A Critique of the Theory of Evolution Part 4

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 36. Diagram ill.u.s.trating a cross between a red eyed male and white eyed female of the fruit fly (reciprocal cross of that shown in Fig. 35).]

It has been shown by Sturtevant that in a wild species of Drosophila, viz., D. repleta, two varieties of individuals exist, in one of which the thorax has large splotches and in the other type smaller splotches (fig. 37). The factors that differentiate these varieties are s.e.x linked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 37. Two types of markings on thorax of Drosophila repleta, both found "wild". They show s.e.x linked inheritance.]

Certain types of color blindness (fig. 38) and certain other abnormal conditions in man such as haemophilia, are transmitted as s.e.x linked characters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 38, A. Diagram ill.u.s.trating inheritance of color blindness in man; the iris of the color-blind eye is here black.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 38, B. Reciprocal of cross in Fig. 38 a.]

In domestic fowls s.e.x linked inheritance has been found as the characteristic method of transmission for at least as many as six characters, but here the relation of the s.e.xes is in a sense reversed. For instance, if a black Langshan hen is crossed to a barred Plymouth Rock c.o.c.k (fig. 39), the offspring are all barred. If these are inbred half of the daughters are black and half are barred; all of the sons are barred. The grandmother has transmitted her color to half of her granddaughters but to none of her grandsons.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 39. s.e.x-linked inheritance in domesticated birds shown here in a cross between barred Plymouth Rock male and black Langshan female.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 40. Reciprocal of Fig. 39.]

In the reciprocal cross (fig. 40) black c.o.c.k by barred hen, the daughters are black and the sons barred--criss-cross inheritance. These inbred give black hens and black c.o.c.ks, barred hens and barred c.o.c.ks.

There is a case comparable to this found in a wild species of moth, Abraxas grossulariata. A wild variation of this type is lighter in color and is known as A. lacticolor. When these two types are crossed they exhibit exactly the same type of heredity as does the black-barred combination in the domestic fowl. As shown in figure 41, lacticolor female bred to grossulariata male gives grossulariata sons and daughters. These inbred give grossulariata males and females and lacticolor females. Reciprocally lacticolor male by grossulariata female, (fig. 42) gives lacticolor daughters and grossulariata sons and these inbred give grossulariata males and females and lacticolor males and females.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 41. s.e.x-linked inheritance in the wild moth, Abraxas grossulariata (darker) and A. lacticolor.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 42. Reciprocal of Fig. 41.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 43. Four wild types of Paratettix in upper line with three hybrids below.]

It has been found that there may be even more than two factors that show Mendelian segregation when brought together in pairs. For example, in the southern States there are several races of the grouse locust (Paratettix) that differ from each other markedly in color patterns (fig. 43). When any two individuals of these races are crossed they give, as Nabours has shown, in F_2 a Mendelian ratio of 1: 2: 1. It is obvious, therefore, that there are here at least nine characters, any two of which behave as a Mendelian pair. These races have arisen in nature and differ definitely and strikingly from each other, yet any two differ by only one factor difference.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 44. Diagram ill.u.s.trating four allelomorphs in mice, viz. gray bellied gray (wild type) (above, to left); white bellied gray (above, to right); yellow (below, to right); and black (below, to left).]

Similar relations have been found in a number of domesticated races. In mice there is a quadruple system represented by the gray house mouse, the white bellied, the yellow and the black mouse (fig. 44). In rabbits there is probably a triple system, that includes the albino, the Himalayan, and the black races. In the silkworm moth there have been described four types of larvae, distinguished by different color markings, that form a system of quadruple allelomorphs. In Drosophila there is a quintuple system of factors in the s.e.x chromosome represented by eye colors, a triple system of body colors, and a triple system of factors for eye colors in the third chromosome.

MUTATION AND EVOLUTION

What bearing has the appearance of these new types of Drosophila on the theory of evolution may be asked. The objection has been raised in fact that in the breeding work with Drosophila we are dealing with artificial and unnatural conditions. It has been more than implied that results obtained from the breeding pen, the seed pan, the flower pot and the milk bottle do not apply to evolution in the "open", nature "at large" or to "wild" types. To be consistent, this same objection should be extended to the use of the spectroscope in the study of the evolution of the stars, to the use of the test tube and the balance by the chemist, of the galvanometer by the physicist. All these are unnatural instruments used to torture Nature's secrets from her. I venture to think that the real ant.i.thesis is not between unnatural and natural treatment of Nature, but rather between controlled or verifiable data on the one hand, and unrestrained generalization on the other.

If a systematist were asked whether these new races of Drosophila are comparable to wild species, he would not hesitate for a moment. He would call them all one species. If he were asked why, he would say, I think, "These races differ only in one or two striking points, while in a hundred other respects they are identical even to the minutest details." He would add, that as large a group of wild species of flies would show on the whole the reverse relations, _viz._, they would differ in nearly every detail and be identical in only a few points. In all this I entirely agree with the systematist, for I do not think such a group of types differing by one character each, is comparable to most wild groups of species because the difference between wild species is due to a large number of such single differences. The characters that have been acc.u.mulated in wild species are of significance in the maintenance of the species, or at least we are led to infer that even though the visible character that we attend to may not itself be important, one at least of the other effects of the factors that represent these characters is significant. It is, of course, hardly to be expected that _any_ random change in as complex a mechanism as an insect would improve the mechanism, and as a matter of fact it is doubtful whether any of the mutant types so far discovered are better adapted to those conditions to which a fly of this structure and habits is already adjusted.

But this is beside the mark, for modern genetics shows very positively that adaptive characters are inherited in exactly the same way as are those that are not adaptive; and I have already pointed out that we cannot study a single mutant factor without at the same time studying one of the factors responsible for normal characters, for the two together const.i.tute the Mendelian pair.

And, finally, I want to urge on your attention a question that we are to consider in more detail in the last lecture. Evolution of wild species appears to have taken place by modifying and improving bit by bit the structures and habits that the animal or plant already possessed. We have seen that there are thirty mutant factors at least that have an influence on eye color, and it is probable that there are at least as many normal factors that are involved in the production of the red eye of the wild fly.

Evolution from this point of view has consisted largely in introducing new factors that influence characters already present in the animal or plant.

Such a view gives us a somewhat different picture of the process of evolution from the old idea of a ferocious struggle between the individuals of a species with the survival of the fittest and the annihilation of the less fit. Evolution a.s.sumes a more peaceful aspect. New and advantageous characters survive by incorporating themselves into the race, improving it and opening to it new opportunities. In other words, the emphasis may be placed less on the compet.i.tion between the individuals of a species (because the destruction of the less fit does not _in itself_ lead to anything that is new) than on the appearance of new characters and modifications of old characters that become incorporated in the species, for on these depends the evolution of the race.

CHAPTER III

THE FACTORIAL THEORY OF HEREDITY AND THE COMPOSITION OF THE GERM PLASM

The discovery that Mendel made with edible peas concerning heredity has been found to apply everywhere throughout the plant and animal kingdoms--to flowering plants, to insects, snails, crustacea, fishes, amphibians, birds, and mammals (including man).

There must be something that these widely separated groups of plants and animals have in common--some simple mechanism perhaps--to give such definite and orderly series of results. There is, in fact, a mechanism, possessed alike by animals and plants, that fulfills every requirement of Mendel's principles.

THE CELLULAR BASIS OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION AND HEREDITY

In order to appreciate the full force of the evidence, let me first pa.s.s rapidly in review a few familiar, historical facts, that preceded the discovery of the mechanism in question.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 45. Typical cell showing the cell wall, the protoplasm (with its contained materials); the nucleus with its contained chromatin and nuclear sap. (After Dahlgren.)]

Throughout the greater part of the last century, while students of evolution and of heredity were engaged in what I may call the more general, or, shall I say, the _grosser_ aspects of the subject, there existed another group of students who were engaged in working out the minute structure of the material basis of the living organism. They found that organs such as the brain, the heart, the liver, the lungs, the kidneys, etc., are not themselves the units of structure, but that all these organs can be reduced to a simpler unit that repeats itself a thousand-fold in every organ. We call this unit a cell (fig. 45).

The egg is a cell, and the spermatozoon is a cell. The act of fertilization is the union of two cells (fig. 47, upper figure). Simple as the process of fertilization appears to us today, its discovery swept aside a vast amount of mystical speculation concerning the role of the male and of the female in the act of procreation.

Within the cell a new microcosm was revealed. Every cell was found to contain a spherical body called the nucleus (fig. 46a). Within the nucleus is a network of fibres, a sap fills the interstices of the network. The network resolves itself into a definite number of threads at each division of the cell (fig. 46 b-e). These threads we call chromosomes. Each species of animals and plants possesses a characteristic number of these threads which have a definite size and sometimes a specific shape and even characteristic granules at different levels. Beyond this point our strongest microscopes fail to penetrate. Observation has reached, for the time being, its limit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 46. A series of cells in process of cell division. The chromosomes are the black threads and rods. (After Dahlgren.)]

The story is taken up at this point by a new set of students who have worked in an entirely different field. Certain observations and experiments that we have not time to consider now, led a number of biologists to conclude that the chromosomes are the bearers of the hereditary units. If so, there should be many such units carried by _each_ chromosome, for the number of chromosomes is limited while the number of independently inherited characters is large. In Drosophila it has been demonstrated not only that there are exactly as many groups of characters that are inherited together as there are pairs of chromosomes, but even that it is possible to locate one of these groups in a particular chromosome and to state the _relative position_ there of the factors for the characters. If the validity of this evidence is accepted, the study of the cell leads us finally in a mechanical, but not in a chemical sense, to the ultimate units about which the whole process of the transmission of the hereditary factors centers.

But before plunging into this somewhat technical matter (that is difficult only because it is unfamiliar), certain facts which are familiar for the most part should be recalled, because on these turns the whole of the subsequent story.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 47. An egg, and the division of the egg--the so-called process of cleavage. (After Selenka.)]

The thousands of cells that make up the cell-state that we call an animal or plant come from the fertilized egg. An hour or two after fertilization the egg divides into two cells (fig. 47). Then each half divides again.

Each quarter next divides. The process continues until a large number of cells is formed and out of these organs mould themselves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 48. Section of the egg of the beetle, Calligrapha, showing the pigment at one end where the germ cells will later develop as shown in the other two figures. (After Hegner.)]

At every division of the cell the chromosomes also divide. Half of these have come from the mother, half from the father. Every cell contains, therefore, the sum total of all the chromosomes, and if these are the bearers of the hereditary qualities, every cell in the body, whatever its function, has a common inheritance.

At an early stage in the development of the animal certain cells are set apart to form the organs of reproduction. In some animals these cells can be identified early in the cleavage (fig. 48).

The reproductive cells are at first like all the other cells in the body in that they contain a full complement of chromosomes, half paternal and half maternal in origin (fig. 49). They divide as do the other cells of the body for a long time (fig. 49, upper row). At each division each chromosome splits lengthwise and its halves migrate to opposite poles of the spindle (fig. 49 c).

But there comes a time when a new process appears in the germ cells (fig 49 e-h). It is essentially the same in the egg and in the sperm cells. The discovery of this process we owe to the laborious researches of many workers in many countries. The list of their names is long, and I shall not even attempt to repeat it. The chromosomes come together in pairs (fig. 49 a). Each maternal chromosome mates with a paternal chromosome of the same kind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 49. In the upper row of the diagram a typical process of nuclear division, such as takes place in the early germ cells or in the body cells. In the lower row the separation of the chromosomes that have paired. This sort of separation takes place at one of the two reduction divisions.]

Then follow two rapid divisions (fig. 49 f, g and 50 and 51). At one of the divisions the double chromosomes separate so that each resulting cell comes to contain some maternal and some paternal chromosomes, i.e. one or the other member of each pair. At the other division each chromosome simply splits as in ordinary cell division.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 50. The two maturation divisions of the sperm cell.

Four sperms result, each with half (haploid) the full number (diploid) of chromosomes.]

The upshot of the process is that the ripe eggs (fig. 51) and the ripe spermatozoa (fig. 50) come to contain only half the total number of chromosomes.