prgvedsbecause it argues from the particular’ to the general I had in view thevassumptio that we were approaching, the, theory fe) evolutioh from the aspect ‘of ‘its .ability to explain ultimate causes. It is the’ fundamental questions that. philosophy seeks to answer such as Jife ‘and’ being, space and ‘time, change and Stability; all these have faced philosophérs since Thales first thought in. terms of @ rational explanation of the world. Now it is not within ‘the’ domain of the natural sciences to explain these ultimate realities. These sciences deal with observable facts and phenomena and propose to explain the proximate causes of things. On the other hand it is for philosophy to explain the ultimate causes. If, therefore, evolutionists wish to enter into the realm of philosophical certitudes, they are not at, liberty to hold that if .the natural-scienees offer confirmation of their theory them a satisfactory explanation of ultimate causesautomatically follows. No-they must first establish the validity ‘of’ evolution as a philosophical science capable of explaining ultimate causes, and only then _can they vroffer the accidental proofs that the natural sciences may supply in secondary confirmation. It is in this sense, therefore; that I hold that it is not valid to argue from the particular to the general. Mr. Prior admits that the generalisations arrived at: by the natural sciences are liable to cerrectién, and as the theory of evolution is based on these generalisations it also stands before the bar of. research., Surely he himself has abandoned. the* -natural sciences to the imaginings of the pseudoscientists if he seeks to force an explanation of. ultimate causes from scientific generalisations. % 3 _* Mr. Prior then supplies.one. instance of an organism which he .says, iologists cannot agree as to the phylum into which it should be placed. I asked for many such instances, but even if there are 10, such a number woul dhe ‘insignificant compared with, the, y thousands which can with certainty "be asso- © ciated with their respective phyla. Is it not more reasonable to’ regard any doubtful cases which may. exist from the viewpoint of the inability of biologists to recognise or‘ascertain the correct facts copcerngrg a particular ‘@rganism than to assume that the organism itself is in a transitional process of doubt and hence evolving Ros one grolp-into;an- | other? Findlly, is not this the main point at issue? I trust then that Peripatus can be left in peace. ~

A.A.

N.

(Wellington).