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

But in anthropology, "race" is an outdated notion. We can discern
morphological features common to a time, place or region from skeletons,
which is not surprising, given that some areas of the human genome that
determine some morphological features such as facial or eye structure or
skin pigmentation can come under selection pressure. But there are no
meaningful criteria for dividing these features into "races." Rather, we
are all human beings with a continuum of variations in things like facial
structure and skin tone. I refer you to the American Anthropological
Association Statement on "Race" (http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm) and
a Wiki on the term "Negroid" which has some good links about why "race" is
an outdated folk notion(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroid), including
this one: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-01-08.htm

Do you think the so-called "negroid race" descends from Ham and bears the
mark of Cain?

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

On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 11:19 PM, Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>wrote:

> 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);
> Chang, Recent Common Ancestors of All Present-Day Individuals (
> http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/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.
>
>
>
> When Christ was really upset, He said: “Woe<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3759&version=kjv>unto
> you,<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=5213&version=kjv>
> scribes<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=1122&version=kjv>
> and<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=2532&version=kjv>
> Pharisees,<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=5330&version=kjv>
> hypocrites!<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=5273&version=kjv>
> for<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3754&version=kjv>ye
> compass<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=4013&version=kjv>
> sea<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=2281&version=kjv>
> and<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=2532&version=kjv>
> land<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3584&version=kjv>to
> make<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=4160&version=kjv>
> one<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=1520&version=kjv>
> proselyte,<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=4339&version=kjv>
> and<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=2532&version=kjv>
> when<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3752&version=kjv>he is
> made<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=1096&version=kjv>,
> ye make<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=4160&version=kjv>
> him<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=846&version=kjv>twofold
> more<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=1362&version=kjv>the
> child<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=5207&version=kjv>of
> hell<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=1067&version=kjv>than yourselves”
> (Mt 23:15).<http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=5216&version=kjv>
>
>
>
> 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"
>
> www.genesisproclaimed.org
>
>
>

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Received on Thu Feb 26 10:47:50 2009