On 26 May 95 12:32:47 EDT you wrote:
>What are the scientific & theological implications of the story in this
>morning's L.A. Times that the male chromosome has been traced back to an
>ancestor in Africa, roughly 150,000 years ago?
Can you post this article? Does the LA Times have a Web page?
>This appears to confirm the similar Eve thesis, but what exactly does
>it all mean?
It is difficult to say. Apart from the location (was Eden in
Africa?), it seems to put the age of Adam and Eve within the ballpark
of the Genesis story.
In the April 1992 Scientific American which has Wilson's Mitochondrial
Eve theory, there is a map which shows "Eve" starting in Africa but
the line goes immediately to the Fertile Crescent (the Biblical
site of Eden) and branches from there to Europe, Asia, New Guinea and
Australia.
>At the very least, virtually all known hominids would be EXCLUDED as
>ancestors.
Yes. Bang goes the vitamin C theory? <g>
Actually not, because the Mitochondrial Eve (and Adam?) theory could
support a Progressive Creationist model of God creating Adam and Eve
from a specially prepared line of hominids.
>And the rapid success of "Adam and Eve" would appear to make them
>quantum leaps over anything created before.
Yes. Yet another blow for slow gradualism, which Dawkins correctly
pointed out was "the very heart of the evolution theory":
"It is the contention of the Darwinian world-view that both these
provisos are met, and that slow, gradual, cumulative natural selection
is the ultimate explanation for our existence. If there are versions
of the evolution theory that deny slow gradualism, and deny the
central role of natural selection, they may be true in particular
cases. But they cannot be the whole truth, for they deny the very
heart of the evolution theory, which gives it the power to dissolve
astronomical improbabilities and explain prodigies of apparent
miracle."(Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker", 1991, Penguin, p318)
>What else is inherent in all this?
If its true, a great deal. It would show that homo sapiens is
uniquely very, very recent, as the Bible indicates he is. "150,000"
years is a geological instant. It would also show there is a major
discontinuity between ape and man, as Christianity has always
maintained. This would be a blow to Darwinian theories of human
evolution.
If anyone doubts this, read Dawkins article in New Scientist (Dawkins
R., "Meet my cousin, the chimpanzee, New Scientist, 5 June 1983,
pp36-38), where he rails against the "discontinuous mind" allegedly
possessed by "lawyers (! <g>) and the religious" and "politicians"
(Dawkins, p36). Of course it never seems to occur to the
fundamentalist Dawkins that he has a "discontinuous mind" too, evinced
by his stereotyping of people he disagrees with!
Dawkins sees all apes, hominids and human beings as one great "ring
species" like "the herring gull":
"All the great apes that have ever lived, including ourselves are
linked to one another by an unbroken chain of parent-child bonds. The
same is true of all animals and plants that have ever lived, but there
the distances involved are much greater...Let us imagine setting one
up along the equator, across the width of our home continent of
Africa. It is a special kind of chain, involving parents and
children, and w e will have to play tricks with time in order to
imagine it. You stand on the shore of the Indian Ocean in southern
Somalia, facing north, and in your left hand you hold the right hand
of your mother. In turn she holds the hand of her mother, your
grandmother. Your grandmother holds her mothers hand, and so on. The
chain wends its way up the beach, into the arid scrubland and
westwards towards the Kenya border.
How far do we have to go until we reach our common ancestor with the
chimpanzees? It is a surprisingly short way. Allowing one yard per
person, we arrive at the ancestor we share with chimpanzees in under
300 miles. We have hardly started to cross the continent; we are
still not halfway to the Great Rift Valley. The ancestor is standing
well to the east of Mount Kenya, and holding in her hand an entire
chain of her lineal descendants, culminating in you standing on the
Somali beach.
The daughter that she is holding by her right hand is the one from
whom we are descended. Now the arch-ancestress turns eastward to face
the coast, and with her left hand grasps her other daughter, the one
from whom the chimpanzees are descended (or son, of course). The two
sisters are facing one another, and each holding their mother by the
hand. Now the second daughter, the chimpanzee ancestress, holds her
daughter's hand, and a new chain is formed, proceeding back towards
the coast. First cousin faces first cousin, second cousin faces
second cousin. and so on. By the time the doubled-back chain has
reached the coast again, it consists of modem chimpanzees. You are
face to face with your chimpanzee cousin, and you are joined to her by
an unbroken chain of mothers holding hands with daughters.
If you walked up the line like an inspecting general-past Homo
erectus, Homo habilis, perhaps Australopithecus afarensis -and down
again the other side (the intermediates on the chimpanzee side are
unnamed because, as it happens, no fossils have been found), you would
nowhere find any sharp discontinuity. Daughters would resemble
mothers just as much (or as little) as they always do. Mothers would
love daughters, and feel affinity with them, just as they always do.
And this hand- in-hand continuum, joining us seamlessly to
chimpanzees, is so short that it barely makes it past the hinterland
of Africa, the mother continent...Our chain of African apes, doubling
back on itself, is in miniature like the ring of gulls round the
northern hemisphere, except that the intermediates happen to be dead.
(Dawkins, pp37-38)
Dawkins draws radical conclusions from this Darwinian model. At the
risk of oversimplifying, he believes that animals are just as
important as humans, and that our whole system of ethics and morals
based on "the discontinuous mind" is wrong. He also believes that we
should try to cross a chimpanzee with a human to prove his thesis that
they are *really* our cousins!
What I get excited about is that the trend of scientific discoveries
is to confirm the essential picture of the Bible. This is to be
expected if both nature and the Bible are two "books" with the one
Author.
Stephen