Original Message Follows:
=========================
evolution-digest Saturday, March 27 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1364
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 09:25:31 -0700
From: "Kevin O'Brien" <Cuchulaine@worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Evolution's Imperative
>
>It was not creationists, but scientists in the French National Academy that
>suggested this, Kevin. (The citation should have been CRNS).
>
You should have made that more clear, especially since the initials CNRS (or
even CRNS) without any further explanation sound like the initials for a
creationist society. You weren't trying to mislead me, were you?
However, it makes no difference. Your revelation only shows that scientists
themselves can be seriously wrong, especially if they try to do research in
fields they are unfamiliar with.
I had shown your previous post to a colleague of mine, a PhD who does
research in domestic animal metabolism and digestive systems, just to make
sure I wasn't barking up the wrong tree. He stated that whoever did that
research (I didn't mention creationists to him) had come to the wrong
conclusions because they were starting from the wrong premises, namely the
fecal pellets were equivolent to cuds. He said that that was simply not
true, no matter how much one might rhetorically argue otherwise. The
research results you reported in your post simply do not lend credence to
the claim that fecal pellets should be seen as cuds; in fact they contradict
it.
Kevin L. O'Brien
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 12:33:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Rich Daniel <rwdaniel@dnaco.net>
Subject: invention of writing vs. tools (was: Evolution's Imperative)
> What do the modern myth-makers claim about how long homo sapiens have been
> around? What, a 100,000 years? What kind of physical head trauma did you
> suffer that caused enough damage for you to be able to think that a "few
> years" is 95,000 years? And, if 95,000 years is a "few years" how many
> years is 5,000? A "year or two"? Were you born yesterday?
There's no need to get abusive; I don't recall insulting you.
Modern Homo sapiens sapiens is about 120,000 years old. But if you believe
that man is only 6000 years old, then you believe that we went without the
invention of writing for 1000 years. Why is it reasonable to believe this
but not reasonable to believe we went without it for 115,000 years?
If I remember correctly, the oldest examples of writing we know about are
inventories, either for taxes or military purposes. In either case, we
didn't need writing until we had fairly large cities. Lots of other
inventions had to come first, like agriculture, for instance, which is
not something that even a genius could develop quickly.
> > Why do creationists disagree about whether Homo erectus was human?
>
> How old do the modern myth-makers say homo erectus is? Approaching a
> couple million years? Is it your assertion that he was smart enough to
> manufacture tools, but too stupid to learn even crude writing, couldn't
> draw a picture of a constellation?
That's pretty close to what I believe, with the caveat that *learning* to
write and create art does not take nearly as much intelligence as *inventing*
them. What precisely is wrong with this view? Why would anyone think
that every human activity requires the same amount of intelligence as every
other human activity? Also note that tools are immediately useful for
survival, while writing and art are not. And note that chimpanzees can
manufacture tools. In the wild, they select and strip small branches to use
in getting termites, a skill which is not easily copied by humans. They
have even been taught to make stone tools in captivity.
> BTW, as for the disagreement you refer to, who says it's human, who says
> it's not? Part of the answer could be that a number of different fossils
> are identified as homo erectus.
See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/compare.html.
Rich Daniel rwdaniel@dnaco.net http://www.dnaco.net/~rwdaniel/
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 11:31:42 -0800
From: "Arthur V. Chadwick" <chadwicka@swau.edu>
Subject: Genes and Development Conference
The following is an excerpt from a posting on another listserve. The
subject matter is of interest because of the growing recognition among
molecular biologists that evolution is being unmasked by their research,
particularly in the area of development.
On March 19 and 20, the Institut fuer Ethik und Geschichte der Medizin held
a conference on "Genes and Development" in Basel, Switzerland. It was an
international gathering of over 50 scholars critical of (and seeking
alternatives to) genetic reductionism in biology and medicine. Here is a
brief report of relevant parts of the meeting.
The first speaker was German molecular biologist Markus Althofer, who gave
a general overview of developmental genetics, mostly from Drosophila work
- -- i.e., the evidence commonly cited by proponents of genetic programs.
Next, German developmental biologist Gerd Mueller pointed out that the
patterns of gene expression described by Althofer were not equivalent to a
causal story for form-generation. Specifically, Mueller listed six
problems which cannot be solved by a genetic-program approach: (1) the
Cambrian explosion (which he called "the Burgess shale effect"), (2)
homoplasy (similar morphologies in different lineages), (3) homology
("stasis of body plans"), (4) constraint (which prevents "phenotypic space"
from being "filled"), (5) punctuation (inequality of rates of evolution),
and (6) innovation (emergence of evolutionary novelties). Mueller argued
that these could not be reduced to genetic explanations because (a) there
is an incongruity between morphological and genetic evolution, (b) similar
genotypes yield different phenotypes, and (c) different developmental
pathways yield similar phenotypes. He listed the actual form-generating
processes as (i) differential cell adhesion plus diffusion gradients, (ii)
sedimentation gradients, (iii) chemical oscillations, and (iv) directional
growth, which he claimed could account for major differences in body plans.
Mueller was followed by Australian philosopher Paul Griffiths. Griffiths's
title was cumbersome, but intriguing: "The Fearless Vampire Conservator:
Phillip Kitcher on Genetic Determinism." Griffiths began by pointing out
that biologists have known for decades that development depends on both
genetic and non-genetic factors -- the "interactionist consensus."
Officially, genetic determinism is dead, but like a vampire it keeps rising
from the dead. Accordingly, some people (like Griffiths) have proposed a
stake-in-the-heart approach, to kill it forever; but others (like Kitcher)
think that approach is too radical, and argue that biologists are merely
being careless in mis-applying a generally correct view. Griffiths went on
to describe two concepts of information: (1) causal and context-dependent
(e.g., DNA makes RNA makes protein, under the influence of various cellular
factors), and (2) intentional and language-like (i.e., instructive and
programmatic). Confusion between these two is common, even among
scientists, and leads to the mistaken public perception that genes are
determinative of phenotypes. In the question-and-answer session, British
developmental biologist Brian Goodwin suggested that Griffiths's critique
would be "anathema" to Darwinists.
German biologist Eva Neumann-Held spoke next, and began by joking about the
confessions of faith in Darwinism that seem to be expected of speakers at
scientific conferences; she observed that anyone who tries to introduce new
ideas into biology risks being marginalized. Neumann-Held pointed out that
even polypeptide synthesis involves far more than DNA; because of
alternative RNA splicing and differential RNA editing, the outcome is not
uniquely determined by DNA sequences. She proposed a "developmental gene
concept" to embrace all the processes involved in producing a given
phenotype. The only sense in which DNA is really "causal" is that it can
account for some differences. One participant commented that biologists
already know this (i.e., that a naked DNA sequence is relatively
uninformative). In response, Neumann-Held asked why biologists don't say
this; the participant answered that saying so would reduce their chances of
getting money.
Next, British developmental biologist Brian Goodwin pointed out that
organisms are the causes and effects of themselves, not the effects of
genes. He attributed the popular notion of organisms to Darwin -- i.e.,
historically contingent collections of characters which promote survival
and are encoded by genes. Since biology has had such an impact on the
world, it's necessary to re-conceptualize it. After showing some pictures
of marine molluscs whose intricate shell patterns are clearly non-adaptive
because they're covered by an opaque membrane. According to Goodwin, the
patterns can be explained mathematically, though this does not amount to a
causal explanation; they have no known function, but they're beautiful.
Goodwin proposed that science should move from the quantitative to the
qualitative, and become a "science of qualities" which takes into account
senses and feelings. Instead of emphasizing control over the environment,
science should emphasize appreciation of it. Paul Griffiths countered
that, according to American embryologist Scott Gilbert, developmental
biology used to be a science of qualities, and only now is becoming a
science of quantities.
That evening, historian of science Evelyn Fox Keller (M.I.T.) gave a public
lecture on "Deconstructing the Genetic Program." She began by asserting
that the critique of genetic programs has come to the fore in recent years
for 3 reasons: (1) a recognition that the "gene" -- defined as the unit of
stability across generations -- is no such thing, because replication is so
unfaithful, requiring much in the way of proofreading and editing; (2)
knowledge of alternative RNA splicing and editing; and (3) the revelation
by molecular biology of the unexpected complexity of development. Keller
maintained that the "paradigm body," the "minimal representation of the
organism," is the zygote, or fertilized egg. She affirmed the value of
program-thinking, but insisted that we should move from genetic programs to
developmental programs. Although the public almost universally assumes
that the developmental program is written into the sequence of nucleotide
bases in DNA, it is actually distributed throughout the zygote. The
information content of DNA is significant, but it would be more accurate to
regard it as "data" used by the developmental program, rather than the
program itself (just as a computer tape provides data for a computer). She
quoted Lewontin's term, "vulgar biology," to refer to the idea that only
genes are passed from parent to child, maintaining that "we have always
known" that more than genes are transmitted.
The following day, Swiss molecular biologist Jackie Leach Scully lectured
about the recent upsurge in genetic thinking in biology, medicine and
ethics. She maintained that the real ethical issues enter "far upstream"
of where most ethicists intervene -- i.e., the ethical issues are more
fundamental than whether a person's DNA sequences should be made available
to insurance companies. She decried the increasingly "medicalization" of
health, and the increasing "geneticization" of medicine. Is someone with
an "abnormal" gene necessarily "ill"? When Evelyn Fox Keller asked her
during the question-and-answer session why, in her opinion, genetic
thinking has become so dominant in recent decades, Scully replied that it
was due, in part, to the failure of the liberal social engineering agenda
following WWII, with the result that genetic determinism seems more
plausible. She also maintained that "genetic immortality" has in some
respects replaced religious believe in an afterlife.
At one point over lunch a participant told me about an interesting
experience she had had a few months earlier at a conference in Germany.
There she had made some remarks mildly critical of Darwinian evolution;
afterwards American embryologist and textbook-writer Scott Gilbert had come
up to her and, by way of friendly advice, told her that she would be wise
to omit such criticisms if she ever found herself speaking to an American
audience, because they would write her off as a creationist. The
participant laughed as she told me this; obviously, she was more amused
than intimidated.
Two things struck me about this meeting: (1) the popular impression that
development depends on genetic programs is coming under increasingly heavy
fire from biologists and philosophers; and (2) genetic reductionism and
Darwinian evolution are more openly criticized in Europe than in the U.S.
(where it is risky to question the reigning orthodoxy).
Jonathan Wells
Department of Molecular & Cell Biology
University of California, Berkeley
and
Senior Fellow
Discovery Institute, Seattle
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 12:52:31 -0600
From: "Cummins" <cummins@dialnet.net>
Subject: Where's the Evolution?
> [mailto:evolution-owner@udomo3.calvin.edu]On Behalf Of Pim van Meurs
> Ah so you really have no evidence against evolution but consider
> lack of people addressing your example to your satisfaction to be
> example of such ? Please explain "indefinity increase of
> complexity" as it applies to evolution. Explain why there is a
> need for indefinite increase in complexity, define complexity in
> a way that can be measured and explain why evolution is a closed system.
> It seems to me that you are unable to argue the vaste amounts of
> evidence supporting evolution.
You Evolutionists avoid real debate better than anyone else under the sun.
Why don't you just use your best judgment and if you're being obtuse, I'll
let you know.
Okay, I'll get you started. Do you consider a human to be more complex than
an
ameba? If so/not, why? Do you think there's something fundamentally
different
about the limits of change that allow a snowflake to form from water vs.
allowing
amebas to mutate into humans? If so/not, why?
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 13:02:47 -0600
From: "Cummins" <cummins@dialnet.net>
Subject: RE: Evolution's Imperative
> [mailto:evolution-owner@udomo3.calvin.edu]On Behalf Of Pim van Meurs
> Cummins: What kind of physical head trauma did you suffer that
> caused enough damage for you to be able to think that a "few
> years" is 95,000 years? And, if 95,000 years is a "few years"
> how many years is 5,000? A "year or two"? Were you born yesterday?
>
> Thanks CUmmins for showing once again that you cannot deal with
> arguments and have to resort to ad hominems. Is the foundation of
> your arguments so weak that this is all you can come up with ?
So, you don't think that someone who refers to 95% (vs. 5%) of homo sapien
existence
on Earth as a "few years" deserves an ad hominem reply? Isn't really the
person who
resorts to such silliness the one that can't deal with my arguments?
> Assuming he could write, how long do you think his writings would
> survive ? But your argument that if he can manufacture tools he
> can write is based upon an illogical presumption that writing is
> a simple process.
Simple for me, maybe not for you. One need not be Shakespeare to use a few
symbols, or to draw a few pictures.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 13:33:59 -0600
From: "Cummins" <cummins@dialnet.net>
Subject: RE: Evolution's Imperative
> [mailto:evolution-owner@udomo3.calvin.edu]On Behalf Of Vernon Jenkins
> First, regarding the early Hebrews' understanding of 'Pi':
This whole allegation that the Bible is wrong about Pi is stupid. "3" is
correct as far as it goes, and throughout the whole passage, there is no
attempt
to use fractional units. No one is stupid enough to believe that the ratio
of
the circumference of a circle to the diameter is precisely 3 after
measuring, however,
some people are apparently too stupid to recognize the people don't always
generate
an infinite string of digits to get pi precisely right. Besides, this is a
"real
world" example, the artificial object was not a perfect circle nor is there
any
requirement that the measurement of the diameter and circumference be based
on the
same perfect circle. For example, the diameter could have been measured
from the
outside of the rim while the circumference measured under the rim.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 15:31:20 -0600
From: Susan Brassfield <susan-brassfield@ou.edu>
Subject: Re: invention of writing vs. tools (was: Evolution's Imperative)
>That's pretty close to what I believe, with the caveat that *learning* to
>write and create art does not take nearly as much intelligence as *inventing*
>them. What precisely is wrong with this view? Why would anyone think
>that every human activity requires the same amount of intelligence as every
>other human activity?
and don't forget that there are modern human cultures, the members of which
are fully as intelligent as we are, that to this day have never invented
writing.
Susan
- -----------
Life is short, but it's also very wide.
http://www.telepath.com/susanb/
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 16:30:53 -0600
From: "Glenn R. Morton" <grmorton@waymark.net>
Subject: News on fossil man
I have been offline for a month now and have this brief access. I won't
be able to respond to anyone since I will be offline again after this
tomorrow. And to the 50 people that left messages for me over the past
month, I am sorry that I haven't replied, but I just got them and won't
have time to reply before I lose touch with my provider here.
But there are two items which are of considerable importance in the
creation/evolution area which have come up over the past month and a
half since my last post in early February. I must confess disappointment
that no one posted anything about this on either of the lists! These
items have tremendous implications for where fossil man fits with the
Bible.
First, lots of Christians have taken the path of least resistance to the
anthropological issues and have identified Adam with the first member of
our species. I say path of least resistance because it is the position
which is least controversial. But as I have pointed out over the past 3
years this position totally ignores the very human activities which
earlier hominids performed. These include art, religion, the use of
tools to make other tools, murder, long range planning, the manufacture
of boats with which to cross the oceans etc.
Examples of this position include David Wilcox:
"Both cultural and physical evidence suggests an abrupt establishment of
the image about 100,000 years ago." ~ David L. Wilcox, "Adam, Where Are
You? Changing Paradigms in Paleoanthropology," Perspectives on Science
and Christian Faith , 48:2( June 1996), p. 94
Hugh Ross who mistakenly claims that this appearance occurred no earlier
than 60,000 years ago:
"Some differences, however, between the Bible and secular anthropology
remain. The Bible not only would deny that the hominids were men, it
also would deny that Adam was physically descended from these hominids.
Even here, support from anthropology is emerging. New evidence
indicates that the hominid species may have gone extinct before, or as a
result of, the appearance of modern man. At the very least, 'abrupt
transitions between [hominid]species' is widely acknowledged." ~ Hugh
Ross, The Fingerprint of God, (Orange: Promise Publishing, 1991), p.
159-160.
And Stoner:
"More recently, some remains promoted as being 'fully modern humans'
have been found which date (using exotic methods) as early as about
100,000 years old. These fossils are presently classified as 'modern
men' although some of them are said to display some 'primitive
features.' The supplement (loose poster) to the February 1997 National
Geographic pictures one of these skulls. That skull is certainly
missing the brow ridges of the Neanderthals and of Archaic Homo, but the
eye and nose sockets look Neanderthal--not human.
"Are these fossils truly modern men, as has been claimed? Are they
really some new creature which falls between Archaic Homo and modern
men? Or is something else entirely different going on? Although these
questions might keep both scientists and theologians up nights, they
really aren't that important to us right here; for the present purposes,
it is only important that man fits into his proper place in the
chronological order of God's creation." This much has been properly
established. The conventional date of 35-40,000 years for the age of
true men might be correct, but we must allow that it might be
substantially in error." ~ Don Stoner, A New Look at an Old Earth,"
(Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1997), p. 168
All of these authors are resting spirituality upon what the man looks
like, i.e. spirituality only rests in the modern human form.
For the past 4 years I have been arguing that more ancient hominids were
spiritual in the same way modern humans are spiritual. I have based
that upon their behaviors inferred from the fossil record. For
references I would point to a evolution reflector note on Oct 11, 1995
entitled Another flood Problem in which I suggested that H. habilis was
human. In my critique of David Wilcox's article dated June 8, 1996 on
the ASA reflector, I argued for the humanity of Neanderthal. And on June
13, 1996 on the evolution reflector I said that humanity goes back at
least 2.7 myr ago. On 2/28/97 on the ASA list I wrote:
" I don't like either of these choices and would offer a Turing test for
ancient man. If he acts like us (or a technologically primitive version
of us, the I would include him in humanity. By this definition, Homo
erectus Archaic Homo sapiens and Neanderthal are all human."
I list those documentations because I want it clearly shown that my
theological/scientific position ANTICIPATED the following. Unlike other
positions my position does not have to react to the latest discovery by
immediately pooh poohing it which will be the modus operandi of many
Christian apologists. Why Christians would rather always be reacting to
new discoveries rather than smiling because we anticipated the results,
I don't understand.
Genetics has come to support my position. First, there is the discovery
that paternal mtDNA does get passed on to the offspring although it is
rare. So the mitochrondrial Eve, just might have been a mitochrondrial
Adam. But the real implication of this is that the last common
mitochondrial ancestor would have lived longer ago than 200,000 years.
If this is the case, then there were NO anatomically modern people on
the planet at that time and Eve was NOT an anatomically modern human.
This is reported on the web at:
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/Reuters19990310_1097.html
"WIRE:March 10, 0:02 p.m. ET
Eve is a lot older than previously
thought-studies
LONDON, March 10 (Reuters) - Eve, the mother of
humankind, is probably a lot older than
scientists had thought, researchers said on
Wednesday.
Evolutionary biologists, who used mitochondrial
to trace human evolution, had estimated that
the woman from whom all others descended lived between
100,000 and 200,000 years ago.
But two studies reported in the journal Proceeding of the
Royal Society discovered that using mitochondrial DNA to
track genetic lineage isn't as accurate as scientists had
assumed.
``Eve may be older than we thought,'' Adam Eyre-Walker of
the University of Sussex said in a telephone interview.
``We thought she lived about 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
She might be anything up to twice as old now.'' "
The second item concerns a gene which iindicates that Africans and
non-Africans were two separate populations PRIOR TO THE ADVENT OF
ANATOMICALLY MODERN MEN. Here is the report:
Science & Ideas 3/29/99
ANTHROPOLOGY
Out of the African past
Modern DNA provides clues to a division
in the ancestral tree of human forebears
BY BRENDAN I. KOERNER
Backed by their analysis of a minuscule mutation on a single gene, two
researchers contend that the ancestors of Africans and non-Africans
split into separate populations long before modern man walked the Earth.
Population geneticist Jody Hey and anthropologist Eugene Harris estimate
that the subdivision took place nearly 200,000 years ago, predating the
earliest known fossils of modern Homo sapiens by about 70,000 years.
The Rutgers University-based duo, who published their results in last
week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, studied a gene
called PDHA1, involved in glucose metabolism, in 16 Africans, 19
non-Africans, and 2 chimpanzees. Hey and Harris first located 25 spots
in the gene's DNA sequence where their human subjects differed from
chimps. Assuming that the forerunners of humans and chimps became
separate species 5 million years ago, and that mutations occur at
regular intervals, the pair calculated that the PDHA1 gene in ancestral
hominids-Homo sapiens's early relatives-dates back 1.86 million years.
Differences. They next found a place on the gene where every non-African
test subject differed from every African, by virtue of a mutation that
altered a lone base pair of DNA. Extrapolating from their previous
estimate of the age of the gene's origin in hominids, they concluded
that Africans and non-Africans split into separate populations 189,000
years ago.
Hey and Harris caution that their results do not imply that the two
populations evolved into modern humans independently of one another.
Even if they were geographically separated, members of the two groups
probably intermingled, allowing genes to flow between them. Beneficial
genes would have been favored by natural selection, and ultimately the
two populations would have ended up virtually identical-a hypothesis
supported by the fact that racial groups differ very little at the
genetic level. Nor can much be inferred regarding the time line of human
migration. "I don't think our study says very much about where the
ancestral populations were," says Hey. "They could have both been in
Africa for some time after the split."
While welcoming the study as provocative, other researchers of human
evolution would like to see more proof. Genetic data rely on broad
assumptions about time scales and are thus subject to large margins of
error. In a commentary accompanying the PNAS article, Rosalind Harding,
a geneticist at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England, hails the
work as "unusual" but adds that the estimate of when the split occurred
could easily be off by 100,000 years.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990329/29afri.htm
This means that IF one postulates that Adam was subsequent to this
split, then either Africans or non-Africans are NOT descendants of
Adam. This is an awful choice full of bad theological consequences.
The way to avoid this problem is as I have suggested, believe that Adam
was very very ancient and that the ancient hominids were fully human, as
were their descendants, both Africans and non-Africans. In this way an
awful theological problem can be avoided. I would repeat my mantra of
the past 4 years: Current Christian apologetics is totally inadequate
and falsified by the anthropological data. It is time for Christians to
belly up to the theological bar and deal with it.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 18:24:15 -0800
From: "William A. Wetzel" <n6rky@pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: News on fossil man
Glenn R. Morton wrote:
>
> I have been offline for a month now and have this brief access. I won't
> be able to respond to anyone since I will be offline again after this
> tomorrow. And to the 50 people that left messages for me over the past
> month, I am sorry that I haven't replied, but I just got them and won't
> have time to reply before I lose touch with my provider here.
>
> But there are two items which are of considerable importance in the
> creation/evolution area which have come up over the past month and a
> half since my last post in early February. I must confess disappointment
> that no one posted anything about this on either of the lists! These
> items have tremendous implications for where fossil man fits with the
> Bible.
>
> First, lots of Christians have taken the path of least resistance to the
> anthropological issues and have identified Adam with the first member of
> our species. I say path of least resistance because it is the position
> which is least controversial. But as I have pointed out over the past 3
> years this position totally ignores the very human activities which
> earlier hominids performed. These include art, religion, the use of
> tools to make other tools, murder, long range planning, the manufacture
> of boats with which to cross the oceans etc.
> Examples of this position include David Wilcox:
>
> "Both cultural and physical evidence suggests an abrupt establishment of
> the image about 100,000 years ago." ~ David L. Wilcox, "Adam, Where Are
> You? Changing Paradigms in Paleoanthropology," Perspectives on Science
> and Christian Faith , 48:2( June 1996), p. 94
>
> Hugh Ross who mistakenly claims that this appearance occurred no earlier
> than 60,000 years ago:
>
> "Some differences, however, between the Bible and secular anthropology
> remain. The Bible not only would deny that the hominids were men, it
> also would deny that Adam was physically descended from these hominids.
> Even here, support from anthropology is emerging. New evidence
> indicates that the hominid species may have gone extinct before, or as a
> result of, the appearance of modern man. At the very least, 'abrupt
> transitions between [hominid]species' is widely acknowledged." ~ Hugh
> Ross, The Fingerprint of God, (Orange: Promise Publishing, 1991), p.
> 159-160.
>
> And Stoner:
>
> "More recently, some remains promoted as being 'fully modern humans'
> have been found which date (using exotic methods) as early as about
> 100,000 years old. These fossils are presently classified as 'modern
> men' although some of them are said to display some 'primitive
> features.' The supplement (loose poster) to the February 1997 National
> Geographic pictures one of these skulls. That skull is certainly
> missing the brow ridges of the Neanderthals and of Archaic Homo, but the
> eye and nose sockets look Neanderthal--not human.
> "Are these fossils truly modern men, as has been claimed? Are they
> really some new creature which falls between Archaic Homo and modern
> men? Or is something else entirely different going on? Although these
> questions might keep both scientists and theologians up nights, they
> really aren't that important to us right here; for the present purposes,
> it is only important that man fits into his proper place in the
> chronological order of God's creation." This much has been properly
> established. The conventional date of 35-40,000 years for the age of
> true men might be correct, but we must allow that it might be
> substantially in error." ~ Don Stoner, A New Look at an Old Earth,"
> (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1997), p. 168
>
> All of these authors are resting spirituality upon what the man looks
> like, i.e. spirituality only rests in the modern human form.
>
> For the past 4 years I have been arguing that more ancient hominids were
> spiritual in the same way modern humans are spiritual. I have based
> that upon their behaviors inferred from the fossil record. For
> references I would point to a evolution reflector note on Oct 11, 1995
> entitled Another flood Problem in which I suggested that H. habilis was
> human. In my critique of David Wilcox's article dated June 8, 1996 on
> the ASA reflector, I argued for the humanity of Neanderthal. And on June
> 13, 1996 on the evolution reflector I said that humanity goes back at
> least 2.7 myr ago. On 2/28/97 on the ASA list I wrote:
> " I don't like either of these choices and would offer a Turing test for
> ancient man. If he acts like us (or a technologically primitive version
> of us, the I would include him in humanity. By this definition, Homo
> erectus Archaic Homo sapiens and Neanderthal are all human."
>
> I list those documentations because I want it clearly shown that my
> theological/scientific position ANTICIPATED the following. Unlike other
> positions my position does not have to react to the latest discovery by
> immediately pooh poohing it which will be the modus operandi of many
> Christian apologists. Why Christians would rather always be reacting to
> new discoveries rather than smiling because we anticipated the results,
> I don't understand.
>
> Genetics has come to support my position. First, there is the discovery
> that paternal mtDNA does get passed on to the offspring although it is
> rare. So the mitochrondrial Eve, just might have been a mitochrondrial
> Adam. But the real implication of this is that the last common
> mitochondrial ancestor would have lived longer ago than 200,000 years.
> If this is the case, then there were NO anatomically modern people on
> the planet at that time and Eve was NOT an anatomically modern human.
> This is reported on the web at:
> http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/Reuters19990310_1097.html
>
> "WIRE:March 10, 0:02 p.m. ET
> Eve is a lot older than previously
> thought-studies
>
> LONDON, March 10 (Reuters) - Eve, the mother of
> humankind, is probably a lot older than
> scientists had thought, researchers said on
> Wednesday.
>
> Evolutionary biologists, who used mitochondrial
> to trace human evolution, had estimated that
> the woman from whom all others descended lived between
> 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.
>
> But two studies reported in the journal Proceeding of the
> Royal Society discovered that using mitochondrial DNA to
> track genetic lineage isn't as accurate as scientists had
> assumed.
>
> ``Eve may be older than we thought,'' Adam Eyre-Walker of
> the University of Sussex said in a telephone interview.
> ``We thought she lived about 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
> She might be anything up to twice as old now.'' "
>
> The second item concerns a gene which iindicates that Africans and
> non-Africans were two separate populations PRIOR TO THE ADVENT OF
> ANATOMICALLY MODERN MEN. Here is the report:
>
> Science & Ideas 3/29/99
>
> ANTHROPOLOGY
>
> Out of the African past
> Modern DNA provides clues to a division
> in the ancestral tree of human forebears
>
> BY BRENDAN I. KOERNER
>
> Backed by their analysis of a minuscule mutation on a single gene, two
> researchers contend that the ancestors of Africans and non-Africans
> split into separate populations long before modern man walked the Earth.
> Population geneticist Jody Hey and anthropologist Eugene Harris estimate
> that the subdivision took place nearly 200,000 years ago, predating the
> earliest known fossils of modern Homo sapiens by about 70,000 years.
>
> The Rutgers University-based duo, who published their results in last
> week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, studied a gene
> called PDHA1, involved in glucose metabolism, in 16 Africans, 19
> non-Africans, and 2 chimpanzees. Hey and Harris first located 25 spots
> in the gene's DNA sequence where their human subjects differed from
> chimps. Assuming that the forerunners of humans and chimps became
> separate species 5 million years ago, and that mutations occur at
> regular intervals, the pair calculated that the PDHA1 gene in ancestral
> hominids-Homo sapiens's early relatives-dates back 1.86 million years.
>
> Differences. They next found a place on the gene where every non-African
> test subject differed from every African, by virtue of a mutation that
> altered a lone base pair of DNA. Extrapolating from their previous
> estimate of the age of the gene's origin in hominids, they concluded
> that Africans and non-Africans split into separate populations 189,000
> years ago.
>
> Hey and Harris caution that their results do not imply that the two
> populations evolved into modern humans independently of one another.
> Even if they were geographically separated, members of the two groups
> probably intermingled, allowing genes to flow between them. Beneficial
> genes would have been favored by natural selection, and ultimately the
> two populations would have ended up virtually identical-a hypothesis
> supported by the fact that racial groups differ very little at the
> genetic level. Nor can much be inferred regarding the time line of human
> migration. "I don't think our study says very much about where the
> ancestral populations were," says Hey. "They could have both been in
> Africa for some time after the split."
>
> While welcoming the study as provocative, other researchers of human
> evolution would like to see more proof. Genetic data rely on broad
> assumptions about time scales and are thus subject to large margins of
> error. In a commentary accompanying the PNAS article, Rosalind Harding,
> a geneticist at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England, hails the
> work as "unusual" but adds that the estimate of when the split occurred
> could easily be off by 100,000 years.
> http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990329/29afri.htm
>
> This means that IF one postulates that Adam was subsequent to this
> split, then either Africans or non-Africans are NOT descendants of
> Adam. This is an awful choice full of bad theological consequences.
> The way to avoid this problem is as I have suggested, believe that Adam
> was very very ancient and that the ancient hominids were fully human, as
> were their descendants, both Africans and non-Africans. In this way an
> awful theological problem can be avoided. I would repeat my mantra of
> the past 4 years: Current Christian apologetics is totally inadequate
> and falsified by the anthropological data. It is time for Christians to
> belly up to the theological bar and deal with it.
Touche'...
This is bar far the best and simplelist argument thus far...
William of Occam would had been pleased!
And with that - I'm outta here :)
- --
William A. Wetzel
icq-uin# 13983514
http://home.pacbell.net/n6rky
http://www.qsl.net/n6rky
mailto:n6rky@pacbell.net
mailto:n6rky@qsl.net
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