DARWINIAN SELECTION
EVOLUTION AS A PROCESS, an introductory essay by Julian Huxley; and contributions by 18 leading pencaietss Allen and Unwin, English price 25/-. HE aim of this collection of essays is to combat the idea that biologists studying evolution are actually dealing, not with one. process, but with many processes. On first reading one may be forgiven for believing that it strengthens the very point of view it-seems to combat. Aspects of the problem aré approached from so many angles that it takes a little thought to seek out the common thread. In the end, however, all roads lead to Rome. By evolution we mean the operation of selection, in the Darwinian sense, upon the gene complex. There is now no scientific opposition to the fact of evolution, but the manner of it is one of the growing points of biology. Here, too, the information is accumulating sufficient for a synthesis. It appears that selection, operating on quite small variations, can account for all we desire to explain, given time. It is the failure to take due account of time that has been the weakness in the past. The essays are very uneven. Some are downright tedious. But all illuminate in some way or other the role of selection. As one would expect in a book where Julian Huxley is principal editor, there are some delightful studies of bird behaviour. The general reader, however, may well prefer the contributions of Fisher, Corner and Westoll. My own preference is for Young on "Memory, Heredity and Information." The reader should be warned of the need of a technical vocabulary in many of the essays. Some will find the comprehensive bibliographies intimidating, others exhilarating. The philosophically minded may be disappointed at the failure to grapple with the determinism that stems so naturally from the modern view of the gene complex. The distinguished authors are not alone in this failure. The bleakness of determinism is its own deterrent. But there’s no’ avoiding it if one pushes these essays to their logical conclusions.
J.D.
McD.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 786, 13 August 1954, Page 14
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341DARWINIAN SELECTION New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 786, 13 August 1954, Page 14
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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