<<While I appreciate Dick's efforts and his raising of an important
possibility, I do not like the way such a view divides the human race into
two. My wife is a decendant of Adam under this point of view, I am not.
This is a perfect basis for people looking down on each other. Rather than
unifying the human race, it divides it.>>
Glenn,
That is exactly what the Jews thought prior to Christ's life, death and
resurrection. They looked down on Gentiles, Greeks and anyone who by my
definition would descendants of the adamic lineage. But in Christ that has
all changed. You are well aware of Gal. 3: 28 which states, "There is no
longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male
and female; for all of you are one in Christ." You raise a question that
should no longer be raised among us. National, ethnic, racial, social class,
gender divisions should no longer be even considered by Christians. Paul
spends a large part of his letter to the Romans arguing that God is the God of
everyone, Gentiles as well as Jews.
In response to my claim that the appearance of Broca's area provides a marker
for the appearance of Adam-as-head-of-the-human-race since the area made
speech possible for Adam and made it possible for him to name the animals, you
wrote:
<<I probably should point out a view that Terrence Deacon suggests in The
Symbolic Species. He believes that Broca's area is the result of language
not the cause of it. In that view, Australopithecus would have spoken.>>
First, this view is purely speculative. Do you or Deacon have evidence that
he did? I do not take it serisouly. It is the standard explanation
evolutuionary authors give for the appearance of morphological and anatomical
structures. According to this view, function (speech) determines form (Broca's
area). The opposite view, however, can be argued just as cogently, namely,
that form (Broca's area) determines function (speech). The latter view is the
one I hold.
Did Australopithecus speak? Do you believe that the hypothesized speech of
Australopithecus, which had to be very primitive at best, had anything
whatsoever to do with the complex speech and sophisticated intellectual
activity engaged in by Adam as he named the animals?
According to your view, Adam had to be the very first Australopithecus in
order for him to be the father of all humanity. Is that correct? Are you
also saying that this very first Australopithecus had the advanced speech and
mental capacity to name animals? I'm far from convinced.
Cheers,
Bob