----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 27 Jun 1999 09:20:01 -0000
From: asa-digest-owner@udomo.calvin.edu (asa-digest)
Subject: asa-digest V1 #1280
asa-digest Sunday, June 27 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1280
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 26 Jun 1999 09:20:01 -0000
From: asa-digest-owner@udomo.calvin.edu (asa-digest)
Subject: asa-digest V1 #1279
asa-digest Saturday, June 26 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1279
- - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 25 Jun 1999 09:20:01 -0000
From: asa-digest-owner@udomo.calvin.edu (asa-digest)
Subject: asa-digest V1 #1278
asa-digest Friday, June 25 1999 Volume 01 : Number 1278
- - - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 10:20:02 -0700
From: "John M. Lynch" <jmlynch@geocities.com>
Subject: Re: Neanderthal hybrid is real
> Trinkaus et al are reporting that this child INDEED HAD SOME OF THE
> CHARACTERISTICALLY NEANDERTHAL MUSCLE ATTACHMENTS!!!!!!
>
> This child is a hybrid. If Neanderthal could breed with us, then he WAS
> us!
While I generally agree with Glenn regarding the fossil record, readers have
to be very careful examining the evidence for hybridization as presented in
the PNAS paper.
As Tattersall and Schwartz note in a commentary in the same issue of PNAS (p
7117 - 7119) , many of the features that Duarte et al advocate as indicating
hybridism are in fact highly variable in H. sapiens and in H.
neanderthalensis - "there is nothing about the craniodental elements thus
far know and described that would be unusual for a Homo sapiens at this
young developmental age." As they note, this is a "brave and imaginative
interpretation of which it is unlikely that a majority of
paleoanthropologists will consider proven."
Sample sizes of one can tell us very little, particularly if the authors
want to extrapolate the results to indicate that hybridization had been
ongoing for serveral millennia (which they are forced to do, as they were
not able to argue that the specimen was a 50:50 [F1] hybrid). Until further
putative hybrids are found, it is best not to beleive that hybridization is
proven in any way.
Let's wait and see what happens ...
- - - - -jml
- - - ------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 23:06:58 +0100
From: Vernon Jenkins <vernon.jenkins@virgin.net>
Subject: Re: Fish to Amphibian
Gordon,
I only evidence that the flood referred to in Ps.29:10 is the same as -
or is of the same order as - the Noahic Flood is the use of the Hebrew
word 'mabbul'. Its 12 other appearances occur in Genesis where it is
used specifically to designate this event. The context of the Psalm
appears to offer no direct help.
Regards,
Vernon
gordon brown wrote:
>
> On Mon, 21 Jun 1999, Vernon Jenkins wrote:
>
> > It was a large vessel, commissioned by God, and robust enough to meet
> > the demands of the 'mabbul' (It is interesting that though there are
> > several Hebrew words meaning 'flood', this one is reserved for this
> > particular event - described in the Greek as 'kataklusmos'). I think
> > 'ocean-going' is implied.
>
> Vernon,
>
> Why do you believe that in Psalm 29:10 mabbul refers to the Flood of
> Noah's time? What in the context demands this? Isn't this psalm about the
> power of God displayed in a heavy thunderstorm as it moves from the sea
> across the mountains and out over the desert?
>
> Gordon Brown
> Department of Mathematics
> University of Colorado
> Boulder, CO 80309-0395
- - - ------------------------------
End of asa-digest V1 #1278
**************************
- - ------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 13:23:42 -0400
From: bivalve@mailserv0.isis.unc.edu (David Campbell)
Subject: Re: Context (was Fish to Amphibian)
>I believe I have responded to most of the points you raise in my replies
>to Glenn, George and Gordon. However, on the matter of the context of
>Mt.24:37-39/Lk.17:26-27, viz the unexpected nature of the 'second
>coming', this will be a global event, will it not?
It will be global, but I do not see that in focus in those passages. The
parallel with Sodom particularly suggests that geography is not the focus
here.
Mt. 24:26-31 and Lk. 17:22-24 speak of its universal obviousness, but Mt.
24:32-25:46 and Lk. 17:26-33 focus on "Be ready!". Nothing about the
extent seems to be stated.
If you haven't, I would recommend that you read Glenn Morton's scenario for
the Flood and see how well it meets your objections. The whole land is
destroyed by flooding.
David C.
- - ------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 16:13:49 -0400
From: George Murphy <gmurphy@raex.com>
Subject: cry for help
Well folks, I'm back after a few months in Berkeley & have a request. I recall
years ago reading of Pauli's response to the newspaper announcement of Heisenberg's
nonlinear unified field equation in which Heisenberg was quoted as saying that all the
problems of physics were now solved in principle and that it only remained to work out
the details. Pauli's comment in a letter to another colleague was a blank rectangle &
the caption, "I can paint like Titian. Only the details are missing."
The problem: I want to include this in the book I'm working on (the application
to overly optimistic claims about chemical evolution is obvious), but I can't recall &
can't locate a reference. I've tried Pauli's collected papers & the big Heisenberg bio.
Anybody recall coming across this & where? (I've probably quoted it on this list so if
you just have a vague recollectionit may be from that.)
Thanks,
George
- - - --
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
- - ------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 00:00:42 +0100
From: Vernon Jenkins <vernon.jenkins@virgin.net>
Subject: Re: global flood (was fish to amphibians)
Hi Glenn,
Apropos your latest post I would like to make two brief points:
(1) You said "...the scripture says that God would destroy all the
animals in the 'eretz', not all the animals on the earth."
Assuming for the sake of argument that your 'local flood' scenario is
correct, we would expect to find across the globe representatives of all
bird and animal 'kinds' that had escaped the ravages of the Deluge.
What, then, was God's purpose in commanding Noah to build so large a
vessel? Could it have been anything other than to ensure the
preservation of planet Earth's fauna along with man?
Clearly, your initial premise leads us to conclude that Noah and his
family enjoyed the company of animals! - for otherwise, what was the
purpose of them being there?! I suggest that your evolution-induced
interpretation of Gn.6-9 trivialises the whole episode. Only by
believing that all animal life outside the ark was destroyed can we make
sense of it all. It follows that the Flood must have been global.
(2) You appear to be making great play of Gn.6:13 where God refers to
the destruction of the earth. I have already suggested what I believe to
be a reasonable reading of this matter in respect of a global flood, viz
"...in the sense that the terrain was no longer what it was - suggested
by the 'breaking up' of the 'fountains of the great deep' (Gn.7:11) - he
effectively eradicated the old order." What is your understanding of it
in a local sense? Can it be greatly different from mine?
Sincerely,
Vernon
http://homepage.virgin.net/vernon.jenkins/index.htm
http://www.compulink.co.uk/~indexer/miracla1.htm
- - ------------------------------
End of asa-digest V1 #1279
**************************
- ------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 10:00:52 PDT
From: Adam Crowl <qraal@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Context (was Fish to Amphibian)
Hi ASA,
Depends on what you take those verses to mean. The consistent
self-interpretation of the Gospels on themselves indicates that the
so-called "Second Coming" spoken of in those passages is really Jesus
"coming in the clouds" [i.e. in Judgement] against Jerusalem. That makes the
most sense of the biblical data for an imminent "Return", since Jesus
consistently speaks of "this generation" seeing his prophecies fulfilled.
Nothing else is honest with the text.
Whether that has implications with wider applications than to just those
passages is another issue. But the "global" perspective can be just "local".
And in apocalyptic language even the stars can fall from the sky.
Adam
>From: Vernon Jenkins <vernon.jenkins@virgin.net>
>Reply-To: vernon.jenkins@virgin.net
>To: David Campbell <bivalve@mailserv0.isis.unc.edu>
>CC: asa@calvin.edu
>Subject: Re: Context (was Fish to Amphibian)
>Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 21:40:09 +0100
>
>Hi David,
>
>Thanks for your input.
>
>I believe I have responded to most of the points you raise in my replies
>to Glenn, George and Gordon. However, on the matter of the context of
>Mt.24:37-39/Lk.17:26-27, viz the unexpected nature of the 'second
>coming', this will be a global event, will it not?
>
>Regards,
>
>Vernon
>
>http://homepage.virgin.net/vernon.jenkins/index.htm
>
>http://www.compulink.co.uk/~indexer/miracla1.htm
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
- ------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 11:57:15 -0500
From: "Glenn R. Morton" <grmorton@waymark.net>
Subject: Re: global flood (was fish to amphibians)
HI Vernon,
Vernon wrote:
>Apropos your latest post I would like to make two brief points:
>
>(1) You said "...the scripture says that God would destroy all the
>animals in the 'eretz', not all the animals on the earth."
>
>Assuming for the sake of argument that your 'local flood' scenario is
>correct, we would expect to find across the globe representatives of all
>bird and animal 'kinds' that had escaped the ravages of the Deluge.
>What, then, was God's purpose in commanding Noah to build so large a
>vessel? Could it have been anything other than to ensure the
>preservation of planet Earth's fauna along with man?
The purpose would have been clearly to save animals which were special to
man or animals from that region that weren't special to man. By making the
flood local, it means that tens of thousands of animals don't have to be
cared for by Noah et al, and this then avoids some of the really silly
problems, and even sillier solutions that some YECs have proposed, for an
overcrowded ark would have. If all animals were on the ark, the manure and
urine problems would be so great as to flood the ark itself. Woodmorrappe
says that urine could drain overboard, but this would be impossible from
the lowest deck. He even says that the animals were trained to defecate on
command into buckets held by Noah and the others. An ark with several
thousand animals would use up the oxygen quite rapidly, the heat given off
by the animals would over heat the ark (ever been in a crowded room and
felt hot? The ark would be worse). Such problems and the silly solutions
YECs have proposed make the Bible a laughing stock among reasonable peoples.
Fewer animals fewer problems like this. And then the Bible can avoid the
'help' that the YECs give it. Avoiding YEC interpretation makes the Bible
look a bit more reasonable.
>
>Clearly, your initial premise leads us to conclude that Noah and his
>family enjoyed the company of animals! - for otherwise, what was the
>purpose of them being there?! I suggest that your evolution-induced
>interpretation of Gn.6-9 trivialises the whole episode.
I keep repeating and you keep intentionally ignoring the fact that it is
not an evolution induced interpretation. The silliness of the YEC global
flood is what made me change to a local flood. Only after that did I
eventually become an evolutionist. Please don't forget this again and
please don't make that same statement again. I get the feeling you are
ignoring me and believing what you want to beleive.
Only by
>believing that all animal life outside the ark was destroyed can we make
>sense of it all. It follows that the Flood must have been global. >
Hardly.
>(2) You appear to be making great play of Gn.6:13 where God refers to
>the destruction of the earth. I have already suggested what I believe to
>be a reasonable reading of this matter in respect of a global flood, viz
>"...in the sense that the terrain was no longer what it was - suggested
>by the 'breaking up' of the 'fountains of the great deep' (Gn.7:11) - he
>effectively eradicated the old order." What is your understanding of it
>in a local sense? Can it be greatly different from mine?
My understanding is that God destroyed the LAND (eretz) which is what David
Campbell pointed out to you. It ain't land anymore, it is seabottom. You
are inconsistent concerning Gen. 6:13. Here you want to avoid the clear
implications that God destroyed the eretz. you say that eretz means
'planet earth' and use that meaning to support a global flood. But when
the planet earth must be destroyed, you squirm and claim that the eretz was
only re-arranged, not destroyed. You continue to ignore the fact that Abram
was told to get off 'planet earth' (eretz). If you are correct that eretz
means planet earth, then Abram disobeyed God. You interpret eretz
inconsistently depending upon what meaning you require for your theological
position at the time. This means that you really aren't paying attention
to what the Bible says. You are only paying attention to what your
theology requires. To you, your theology has become 'The Word of God'
rather than the Bible.
- ------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 15:26:15 -0400
From: "Ted Davis" <TDavis@messiah.edu>
Subject: Rimmer and the ark: manure
Glenn Morton wrote:
"By making the flood local, it means that tens of thousands of animals
don't have to be cared for by Noah et al, and this then avoids some of the
really silly problems, and even sillier solutions that some YECs have
proposed, for an overcrowded ark would have. If all animals were on the
ark, the manure and urine problems would be so great as to flood the ark
itself. Woodmorrappe says that urine could drain overboard, but this would
be impossible from the lowest deck. He even says that the animals were
trained to defecate on command into buckets held by Noah and the others. An
ark with several thousand animals would use up the oxygen quite rapidly, the
heat given off by the animals would over heat the ark (ever been in a
crowded room and felt hot? The ark would be worse). Such problems and the
silly solutions YECs have proposed make the Bible a laughing stock among
reasonable peoples."
This reminds me of a story Rimmer used to tell, about a debate on biblical
inerrancy that he had with a self-styled "atheist" in Denver, ca. 1930. The
following is taken from the tape I've asked ASAers to help me locate, the
one I no longer have:
Rimmer tells the story with great relish, setting up the audience for the
best possible response as he tells how his opponent insisted that nothing
not explicitly mentioned in the biblical text could be affirmed by either
man. When Rimmer agreed to this, his opponent claimed immediate victory.
The ark, he said, had no manure chute, since none is mentioned in the text.
Thus within thirty days, the ark would have been filled with methane gas,
and the animals would have died. There was, Rimmer recalled, "a very fine
lady seated behind me, the wife of a public official. She reached over and
pulled my coat-tail, and said, `That's a dirty argument; don't let him get
away with it.' I sat there, `Don't worry, I'll clean him up and the
argument at the same time.'" Punctuated with raucous laughter from the
hall, Rimmer went on to relate how he had conceded that the colonel was
right -- there was no manure chute. "But according to his rule we don't
need one. There could be nothing in the ark not specifically mentioned in
the text. And when I read the text it says the ark had two sides and two
ends and a top -- but no bottom is mentioned!"
Thought readers might enjoy this,
Ted Davis
- ------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 14:38:11 -0700
From: "Hofmann, Jim" <jhofmann@Exchange.FULLERTON.EDU>
Subject: RE: global flood (was fish to amphibians)
Has there been discussion on this list of Ryan & Pitman's "Noah's Flood:
the new scientific discoveries about the event that changed history"? (1998,
Simon & Schuster)
If so, I'll check the archives. If not, what do people think about the
book's argument?
Jim Hofmann
Cal State Fullerton
- ------------------------------
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 00:18:27 +0100
From: Vernon Jenkins <vernon.jenkins@virgin.net>
Subject: Re: Fish to Amphibian
Hello Paul,
I appreciate your writing, and thank you for the information. However, I
have to say that with respect to the ongoing discussion regarding the
extent of the Flood, it appears to matter little whether our thinking
involves 'planet Earth' or 'flat circular disc floating upon an ocean'.
To achieve God's purposes, was the globe (or disc) completely immersed?
or was it not? Thinking sensibly is hardly a time-dependent thing! Moses
understood the Flood had to be global, and could hardly have said more
to convince the reader of the fact.
Vernon
PHSEELY@aol.com wrote:
>
> Vernon Jenkins wrote:
>
> >We first meet the Hebrew word 'eretz' in Gn.1:1. It certainly means
> >planet Earth there, wouldn't you agree?
>
> The one thing we can be sure of from the historical and biblical context is
> that 'eretz' in Gn 1:1 does NOT mean "planet Earth" William Tanner showed
> that the word "earth" in the Bible never means Planet Earth ["'Planet Earth'?
> or 'Land'?" in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 49 (June, 97)
> 111-115]. He worked mostly from the Greek language and historical sources.
> In my own paper, working from anthropological, historical, biblical and
> linguistic (mainly Hebrew) data ["The geographical meaning of 'earth' and
> 'seas' in Gen 1:10" in the Westminster Theological Journal 59 (1997) 231-55]
> I showed that when the word 'eretz' is used in the OT in a universal sense,
> its meaning is a flat circular disc floating upon an ocean.
> The theological doctrine of creation found in Gen 1:1 can and should be
> applied to planet Earth, but, it is the theology which is the revelation in
> Gen 1, not the definition of the "Earth."
>
> If Gen 1 is "VCR history" as seen and revealed by God rather than an
> accommodation to the views of the times, Christians are bound to believe in a
> flat earth floating upon an ocean beneath a solid sky. When will the
> literalists be consistent and either affirm the biblical description of the
> earth and the universe or stop implying that they are the serious Christians
> and those who do not accept the Bible literally are not?
>
> Paul S.
- ------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 20:25:10 -0500
From: "Glenn R. Morton" <grmorton@waymark.net>
Subject: RE: global flood (was fish to amphibians)
At 02:38 PM 6/26/99 -0700, Hofmann, Jim wrote:
> Has there been discussion on this list of Ryan & Pitman's "Noah's Flood:
>the new scientific discoveries about the event that changed history"? (1998,
>Simon & Schuster)
>
>If so, I'll check the archives. If not, what do people think about the
>book's argument?
I have a discussion of it on my web page
http://www.isource.net/bseaflod.htm
I don't think it will work
- ------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 18:55:48 -0700
From: Robert Miller <rlmiller@garlic.com>
Subject: News items
Did anyone note the 2 interesting news items in the July Scientific
American? On page 28 an item taken from the April 27 Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences described a possible near extinction of
humans in the past million years. The suggestion comes from a study of
mtDNA and they speculate it could have been caused by disease, natural
disaster or connflict. Do you suppose they would consider a flood as a
natural disaster?
Then on page 30 a hominid discovered in Ethiopia is dated 2.5 mya and
was found with animal bones that had been cut and broken, an apparent
tool user.His species name, garhi, means surprise in Afar. This from the
April 23 Science.
Bob Miller
- ------------------------------
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 23:19:35
From: jimsmith@aol.com
Subject: CERTIFIED GIFTED PSYCHICS
SPEAK TO REAL LIVE CERTIFIED GIFTED PSYCHICS CALL 1 800 592 7827
- ------------------------------
End of asa-digest V1 #1280
**************************
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 22:42:41 -0600
From: Bill Payne <bpayne15@juno.com>
Subject: Re: index fossils
Hi Glenn and David,
On Wed, 23 Jun 1999 18:42:06 -0500 Glenn Morton <grmorton@flash.net>
writes:
>The layering is real.
Yeah, I was wondering about the finer structure of bedding, on the order
of mm thick, that might be destroyed by currents/bioturbation. I think
David answered that one.
>But the change in life forms is well documented and anti evolutionists
have no
>explanation for it.
Your point is well taken and duly noted. You win (for the time being).
:-) Thanks for your time and comments, gentlemen.
Bill
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 15:54:20 EDT
From: PHSEELY@aol.com
Subject: Re: Global flood (was Fish to Amphibian)
Hi Vernon,
you wrote
<< I appreciate your writing, and thank you for the information. However, I
have to say that with respect to the ongoing discussion regarding the
extent of the Flood, it appears to matter little whether our thinking
involves 'planet Earth' or 'flat circular disc floating upon an ocean'.
To achieve God's purposes, was the globe (or disc) completely immersed?
or was it not? Thinking sensibly is hardly a time-dependent thing! Moses
understood the Flood had to be global, and could hardly have said more
to convince the reader of the fact. >>
My question is: Where are you getting your information that the Flood was
global?
Moses knew nothing of a global, that is, a spherical earth; hence he could
not have "understood the Flood had to be global." The pre-flood world in the
Bible is not described as a spherical planet with the oceans embedded, but a
flat earth embedded in (floating upon) an ocean, a flat earth which did not
include the America's, Australia or even the Far East. And this limited flat
earth was the _total_ earth. Hence the Bible cannot be and is not describing
a global flood. You cannnot be getting your information that the Flood was
_global_ from the Bible; so, from where are you getting this information?
My point is, Do you realize that your theory of a global flood is resting
upon the findings of modern science? I think you will be helped in your
thinking, if you realize and say out loud, "My theory of a global flood is
resting upon modern science."
Paul S.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 17:41:57 -0500
From: "Glenn R. Morton" <grmorton@waymark.net>
Subject: The Neanderthal hybrid is real--A defence.
Hi John,
You really didn't think I would let this go by did you? :-) I wanted to
read the original articles and do some research before responding.
Unfortunately, this may be the only well researched response I can give on
this for the next 2 months. The movers are coming to pack up our
belongings for the move to Houston tomorrow and my entire library (a source
of great pleasure for me) will be in storage for the next 2 months. :-(
Thus, you all can take any potshot you want, and I won't be able to mount a
good defence. :-)
To your concerns.
John M. Lynch (jmlynch@geocities.com) wrote on
Thu, 24 Jun 1999 10:20:02 -0700 :
>While I generally agree with Glenn regarding the fossil record, readers have
>to be very careful examining the evidence for hybridization as presented in
>the PNAS paper.
>
>As Tattersall and Schwartz note in a commentary in the same issue of PNAS (p
>7117 - 7119) , many of the features that Duarte et al advocate as indicating
>hybridism are in fact highly variable in H. sapiens and in H.
>neanderthalensis - "there is nothing about the craniodental elements thus
>far know and described that would be unusual for a Homo sapiens at this
>young developmental age." As they note, this is a "brave and imaginative
>interpretation of which it is unlikely that a majority of
>paleoanthropologists will consider proven."
>Sample sizes of one can tell us very little, particularly if the authors
>want to extrapolate the results to indicate that hybridization had been
>ongoing for serveral millennia (which they are forced to do, as they were
>not able to argue that the specimen was a 50:50 [F1] hybrid). Until further
>putative hybrids are found, it is best not to beleive that hybridization is
>proven in any way.
>Let's wait and see what happens ...
I appreciate John's concern. I have read both the article and the
commentary by Tattersall and Schwartz. I want to present some other
information that is in neither of the articles which sheds some additional
light on why Duarte et al believe that the Lagar Velho child is a hybrid.
Lets start with the Out of Africa scenario. Anatomically modern human
invaders from Africa entered Europe around 35-40,000 years ago. These
invaders were tropical Africans who brought with them, their genes, and
their hyper-tropical body shapes. What is meant by this is that in hot
countries there is a selective pressure in favor of body shapes that allow
heat to be removed. The classic heat tolerant body form is that of the
Watusi, a tall skinny people. Such body forms have a high surface
area/body mass ratio. Genetics controls the development of this body form.
It is not an environmentally acquired form. This is why short squat
Europeans living in Nigeria give birth to short squat children and why
Watusi living in New York city give birth to tall skinny offspring.
Apparently it takes millennia upon millennia for a group with one body form
to begin to convert to another. (more on this later.) Contrary to the
anatomically modern peoples, Neanderthals were short and squat. This is
widely beleived to have been due to the millennia of living in
cold,glaciate Europe Neanderthals were also hyper robust . This means
that their bones were exceptionally thick compared with anatomically modern
peoples. I want to use Stringer's words to illustrate what I think is a bit
of a double standard in anthropology. Stringer is a skeptic like Tattersall
and Schwartz. I can't find anthing quite this detailed in Tattersall or
Schwartz's books. Chris Stringer and Clive Gamble wrote:
"In their relatively heavy bodies the Neanderthals seem to conform to
Bergmann's rule, and in the shorter ends of their limbs to Allen's
rule.That the Neanderthal physique was partly determined by climate is
further supported by the slight differences in limb proportions between the
Neanderthals who lived in glaciated Europe and those who lived in the less
extreme climates of the Middle East."- p. 93
~ Chris Stringer and Clive Gamble, In Search of the Neanderthals, (New
York: Thames and Hudson, 1993), p.93
Bergman's rule is that body weights of an animals will tend to be greater
in colder climates. And Allen's rule is that their limb proportions will
be shorter. These rules have a wide application across many species. Thus
Stringer accepts the climate-induced selection pressure that created the
Neanderthal physique. How do we measure body form?
The body form is measured by numerous indices such as the crural and
brachial indices which are measurments of the limb lengths. The crural and
brachial index quantizes Allen's rule. The crural index is defined as
"the length of the tibia/ the length of the femur". One can multipy by 100
if he wants but it doesn't matter. Bergman's rule is measured by the
robusticity of the bones. This is because a being with greater body mass
needs more robust bones to support the extra weight. So, when looking for
differences between modern and Neanderthal we need to look at these types
of measures.
Here is how these rules apply to the Lagar Velho child. When we examine
various populations, fossil and modern, we find a range of values for the
brachial, crural and robusticity indices. Unfortunately the Lagar Velho
child's radius is incomplete so the brachial index can't be studied. Here
is the data presented by Stringer and Gamble (once again I want to use
STringer's data so that the skeptic's data is in play). This data is taken
from a chart on page 92 of Stringer and Gamble.
crural index Tibia/Femur length
modern peoples 79% in Lapps
86% in Black African groups
crural Mean annual temp C
index
Lapps 79% .25
modern Inuit 81.5% 4
average Neanderthal 79%
Belgium 82.5 10
S.African white 83.2 8.5
Yugoslav 83.75 8.4
American white 82.6 9.8
Kalahari Bushman83.4 18
New Mexico
Indian 84.6 14
S.African black 86.4 17
Arizona Indian 85.5 18
Melanesian 84.8 23
Pygmy 85.1 24.2
Egyptian 84.9 26.1
American Black 85.25 26
~ Chris Stringer and Clive Gamble, In Search of the Neanderthals, (New
York: Thames and Hudson, 1993), p.92
One sees at once that the subtropical peoples have a higher crural index
than those living in cold climates. This amazingly even applies to the
pygmies. Shortness is not at issue here. Body form is.
Lagar Velho has a crural index of .782 which as can be seen is lower than
all anatomically modern peoples including the Lapps. This value, as we
shall see is lower than ALL values for ALL anatomically modern, African
invaders.
What of the Lapps. I am going to claim that is is perilously close to
circular reasoning to use the Lapps as an analogue to compare with the
Neanderthals for one reason. Lapps occupy a region very close to the
former Neanderthal territories. If there has been any hybridization, the
low crural index of the Lapps might be indicative of that hybridization. In
other words one cannot tell if their squatness was due to genetic heritage
or the accumulation of the trait since the invasion of anatomically modern
peoples. The only way one can use the Lapps as evidence that a low crural
index means that the Lagar Velho child is nothing special is if they
ASSUME THAT THERE WAS NO HYBRIDIZATION. That is assuming the conclusion! I
would say that the Inuit make a better case for the acquisition of a low
crural index by the African invaders. This is because the Inuit were
nowhere near the Neanderthal homelands.
On the other hand, if one insists on using the Lapps as evidence that the
Lagar Velho child is within the range of variation of modern humans, then
it clearly argues in favor of Neanderthals being within modern human
variation in this regard. Neanderthal's averaged close to the Lapp average.
And if Neanderthals were within modern human variation, then there is
little reason to claim, as Tattersall and Schwartz claim, that Neanderthal
is a separate species. Thus they are hoisted on their own petard.
Tattersall and Schwartz seem to want to have it both ways.
About 100,000 years ago, anatomically near modern peoples appeared in the
Middle East at Skhul and Qafzeh Caves. So, we should look to these peoples
for the archetypes of the modern humans who invaded Europe. But we do need
to be careful in our analysis. Neanderthals lived in the Middle East along
with anatomically modern men and if there could be hybridization in Spain,
then it could have happened in the Mid East also. What do we find? We find
that, with one exception, all the Skhul/Qafzeh skeltons clearly have
subtropical body forms. Frayer shows the crural index on the Skhul/Qafzeh
peoples. There are only three individuals with enough skeletal matter to
make this measurement on. One has a crual index of 89, one has an index of
86 and Skhul V has an 80.[David W. Frayer, "Evolution at the European Edge:
Neanderthal and Upper Paleolithic Relationships," Prehistoire Europeenne,
2:9-69, Figure 9, p. 68 and p. 33.]
Obviously, one can argue that Skhul V shows that the range of the crural
index is so great as to make meaningless the measure on the Lagar velho
child. But in anthropology things are rarely that simple. Two things argue
agains this position. The Lagar Velho child has a crural index of .782
which is much smaller than the .80 of Skhul V. But then Skhul V has been
suggested to be an hybrid also. Johanson and Blake write of Skhul V:
Skhul V
"Others have subsequently interpreted Skhul V's anatomy as showing signs of
hybridization between modern and Neandertal populations. Hybridization is
difficult to demonstrate in fossils, and even if it did happen rarely, it
would not mean that Neandertals and modern humans were a single species.
The Tabun individuals clearly differed from those at Skhul, who were
undoubtedly on the cusp of becoming modern humans." ~ Donald Johanson and
Blake Edgar, From Lucy to Language, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997),
p. 242
It is interesting that the same trait is used to support hybridization with
Skhul V as with the Lagar Velho child.
I would suggest Johanson and Edgar are wrong in that if interbreeding did
occur biologically we are the same species. But, it seems that
hybridization is not to be the allowed, so any form that shows such
features is shoved one way or the other so that there are no hybrids. And
this is what was done to Skhul V.
Stringer and Gamble ignore Skhul V in their book. They write in
contradiction of the facts:
"The skeletons of the Skhul and Qafzeh samples are even more modern than
their skulls. And in contrast to the Neanderthals, their body proportions
are tropical rather than cold-adapted, with long forearms and tibiae [high
crural and brachial indices--grm] and an a average stature of about 1.83
m..." Chris Stringer and Clive Gamble, In Search of the Neanderthals, (New
York: Thames and Hudson, 1993), p.102
And Tattersall also ignores the outlier skeleton at Skhul. He writes:
"ESR dates on mammal teeth associated with the Hominid remains from Skhul
(virtually modern human) and Tabun (lightly built Neanderthal) have come
out around 100,000 years and 120,000 years, respectively." Ian Tattersall,
The Last Neanderthal, New York: Macmillan, 1995), p. 116
Obviously there is one skeleton that doesn't fit what they say {selective
use of data? Note here that I am using data like the Lapps and Skhul V
which don't initially fit within the position I am advocating and that is
what a person should do].
Now, if Stringer and Gamble are correct in ignoring Skhul V and dismissing
him as a possible hybrid, then the measurement of a Neanderthal-like crural
index becomes even more problematic for their position. They have to
explain how, among ALL upper Paleolithic anatomically modern humans, this
one child, this single individual achieved a Neanderthal-like body form
during the more moderate climatical times of 24,000 years ago when no other
anatomically modern person in Europe was able to achieve this body form!
How do I know this? Frayer again in Figure 9 p. 68 shows the crural
indices for European hominids from 90,000 years ago to the present. The
Skhul/Qafzeh peoples have the ranges I mentioned above. Neanderthals from
70,000 years ago have crural indices ranging from 76-81. Since the earliest
anatomically modern fossil dates from 34,000 years ago and is fragmentary,
the earliest anatomically modern crural index is from about 28,000 years
ago and has a value of 88. at 25,000 years ago there are7 specimens with a
crural index range of 84-88. At 24,000 years the range is 82-83. At 20,000
years ago the range is from 79-87 Between 15,000 and 10,000 the range is
from 81 to 90.5. I might point out that the 79 at 20,000 years ago is only
one individual. The next lowest above him at that time is 82. As Frayer
notes, the average crural index of anatomically modern humans has remained
around 84 throughout the past 30 millennia. Only as one gets into the
height of the last glacial age and on do we find anatomically modern
peoples with low cural indices. The finding of an individual like Lagar
Velho is clearly out of step with the rest of the data for European men. In
table form this data is
28 kyr 88
25 kyr 84-88
LV child
24 kyr 82-83
20 kyr 79-87 height of the glacial age
15-10kyr 81-90.5
The data for the ranges of the crural index shows that it takes up to 20
millenia before one sees the acclimatization to climate and this only after
the Wurm glaciation cooled Europe increasing the selective pressures on
modern humans. Thus the lack of low crural index modern humans prior to
20,000 years ago, which was the height of the last glaciation) argues
against the view that Lagar Velho is merely an extreme form of modern
human. 24,000 years ago, the time of the child, modern humans had been in
Europe for about 10,000 years and they maintained their typically
subtropical extremum (the lowest value in the population of fossils )crural
index for another 4,000 years.
What of robusticity? Duarte et al (Table 2)(in "The early Upper Paleolithic
Human skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal)_ and Modern Human
emergence in Iberia," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sciences USA 96(1999):7604-7609.
The z scores of Tibia circumference divided by the length is 2.582 in Lagar
Velho, 2.405 in the La Ferrassie 6 Neanderhtal and .037 in Skhul I, the
African Invader. The same measure for the femur is 2.815 for Lagar Velho
I, 2.501 for the La Ferrassie 6 Neanderthal, 2.032 for the Roc de Marsal
Neanderthal and 2.643 for the Teshik-Tash Neanderthal. For the Invaders
from Africa the femur measurement is 1.646 for Qafzeh 10 and 1.148 for
Skhul I.
Clearly these robusticity measures place the Lagar Velho well within the
Neanderthal robusticity and separate from the African Invaders.
Similar analyses on the Tibia/femur length support the crural analysis
above. Lagar velho has a score of 2.044, La Ferrassie 6 2.415 and Skhul I,
0.493.
What Tattersall and Schwartz say? If I might be a bit pedantic in my
interpretation of their initial paragraph it says:
"Thus, although many students of human evolution have lately begun to look
favorably on the view that these distinctive hominids merit species
recognition in their own right as Homo neanderthalensis, at least as many
still regard them as no more than a strage variant of our own species, Homo
sapeins." Tattersall and Schwartz, "Hominids and Hybrids: The Place of
Neanderthals in Human Evolution," PNAS 96(1999):7117-7119.
If 'at least as many" anthropologists regard Neanderthals as a strange
variant of humans, then pedantically speaking, this is a majority of
anthropologists. By their own admission, their position looks to be a
minority position among their peers.
One of the weakest reasons for placing Neanderthal in a separate species
that I have ever seen comes from Tattersall and Schwartz' commentary. They
state:
"In contrast, if we see them [Neanderthals] as mere subspecific variants of
ourselves, we are almost obliged to dismiss the Neanderthals as little more
than an evolutionary epiphenomenon, a miknor and ephemeral appendage to the
history of Homo sapiens." Ibid.
This almost sounds like a religious reason, a doctrinal reason rather than
a scientific reason for making Neanderthals a separate species. Who cares
how we view them? What is important is the correctness of how we view them.
They do admit that if this is a hybrid, then we are the same species, no
more than a racial variant. Ibid.
Tattersall ans Schwartz critize the hypothesis because there is no dental
or cranial evidence of Neanderthal morphology. But they are criticizing
what Duarte et al freely state in their paper. Duarte say that the child
is a mosaic, not a morphing of form which is what Tattersall and Schwartz
seem to expect. And as a mosaic, some parts will be Neanderthal like and
some modern.
The quote in John's note about this being more like an F1 hybrid, ignores
the possibility that this very well might be an F1 hybrid. The lastest
Neanderthal dates somewhere around 28,000 years ago, merely 4,000 years
before the Lagar Velho child. Are we really to believe that the 28,000
year old burial was the burial of the ABSOLUTELY LAST NEANDERTHAL ON
EARTH? Of course not. Neanderthals lived for some time after that but we
don't know how long. So, one can't entirely rule out that Neanderthals
lived until the 24,000 mark. Afterall, human remains are rather scarce
even during that time.
Tattersal and Schwartz spend a lot of time discussing the jaw, but very
little time (one paragraph) discussing the postcranial remains which is
where the major data supporting the hybridization hypothesis lies. Thus,
they spend most of their time on the parts that support their view and
little on the data that goes against their view. Yet their opinion is
claimed to have done away with the hypothesis. This is good sleight of
hand (don't look at the man behind the curtain), but very poor scientific
procedure. It is precisely the data supporting the Neanderthal
hybridization hypothesis upon which they should have spent most of the time.
They also left totally unchallenged the neck-shaft angle data in Duarte et
al which shows that the Lagar Velho femur is more similar to Neanderthal.
They claim. "And the tibia, like the femur, is hard to evaluate in the
absence of the epiphyses; it does not appear significantly different from
what one might expect to find in a robust modern human of this age."
Tattersall and Schwartz. ibid.
And they say, " The probability must thus remain that this is simply a
chunky Gravettian child, a descendant of the modern invaders who had
evicted the Neanderthals from Iberia several millennia earlier." Ibid.
To which I give a hearty "bull roar". Anatomically modern humans are
demonstrably less robust than the archaic variants of Homo sapiens. The
data I showed above and the data presented in Duarte et al clearly shows
that the Lagar Velho child is much more robust than African invaders. The
Lagar Velho child's legs are much more Neanderthal-like than ANY pre 22,000
year old African Invader. If this is no hybrid, where are all the other
anatomically modern fossils with similar crural indices and robusticities
from which this child could have received his genes? Or did the child self
create his own genetic heritage?
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End of asa-digest V1 #1281
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