Elementary biology; an introduction to Elementary biology; an introduction to the science of life elementarybiolog00grue Year: 1924 494 ELEMENTARY BIOLOGY The larger brain, carrying with it possibihties of learning, imitating, and planning, is perhaps the most important advance made over the simian ancestors (see Fig. 255). Fig. 256 is a diagram which shows the distinctive traits of several ancient specimens supposed to represent different stages in the evolution of the human species. Fig. 258 repre- sents restorations of some of these primitive forms; from these we can get an idea of how som
Elementary biology; an introduction to Elementary biology; an introduction to the science of life elementarybiolog00grue Year: 1924 494 ELEMENTARY BIOLOGY The larger brain, carrying with it possibihties of learning, imitating, and planning, is perhaps the most important advance made over the simian ancestors (see Fig. 255). Fig. 256 is a diagram which shows the distinctive traits of several ancient specimens supposed to represent different stages in the evolution of the human species. Fig. 258 repre- sents restorations of some of these primitive forms; from these we can get an idea of how some of the intermediate ancestors probably looked. Fig. 257. Fossil remains of man The pieces of skull, jawbone, and tooth found in England at Piltdown in 1911 rep- resent a lower type of human being than any that had been previously discovered 512. Evolution and man. Fifty years ago much of the discussion among thinking people centered around the question of the validity of the evolution theory as applied to man. There were many who were prepared to believe that evolution has taken place among plants and lower animals, but who hesitated to accept the same explanation for the appearance of man upon earth. One of the strongest objections urged against the theory was the fact that it had been impossible to produce a complete record of a graded series con- necting man of to-day with his supposed non-human or prehuman ancestors. This argument of the ' missing link ' carried a great deal of weight with people who did not appreciate how unlikely it would be for complete series of specimens to be preserved through geologic times. Of the millions of human beings and other vertebrates that die in a given region during a century, how many skeletons are likely to remain sufficiently intact to be recognized from ten thousand to fifty thousand years later ? From a scientific point of view it would be sufficient if the scattered pieces found at widely different levels (geological ages) do a
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