A Critique of the Theory of Evolution

In 1916, a young Thomas Hunt Morgan one of the century's greatest experimental biologists turned his formidable critical mind toward the theory that would eventually earn him a Nobel Prize. These lectures, delivered at Cornell, capture a remarkable intellectual moment: the collision between Darwin's grand evolutionary framework and the revolutionary new genetics emerging from Mendel's rediscovered work. Morgan, then a skeptical embryologist, systematically dissects the evidence for evolution drawing on paleontology, comparative anatomy, and the newest findings in heredity. What makes this book extraordinary is witnessing a brilliant scientist in the act of questioning orthodoxy, demanding evidence, and setting the stage for his own later transformation into one of evolution's most powerful defenders. The book reads as both a period document and a timeless lesson in scientific reasoning: how theories survive only by surviving scrutiny. For anyone interested in the history of biology, the birth of modern genetics, or the art of scientific skepticism, Morgan's lectures remain a master class in thinking critically about what we think we know.