What is "human" - the grey zone (was Re: [asa] Two questions... (biological bottlenecking with Adam and Eve))

Hi David,

I really liked your post and I'd like to build on it by offering one interesting spanner in the works as regards the posibility of any ability to clearly define "the first human" (the "first" anything, in fact).

It occurs to me that most of our definitions of "human" centre around identifying some particularly unique sign(s) of intelligence - whether that be language, religion, art, technology, etc.

But consider that our modern human population shows tremendous variation in forms and levels of intelligence -- Beethoven versus me, for instance!

So it raises the question of whether, in evolutionary terms, we can EVER identify a dividing line between "human" and "non-human" with the sort of precision that would let us say any "human" individual had a "non-human" parent.

Indeed, it may even be the case that on any particular definition of "human" we care to choose than we would doubtless see "humans" so defined giving birth to "non-humans" and vice versa over a period of time.

So, it seems to me that if we could stand back and observe human evolution then for any given definition of human we would see a gradual emergence of human like traits rather than the sudden appearance of "the first human" after whom all subsequent off-spring qualify as "human". Which, I guess, is to suggest simply that populations evolve rater than individuals.

And if we take seriously the idea of "no saltations" in biological evolution, then this would apply to biological features as well as non-biological features.

It seems to me intrinsic to the entire notion of evolution that there is simply no way to precisely identify a dividing line between species with the sort of precision that would allow us to pinpoint a generational shift from species A to species B.

For what it's worth, I don't see this as raising any particularly thorny theological problems (!) as I see it as merely leading to an extension of what is surely the mainstream Christian view: that God deals with individuals according to their mental and moral capacity. What matter is not whether I can determine if a particular individual was responsible before God, what matters is that God knows - and I am fully confident that the judge of all the earth will do right by even the least human of our ancestors.

Blessings,
Murray

David Campbell wrote:
>> Again I ask, because I don't see a clear answer (the problem may be on the sender or receiver side), how can anyone trace something back to "the first human?" <
>
> The fundamental problem is defining the "first human." If your
> definition includes some feature that is amenable to genetic analysis,
> then genetics might help you track this down. If your definition
> includes some feature traceable in the archaeological record, then
> archaeology might help in pinning it down.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Mon Feb 16 15:52:02 2009