Show l' l T The Earth Teaches Man r 1 By EDWARD W. W BERRY Scientist Educator and Writer j LIberal church leaders are united In believing that the church must use the contributions of the sd if it is to stand for living issues The popularization of scientific is a means to that end and in this article a distinguished specialist in inthe inthe the field tells how the story of the rocks supports the theory of evolution From the remote beginnings of the human rae race e ethe the earth has been speaking to man The written 0 record ot of its speech Is the rocks It Is true that some som e of the pages are obliterated and some ot of the chapters chapter have not been unearthed but geologists have now noi described many thousands of feet ot of sedimentary y rocks with the remains of animals and plants preserved preserved pre pre- served in them These are the real documents c of evolution evolution-a true record covering millions ot of years years- and had not biologists proposed evolution the geologists geologists would have had to do so It is not possible to t 0 adequately discuss the geological record in a short t space I can only say that it extends over a va vast it lapse of time that in general it shows a constar constant it progression from simplicity to complexity and always a a survival ot of those organisms that were most p pr r- r adapted to their several environments Fc For ir example boneless animals long antedate vertebrates vertebrate S. S Among the latter fishes appeared ages before tei ter- ter animals reptiles long preceded mammals an and d the evolution of the last like that ot of the higher or r plants upon which that ot of mammals was so 10 dependent was the latest and most rapid The remains of man in the form of weapons and tools of stone and more rarely actual bones are the last to appear in the records of the rocks but during the past fifty years the discovery and study ot of otman's mans man's orIgin has progressed at a marvelous rate We Ve now know that human beings have peopled the earth for a period ot of at least years We Ve see the evidence evi evi- dence for some belief in a future life In the ceremonial burials ot of at years ago and with w-ih the wonderful cave art ot of about years ago we have overwhelming over over- whelming evidence of a very considerable ritual and capacity for tor self As I read the testimony ot of the rocks there can be hOt one scientific explanation of Its meaning Consider Consider Con Con- sider the endless series ot of faunas and floras that have been uncovered each slightly different In types and run through with the warp of relationship but with grouping from what was older or younger the whole a never ending change in the woof woot with the progress progress ress of time her Elther they are genetically related or we have to assume that t creation thousands ot of times repeated destroyed the whole organic world and recreated all the myriads ot of living forms Not only so but each new creation Was vas so lIke the precedIng preceding pre pre- cedIng that traIning is required to discriminate them and the nev models were created with vestigial and useless reduced arts replicas ot of parts that functional in their I do not deny that omnipotence could do this but such a conclusion is not scientific nor does docs It do credit to the infinite Although much remains to be discovered we now lenow enough to affirm mot most emphatically that man as well as all other animals and plants has had a long evolutionary history over tens of thousands thousands thou thou- I sands and in some cases millions of years The evolution ot of man as an animal was completed long before written history was Invented His most astonishing as- as I evolution has been the latest and more I rapid development of- of the f. f and there seems to me to be no limit to the betterment ot of the race by the exercise of n altruism a and d idealism idealism- seems that trinity of what bo be called spIritual graces 92 s O l wl pe ca e Ice f y |