[asa] Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors Was: Re Updated List of Books

At 09:05 AM 2/14/2007, Jack Haas wrote:
>The latest list of books available for review is found at:
>http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/BookReviewsAll/BooksToReview%20.html#Books%20Available%20for%20Review

@ I'm surprised that this book isn't on the list. ~ Janice

Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors

For one person's review of the book, click
here http://www.onecosmos.blogspot.com/ and scroll down to:

Sunday, February 11, 2007
I've Discovered the Gene For Ignoring my Genes!

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm in the midst of reading a
relatively new and state-of-the-art book on human origins entitled
Before the Dawn. [link below]

.......Before the Dawn discusses all of the new research made
possible by the Human Genome Project. The data can be studied in all
kinds of clever and innovative ways in order to deduce various
conclusions about our origins.

The book confirms the fact that there is a vast difference between
"anatomically modern" and "behaviorally modern" human beings, the
former of which appear as early as 200,000 years ago. And yet, truly
human behavior does not emerge until as recently as 45,000 years ago.
And it emerged quite suddenly, in such a way that it defies any
traditional Darwinan explanation. In fact, many traditional
paleo-anthropologists reject the sudden emergence of our humanness,
but only because their religion (strict Darwinism) makes it
impossible. Therefore, they argue that the transition must have been
gradual, even though this is not what the archaeological evidence
shows. What do you call someone who maintains a belief system despite
contrary evidence?

Anyway, genetics comes to the rescue, because the author of Before
the Dawn says that Darwinian evolution must be able to occur much
more rapidly than any of us had previously realized. Therefore,
whether the transition from ape to human was slow or sudden, it's all
good. Darwinism explains it.

What do you call a philosophy that is so elastic that it accounts for
opposite scenarios? "I was for the gradual descent of man before I
was against it."

You will never hear it come out of my mouth that genes are
unimportant things. However, the author makes the point that our DNA
is 99% identical to that of a chimpanzee. Oddly, he uses this
statistic to emphasize the importance of genes, when to me it would
appear to highlight the opposite. I say this because a moment's
reflection will reveal to you that the ontological gulf between a
human being and any animal is actually infinite.

Put it this way: how would you characterize the distance between an
animal, whose every behavior is genetically determined, and a being
who has transcended his genetic program to such an extent that he is
able to pick and choose those aspects of it that he would prefer to
ignore? Again, being that he is a primitive New York Timesman, the
author doesn't give a moment's serious thought to religion, but
dismisses it with a passing observation buried in a sentence to the
effect that it was selected (of course) by our genes "as a means of
social cohesion." If so, one can only wonder how he and all of his
fellow Homo crapians among the secular left managed to escape this
gene's influence?

Again, he seems to be arguing that genes are all-important, but not
so important that you can't simply ignore them if you wish. In fact,
you can even have contempt for your own genetic religious
proclivities (projected into others, of course), which is a rather
odd thing. Ever heard of a chimp who had contempt for his
banana? ~ Robert Godwin, Ph.D. (Clinical Psychologist) 2/11/07

Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
by
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200793//exec/obidos/search-handle-url/105-6368525-1526059?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Nicholas%20Wade>Nicholas
Wade (Author) "TRAVEL BACK INTO THE HUMAN PAST, and the historical
evidence is plentiful enough for the first couple of hundred years,
then rapidly diminishes..."
(<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200793//gp/reader/1594200793/ref=sib_fs_top/105-6368525-1526059?ie=UTF8&p=S00D&checkSum=1jzKLy7Yv3Txt3fbCldiu8BGbogVrfOVDw%2FN65eezqw%3D#reader-link>more)
Key Phrases:
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200793//phrase/Near-East/ref=cap_top_0/105-6368525-1526059>Near
East,
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200793//phrase/Upper-Paleolithic/ref=cap_top_1/105-6368525-1526059>Upper
Paleolithic,
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200793//phrase/New-Guinea/ref=cap_top_2/105-6368525-1526059>New
Guinea (more...)
http://www.amazon.com/Before-Dawn-Recovering-History-Ancestors/dp/1594200793

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Received on Sat Feb 17 17:40:13 2007