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

From: Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com>
Date: Thu Feb 26 2009 - 12:25:59 EST

I once read the following book:
"What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee: Apes, People, and Their Genes "
http://www.amazon.com/What-Means-Be-98%25-Chimpanzee/dp/0520226151

The author was stating his opinion as how it is foolish to try to map the races (Human Genome Diversity Project) because everyone's DNA is mixed-up pretty good already. He said it was a colossal waste of time and money. You can tell nothing from genetics regarding races, and you can't track their locations or history with DNA. There is nothing such as "pure Chinese" etc. However, since then, it seemed (I think) that this project made some breakthrough discoveries (not sure). I suppose time will tell.

More info here: Human Genome Diversity Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genome_Diversity_Project
http://www.stanford.edu/group/morrinst/hgdp/faq.html

Excerpt from the project head:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/morrinst/hgdp/faq.html#Q7
Are ethnic groups genetically definable? As far as scientists know, no particular genes make a person Irish or Chinese or Zulu or Navajo. These are cultural labels, not genetic ones. People in those populations are more likely to have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other. (There may be rare variations, however, that are found only in some populations.) This cannot be very surprising, in light of the vast extent of intermarriage among human populations, now and throughout history and prehistory. There is no such thing as a genetically "pure" human population.

...Bernie

________________________________
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of David Opderbeck
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 4:57 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<mailto: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<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org>

-----Original Message-----
From: David Opderbeck
[mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com<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<mailto: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"

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

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Received on Thu Feb 26 12:26:23 2009

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