The Earth's Shifting Crust by Charles Hapgood - wire of information

LIFE 317
an entirely accidental process rendered the mathematical
chances against the coincidence of many mutations in one
individual or in one line o individuals completely over-
whelming.
But this was by no means the only difficulty. The anti-
mutationists could argue that since mutations were purely
accidental changes in the hereditary factors, and did not
occur in response to needs created by the environment, most
mutations would be positively harmful, or at least negative,
and would have no effect on the adaptation of the organism
to its environment. Only a chance mutation now and then
could help an organism to survive. Mutationists were unable
to show the existence of any principle by which mutations
would be adaptive, that is, brought about as a part
of an
effort of an organism to adapt to the environment. Some
recent experiments indicate that such adaptive mutation
may occur, perhaps under special and rare conditions, but
it still cannot be shown that adaptation by mutation has been
an important factor in evolution.
The mutationists did establish, of course, that minor muta-
tions were of frequent occurrence, and might even be in-
duced artificially; therefore, evolutionists accepted them, but
they recognized them as just another way of accounting for
the occurrence of variations. The law of natural selection
would still be required, in order to eliminate the harmful
mutations, which would constitute the great majority of all
mutations. For a while it seemed that, in this way, the basic
question of evolution was answered.
It soon appeared that this was very far from being the
case. The acceptance of mutations by the Darwinians as a
factor in evolution did not solve the problem. It became
clear, as time passed, that a major difficulty remained. Attention
was concentrated on the rate at which mutation and
natural selection could be effective in changing life forms.
Mathematical studies showed that such changes would take
place, according to the theory, at rates so slow that even long