Abstract
To Mr. Rinaldo, “evolution” is like the red rag to the proverbial bull; and, like most violently biased people, he has not given sufficient study to the object of his attack. For example, in arguing for the special creation of man, he says it is “ridiculous” to explain by migration the similarities found in widely separated countries. But evidently he does not realise the length of duration in past time of a being justifiably called man, for, even if we assume that duration to go back no further than the Miocene period, there is ample scope for almost unlimited migration (e.g. there was land at this period probably across the North Atlantic); and, indeed, human migration is not essential to the theory; migration of lower animal forms, in still more remote periods, would do nearly as well. Mr. Rinaldo seems to think that evolution implies an Adam and Eve from whom all mankind are descended. As a matter of fact, the theory of biological evolution would not be invalidated if it were proved that man appeared on various parts of the earth's surface at the same time, for these primitive human beings would be descended from other and less complex forms of life—animals of anthropoid but not vet human structure.
Rinaldo's Polygeneric Theory: a Treatise on the Beginning and End of Life.
By Joel Rinaldo. Pp. 123. (New York: 206 West 41st Street.)
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Rinaldo's Polygeneric Theory: a Treatise on the Beginning and End of Life . Nature 84, 202 (1910). https://doi.org/10.1038/084202c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/084202c0