Misuse of the Term 'Evolution'

Abstract

IN the review of my "Essays on Human Evolution" in Nature of June 8, p. 749, Prof. A. D. Ritchie raises a matter of high importance to students of human origins—the right use of the word 'evolution'. "Biological evolution in the proper Darwinian sense," he claims, "is the process by which the normal kind of species, of fairly definite and fairly homogeneous genetic character, gives rise to one or more daughter species of different but equally definite and homogeneous genetic character. " In giving this definition, Prof. Ritchie has failed to note that Darwin, when he came to write "The Descent of Man", revised his evolutionary terms ; in "The Origin of Species" he speaks of competition and selection as taking place between "individuals", o "varieties" and "species"¹, but in "The Descent of Man" his "evolutionary units" become "communities", "tribes" and "nations", and it is between such units that the processes of evolution go on, the processes of variation, competition and selection. Over and over again, Darwin emphasizes the fact that primitive man confined his sympathy and aid to members of his own community. The following is the only passage in which he mentions "race" as a competing unit: "Extinction follows chiefly from the competition of tribe with tribe, and race with race"². This must be regarded as a slip of the pen, for elsewhere he recognizes very clearly that competition and struggle for survival are carried on between communities, tribes or nations of the same race. Only when a community of one race is brought into contact, with a community of another race does an interracial struggle arise. Thus if I have erred in using the term 'evolution' to describe the processes which change the nature and destiny of a community, a tribe, or a nation, I have erred in very good company.