ASA - February 2009: RE: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article

From: Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>
Date: Wed Feb 25 2009 - 23:19:30 EST

Hi David:

Forensic scientists can tell a racial type from nothing more than a
skeleton. They do it all the time. For one example, Negroids (I know you
don't like the term but it designates a racial type) have a skull shape that
is elongated front to back, Asiatics have a round skull, while Caucasians
have a rounded skull with a flat forehead. Of course, there are deviations
around the norm. And there has been racial mixing, more so in recent years,
but the native Irish Celts, for one example, have been an isolated breeding
population for thousands of years. The Japanese have remained an isolated
breeding population due to their living on an island as well. As have
Pygmys who just don't travel a lot. As have Aborigines who have lived in
Australia for 40,000 years.

Those theoretical, mathematical probability theories don't factor in
geographical reality.

Having said that, I know there are many instances of racial mixing.
Mexicans are mostly a mix of Aztec and Spanish immigrants, some of the
Spanish were Jews. Many black Americans have some Caucasian blood as a
result of slave conditions in the south. These are realities too. But
there are billions on this earth who cannot possibly have eminated from
Noah's three sons who began to spread out less than 5000 years ago.

Being in God's image is another matter entirely.

Dick Fischer, GPA president

Genesis Proclaimed Association

"Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History"

www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of David Opderbeck
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 7:57 PM
To: Dick Fischer
Cc: ASA
Subject: Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article

Dick -- I don't think it's merely "political correctness" to suggest that
18th Century ideas about "race" based on morphology were discredited long,
long ago. All human beings are equally made in God's image.

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 6:55 PM, Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>
wrote:

Hi David:

Well, if you mean, say, 60,000 years ago, yes you are right. But if you
took a black African, a Chinese person and a Norwegian, and traced them back
to a common ancestor it would certainly be long, long before the 2900 BC
flood, which is my point.

Do a thought experiment with me. Picture a group of Arabs next to a group
of Jews. Dress them alike. Could you tell which group is which? Maybe you
could, but could you quantify a list of morphological differences between
them? I doubt it. Well if that is the amount of divergence we see from
4,000 years of separation from a common ancestor, Abraham, how much
difference would we expect just going back an additional ten generations to
Noah? There are greater morphological and linguistic differences among
various tribes in Africa separated by only a few hundred miles than there is
between Arabs and Jews. Why? Because they have been separated from a
common ancestor much longer.

Now, if you want to disregard the genealogies in Genesis 5, 10, and 11, and
the historical ties to the history of the ancient Near East, and all the
references to Neolithic culture in Genesis just to force fit the Genesis
story into some politically correct scenario, at least realize what you are
doing, tell everybody that your just winging it, and have a good reason for
going way outside the bounds of probability. I don't think you have one.

Dick Fischer, GPA president

Genesis Proclaimed Association

"Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History"

www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----
From: David Opderbeck

[mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com]

Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 11:12 AM
To:

Dick Fischer

Cc: ASA
Subject: Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article

I don't agree Dick. Any number of studies have shown that every living
person alive today can trace his or her ancestry back to a common ancestor
who lived only a few thousand years ago, though obviously this person was
not the only person alive at the time, nor will most of us have inherited
genes directly from that person. See, e.g., Rhode, On the Common Ancestors
of All Living Humans (http://tedlab.mit.edu/~dr/Papers/Rohde-MRCA-two.pdf
<http://tedlab.mit.edu/%7Edr/Papers/Rohde-MRCA-two.pdf> ); Chang, Recent
Common Ancestors of All Present-Day Individuals
(http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/Ancestors.pdf
<http://www.stat.yale.edu/%7Ejtc5/papers/Ancestors.pdf> ).

A focus on "bloodlines," I think, is archaic -- that's a scientifically
meaningless term. A focus on the coalescence of genes, I think, is foreign
to the Biblical text and unproductive. The focus ought to fall, I think, on
geneology, which is what the papers referenced above discuss.

David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 10:52 AM, Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>
wrote:

Hi David, you wrote:

>Certainly by the time the scriptures are written, all living people can
trace their genealogy to Adam, though genetically the human population is
more diverse than n of 2.<

When I launched into this project in 1984 that's what I thought too. I had
surmised that the flood could terminate all mankind and that Noah's wife was
outside the Adamic line such that all living today could trace their
ancestry back to Adam and also through Noah's wife all the way back to the
apes in Africa. It was a good idea I thought, but early on in my research I
found it didn't line up with the facts of history. The flood is far too
late and Adam is far too late in history that we all can be related to the
covenant family. If you wanted to be related to Adam and Noah you should
have chosen parents who were Arabs or Jews or Greeks. If you didn't,
chances are you're unrelated genetically to the covenant couple. Oh, well.

When Christ died for us all, the hope of salvation became available to all
mankind. He urged his disciples to preach to every "creature," removing all
doubt that gentiles were welcome in the kingdom of God. The other thing
that may not be as apparent is the issue of accountability. Who was
accountable before Christ? I submit it was only those in the Line of
Promise, the children of Israel. That would exclude all gentiles everywhere
including those who did have Adamic roots, the children of Japheth and Ham,
and perhaps even the Assyrians, for example, who were from the line of Shem.
So the sin nature apparent in all mankind is not the issue in my estimation
- it's only accountability.

What we can gather from that is that those who were outside were not held
accountable, but when they were recruited into the family of Israel they
became accountable. Today everyone is accountable, perhaps, or maybe only
those who hear the gospel and have the opportunity to accept or reject. I
don't have an opinion on that. But the important point is that bloodlines
are of no importance.

Dick Fischer, GPA president

Genesis Proclaimed Association

"Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History"

<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/> www.genesisproclaimed.org

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Received on Wed Feb 25 23:20:31 2009

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