t is abundantly evident that rates of evolution vary. They vary greatly from group to group, and even among closely related lineages there may be strikingly different rates. Differences in rates of evolution, and not only divergent evolution at comparable rates, are among the reasons for the great diversity of organisms on the earth. Among the living primates there are, for instance, some rather unspecialized or primitive prosimians (i.e., little changed from Eocene progenitors), a larger number of divergently specialized prosimians, (...) many monkeys of different degrees of progression and divergence, a few apes, and the unique species of man. Important as is the purely divergent evolution, it is also clear that differential rates are involved. At the extremes, the lineages of the more primitive living prosimians have evolved less rapidly as regards the whole of their structure and adaptive position than has the lineage of man. (shrink)

uppose that the most fundamental and general principle of a science had been known for over a century and had long since become a main basis for understanding and research by scientists in that field. You would surely assume that the principle would be taken as a matter of course by everyone with even a nodding acquaintance with the science. It would obviously be taught everywhere as basic to the science at any level of education. If you think that about (...) biology, however, you are wrong. (shrink)

If, as may be generally agreed upon, the term science is to be taken to mean verified knowledge, then it has three attributes: the logical and methodological; that is, how we arrive at verified knowledge; the epistemic; that is, the bodies of verified knowledge that have been arrived at; and the sociological; that is, the organization of men by means of which the bodies of knowledge have been arrived at and the method prosecuted.

The position that science is a technique establishing the means to achieve any stipulated end has now fanned out and been defended by social scientists as well as by natural scientists. It is the thesis of this paper that the bifurcation of science and morality derives from the social status of both science and scientists today, and involves, wittingly or unwittingly, an uncritical acceptance of dominant social values. Science is thus not non-moral, as is claimed, but rather appropriates conventional morality. (...) Certain conditions have brought about this role for science and scientists. (shrink)