At 08:31 PM 11/13/98 PST, Adam Crowl wrote:
>>Also some of the biblical phraseology is similar and some
>>is identical to writings from that region and that period of time.
>>
>Which is another reason why I have trouble with Glenn's Mediterranean
>Flood from 5.5 mya - the geography is well known to the author. We can
>say God inspired the tales, but what meaning would events from 5.5 mya
>have for people in 1500 BC or so?
First, it is not to be unexpected that the Biblical tale written in ca.
1500 BC or so would be written in the phraseology of that day. One of the
ludicrous things about the Book of Mormon is that it attempts to sound like
King James English when it was writen 300 years later.
As to what meaning would events from 5.5 mya have for people in 1500 BC?
The same as it would to us today. One can rephrase your question
"what meaning would events from 1500 BC or so have for people in 1998 AD or
so?"
If your worry about the age of the story is valid for early men, why is
such a worry not equally applicable to those of us today?
>
>>And Glenn Morton wrote:
>>
>>>I am disturbed by the trend I see in theology for making Adam not the
>>>father of the entire human race and making him the father of only one
>part.
>>
>>If there is a trend, all I can say is hallelujah, my message is not
>falling on
>>deaf ears. Glenn and George notwithstanding.
>>
>Glenn's disturbed by the potential for racism and anti-semitism, which
>is understandable, but there's plenty of room for such in his version of
>things too. That's always been the danger for any multi-regionalist
>view-point - if races were apart for any great length of time, then
>people might make them seem truly different. But let's stick with facts,
>rather than how we want them to be or what we want them to say.
>Ideological manipulation of data is always a danger and one that must be
>faced.
I agree lets stick with the facts. And I don't think you are sticking with
them. You are implying that the isolation of the various hominids in
various regions led to speciation and thus only with the advent of
anatomically modern man do humans become one species. Your first error is
that I am NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT a multiregionalist. I believe in
hybridization and replacement. This means that humans were all one
species, capable of interbreeding with each other. And humanity is very
very very old. There is thus NO significant difference in spirituality,
speciation etc. between us and the Homo erectus who built an altar at
Bilzingsleben Germany 400,000 years ago!!! The hybridization and
replacement view was proposed by Gunter Brauer (1989).
How long were populations of mankind isolated? Not long enough for
certainty of speciation. What always amazes me is the view that
neanderthal, being isolated, somehow makes him different. At the most,
Neanderthal was isolated from the rest of humanity for 800,000 years. Is
this long enough to cause speciation and thus making them different and not
subject to the plan of salvation? NO!!!
Zebu's and Taurine members of Bos diverged at least 200,000 years ago and
maybe as long as 1 million years ago. (R. T. Loftus, et al., 1994, p. 2757)
They can still interbreed. Bison are found in Upper Pliocene strata,
meaning that they have been diverging from cattle for over 2 million years
(Carrol, 1988, p. 642L). Yet, even today you can go have a beefalo burger,
from the ground up carcass of a bison/bovine hybrid. And the Beefalo is
fertile.
But an even better case is presented by canids. Robert Wayne et al
presented a study of the molecular phylogeny of canids: (Wayne, et al,
1997) His team found that wolf/coyotes diverged from jackals 3.5 MILLION
years ago. Coyotes diverged from wolves 1 million years ago (both
genetically and paleontologically--Vila et al,1997) And dogs broke off from
wolves about 400,000 years ago. Are they separate species by reproductive
criteria? NO!!!! Dogs interbreed with wolves; dogs interbreed with
coyotes; dogs interbreed with JACKALS! Wolves interbreed with coyotes and
jackals! (Britannica 1982, V, p. 487) By reproductive criteria, they are
all one species. The only way you can separate them into different species
is by saying that under normal circumstances a wolf doesn't interbreed with
a jackal. But that is like saying under normal circumstances an Englishman
won't interbreed with a Gilyak of Siberia and then stating that the Gilyaks
are a separate species from the English (which they most assuredly are not!)
The very concept that merely 800,000 years of Neanderthal (or anyone else
for that matter) isolation would absolutely necessitate a different species
which could not interbreed, is simply NOT supported by the biological data.
Lacking this necessary condition, why is it that theologically we want to
ignore the abundant evidence of RELIGIOUS activity by ancient man? I would
say that we are not sticking to the facts as you say we should.
So, in my view, even if the Neanderthals were isolated, they were still
human, just like the Keppel Islanders of Australia (who were isolated for
8000 years) were still human. These people developed unique morphological
differences from the rest of humanity. But they still have the image of
God, inspite of this isolation. Isolation does not remove the image of God.
>
>Take the Japanese. They wanted genetic findings to show that they belong
>to the Jomon people who lived in Japan from late in the last glacial
>advance, rather than the Yahoi people who seemed to come from Sth.
>Korea, c 400 BC. Many still teach the long period of isolation, but the
>current data places them squarely amongst the late migrants from Korea,
>and the Ainu amongst the Jomon. A bit damaging to self-image, but
>hopefully the facts will help breakdown some of the old enmity between
>Korea and Japan. Maybe.
Because humanity is linked via genetic connections to very ancient
populations, the only way to avoid the racial problem is to move Adam way,
way back in time and make us all descendants of Adam, all brothers and
sister by interbreeding.
References
Brauer,Gunter "The Evolution of Modern Humans: a Comparison of the African
and non-African Evidence," in Paul C. Mellars and Chris B. Stringer ed. The
Human Revolution. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 123-153.
Carrol, Robert L, Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, (San Francisco: W.
H. Freeman and Co, 1988).
Loftus, R. T. et al, 1994, "Evidence for Two Independent Domestications of
Cattle," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA, 91, March 1994, p. 2757.
Vila, Carles, et al, "Multiple and Ancient Origins of the Domestic Dog,"
Science, 276(June 13, 1997):1687-1689, p. 1689
Wayne, Robert K, "Molecular Systematics of the Canidae" Syst. Biol.,
46(1997):4:622-653.
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm