Science in Christian Perspective

BIOLOGY
Irving W. Knobloch, Ph.D.

From JASA 8 (June 1956): 17-18.

Man's Unknown Ancestors-Raymond W. Murray. Bruce Publ. Co. Milwaukee. 1943

This is a very interesting book of 384 pages. It deals with prehistoric man. Since a review of the book is outside the field of my competency, I shall content myself with listing some of the more interesting statements found therein as they bear on our organizational purposes. The statements may not be exact quotations but they will, I trust, convey the intended meaning.

1. There are sapiens types in the fossil record which are just as old as the non-sapiens types.

2. Skulls and other parts of over 100 individuals (of man) have been found including at least 16 rather complete skeletons.

3. The skeletons of Neanderthal man show a wide diversity of structure. Not all had the heavy receding jaw so commonly pictured.

4. The difference between the Java man and the Pekin man are no greater than those found among different races today. Both can be placed in the same genus and species.

5. The oldest non-sapiens fossils are not always the most primitive physically.

As indicated above, I cannot vouch for any of the statements above, There is enough difference, however, between some of the statements above and the common textbook treatment of the subject to make one wonder how dogmatic we can af f ord to be about man's evolution.

The Theory of Evolution and the Facts of Science -Dr. Harry Rimmer. Win. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. 1946. This is a rather small book of 154 pages and was written by a clergyman who has investigated science as it touches religion. The book is restrictive in that it contains only four chapters and deals only with (1) The Facts of Biology and the Theories of Evolution (2) Embryology and the Recapitulation Theory (3) The Theories of Evolution and the Facts of Paleontology and (4) The Theories of Evolution and the Facts of Human Antiquity. It is a book written for the layman and some of the errors in it may be attributable to over-simplification. Some of these are-the bird became a mammal and the mammal became a man (p. 20) ; it is (the cell) a heterogeneous organism (p. 29) ; They contain a chemic material called "chromatin", and this fluid (p. 30) ; the spermatozoon approaches the ovum with the object of penetration (p.'32) ; The animals need protoplasm but they have no power to manufacture it (p. 35) ; these cells (zygotes) are not protozoa, they are the reproductive cells of the Genus Homo sapiens (p. 54) ; fertilization is possible only between the ova and the spermatozoa of the same species (p. 71); Coral is the body of a small insect (p. 80) ; he (Mr. Bryan) was confronted at Dayton, Tennessee, with the ablest cohorts of infidelity (p. 118). There are a number of other statements with which one might take exception.

Dr. Rimmer seems to believe in the fixity of species, a belief which both modern research and a study of paleontology reveal to be false. The limited type of evolution shown to exist does not invalidate a belief in the limited type of creation taught by the Bible.

CORRECTION: Our apologies for failing to mention that the last Biology Column "On the Recapitulation Theory in Biology" was a guest article by Richard P. Aulie, Bloomfield Township High School, Chicago Heights, Illinois and was reprinted from Turtox with the permission of the publishers.-Editor.