Evolution: An Investigation and a CritiqueGraebner, Theodore
Religion
Evolution: An Investigation and a Critique
Graebner, Theodore
Evolution; Religion and science
Every new find, upon investigation, proves the truth of Virchow's words:
"We must really acknowledge that there is a complete absence of any
fossil type of a lower stage in the development of man. Nay, if we gather
together all the fossil men hitherto found, and put them parallel with
those of the present time, we can decidedly pronounce that there are
among living men a much greater proportion of individuals which show a
relatively inferior type than there are among the fossils known up to
this time. . . . Every positive progress which we haw made in the region
of prehistoric anthropology has removed us farther from the demonstration
of this theory!"
Quite recently (in 1913) a remarkable fossil was found in the Oldoway
gulch in northern German East Africa, by an expedition of the Geological
Institute of the University of Berlin. The remains consist of a complete
skeleton, which was found deeply imbedded in firm soil. Unquestionably
ancient as these remains are,--the bones are completely fossilized,--they
contained lamentably few "primitive characteristics," and hence have not
been exploited in the interest of the evolutionary theory. A fragment of
skull, a tooth, a thigh-bone, offer much more inviting fields to the
evolutionists, since they permit his imagination to range without the
restraint of fact. The Oldoway fossil, which is in every essential
respect a normal human skeleton, possesses no special attractions for
those who would represent man as a descendant of brutish ancestors.
Says Prof. Virchow: "We seek in vain for the missing link; there exists
a definite barrier separating man from the animal which has not yet been
effaced--heredity, which transmits to children the faculties of the
parents. We have never seen a monkey bring a man into the world, nor a
man produce a monkey. All men having a Simian (monkey-like) appearance
are simply pathological variants, (abnormal varieties, due to some
diseased condition). It was generally believed a few years ago that
there existed a few human races which still remained in the primitive
inferior condition of their organization. But all these races have been
objects of minute investigation, and we know that they have an
organization like ours, often, indeed, superior to that of the supposed
higher races. Thus the Eskimo head and the head of the Terra del
Fuegians belong to the perfected types. All the researches undertaken
with the aim of finding continuity in progressive development have been
without result. There exists no proanthrope, no man-monkey, and the
'connecting link' remains a phantom."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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