Page 44 - The Evolution Impasse 2

42 Mendel, Gregor

liev ing in mir a cles . . . The find ing of a ac cept the ac cu ra -
suit a ble mate for the ‘hope less mon - cy of these laws.
ster' and the es tab lish ment of re pro - This rep re sent -
duc tive iso la tion from the nor mal ed a ma jor di -
mem bers of the pa ren tal pop u la tion
lem ma for
seem to me in sur mount a ble dif fi cul -
Darwin's
ties. 37
the o ry,
Mayr made an oth er ad mis sion which
on the sub ject: Gregor Mendel sought to ac -

. . . it is a con sid er a ble strain on one's count for the
cre du li ty to as sume that fine ly bal - con cept of ben e fi cial char ac ter is tics,
anced sys tems such as cer tain sense or - based on Lamarck.
gans (the eye of ver te brates, or the
But Mendel op posed not on ly
bird's feath er) could be im proved by
Lamarck's mod el of ev o lu tion, but al -
ran dom mu ta tions. 38
so Darwin's mod el. As stat ed in an
Mayr, an ad her ent of Darwinism,
ar ti cle ti tled "Mendel's Opposition to
sought to cov er up the gaps that
Evolution and to Darwin," pub lished
Darwinism nev er could by means of
in the Journal of Heredity, Mendel was
claim ing mu ta tion. Yet the sci en tif ic
against the the o ry of ev o lu tion.
im pos si bil i ty of this can still be seen
Darwin sug gest ed that all life had
in his own ad mis sions.
evolved from a com mon an ces tor,
while Mendel be lieved in cre a tion. 39
MENDEL, GREGOR
In 1865, fol low ing the pub li ca tion MENTON, DAVID
of Darwin's The Origin of Species, the
David Menton, a pro fes sor of
Austrian bot a nist and monk Gregor
anat o my from Washington
Mendel pub lished his laws of in her -
University, gave a lec ture at the 2nd
it ance, the re sult of long ex per i ments
in ter na tion al con fer ence ti tled "The
and ob ser va tions. (See The Laws of
Collapse of the Theory of Evolution:
Inheritance.) However, these laws
The Fact of Creation," held by the
at tract ed the at ten tion of the sci en tif -
Science Research Foundation on 5
ic world on ly to ward the end of the
July, 1998, in which he dis cussed the
cen tu ry. Not un til the ear ly 20th cen -
an a tom i cal dif fer en ces be tween bird
tu ry did the en tire sci en tif ic world
feath ers and rep tile scales. He re -
The Evolution Impasse II