Darwin, and After Darwin, Volume 3 of 3: Post-Darwinian Questions: Isolation and Physiological SelectionRomanes, George John
Science
Darwin, and After Darwin, Volume 3 of 3: Post-Darwinian Questions: Isolation and Physiological Selection
Romanes, George John
Evolution (Biology); Heredity
And, although these opposite views cannot be reconciled, I am under the
impression that they do admit of being explained. For I take them to
indicate a continued failure to perceive the all-important distinction
between evolution as monotypic and polytypic. Unless one has fully
grasped this distinction, and constantly holds it in mind, he is not in
a position to understand the "difficulty" in question; nor can he avoid
playing fast and loose with natural selection as possibly the sole cause
of evolution, and as necessarily requiring the co-operation of some
other cause. But if he once clearly perceives that "evolution" is a
logical genus, of which the monotypic and the polytypic forms are
species, he will immediately escape from his confusion, and find that
while the monotypic form may be caused by natural selection alone the
polytypic form can never be so caused.
* * * * *
The second difficulty which I have to mention as at first sight
attaching to the views of Mr. Gulick and myself on the subject of
Isolation is, that in an isolated section of a species Mr. Francis
Galton's law of regression in the average character of offspring to the
typical character of the group through reversion or atavism (_Natural
Inheritance_, p. 97) must have the effect of neutralizing the
segregative influence of mere apogamy. That such, however, cannot be the
case has been well shown by Mr. Gulick in his paper on _Intensive
Segregation_. Without at all disputing the validity of Mr. Galton's law,
he proves that "it can hold in full force only where there is free
crossing, otherwise no divergent race could ever be formed by any amount
of selection and independent breeding[14]." This is so self-evident that
I need not quote his demonstration of the point.
[14] _Zool. Journal Lin. Soc._, vol. xxiii. p. 313.
* * * * *
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