Re: Descendants of Wolves, Bovines and Adam

Adam Crowl (qraal@hotmail.com)
Sun, 15 Nov 1998 04:41:53 PST

>Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 14:38:23 -0600
>To: "Adam Crowl" <qraal@hotmail.com>, asa@calvin.edu
>From: "Glenn R. Morton" <grmorton@waymark.net>
>Subject: Descendants of Wolves, Bovines and Adam
>
>Hi Adam,
>
>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.
>
The other ludicrous thing being its content, I guess, and the 25,000
plagarised verses from the AV.

>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?"
>
3500 years shrinks before 5.5 million. The Genesis tales seem so
immediate and so obviously Neolithic - farming, herding, tool-making,
brick-making etc. There's none of that 5.5 mya. Genes tell us that
humanity goes way back to the divergence from "Pan" and beyond even -
we've both read Ayala on convergence times of 60 million years for some
alleles. Genesis seems to be placing a common origin at c. 10,000 BC,
and a Flood at c.3500 - 2300 BC - both quite absurd if we are all to
have a common origin.

>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?
>
My worry is that fact that origins myths show some very basic
similarities from all over the world, with enough variation to rule out
easy diffusionist theories. Such myths can arise quickly and place
creation in either the very near past or infinitely far back, with a
total diregard for "fact". Genesis 1-11 seems to be one example amongst
many. Why should it be special? What can it predict that identifies it
as the TRUTH?
>>
>>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!!!

I'd call the archaic Europeans H.heidelbergensis. And I'm not sure
that's an altar.

>The hybridization and
>replacement view was proposed by Gunter Brauer (1989).
>
And differs little from multi-regionalism. Most MR theorists don't doubt
a recent wave of modrnisation amongst human populations, they just don't
agree with replacement without hybridisation. Brauer is MR by any
reasonable standard.

>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!!!
>
Point taken. I've always found such a view a bit odd too, since if a
group of hominids migrated somewhere in the first place what's keeping a
fresh group coming in? I have espoused a late H. sapiens origin at
times, but the material you've dug up has made me think again.

>
>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.

True.

>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.
>
I see little evidence prior to the moderns, as the artefacts you cite
are currently in the doubtful category. Let's just say the archeological
signal for religiosity prior to c.60 kya is weak - I don't agree with
Hugh Ross, that's just the age of the oldest rock paintings here in Oz.
If it evolved then its stirrings must have been prior to that of course
since all current humans have religion, even atheists [in the negative
only.]

>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.
>
Which is what? I suspect it's a reference to our position over creation
rather than something inbreathed by God.

>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.
>
The only way to wipeout racism is to get humans over their biological
heritage. Racism is an archaism, an ingroup identifier system that
served selfish genes rather than the good of man. Christ came to make us
one through something better than genes. I thought that was one of
Paul's major points in his conflict with the "Judaisers"...

Adam

PS
Still no hope of a more recent Flood? Make a bold prediction of a
"recently" emptied Mediterranean. Afterall "H. antecessor" got to Spain
somehow... If pain in child-birth and sweating are signs of the curse
then Australopiths just don't make the grade as cursed hominids.
>
>glenn
>
>Adam, Apes and Anthropology
>Foundation, Fall and Flood
>& lots of creation/evolution information
>http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm
>

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