RE: The wrong horse in evolution education

Hi Jon,

in my answers to Dick Fischer and Jack Syme, I have dealt with most of the
problems you address below. So I'll just intersperse a few more comments:

"Jon Tandy" wrote (31 Mar 2006):
>
> Peter and all,
>
> I had been mulling over some new thoughts (at least for me) on human origins
> this week, when your e-mail came through. I would like to outline a
> hypothesis and see what holes might be poked in it, confessing my lack of
> training in anthropology.
>
> As I've seen the arguments on this list and elsewhere, the problems for
> Biblical literalism are:
>
> Anthropology/archaeology:
> - - Evidence exists for millions of years of biological evolution among
> pre-human species, including homo africanus, homo neandertalis, homo
> erectus, and homo sapiens.

H.africanus is now Australopithecus africanus. H.neandertalensis is on a
sidebranch to modern H.sapiens, with whom he probably didn't interbreed, at
least not extensively.

> - - Archaeological evidence shows millions of years of pre-human species, with
> some tie-in with Africa, although not entirely proven whether there was a
> single African source, or whether there were multiple lines of descent.

There were multiple emigrations from Africa, at least one for H.erectus and at
least one for H.sapiens. The conflicting theories about the origin of _modern_
H.sapiens are the out-of-Africa and the multiregional evolution from H.erectus.

> - - DNA evidence shows similarity and inheritance of homo sapiens DNA from
> earlier pre-human archaeological artifacts.

Similarity and inheritance are not identical. What matters here is inheritance
(which of course includes a lot of similarity). It's not archeological artifacts
(which are things like tools and beads), but paleontological fossils (teeth,
bones, and possibly prints of soft body parts) which give evidence of
inheritance, but only DNA extracted from fossil bones can yield DNA fragments to
analyze and compare to corresponding modern ones.

> - - The DNA evidence thus indicates that there are problems asserting that all
> mankind originated 6000 years ago, since the genetic data shows links back
> to species hundreds or millions of years older.
> - - Pre-human remains have been found in many continents, indicating that
> pre-human ancestors originated much earlier than 4000 years ago, and
> descended independently of an Adamic race in a 4000 B.C. Mesopotamia or
> Africa (or elsewhere).
>
> Biblical:
> - - The Bible indicates that Adam was the father of all mankind, at least
> those physical/spiritual beings in need of salvation.

No, this is a tradition I dispute, see my other posts.

> - - According to the Bible, Adam's sin was passed to "all men", death reigned
> "over all" from Adam's sin (Rom 5:14,21), Jesus is the "savior of all men"
> (1Tim 4:10), and all nations are made of one blood (Acts 17:26).

According to my understanding, sin cannot be inherited, but is personal guilt.
But all have sinned, and therefore all need Christ. In Acts 17:26, "blood" is
not in the most reliable manuscripts. Nevertheless, the genealogical unity of
all humans is clearly indicated - and conforms to what science says.

> - - Therefore, all those who are sinners are those who inherited something of
> Adam's nature. If this isn't true, nevertheless the Bible gives no
> indication that other *beings* could be sinners in any other way, so any
> other theory is extra-Biblical.

Sin is not inherited, and certainly not from Adam, as there cannot be any doubt
that there were earlier genuine humans (in the biblical sense, not just fossil
Homo sapiens). There are various biblical indications for that.

> - - The "federal headship" concept would make Adam the literal ancestor of
> only a portion of modern mankind, but the spiritual ancestor of all homo
> sapiens.

"Federal headship" doesn't refer to biological descent, but rather something
like a typological headship, independent of time, just as salvation through
Christ is not dependent on living in the NT time, nor from biological descent,
cf. my post to Jack Syme.

> This means Adam's spiritual sin/inherited sinful state would not
> apply literally to all mankind except through a sort of proxy status, making
> certain homo sapiens "guilty by association" by virtue of looking similar to
> their Adamic cousins. This doesn't seem reasonable to me, nor is there any
> clear hint that I can find in the Bible for this concept. Why didn't Adam's
> sin get applied equally to the baboons as well as the homo sapiens?

It's not a question of guilt by association, but of every human having sinned
(Rom. 5:12). As you indicate yourself below, not all who are classified
anthropologically as "Homo sapiens" are necessarily biblically genuine humans
"created in the image of God". The type of relationship to God is not easily
fossilized.

> - - If other *non-Adamic* humans (currently living homo sapiens) are not of
> the Adamic race, they are not in need of salvation because of not inheriting
> Adam's sin. Christian evangelism of the world is thrown into doubt, because
> one would first have to ask which of mankind actually need the saving
> message of the gospel.

No, see above.

> Here's the hypothesis that I've been considering:
>
> 1. Assume that there were millions of years of biological evolution, by
> which various pre-human *creatures* developed. I'll use the term
> "creatures" to separate their identity from what we would call "mankind"
> (i.e. physical/spiritual beings in need of salvation, described as "man" in
> scripture). In this hypothesis, there is absolutely no need for either ooA
> or MRH theories to be proven right or wrong. Simply, these species
> developed over time, through natural processes, selection, adaptation, and
> perhaps the directing influence of God toward greater complexity over their
> monkey cousins. Over the millenia, these various "homo" species migrated,
> developed, went extinct, and culminated in what science now identifies as
> "homo sapiens".

I fully agree.

> 2. Over time, these pre-human creatures developed greater sophistication,
> including familial culture, societies, mechanical skills, perhaps even
> religious-like practices. Even monkeys show signs of altruism, familial
> love, emotions, concern for others' pain, and mechanical skills. These
> later homo species could have developed even further; but, they were not yet
> "human". Glenn has pointed out some archaeological evidence of religious
> practice in Neolithic archaeology. This doesn't prove (and I would argue,
> science CANNOT prove) that these creatures were made-in-God's-image humans,
> with spirits, potential for sin, and a need for salvation. Their biological
> and cultural development, perhaps even including some sort of religious
> practice, could perhaps have been driven simply by biological self-awareness
> and a growing awareness of things "beyond", and was a mere precursor to the
> later religious worship instituted by God to the Adamic race.

The only thing I don't buy here is the evolution of religious practice. I think
any God-awareness must necessarily have been enabled by being created in God's
image. Cf. my article, "Dimensions of the Human Being and of Divine Action",
Persp.Sci.Christ.Faith (PSCF) 57/3, 191-201 (2005). Now, there are various
indications that people living much earlier than Adam's Neolithic showed some
evidence of God-awareness; Glenn Morton has collected a large documentation
about this, although I am not sure which ones of his cases are relevant in our
context, because I find the interpretation extremely difficult, especially for
the earliere cases.

> 3. At some point in time (let's argue for sake of Biblical literalism that
> it was roughly 4000 B.C.) God did something new. He created a new man,
> Adam, followed by his wife, Eve. Whether this was a special
> divinely-directed adaptation of homo sapiens, or a completely new creation,
> I don't think it matters so much for now. However, to better support a
> later step in this hypothesis, it may be easier to argue that this "person"
> was a homo sapiens who was given a special dispensation by God. This new
> creation was given several special gifts and features: special
> responsibilities to tend the garden and name the animals, the first modern
> "language" (as opposed to methods of communication possessed by all
> creatures), they were given to possess the image of God (a spiritual *being*
> capable of true God-awareness, free will, and sin), and the opportunity to
> have perpetual life through partaking of the Tree of Life. For purposes of
> this illustration it matters not what that tree was, literal or spiritual.

The Bible gives pretty clear indications of Adam's time (about 4000 BC) and
place (southern Mesopotamia), cf. D. Fischer, "In search of the historical
Adam", PSCF 45, 241-251 (1993) and 46, 47-57 (1994); C.A. Hill, "The Garden of
Eden: A Modern Landscape", PSCF 52/1, 31-46 (2000). But science and some
biblical indications show earlier humans.

> 4. This couple inevitably exercised their free will and chose to sin against
> God's will. I chose 4000 B.C., but the Bible never gives a time frame for
> their pre-Fall existence in the garden. It could have been thousands of
> years for all we know. Suffice it to say, as long as they were without sin,
> they existed in the garden without dying as physical/spiritual beings.

I doubt whether a long sinless time for Adam and Eve in the garden can be
biblically justified. It implies that they were immortal before their fall. Did
they really eat of the tree of life (whatever that means)?

> 5. After their fall, they were forced to leave the garden, and they
> therefore lost access to the perpetual life from the Tree of Life. However,
> God had another plan for them to obtain salvation and eternal life through
> the worship of God and the atonement of Christ, through death, resurrection
> and immortality of body and soul. They now had to suffer the penalty of
> eventual death, and having to labor with their hands in tilling the earth,
> having pain in childbirth, etc. (It could be argued that in their pre-Fall
> existence, they could not, or at least did not, have children according to
> the Biblical account.) After the fall, this specially created Adam and Eve
> had children, some of whom are enumerated in the Bible.

If you take Adam and Eve to be the first humans (which I think they were not),
Gen. 1:28 ("Be fruitful and multiply") would exclude their having lived for an
appreciable time without children.

> 6. These children of Adam and Eve married and had children of their own. I
> have previously considered that they could have married sisters who were not
> mentioned in the Bible. However, for purposes of this hypothesis let's
> suppose that God permitted them to intermarry/procreate with other
> non-enlightened homo sapiens who existed at that time. Their genes,
> whatever they were in a pre-Fall state, began to be intermingled with those
> of other homo sapiens. If they were in fact a specially endowed couple of
> homo sapiens origin, there might have been very little (if any) genetic
> difference between them and their "creature" neighbors.

Yes, but it still leaves us with the problem of God-conscious pre-Adamites,
because Genesis hardly allows us to date Adam earlier than the Neolithic (after
about 8000 BC).

> 7. As is the history of mankind, this special race of Adamic humans
> (including the righteous Seth line and the unrighteous Cain line) grew
> strong, acquired knowledge, built strong cultures and cities, and conquered
> dominions through warfare. As they spread out across the land, they
> subdued, killed, raped and/or took captive the female homo sapiens, and
> effectively eliminated the non-Adamic (less skilled and knowledgeable)
> population. We read in Genesis 10:8-9 of Nimrod the mighty hunter, who
> according to tradition established the first empire, practiced slavery,
> built great cities, instituted Babylonian religion (with beliefs and
> practices which later perpetuated through many cultures), and eventually the
> great building project described at Babel.

Same dating problem as above.

> 8. After the scattering at Babel, it is recorded that "from thence did the
> Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth" (Gen 11:9).
> Understanding that this could refer to a localized geographical area, there
> is nothing to limit the scope of this statement. Josephus states that from
> Babel, the people spread across the land and sea and inhabited the islands
> (unspecified locations). There is evidence even from American archaeology
> of influence from oceanic contact carrying both Asian and Middle Eastern
> culture to the American continent in addition to Mongoloid migration across
> the Bering Strait, and I suppose such places as Australia wouldn't be
> outside the scope of influence of these men. In each region where these
> people went, if there existed pre-human populations, they would have been
> subdued and merged with the more "enlightened" Adamic populations, until all
> that was left of what we would consider today "mankind" or "people" have
> some genetic traceability back to Adam. Considering the evidence of
> cultural conflict between homo erectus and homo sapiens, and between homo
> sapiens and homo sapiens, this seems at least reasonable.

Same dating problem as above. The biblical dispersion from Babel seems to be
limited to Semitic peoples and a restricted area.

> 9. This theory *might* also answer the literalist problem of the long ages
> in the Bible. If there was something genetically different with Adam,
> perhaps as a result of having experienced perpetual life by partaking of the
> tree of life, perhaps his descendents would have retained this long age span
> because of some inherited genetic characteristic. As the population became
> more and more merged with other homo sapiens, and as they got further away
> from Adam genetically, the life spans gradually came into line with a modern
> human length of life. Because this was a relatively small population which
> eventually overtook the homo sapiens (with short life spans), the
> archaeological evidence would be inconclusive, even if looking at certain
> recent fossils, because scientists would be unable to distinguish which were
> Adamic and which were not (or partial). By the time the Adamic populations
> took over and dominated the fossil record, their life spans had reduced to
> *normal* lengths.

I don't know whether this speculation is even applicable to the extensively
dispersed pre-Adamitic human population. I doubt that the biological life we
know could be extended to 900 years, even if we postulate an "ideal" genetic
constitution for Adam. There are a whole lot of "death-promoting" factors, such
as reactive oxygen species, mutational load, telomere shortening, lack of
natural selection after some procreation, etc.

> 10. Implications of this hypothesis:
> - - Genetically speaking, especially if Adam was an endowed homo sapiens, the
> Adamic race and other homo sapiens would be essentially indistinguishable
> from each other.
> - - This means that all currently living humans can be traceable genetically
> to millions-year-old homo sapiens, AND spiritual/biologically to a divinely
> created man, Adam. This resolves any conflicts between Biblical
> interpretation and biological similarity with earlier homo species.
> - - Because of this, "all men" (Biblically) are under sin, because they all
> inherited the capacity to sin from Adam and the tendency to sin from
> environmental and/or genetic predisposition (also since we don't have clear
> access to presence of God, as Adam did in the Garden, but have to proceed
> through faith in the unseen). Death (spiritual) reigned from Adam, and in
> Adam all (modern humans) die spiritually as well as physically; thus in
> Christ, all (mankind) will be made alive.
> - - Long time scales of evolution and short time scales of the Biblical text
> are reconciled.

I won't repeat here the points I mentioned above. The main problems I see are:
Adam must be dated late, and sin is not inherited.

> I'm sure there are holes in this. One in particular is that I am not
> familiar enough with the current state of scientific knowledge (or theory)
> on pre-human evolution and migration. How and when did pre-humans get to
> the Americas, Australia, Europe, etc. How similar were these populations,
> when did they branch, and how did they evolve differently in different
> regions? If (according to my theory) Adamic homo sapiens merged with and
> conquered these other populations, if they had evolved differently in
> Australia for instance than in Africa, is there biological evidence that
> would sustain this theory, or even have any bearing on it? Would it be
> possible in a few thousand years for a diaspora of Adamic humans to spread
> to all reaches of the planet and overcome the regional populations of homo
> sapiens? Would it be possible for some of those non-enlightened populations
> to still exist today, and if so, what bearing does this have theologically?

Genetics and fossils allow a rough human evolutionary and dispersion history to
be traced and dated, with emphasis on "rough". It doesn't fit with your theory,
at least as far as majority populations are concerned. But it is not possible to
exclude the possibility that, for all living humans, at least a few genetic
characters of the 25,000 odd genes (many occurring as different alleles, and
most of them with several different splicing variants) would trace back to a
Neolithic Adam (cf. my extract from Rohde D.L.T., Olson S., Chang J.T.,
"Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans", Nature 431, 562-566
(2004) and my comments about it in my post addressed to Dick Fischer).

> I'll just throw out the ball and let you all kick it around.
>
>
> Jon Tandy

Peter Ruest

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)