Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 48 — page 116: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION maturity and produce off- spring with the same slightly bigger-than-normal wing. And so the new trait will be handed on, theoretically, for ever. But somewhere along the line an organism with the slightly bigger wing may suffer a similar environmental change (mutation) as that suffered by the original parent. And in the same way, it itself will not be affected, but its offspring will be. These offspring may have wings which are slightly big- ger than the slightly bigger ones. When this process has happened several times, the wings of the most recent generations are considerably larger than the wings of the remote original parent—so much larger as to form a new species. Evolution has been accomplished. If a mutational effect is not beneficial but actually harm- ful, the offspring will probably die before reaching maturity and, therefore, will produce no offspring to perpetuate the harmful feature. A muta- 115 tional effect that may start off as neither harmful nor bene- ficial is not likely to stay that way for long. In the case of the gradually enlarging wing, for example, there would come a point where the size of the wing is an embarrass- ment to the organism; it would not be successful at living and would produce no offspring. There is little doubt that all mutational effects are, in the long run, disadvantage- ous, though many may pass through a _ beneficial stage. The species that thrive today are those which have not had their mutational trends car- ried to extremes. The present- day species which are ill- adapted, such as the orang- utan, are those in which extreme alterations that were once beneficial are now harm- ful and are killing off the race as surely as if a gun were used. This question of a muta- tional effect being disad- vantageous or beneficial is what is meant by natural selection. Stated rather un- comiclooks.com