(Download) "From Myth to Science (Report)" by Science Progress # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: From Myth to Science (Report)
- Author : Science Progress
- Release Date : January 22, 2009
- Genre: Engineering,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 164 KB
Description
There is a familiar story of a countryman visiting the Zoo for the first time. After stating at the giraffe in astonishment mingled with horror, he exclaimed, "There ain't no such animal!" We can hardly sympathise with this countryman over the giraffe, which is too familiar to be doubted, but we are staggered from time to time when science draws for us a new portrait of some prehistoric creature. We feel occasionally, in a gallery of prehistoric monsters, like the countryman at the Zoo. Polite incredulity, at the least, seems most fitting when a creature more than forty feet long, even if its length is mostly neck and tail, is said to have behaved like a hen and laid eggs, If we were removed to a desert island where only men lived, deprived of our memory of all other members of the great community of life and then suddenly introduced into Noah's ark, we would shrink in terrified horror from a world so apparently alien to our own. The extraordinary diversity of animal species, even now, when familiarity momentarily disappears in contemplative reflection, suggests a mingling of many worlds instead of a world which is really one. If we could see, in succession and for the first time, a jelly-fish, a sea-urchin, a lobster, a tortoise, an eagle, a shark, a giraffe, a butterfly, a whale, an ant, an armadillo, an elephant, and many others, we should agree with the old opinion that each species was specially and separately created, and add that many different worlds must have been shuffled together. Yet the world of life, with all its diversities, is one family. The doctrine of transformism, the doctrine that all species have grown out of other species, is too well grounded to be refused. Mr. Balfour, in a presidential address to the British Association, spoke of the aesthetic thrill which the insight of science into the unities of the universe often bestows upon us. The concept of evolution, of transformism, the affirmation that one continuous process of development has produced the myriad forms of life gives such an aesthetic thrill as we realise that all the infinitely varied creatures around us are united as the roots, trunk, branches, and foliage of a tree are united. Thomas Fuller found in the genealogy of his Saviour that "Rehoboam begat Abiam; that is, a bad father begat a bad son. Abiam begat Asa; that is, a bad father a good son. Asa begat Jehosaphat; that is, a good father a good son. Jehosaphat begat Joram; that is, a good father a bad son." One fundamental plan, one common relation of parentage, ran through many different situations. So in the world of life many species, at first sight so diverse as to belong to different worlds, are manifestations of one fundamental plan.
 "From Myth to Science (Report)" by Science Progress # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free){kind=link}