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

Note also Maxwell, "The true logic of this world is the calculus of
probabilities."

Shalom
George
http://home.roadrunner.com/~scitheologyglm

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
To: "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com>; "Dick Fischer"
<dickfischer@verizon.net>
Cc: "ASA" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 4:13 PM
Subject: RE: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article

>I do not know about the precise definition of statistics but about
>probability theory this is what Laplace said in 1819, “Probability theory
>is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation.”
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of
> David Opderbeck [dopderbeck@gmail.com]
> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 3:36 PM
> To: Dick Fischer
> Cc: ASA
> Subject: Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article
>
> I quote from the website of the Statistics Department at the University of
> Missouri: "Statistics is a modern science concerned with making decisions
> and inferences from empirical data subject to random variability and
> error." ( http://www.stat.missouri.edu/AboutUs/about_statistics.html)
>
>
> David W. Opderbeck
> Associate Professor of Law
> Seton Hall University Law School
> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 2:59 PM, Dick Fischer
> <dickfischer@verizon.net<mailto:dickfischer@verizon.net>> wrote:
>
> Interesting question. I took my course on statistics in the School of
> Business along with accounting, marketing, etc. My courses in psychology
> were taught in the School of Arts and Sciences. So all I can tell you is
> that at the University of Missouri it isn’t.
>
>
>
> Yours faithfully,
>
>
>
> 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: Saturday, February 28, 2009 11:13 AM
> To:
> Dick Fischer
>
> Cc: ASA
> Subject: Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article
>
>
>
> Statistics aren't a science?
>
> David W. Opderbeck
> Associate Professor of Law
> Seton Hall University Law School
> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Dick Fischer
> <dickfischer@verizon.net<mailto:dickfischer@verizon.net>> wrote:
>
> Dear David:
>
>
>
> We are not talking science but statistics and extrapolation. For example,
> the percentage of the U S population over 65 years of age is steadily
> increasing. Projecting the rate of increase, by the year 2050 100% of the
> US population will be over 65. What does that ignore? People over 65 don’t
> procreate. You got to read between the lines a little, David. The
> average MRCA between humans was stated at about 800 years in the first
> article. Okay, my brother and I are 10 years apart. Average all the
> billions of people who have a very recent common ancestor with those
> separated by racial distinctions and geography and whose MRCA is 60
> million years ago, and voila, you get a meaningless average.
>
>
>
> I completely agree with you that drawing lines of ancestry using DNA
> markers is more accurate than judging body types, coloration and stuff
> like that. You are absolutely, totally correct. I never disagreed with
> you on that. But racial distinctions are valid indicators and easily
> discerned with the naked eye – just less accurate, that’s all.
>
>
>
> All that to say that I believe it cannot be verified and it is counter
> intuitive to think that a family from the Near East starting out 5,000
> years ago could have impregnated every person in China, Japan, the Congo,
> Scandinavia, Siberia, etc. Especially when you consider that Jews don’t
> mix. The idea that Jewish males would journey to China and impregnate
> Chinese women is virtually unthinkable. Now if you have some “science” in
> that regard …
>
>
>
> Dick Fischer, GPA president
>
> Genesis Proclaimed Association
>
> "Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History"
>
> www.genesisproclaimed.org<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dopderbeck@gmail.com<mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> [mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com<mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com>]
> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 10:20 AM
> To: Dick Fischer
> Subject: Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article
>
>
>
> Sigh. That has nothing to do with your notions of the origins of "races".
> Where's the "science," dick? The scientific consensus is against you
>
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: "Dick Fischer"
> Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:19:35 -0500
> To: 'David Opderbeck'<dopderbeck@gmail.com<mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com>>
> Subject: RE: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article
>
> Okay, David, your indignation has been duly recorded. Notwithstanding
> every mortgage application has a box for ethnicity as well as most job
> applications and don’t forget this is Black History month.
>
>
>
> Yours faithfully,
>
>
>
> Dick Fischer, GPA president
>
> Genesis Proclaimed Association
>
> "Finding Harmony in Bible, Science and History"
>
> www.genesisproclaimed.org<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu<mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu>
> [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu<mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu>] On
> Behalf Of David Opderbeck
> Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 10:56 AM
> To: Dick Fischer
> Cc: ASA
> Subject: Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article
>
>
>
> Dick said: Our global society is homogenizing that’s right and the
> subject of race conjures up images of discrimination and slavery and all
> that. Yes I know. We’re a polite society now.
>
>
>
> I respond: I don't think it has anything to do with "politness." It has
> to do with truth, and with the lies, distortions and evils that have been
> perpetrated historically in the name of the false notion of "race." Given
> the scientific consensus against morphology equating to "race," it seems
> to me that the view you're trying to take isn't consistent with
> contemporary science at all. Moroever, I think it has some pernicious
> roots that can lead to bad consequences. The very ideas about the
> division of "races" that you're promoting now underwrote the "Christian"
> theology of African slavery in American south. I don't suggest you buy
> into that ideology, but I also shudder at a system that perpetuates such
> ideas.
>
>
>
> Dick said: But you’re meandering off the path a bit. Could one billion
> Chinese people have Adamic roots or even a smidgen of Adamic blood? No, I
> don’t think so.
>
>
>
> I respond: To the contrary, that is exactly what the studies I cited show
> is plausible if not probable -- with the proviso that "blood" is a
> meaningless term and we are not talking about genes. The studies I cited
> suggest that all of the one billion Chinese people alive today share a
> common ancestor with you and me. That ancestor is not Adam of course, but
> this demonstrates the rapidity with which ancestry propogates. You
> haven't cited any statistical models, studies, etc. to the contrary. I'd
> love to just wave off the Ayala MHC study and other such statistical
> models that I don't like, but lacking expertise and with no significant
> peer reviewed work to the contrary, I have to assume they're generally
> accurate. I think it's fair to assume the same about studies I do like
> without a similar degree of contrary evidence.
>
>
>
> David W. Opderbeck
> Associate Professor of Law
> Seton Hall University Law School
> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 10:44 PM, Dick Fischer
> <dickfischer@verizon.net<mailto:dickfischer@verizon.net>> wrote:
>
> Our global society is homogenizing that’s right and the subject of race
> conjures up images of discrimination and slavery and all that. Yes I
> know. We’re a polite society now. But you’re meandering off the path a
> bit. Could one billion Chinese people have Adamic roots or even a smidgen
> of Adamic blood? No, I don’t think so. There is nothing that suggests
> any of Noah’s kin ventured any further east than Persia. Furthermore,
> Jewish people are exceptionally clannish. They hardly marry outside their
> race at all. And even if a few adventurous Semites did venture to the Far
> East, and I don’t think they did, it would be a drop in the bucket only.
>
>
>
> To answer your question, the “races” were long divided before the flood.
> The Ice Man washed out of the Tyrolean Alps carbon dated to about 5,200
> years ago and he didn’t look any different than people in that same region
> do today. Hamites did go south and “Cush” means “black” in Hebrew,
> Mizraim went to Egypt, but that’s about the only connection. Egyptian
> pyramids show men in different colors depicting the different “races.”
>
>
>
> 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: Thursday, February 26, 2009 10:47 AM
> To:
>
> Dick Fischer
>
> Cc: ASA
> Subject: 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<mailto: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<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu<mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu>
> [mailto: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<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.
>
>
>
> 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/Gre!
>
> ek/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<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
> "unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sat Feb 28 16:22:59 2009