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.

[jcrawford]

Since there is no evidence of any creationists or evolutionists other than myself on this thread being able to relate or refer to Lubenow's theories in "Bones of Contention," page by page; and since supporters of neo-Darwinist race theories have been unable to prove their contentions about human evolution from non-human African ape ancestors, with reasonable evidence, I am willing to concede a stalement between neo-Darwinist race theorists and Lubenow's scientific analysis of the human fossil record.

In the event that some Christian posters on this forum manage to get their hands on Lubenow's 2004 edition of 'Bones of Contention,' perhaps we may resume the debate and discussion at some future time. Meanwhile, thanks to all for participating in a dialogue on our human ancestry and origins.

[Jose]

Enough has been said in this thread and elsewhere with respect to this topic that it seems appropriate to me to summarize this thread. This will provide a resource for others who encounter the basic argument elsewhere.

Here, I attempt to summarize "the important bits" of this thread here. Downloading the text produces 374 pages in 12-point Times, but if you'd like to read through it all, feel free. On the other hand, if you don't even want to wade through this summary, just skip to the bottom.

First, what is the nature of the argument for Neo-Darwinian Racism (NDR)?

Racism centers around three elements. First, racism always involves differences in population groups. Often the differences involving racism are ethnic, tribal, cultural, or even religious. Racism is not about the differences that are found among individuals. The popular word for those differences is the term diversity.
Second, the crucial factor in racism is inherent superiority. Throughout most of history, this inherent superiority was based on some vague belief that one's own group was for some reason superior to others. Since the 1800s and the rise of evolution with its scientific racism, the emphasis has been on genetic superiority. Evolution deals with mutational changes in the genes, which are the very stuff of life. Hence it is obvious that evolution is not only the cause of that alleged inherent superiority, but according to Darwin, evolution also preserves that inherent superiority. When applied to humans, this inherent superiority of some race or group over others is properly called racism.
Third, racism always involves prejudice and rejection - active or passive, latent or expressed. Whereas the qualities of love, acceptance and respect always unite, racism, with its prejudice, hatred and rejection, always divides. That is why racism is evil. A loving racist is a contradiction in terms. And because evolution is racist, evolution is an evil philosophy. Almost everyone focuses on the alleged scientific aspects of evolution. Few ever consider the moral implications and ethical consequences of evolution.
The concept that some entities are inherently superior or more fit is basic to evolution. Evolutionists believe that two similar entities existing in the same environment cannot coexist indefinitely. Over time, one of them will acquire some slight mutational advantage, usually in feeding, defense or reproductive mechanisms, so that it will simply out-compete the other. It will survive, being more favored or more fit. The other entity, being less favored or less fit, will eventually die out. In other words, evolutionists claim that nature works by what Darwin called natural selection to cut out the weak and thus allow the strong to proliferate.
When the concept of evolution was applied to nature generally, nothing could have seemed more benign, innocent or obvious. It was utterly racist, but so was the audience to which it was addressed. It wasn't that no one noticed the racism. No one cared. And when, with Darwin's 1871 publication, the concept of evolution was extended to include humans, that racism seemed normal. No European, hearing reports of the various savage races throughout the world, doubted for a moment that he or she, as a European, was among those favored races of mankind. No one could deny that those savages were less favored. As proof, when Europeans came into direct competition with those savages, the savages always lost. This is what evolution is all about: the survival of the fittest.

Lubenow's claims seems to be this:

• A popularization of evolutionary theory, as it stood in 1871, was that evolution proceeds by superior forms replacing inferior forms--the so-called "survival of the fittest."
• At the time, this felt reasonable, because people like to think of themselves as the "most highly evolved" of animals, the "Pinnacle of the Evolutionary Ladder." The notion also fits, in a way, with many theologies, which posit that humans are special, and have dominion over other living things.
• Unfortunately, to propose that any species or race is superior to any other is the basic definition of "racism."
• Therefore, the theory of evolution is inherently racist.

We see this sentiment echoed in jcrawford's statements:

Scientific racism establishes Homo sapiens superiorty over all other human "species" in the past and oppresses their descendents.

If neo-Darwinist 'species' are not 'naturally selected' to adapt and survive because of their superior genetic abilities to find an ecological niche in which to thrive and survive, what biological advantages can genetic mutations be said to offer a new species in order to ensure it's survival?

Neo-Darwinist theories of human origins and evolution by 'natural selection' are racist because they not only "ascribe" superiority and supremacy to the theories and theorists themselves, but racially classify themselves and others as a superior 'species' to any other past 'species' of the human race.

What is not obvious to you apparently is that neo-Darwinist divisions of the past human race into different and separate 'species' based on the progressive evolution of humans out of 'primitive' non-human African apes is inherently racist because it first associates the 'primitiveness' of African apes with 'primitive' African people and vice-versa.

The difficulty here is that "racism" and "racist" refer to one race pretending it is superior to another contemporary race of the same species (i.e. humans) and maltreating and oppressing them on purpose. The usual criterion seems to be merely skin color, which is as significant a characteristic in people as it is in dogs (we talk about Labrador Retrievers, but don't call Yellow Labs and Black Labs different races. This was pointed out by micatala, but not accepted by jcrawford:

When used in the context of "racism" and "racist", race would only refer to the usual races of humans referred to as black, white, asian, etc. We tend to classify people into races simply by skin color. As such, race is not a biological or even scientific classification, even though the skin color characteristics are genetically determined.

My understanding of Lubenow's thesis is that dividing and classifying fossil members of the human race as different and separate 'species' is a form of scientific racism, since there is only one human race with racial diversification and variety within it.

That is, the normal definition of racism is supplanted by Lubenow and his followers with a different definition--the replacement of one species by another in the normal course of evolutionary change, much as camels were replaced by bison in North America.

How can replacement of one species by another count as "racism"? The quotes above provide insight into the logic of Lubenow and his followers. In their view of evolution, "superior" species supplant "inferior" ones. In their view, evolution is necessarily a progression toward ever-increasing superiority. Normally, as noted above, racism refers to oppression of one race by another within a species, on the basis of self-proclaimed superiority. Bison replaced camels in North America because their physical characteristics made them better able to survive and reproduce in that climate. It is far-fetched in the extreme to imagine that camels were oppressed by bison, and forced into slavery.

Your second error, which you seem to persist in making despite numerous explanations, is that there is no such thing as "more highly evolved". There is no progression to "betterness" in evolution. There is no "greater worth" of modern species compared to older species. That malarky of evolution being some kind of progression to superior kinds is not true. It's a fairy tale. Many people believe it, for some reason, but it's not science. Unless you are completely misrepresenting Lubenow's thesis, his claim of "racism" is based on a falsehood.

All living things are equally highly evolved. Evolutionary theory states that we are all the same number of years from our common ancestor, so there is no superiority possible. Rather, there is variation in the ability to do things--like fly, breathe underwater, or photosynthesize, activities at which we are really lousy. By these three criteria, we are not at all superior. We are better at thinking and arguing, but in some environments, that's not a very useful trait.
...
(continued) Unless you are remarkably different from me, I suspect that "we" are both pretty lousy at flying unaided, or breathing underwater unaided, or carrying out photosynthesis. By those criteria, The Human Race, which some would call "the pinnacle of evolution" are terribly badly designed. Indeed, for the third of these characteristics, duckweed or algae--a mere pond scum--is superior to humans.

Ecological niches sometimes require an organism to 'back pedal' in order to survive which results in inferior genetic abilities (in as close a wording to your own as I can manage). Choice of the term inferior/superior is clearly arbitrary in this case. A classic example of this being the Pygmies that occupied one of Indonesia's many remote islands who as a former homo-sapiens underwent a reduction in stature to be more compatible with the finite and scarce resources of their isolated island home. [note added by Jose: "island dwarfism" is well known in many species. I like the pygmy elephants in the Palenotology Museum at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln--in "Elephant Hall."]

So here I have provided an example of a biological advantage which would not be so obviously linked to the sort of superiority you accuse neo-darwinism of.

In short, evolution does not ascribe "superiority" to more recent species, or to races within species. Nor does evolution cause things to get "better" or "more complex." If less complex and seemingly worse traits (loss of flight in birds, or blindness in crickets or fish) happen to be OK in an environment, then evolution lets it happen, "superior" or not. If there is no such thing as "superiority" in evolutionary theory, then Lubenow's argument based on "superiority" evaporates.

What is the fundamental rationale for raising this issue, and changing the terminology to suit the argument? We get a clue from Lubenow, thanks to Answers in Genesis

Christian creationist anthropologist Marvin Lubenow describes the evidence of a sin nature in the (allegedly pre-Adamic) human fossil record, including examples of cannibalism, and injury due to violence, scalping and disease, including syphilis. He writes:

Most pre-Adamite and old-Earth advocates seem to be unfamiliar with the extent of this human fossil evidence and may not realize the full significance of what they are proposing when they place the bulk of the human fossils prior to the Fall of the Biblical Adam. The human fossil record reveals the pre-Adamite theory to be in error. We find in [the human fossils] the conditions we would expect to find after the Fall of Adam, not before.

That is: In Lubenow's view, it is inadmissible for data to contradict the Bible. In Lubenow's view, the evidence of violence and disease in the fossil record, that is there for all to see can only have occurred after the Fall. The hominid fossils must be Adam and Eve's descendents. Ancient hominid ancestors must be impossible. In particular (although not demonstrated in this quote) it is inadmissible for humans to have evolved from prior species--so anything about human evolution from ape-like ancestors is unthinkable.

Because the scientific evidence indicates an African origin for our species, followed by migration throughout the world, Lubenow and his followers attack both the idea of an African origin and the actual data. For example:

Denying whole population segments of the present human race the right to have equally evolved from former human 'species' in their own geographic areas and excluding them from participating in, and contributing to, any 'scientific' discussion, debates or teachings of neo-Darwinst race theories about their national origins and ancestry, is nothing short of racism.

To which micatala responded:

People don't have any right to determine, nor do they have any control over, who their ancestors are.

In my experience, micatala is right; I certainly had no choice in who my ancestors were. The vast majority of them had died before I was born.

In a more serious context, however, jcrawford's statement and the above quote from Answers in Genesis, enable us to see the basic argument:

• because the fossils representing ancient hominids show signs of violence and disease that (presumably) appeared only after the Fall...
• these fossils must be descendents of Adam and Eve...
• and therefore must be our own species of humans...
• so therefore archeologists, paleontologists, geologists, and geneticists must be wrong.

Frequently in the thread, there are statements such as these:

Fortunately, for modern African, Asian and European people today, Lubenow presents 371 specimens of the human fossil record as evidence for the falsification of neo-Darwinst racial theories of human evolution out of Africa, and exposes all such neo-Darwinist race theories as being nothing more than a modern form of scientific racism.

Let's discuss the human fossil record then. Which particular fossils show evidence of human evolution in your eyes. How do you know that any of them are a separate species of human beings rather than racially diverse morphological variations of the fossilized human race?

Such statements are often followed by exchanges such as

So again, I repeat: Give us details, give us data. Put up or shut up!

Read your Lubenow.

The only data I have had the pleasure to discuss (in the Human Evolution thread are those from the Pit of Bones in Atapuerca, Spain--an assemblage of numerous skeletons apparently of young men thrown into a pit in the back of a cave. The cited article is a News and Views by Chris Stringer, in Nature 362:501 (1993), and includes a table that identifies characteristics of these fossils that are similar to modern humans, to Neanderthals, or to H. erectus. The data clearly show that these young men shared features with all three other groups--that is, they show a "mosaic" of characteristics, just as genetic mechanisms require. Lubenow's discussion of Stringer's article, presented to us by jcrawford, states instead that some of these bones were from modern humans, some from Neanderthals, and some from erectus, all living contemporaneously (presumably, after the Fall, but before the Flood). Thus, Lubenow misrepresents the data in order to bolster his argument. As jcrawford says, it could be informative to "read our Lubnenow," but do it in the Biology library, where you can cross-check with the published data.

It is also helpful to know, as pointed out at talkorigins that

Lubenow continually resorts to the argument that overlaps between species falsify human evolution. Once it is realized that this argument is based on a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory, Lubenow's book loses much of its force.

In other words, to make his claim of NDR (Neo-Darwinian Racism) seem plausible, Lubenow must not only claim that evolution necessarily occurs by "superior" species wiping out others (noted above), "edit" the data freely (see previous paragraph), but also appeal to a mis-characterization of evolutionary theory. It also seems helpful to claim that scientists fudge the data to make it look like evolution happened:

The fossil dates and taxons are just manipulated to make it appear that the whole human race evolved from African people and apes.

Several pertinent posts:

micatala
Jose
Jose
Cathar1950
micatala
Jose
QED
Jose
QED
Chimp

MY SUMMARY

1. Lubenow begins with the premise that any human-like fossils showing signs of violence or disease (or death, for that matter), must be from after the Fall of Adam, and must be the descendents of Adam and Eve
2. This would require that all human-like fossils reflect ordinary, garden-variety genetic variation within the population of humans, and not some kind of evolutionary scenario based on the principles of genetics and population biology.
3. To discredit claims to the contrary--e.g. that human-like fossils represent ancestral species of humans, leading eventually to non-human primate ancestors--Lubenow misrepresents evolutionary theory (according to a common misconception), claiming that evolution requires that "superior" forms replace "inferior" forms.
4. It is on the basis of this supposed "superiority" that he labels "all neo-Darwinist evolutionary theories as racist." Racism, after all, is the claim that one race is superior to another.
5. However, "racism" requires oppression of the so-called "inferior" race, and requires that these are races of the same species. Only by Lubenow's rejection of the species differences among fossil hominids (based on his premise, #1 above) can he claim that H. sapiens surviving while H. neandertalensis died out is "racism." It wasn't, really. Our species could make clothes, housing, and sophisticated weapons. Theirs could not. We had more offspring, and our population increased; they had fewer and fewer; and their population dwindled to nothing. This is not racism, but genetic adaptation to environmental conditions, affecting two distinct species. Note that in the Levant, some 50,000 years ago, the opposite happened. Neanderthals replaced H. sapiens, as the latter died out.
6. Therefore, Lubenow mis-characterizes evolutionary theory, mis-characterizes the English that he uses (hoping that, when he uses his private definition of "racism," readers will use the normal definition), and denies any data that are at odds with his particular religious doctrine. The claim of NDR is his attempt to get others to jump on his bandwagon.

[jcrawford]

The Out of Africa Model of human evolution from African apes "which posits that all humans are descended from a common ancestor who originated in Africa," is racist because "Mungo Man, although being essentially anatomically identical to modern homo sapiens, was not descended from Mitochondrial Eve."

Mitochondrial DNA study:

In a study conducted by an Australian National University graduate student, beginning in 1995, mitochondrial DNA was collected from bone fragments from Mungo Man's skeleton, and analysed. The DNA was compared with samples taken from several other Australian human skeletons, between eight and fifteen thousand years old, and samples from modern day living people.

The study determined that the Mungo Man was genetically different from modern humans, and that his genetic line is now extinct. The study has been controversial because it can be interpreted to challenge the single-origin hypothesis of human evolution (the so-called "Out of Africa" theory) which posits that all humans are descended from a common ancestor who originated in Africa. Mungo Man, although being essentially anatomically identical to modern homo sapiens, was not descended from Mitochondrial Eve, the most recent common ancestor of all humans on the matrilineal line, who lived in Africa approximately 150,000 years ago.

Some have argued that the study supports the multiregional hypothesis, which suggests that traits of modern humans evolved in several places around the world, and that gene flow created the genetic uniformity seen today, not the migration of a single population from Africa. Another possible interpretation would of course be to assume that the mtDNA lineage of the Mungo Man became extinct at some time between 40,000 years BP and today (a common misinterpretation of the "Mitochondrial Eve" findings is to assume that she was the only human female at her time, but is it simply so that she was the only one whose progeny consists of an unbroken line of daughters until today), and/or that the emigration of early humans from Africa took place somewhat earlier than it is generally assumed. However, the results of the study remain controversial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mungo_Man

Similar results of DNA tests on Neanderthal fossils which are then used as 'scientific proof' that their genetic "differences" preclude the possibility of Neanderthal humans evolving into modern Caucasians, are also scientifically racist.

Long live Homo sapiens neanderthalensis!

Down with Homo sapiens darwinensis.