Page 158 - Confessions of the Evolutionists

156 CONFESSIONS OF THE EVOLUTIONISTS

You ask what effect studying species has had on my variation theories; I
do not think much-I have felt some difficulties more. 392
Certainly I have felt it humiliating, discussing and doubting and examin-
ing over and over again, when in my own mind, the only doubt has been,
whether the form varied today or yesterday.... After describing a set of
forms, as distinct species, tearing up my M.S., and making them one
species; tearing that up and making them separate, and then making them
one again (which has happened to me) I have gnashed my teeth, cursed
species, and asked what sin I had committed to be so punished... 393
Birds, which have struggled in their own homes, when settled in a body,
nearly simultaneously in a new country, would not be subject to much
modification, for their mutual relations would not be much disturbed. But
I quite agree with you, that in the time they ought to undergo some. 394
When we descend to details... nor can we prove that the supposed
changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory. .. The lat-
ter case, seems to me hardly more difficult to understand precisely and in
detail than the former case of supposed change. 395
Francis Darwin:
In the Autobiography, my father has stated what seemed to him the chief
flaw of the 1844 Sketch; he had overlooked "one problem of great impor-
tance," the problem of the divergence of character. This point is discussed
in the Origin of Species, but, as it may not be familiar to all readers, I will
give a short account of the difficulty and its solution. The author begins
by stating that varieties differ from each other less than species, and then
goes on: "Nevertheless, according to my view, varieties are species in
process of formation... . How then does the lesser difference between va-
rieties become augmented into the greater difference between species?" 396

Luther Burbank, a geneticist and one of the world's most eminent
authorities on the subject of livestock breeding:
There are limits to the development possible, and these limits follow a law. 397
Norman Macbeth, an evolutionist known for his criticisms of

Darwinism:
The heart of the problem is whether living things do indeed vary to an un-
limited extent... The species look stable. We have all heard of disappoint-
ed breeders who carried their work to a certain point, only to see the ani-
mals or plants revert to where they had started. 398