The Darwinian Theory

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 18, 1916

The Darwinian Theory

DR. WM. FURNESS, who has given years of research to the study of apes, admits to the American Philosophical Society that no ape can be taught an articulate language, and that, though it has reason, it has no association of ideas. While Darwin did not claim that man descended from the monkey, he did claim that they had a common ancestry, and that man had simply developed farther from the primitive type than had the monkey.

Dr. Furness, according to the Washington Post of April 16, has given years of effort to the education of a chimpanzee, Mimi, with the idea that by constant human companionship from an early age there might be produced in the anthropoid a greater intelligence, perhaps only a step below the level of the most primitive type of human inhabitants on the island of Borneo. Dr. Furness’s final admission that it is impossible for him to teach his chimpanzee an articulate speech, may discourage somewhat those scientists who have been trying to find material proof of Darwin’s assertions. At least it is to be hoped that the failure of this scientific experiment may serve to remind all our readers that the evolutionary theory is only a theory.