Wisdom of Evolution

403 Pages·1963·44.625 MB·English

by  Raymond J. Nogar

The
WISDOM
of
EVOLUTION
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Raymond J. Nogar, O.P., Ph.D.
DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK.
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'SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
AT CLAREMONT
California
Nihil obstat: Benedict M. Ashley, O.P.
Charles J. D. Corcoran, O.P.
Censores Duputati
Imprimatur: Right Reverend Monsignor George J. Casey
Vicar General
November 21, 1962
The Nihil obstat and Imprimatur are official declarations that a book or
pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained
therein that those who have granted the Nihil obstat and Imprimatur
agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 63-18212
Copyright © 1963 by Raymond /. Nogar
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to include excerpts from
the following copyrighted publications:
The American Scientist—“The Crucial Evidence for Human Evolution”
by W. D. Le Gros Clark, 1959.
Basic Books, Inc.—Excerpt from The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,
1959. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, Inc.
Chilton Books—Adapted from The History of Man by Gustav Schenk,
copyright 1961 by Chr. Belser Verlag, Stuttgart. Used with permis¬
sion of the English language publisher, Chilton Books, Philadelphia
and New York.
Columbia University Press—Excerpt from Dobzhansky: Genetics and the
Origin of Species. Reprinted by permission.
Norma Millay Ellis—Excerpt from “The Return” by Edna St. Vincent
Millay from Collected Poems, Harper & Row, Publishers. Copyright
1934, 1962 by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis.
Reprinted by permission of Norma Millay Ellis.
5
Duquesne University Press—Excerpt from Symposium on Evolution, Du-
quesne University Press, Pittsburgh, 1958. Reprinted by permission.
Faber and Faber Ltd.—Excerpt from “Snow” from Collected Poems by
Louis MacNeice. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.—“The Song of the Jellicles” from Old
Possutris Book of Practical Cats, copyright, 1939, by T. S. Eliot.
Reprinted by permission of Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., and
Faber and Faber, Ltd.
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.—Excerpt from “Mending Wall” from
Complete Works of Robert Frost. Copyright 1930, 1939 by Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Holt, Rine¬
hart and Winston, Inc.
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.—Excerpt from “On a Sundial” from Cautionary
Verses by Hilaire Belloc. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc., and A. D. Peters, London.
New Directions—Excerpt from “To-Em-Mei’s The Unmoving Cloud’ ” by
Ezra Pound, from Personae: The Collected Poems of Ezra Pound,
copyright 1926, 1958 by Ezra Pound. Reprinted by permission of
New Directions.
Penguin Books Ltd.—Excerpt from Man the Peculiar Animal by R. J.
Harrison. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Priory Press—Excerpts from Beginning: Genesis and Modern Science, 1955.
Random House, Inc.—Excerpt from “Law Like Love” by W. H. Auden.
Copyright 1940 by W. H. Auden. Reprinted from The Collected
Poetry of W. H. Auden, by permission of Random House, Inc.
Reinhold Publishing Corporation—Excerpt from Dodson: Evolution: Proc¬
ess and Product, revised edition, 1960, by permission of Reinhold
Publishing Corporation. Copyright © 1960 Reinhold Publishing
Corporation.
Sheed & Ward, Inc.—Excerpts from Testament and Other Poems by John
Fandel, © 1959 by Sheed & Ward, Inc., New York.
The University of Arizona Press—Excerpt from “The Amber Cage” by
Dorothy Donnelly. Reprinted by permission of The University of
Arizona Press.
The University of Chicago Press—Excerpts from Evolution After Darwin.
Copyright © 1960 by The University of Chicago Press. Reprinted
by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to include the following
illustrations:
Chart on pages 57-58—From Herbert H. Ross, A Synthesis of Evolution¬
ary Theory. Copyright © 1962 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. Reprinted by
permission of Prentice-Hall, Inc.
6
Illustration on page 67—The Lineages of the Horse Family. Copyright
© 1961 The American Museum of Natural History.
Illustration on page 87—From the Journal of the Washington Academy
of Sciences, Vol. 31.
Illustration on page 104—Copyright © 1960 Reinhold Publishing Corpora¬
tion. Reprinted from Dodson, Evolution: Process and Product, re¬
vised edition, 1960, by permission of Reinhold Publishing Corpo¬
ration.
Illustration on page 112—From A. S. Romer, The Vertebrate Body, pub¬
lished by W. B. Saunders Company.
Illustration on page 113—Copyright © 1960 Reinhold Publishing Corpo¬
ration. Reprinted from Dodson, Evolution: Process and Product,
revised edition, 1960, by permission of Reinhold Publishing Corpo¬
ration.
Illustration on page 114—From A. S. Romer, The Vertebrate Body, after
Gregory. Published by W. B. Saunders Company.
Illustration on page 114—From General Zoology by Storer and Usinger.
3d ed.. Copyright © 1957 by McGraw-Hill Book Co. Used by
permission.
Illustration on page 115—Copyright © 1960 Reinhold Publishing Corpo¬
ration. Reprinted from Dodson, Evolution: Process and Product,
revised edition, 1960, by permission of Reinhold Publishing Corpo¬
ration.
Illustration on pages 138-39—Copyright © 1960 Reinhold Publishing Cor¬
poration. Reprinted from Dodson, Evolution: Process and Product,
revised edition, 1960, by permission of Reinhold Publishing Corpo¬
ration.
Illustration on pages 160-61—By permission of The American Philosoph¬
ical Society. Originally published in Vol. 103, No. 2 of the Society’s
Proceedings (1959).
Illustration on page 178—From William Howells’ Mankind in the Making.
Copyright © 1959 by William Howells, by permission of Doubleday
& Company, Inc.
Illustration on page 296—Reprinted by permission of Yale University
Press from Mankind Evolving, by Theodosius Dobzhansky. Copy¬
right 1962 by Yale University Press.
Illustration on page 299—Reprinted from Evolution After Darwin, Vol. 1,
edited by Sol Tax, 1960, by permission of The University of Chicago
Press.
My Beloved Family
Acknowledgments
Today, no book about evolution involving biological, philo¬
sophical and theological issues could be written without the
assistance of a corps of generous and tireless workers. Many
of them must remain unknown. I have attempted to attribute
my debt to other writers by extensive notes which appear at
the conclusion of each chapter. There are a few persons,
however, who deserve special gratitude for the part which
they played in the production of this volume.
First, I must thank Dr. Theodosius Dobzhansky, the dean
of American geneticists, and one of the foremost contributors
of our time to the literature on evolution. His lectures, his
many articles and books, and especially his personal encour¬
agement have done much to inspire the effort expended on
these pages. Dr. Edward O. Dodson, professor of biology at
the University of Ottawa rendered me the immense favor of
reading and scientifically editing the text. Although he can¬
not be held accountable for a single inaccuracy in my writing,
his suggested changes have been invaluable, and have made
much of the factual material more reliable and up-to-date.
Most books require a special motive, ample time and the
right circumstances. To the Very Rev. John E. Marr, O.P.,
S.T.M., Provincial of St. Albert’s Province, to the Very Rev.
John G. O’Connell, O.P., to the Very Rev. Edward S. Carl-
10 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
son, O.P., S.T.M., and to the other administrators of the
Aquinas Institute of Philosophy, I owe a deep debt of grati¬
tude for their generosity in affording me the incentive and
opportunity to do the special research necessary to the writing
of this book.
These pages could not have been written without the help
of the entire Dominican community at River Forest, Illinois.
Many of my colleagues and students at the Aquinas Institute
of Philosophy and the Albertus Magnus Lyceum assisted me
in my work. I wish especially to mention the Very Rev.
Benedict M. Ashley, O.P., S.T.M. (Pres.), and the Rev.
Charles J. D. Corcoran, O.P., Ph. Laur., who brought great
clarity and imagination to our discussions of the philosophi¬
cal issues which this book presents. To this list must be
added the name of the Rev. John B. Endres, O.P., S.T.D.,
who contributed many important theological suggestions.
But books also need publishers. I am greatly indebted to
Doubleday & Company for the privilege of having Mr. Daniel
R. Hayes and Mr. John J. Delaney as editors of this volume.
Their months of kind and patient counsel gave direction and
final form to my efforts. I must thank my typists Miss Bonnie
Gekler and Mrs. Louise Bradley, who, beyond providing a
manuscript in excellent form, carefully corrected many stylis¬
tic blunders. Finally, I am deeply grateful to Miss Carol Ann
Giannini for her patient reading of proofs and her assistance
in the preparation of the Index.
R.J.N.
Foreword
Darwin’s theory of evolution seemed to many of his contem¬
poraries offensive to human dignity and incompatible with
their religious faith. This tale is too well known to need an¬
other recital; the situation has changed radically during the
century since Darwin. This century saw both an evolution of
the theory of evolution, and an evolution of opinions concern¬
ing the philosophical and theological implications of this the¬
ory. Dr. Raymond J. Nogar is extraordinarily well qualified
to discuss and analyze these implications. A member of the
Dominican order, he is equally at home in theology, philoso¬
phy and biology. His book is not intended to be a biological
treatise on evolution but rather an examination of the philo¬
sophical status of the evolution theory. The book nevertheless
contains a very competent account of the biological founda¬
tions of this theory, which will doubtless be invaluable to the
theological readers. In this sense the book is a valuable biolog¬
ical treatise, after all. To a professional biologist its interest
lies, however, in the exceedingly subtle, many biologists will
think oversubtle, logical and philosophical analysis of biolog¬
ical concepts, inferences and theories. Here Dr. Nogar displays
a really remarkable degree of finesse which few biologists can
hope to emulate successfully.
12 FOREWORD
His careful and conscientious weighing of the evidence
leads Dr. Nogar to accept evolution as the best available ac¬
count of the genesis of the living world and of man. He
regards this account fully compatible with the philosophy of
Thomism and with the doctrines of the Catholic Church. He
is, of course, aware of the vigorous disagreements with his
position on the part of the unreconstructed fundamentalists
on the one hand and of agnostic and materialistic scientists on
the other. While accepting the theory of biological evolution,
Dr. Nogar views with misgivings its extension to cultural and
to cosmic evolution, and he rejects what he calls “evolu¬
tionism” where “the concept of evolution now becomes a
scientific ideology.” Here I, for one, have difficulty in follow¬
ing him; evolutionist “ideology” does not seem to me in¬
compatible with his philosophical principles. It would seem
to me necessary to make a sharper distinction than Dr. Nogar
makes between the evolutionist ideologies of, say, Teilhard
de Chardin and Julian Huxley. However, this only goes to
show that Dr. Nogar’s book does not end the debate con¬
cerning the issues which he has analyzed. One rather hopes
that the book will, on the contrary, stimulate this debate
and will give it more clarity than it has often had in the past.
Theodosius Dobzhansky
The Rockefeller Institute, New York