Bones of Contention.

[jcrawford]

Creationist professor Marvin Lubenow contends in his 2004 edition of "Bones of Contention" that all neo-Darwinist theories about the origins and evolution of the human race are a scientific form of racism. Being somewhat familiar with the several claims, arguments and ramifications of his thesis, I am prepared to defend his claim that neo-Darwinist theories of human origins and evolution are theoretically racist should anyone care to debate and substantiate their claim to the contrary.

[perfessor]

I'll try not to cover the same ground as Jose, Micatala, USIncognito and others. I'm not a pro (bows to Jose), but feel honor-bound to thrash Lubenow's ridiculous idea, as best I can.

That's why neo-Darwinists are theoretically bound to racially associate all living people with African Eve since she is the first African person that they can racially identify as having evolved from "apes."

Several bad mistakes in this one. 1) No one is "theoretically bound" by any theory. Data is data. 2) It is not a "racial" association, but a genetic one. "Race" is a concept with no particular scientific importance, except maybe to dog and flower breeders. 3) Again, not a "racial" identification. If I recall right, it is mitochondrial DNA that creates the most persistent marker. So henceforth I will call her "mitochondrial Eve", or mEve to distinguish her from bEve (biblical).

Common descent from Adam and Eve is not racist. Common descent from some mythological woman in Africa is both racist and sexist though, since neo-Darwinist theorists fail to identify her sexual partner(s) but merely assume that he or they were both of Homo sapiens racial stock and not some mutant breed of Homo ergaster, erectus or neandertalis.

Several more mistakes. 4) Of the two, mEve and bEve, the mythological one is bEve. I will grant you this: mEve is something of a metaphor; it doesn't really make a lot of sense to adhere to the "single individual" idea, since it could just as well have been her mother, or grandmother, or most any other female in her tribal group. But the scientific evidence that "she" existed is very strong indeed. 5) Both "racist" and "sexist" now? The second half of the sentece sheds no light on the empty assertion, making this a double non sequitur. 6) There is no need to identify her partner. As far as the mDNA markers are concerned, he is irrelevant. 7) No need either to assume anything about his "racial stock" (your term not mine). To whatever extent she was human, he was too. By definition, they were of the same species, since they produced viable offspring.

Such neo-Darwinist racial theories about the origins of the whole human race in Africa are obviously racist.

Uhhh... can you answer a simple question? What's your definition of "racism"?

Actually Jose, he did wheel out a dictionary definition of racism a few pages back. Oddly enough, he never bothered to apply it to his own arguments though.

And now for the Lightning Round. All quotes are from jcrawford.

What I am looking for from supporters of neo-Darwinist racial theories ...

You've yet to demonstrate that there is such a thing.

... about human evolution is how diversified and varied racial members of the human race can be divided up into different and 'separate species' by human evolutionists ...

Egregious strawman, since this doesn't happen - at least not by human evolutionists. I make no claims about non-human ones, though.

... without our tacit approval, ...

"Badges?? We don't need no steenking badges!!"

... since our fossilized human ancestors can't speak for themselves, ...

but scientists can decipher their secrets.

... but must depend on American Christians to speak for them.

Or maybe not.

That was fun!

[jcrawford]

quote="USIncognito"

"You're a troll, but perhaps some lurkers out there will benefit..."

What's your scientific definition of a troll?

"Thanks for the non- answer, but where does "historical racism" come from?" If it existed before the publication of Origin it must have come from somewhere. Could that somewhere be a perverse misinterpretation of the Bible?"

Possibly. On the other hand, it might have originated in Africa between the first human species and the second in accordance with neo-Darwinst theories of African speciation.

"Historical racism, just like Historical anti-Semitism was based on Christian religious dogma - and a perversion of it at that. Not on Evolutionary theory."

Really. So pre-Christian civilizations had no elements of racism in them, huh? You must be some sort of modern anthropologist.

"Since the Constitution was written in 1787, 75 years before Origins was published, where did the racist inspiration come from? It couldn't have been the slaves held in the South could it?"

I'm not sure. When did the Swedish botanist, Carol Linneaus first start classifiying Africans as a different and separate species or race, since the concept and definition of 'racism' didn't even exist prior to World War 2.

"Answer why the Baptists in America split over the question of slavery and how the Southern Baptists continued to justify it... "

I dunno. You tell me
Since I'm not up on Southern history
And prefer to talk about neo-Darwinist theory.

"You admit that Southern racists used the Bible to justify slavery and later Jim Crow laws ... "

That's just a neo-Darwinst racist assumption on your part, since I don't admit nuttin.'

"- how exactly does that contradict your assertion that Evoluitonary Theory is the source of racism?

Neither Lubenow nor I ever claimed that neo-Darwinst theories were the only source of racism. We simply state that neo-Darwinist theories about the human race's origins, evolution and genetic descent from some non-human species of African apes are racist.

"How about instead of assinine unsupported assertions you actually demonstrate this claim by evidencing it with quotes or citations? "

Good suggestion. Read Lubenow's 2004 edition of "Bones of Contention" published by BakerBooks. You don't want me to quote the entire book, do you?

"The simple fact of History is that the Bible was used more often to support racist theories about blacks and far more often in anti-Semitism over the years than Darwin ever has been."

Whether what you say is true or not, the Bible is not being taught in public schools whereas racist theories of evolution are.

[jcrawford]

quote="micatala"

"jcrawford thinks neo-darwinism is racism because he doesn't want to accept the idea that we are all descended from "apes" (or more accurately we have a common ancestor with some present day apes."

Correct, since associating African people with apes is racist.

"jcrawford doesn't want to accept the usual definitions of races, species, homo sapiens, etc."

Correct, since the usual neo-Darwinist definitions of races, species, homo sapiens, etc, are racist.

"jcrawford confuses the empirical study of evolution, and the explanations evolution provides for the 'ancestral tree' of our species, with the behaviors that some people exhibit on the basis of their racist views."

Incorrect, since neo-Darwinist "studies" of evolution are neither "empirical " nor "explanatory, but are based on "behaviors that some people exhibit on the basis of their racist views."

"Evolution is not racist in the slightest. "

How would you know, since science can neither define racist, racism nor race?

"The fact that we descended from species that we would consider not 'fully human' does not make evolution racist, nor does it make evolution untrue."

Of course it does, since racism is defined by Oxford according to Oxford's definition of race.

"It doesn't even make evolution un-christian or even un-biblical."

Not only are neo-Darwinist theories of the human races's origin, evolution and genetic descent from some non-human species of African apes "un-christian" and "un-biblical," they are racist as well.

"This whole thread seems to be nothing more than an attempt to slander evolution and those who accept evolution as racist."

There's nothing wrong with slandering neo-Darwinist theories of human origins, evolution and common descent as long as one doesn't accuse "those who accept evolution" as racists.

"So far, no evidence has been provided for the central thesis of the initial thread."

Who do you think you are communicating with if not a living descendent of European and Middle Eastern Neandertals which neo-Darwinist racial theorists say are an extinct "species" of the human race?

[McCulloch]

jcrawford thinks neo-darwinism is racism because he doesn't want to accept the idea that we are all descended from "apes" (or more accurately we have a common ancestor with some present day apes.

Correct, since associating African people with apes is racist.

The modern scientific consensus is not racist if they associate all humans with non-human primate ancestors. The accusation may be correct if they only associated modern African humans with non-human primate ancestors, but they do not.

Who do you think you are communicating with if not a living descendent of European and Middle Eastern Neandertals which neo-Darwinist racial theorists say are an extinct "species" of the human race?

Do you have any evidence that you are descendent from the Neandertals? The standard (non-racist) scientific consensus is that all modern humans are descended from African non-human primates. The Neandertals were also said to be descended from African non-human primates. The Neandertals are thought by the majority of scientists to have been a different species (ie they could not interbreed with modern H. Sapiens) which died out shortly after modern H. Sapiens settled in Europe.
Unless you are a leading researcher in the field of anthropology please provide evidence for your contention that some leading researcher in the field of anthropology has published this new theory in a peer reviewed journal. This is the normally accepted way for controversial new ideas in science to be announced and tested.

[perfessor]

Who do you think you are communicating with if not a living descendent of European and Middle Eastern Neandertals which neo-Darwinist racial theorists say are an extinct "species" of the human race?

Well! This is the most interesting thing you've said. Can you please elaborate - in what way are you Neandertal? Please elaborate, since this could make headlines.

[USIncognito]

What's your scientific definition of a troll?

I dunno, but the Internet definition of a troll is on someone who posts something for the sole purpose of eliciting highly charged responses - which you fit to a T. With that in mind, please feel free to continue with your littany of non-sensical and worthless replies, as the responses your trolling elicits hopefully will help lurkers.

Possibly. On the other hand, it might have originated in Africa between the first human species and the second in accordance with neo-Darwinst theories of African speciation.

I'm suppressing the urge to use words like idiot in my response, but since I'm only doing this for the benefit of lurkers, I'll stiffle myself.

Presenting a "yeah, but what if" without evidence is an utterly worthless argument. The fact remains that not only blacks, browns and yellows considered sub-human prior to Origin in the form of the Conquistadors, the slave trade, colonization and government/colonial policies well into the 20th Century -- by good God fearing Christians while science has demonstrated just the opposite blows away any claim that evolutionary theory was the crucible for racism.

Really. So pre-Christian civilizations had no elements of racism in them, huh? You must be some sort of modern anthropologist.

This is called a red herring. Since you're talking about societies that supposedly were influenced by Origin and Descent - both of which were published over 1800 years since the time of Jesus, your objection is rendered moot.

In modern times the Taureg (nice choice VW) people of Chad (IIRC) are incredibly racist towards "black" Africans in a racial environment where I doubt your average American, Japanese or Swede could tell the difference. The point, as you so obtusely avoid, is that racism exists outside evolutionary theory.

I'm not sure. When did the Swedish botanist, Carol Linneaus first start classifiying Africans as a different and separate species or race, since the concept and definition of 'racism' didn't even exist prior to World War 2.

Could you please site the OED for your etymology of "racism?" Linnean classifications are valuable, but a lot has occured in the last 150 years. It's the same with Darwin. He established the cornerstone, but the levels built since then are sometimes very different from his conclusions.

I'll tell you what. Putting aside for a moment whether "racism" was coined as a term prior to 1943 (mid-point of WWII), how about you dig back and see comments from Southern Senators about slavery prior to the Civil War. Then get back to me about "racism" not existing prior to the mid-20th Century.

Oh, and one more logical land mine you've jumped on. If Origin inspired racism, why did it take 90 odd years for the concept to "catch on?"

I dunno. You tell me
Since I'm not up on Southern history
And prefer to talk about neo-Darwinist theory.

Should someone so ignorant of history be making such bold claims about it like that Darwin was the genesis of racism? Hmmm.

Here's the Reader's Digest version. The Northern Baptists and the Southern Baptists split over slavery and the inferiority of blacks based on the Bible a decade or two before Origin was ever published. Somehow the racism you want to blame on Darwin was present and splitting Chrisitan denominations well before his work was ever published.

That's just a neo-Darwinst racist assumption on your part, since I don't admit nuttin.'

Admission of failure on your part. I guess those protestors against Integration with "God Demands Segregation" posters were part of the evolution conspiracy huh?

I've had enough of this crap. This troll is cutting into my beddy-bye time. I do hope the lurkers out there though will notice the obfuscative tactics of Creationists as opposed to the efforts to fully inform and share information on the evolution side.

[micatala]

quote="micatala"

"jcrawford thinks neo-darwinism is racism because he doesn't want to accept the idea that we are all descended from "apes" (or more accurately we have a common ancestor with some present day apes."

Correct, since associating African people with apes is racist.

"jcrawford doesn't want to accept the usual definitions of races, species, homo sapiens, etc."

Correct, since the usual neo-Darwinist definitions of races, species, homo sapiens, etc, are racist.

"jcrawford confuses the empirical study of evolution, and the explanations evolution provides for the 'ancestral tree' of our species, with the behaviors that some people exhibit on the basis of their racist views."

Incorrect, since neo-Darwinist "studies" of evolution are neither "empirical " nor "explanatory, but are based on "behaviors that some people exhibit on the basis of their racist views."

I'm with US on this one. Responding to someone who uses their own private mis-definitions to make unsubstantiated and outlandish claims with no evidential support is rather pointless.

[jcrawford]

quote="USIncognito"

"You admit that Southern racists used the Bible to justify slavery and later Jim Crow laws - how exactly does that contradict your assertion that Evoluitonary Theory is the source of racism - since it clearly contradicts that assertion?"

I never admitted anything about Southern racists or "asserted" that "Evoluitonary Theory is the source of racism." Lubenow and I merely point out that neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution are a scientific form of racism.

"The simple fact of History is that the Bible was used more often to support racist theories about blacks and far more often in anti-Semitism over the years than Darwin ever has been."

Even if true, the fact that neo-Darwinst theories of human evolution are a scientific form of racism still stands.

[jcrawford]

quote="micatala"

"Evolution is not racist in the slightest. The fact that we descended from species that we would consider not 'fully human' does not make evolution racist, nor does it make evolution untrue. It doesn't even make evolution un-christian or even un-biblical."

Neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution are racist because they imply that all modern racial and ethnic groups only originated and 'evolved' from species of apes in Africa. If an evolutionary theory claimed that all the members of the present human race descended from some female ancestor in Asia or Europe, that would be a form of scientific racism also.

The African Eve Model of human evolution is racist because it associates the current human race with an African woman's tribe whom neo-Darwinist theorists say originated from a non-human species of apes. It's a form of scientific racism when evolutionary theorists point to an African woman's tribe as the original descendents of some non-human species of apes.

"This whole thread seems to be nothing more than an attempt to slander evolution and those who accept evolution as racist. "

No attempt is being made by Lubenow or I to slander any person since we believe that it is neo-Darwinist racist theories of human evolution which slander people and prefer not to indulge in ad hominem attacks.

[jcrawford]

quote="Jose"

"There is no "identification" of African Eve as the "first person" evolved from apes."

I never said there was.

"African Eve is the most ancient common ancestor that the DNA studies can trace. This does not tell us she was "human" like us, or more ape-like, or what. It simply tells us she was an ancestor."

I think those DNA studies identified African Eve as H. sapiens. If not then, she wasn't a member of the same human race and species that we are.

"It turns out that her location happens to be the same location as the hominid fossils that appear to be bones of our ancestors also. The logical connection is to link the extensive fossil data to the more detailed, but more recent genetic data."

The genetic data was premised on the fossil data though, in order to substantiate neo-darwinist racial theories of human evolution out of African apes.

"The African Eve model says that African Eve was an ancestor. It is you who is pretending that she was a modern H. sapiens, and not some other fore-runner. But guess what? Mere "natural human reproduction, descent, and racial ancestry" is evolution. If it weren't--whether African Eve or Biblical Eve--how would we all look different from each other now? That's evolution!"

Sorry. I'm not able to follow your evolutionist logic here.

"Good. You've got that concept OK. Work it backwards a bit, to the quadripedal African primates, then to the earliest mammal, then to the contemporaries of the dimetrodons, then to the lobe-fins, then to the earliest vertebrates, then to the earliest chordates, then to the earliest multicellular assemblies of eukaryotic, non-photosynthetic cells, then to the first eukaryotes, then to the archaea and prokarya, and then to the first cell. The whole time, you're dealing with the same thing you just described: mere reproduction, descent, and racial ancestry. That's how it works."

Racial ancestry? I thought Darwin referred to racial varities in human ancestry as different and separate species.

"Uhhh... can you answer a simple question? What's your definition of "racism"?"

I don't have my own but rather refer to the American Edition of the Oxford Dictionary's definitions of race and racism.

"In other words, you will insist on calling evolutionary theory "racist" regardless of the fact that it makes no sense, primarily because you think you can do as Lubenow has done, and suck in some poor, unsuspecting souls who don't know any better--and thereby get them to rally against this supposedly non-Biblical history of life. It's an interesting strategy, if a bit lame."

We'll see how it plays out.

"And, of course, you continue to mis-use, and apparently mis-understand, the term "species."

I do? What's your understanding and defintion of the term, "species, " then?

"You know, it's very hard to have a discussion with someone who insists on using private definitions. "

Neo-Darwinists make up their own private definitions. What's a hominid?

"Please learn the language, or else tell us what you mean."

What language? English or neo-Darwinism?

"We've been through this before, but you didn't read (or perhaps remember, or perhaps follow) my explanation that genetic inheritance creates races of all species. "

That's an interesting theory. Do you think that there were different Neandertal and Homo erectus races?

"You might want to go back and look at it. But again, it's a mere fact of reproduction, descent, and racial ancestry. It can't help but occur, given the way genetics works."

Sounds all too simple to me too.

"Of course, that's not "racism" by any normal person's definition of the word."

What do you mean by "normal person's ?" Define normal.