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

Statistics being a science.

And modern Jews and modern Chinese having a common ancestor within human
history. Or at least some statistical studies suggesting so.

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

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 5:55 PM, Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>wrote:

> About statistics being science or about Jews frolicking with Chinese
> women?
>
>
>
> 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:* Saturday, February 28, 2009 5:27 PM
> *To:*
> Dick Fischer
>
> *Cc:* ASA
> *Subject:* Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article
>
>
>
> C'mon Dick. Just admit you were wrong.
>
> David W. Opderbeck
> Associate Professor of Law
> Seton Hall University Law School
> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>
> wrote:
>
> MU formed a statistics department in 1963 after I graduated. Two courses
> in statistics are required for a marketing degree today, I had to take just
> one. They themselves classify it with social sciences such as psychology,
> sociology, and such. Would psychiatrists all agree on the same course of
> treatment for the same symptoms?
>
>
>
> As to whether valid applications from the field of statistics can be
> applied to matters of human procreation or not, that’s the question. It
> reminds me of the Ann Landers column where a women wrote in saying that she
> had just read one out of every three children born in the world was
> Chinese. She already had two children. Should she risk having another?
>
>
>
> It’s a similar mistake apologists make in applying probability theory. The
> human genome has three billion nucleotides that have to line up just so.
> The probability is so low that it couldn’t have been by chance therefore God
> had to do it. The confusion is between probability and predictability.
> That astronomically large figure is the chance that you could predict the
> line up.
>
>
>
> 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:* Saturday, February 28, 2009 3:37 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>
> 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
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* David Opderbeck [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>
> 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
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* 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>
> *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
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* 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>
> 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
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* David Opderbeck
>
> [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>
> 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<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.
>
>
>
> 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 Sat Feb 28 18:21:34 2009