In recent works on genetics one reads that the connection between living things cannot be explained better than by supposing a common genealogical tree. It is, however, necessary to remark that what we have here is only an image, a hypothesis, not a demonstrated fact … If most research workers speak of genealogical descent as a fact, they are premature in doing so. One could very well formulate other alternative hypotheses … scientists of repute have emphasised in the clearest possible manner that in their opinion one cannot as yet say what is the real and exact meaning of terms such as “evolution”, “descent” and “transmission”; that we are as yet totally ignorant of a natural process by which one being can beget another of a different kind; that the process by which one being can beget another is altogether unintelligible, no matter how many intermediate stages be supposed; that no experimental method for producing one species from another has been found; and finally that we would not have any idea at what stage in the evolutionary process the hominoid suddenly crossed the threshold of humanity … [In conclusion] one is forced to say that the study of human origins is only at its beginnings; there is nothing definitive about present-day theory.”
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