(2) sre sises

'Urameton',

60, Westmeston Avenue,

Saltdean,

Nr Brighton,

Sussex,

9th July, 1965.

Professor J. Lederberg,

Department of Genetics,

Stanford University School of Medicine,
Palo Alto,

California, U.S.A.

Dear Professor Lederberg,

I have recently read your article, ‘Signs of
Life' published in the current issue of 'Nature',

3 July 1965. IL surprised to find that you accept
uncritically that evolution has occurred in biota. —
The evidence for $s 1S miniscule an

e fact that you

should base your whole views upon it and indeed encourage

people to believe that something similar has taken place
on Mars is, to my mind, fatuous.

As a geneticist you should know that genetics has
supplied no conclusive evidence for evolution, that the
fossil record is completely against it and that it is by
and large a biological pipe-dream, although believeg by
the majority of scientists today in defiance of the
evidence,

You are surely aware of Professor Nillson's
great work, 'Synthetische Artbildung', Lund 1953, the
work of Timofeeff—Ressovsky on Drosophila and Professor
Kerkut's more recent work, ‘Implications of Evolution’,
Pergamon Press, 1964. Your Point (B) on page 9 of the
issue of ‘Nature’ is wholly untenable and if you press
it you fly in face of the facts. In fact your whole

/continued......

SW/ S000
-~ 2 =

position is summed up very aptly by Professor Nillson
in the following words when he deals with the theory
of emication:-

"As I have pointed out, there is no
discussion among biologists today whether an
evolution has taken place or not. The discussion
concerns the how, the causation of evolution,

No definite answer has been given to this
question.

It them becomes necessary to ask: Has
there really been an evolution? Are the
proofs of its occurrence tenable?

After a detailed and comprehensive review
of the facts we have been forced to give the
answer: No! Neither a recent nor a
palaeohistorical evolution can be empirically
demonstrated.

If this is the case, all discussions
and problems concerning the causation of an
evolution lose all interest. Lamarckism or
mutationism, monophyletic or polyphyletic,
continuity or discontinuity - the roads of
the evolution are not problems any more. It
is rather futile to discuss the digestion or
the brain functions of a ghost."

I would welcome your views.

Yours very truly,

f

: OD
Tivanrh Ww Cc

¢

 

Frank W. Cousins

 

FWC/ VAM