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]

"How is a scientific theory which postulates that all humans are descended from non-human primates in Africa racist? It is not like they are saying that African people descended from lower primates but Europeans were created directly by god.

Good question and point rebuttal since neo-Darwinists don't say that Europeans were directly created by God, but rather that Europeans are natural human descendents of an old African woman who herself belonged to a tribe of African people who directly evolved from a sub-human species of African people (H. ergaster or erectus) who in turn were the direct descendents of some non-human species of African apes.

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."

[jcrawford]

quote="McCulloch"

"We are not all going to rush out and buy the book. Can you summarize?"

I may be less inclined to "summarize" Lubenow's thesis than you are to "rush out and buy the book," since $20 of my time is worth as much as yours and you would be much better off by reading Lubenow verbatim than trying to figure out if I was correctly "summarizing" his thesis correctly. Besides, anyone who cares to be informed of the latest developments in charges of scientific racism inherent in neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution out of Africa has just got to read Lubenow's 2004 edition of "Bones of Contention" in order to really appreciate what his followers are talking about.

"the idea of common descent from one of Noah's grandchildren has historically been used as a racist justification."

That's irrelevent to any discussions or debates about neo-Darwinist racism.

"I'm still missing the connection. How is that racist?"

The African Eve model of human evolution says that European descendents of African Eve are fully human only because she was. Since she was as modern a Homo sapiens as they are, there is no evolution involved, but merely natural human reproduction, descent and racial ancestry. However, these same neo-Darwinist theorists go one step further and claim that African Eve and her tribe were not only reproductively descended from other H. sapiens humans in Africa, but that their African ancestors came into existence as the result of some sub-human species of African apes evolving into the first African human beings.

Such neo-Darwinist racial theories about the origins of the whole human race in Africa are obviously racist. Can't you see that the glass test tube and jar of human evolutionism is half science and half scientific racism since half the people see a full jar of science and the other half, a full jar of scientific racism?

[Nyril]

I may be less inclined to "summarize" Lubenow's thesis than you are to "rush out and buy the book," since $20 of my time is worth as much as yours and you would be much better off by reading Lubenow verbatim than trying to figure out if I was correctly "summarizing" his thesis correctly. Besides, anyone who cares to be informed of the latest developments in charges of scientific racism inherent in neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution out of Africa has just got to read Lubenow's 2004 edition of "Bones of Contention" in order to really appreciate what his followers are talking about.

Wow. I would be inclined to debate with you, but you've taught me a valuable lesson here. I feel that my time is more valuable than yours (at an exchange rate of 1:100), and as such you should actually wander around the internet and work out the answer to this problem yourself instead of asking people who put forward positions to be bothered to do this.

Can't you see that the glass test tube and jar of human evolutionism is half science and half scientific racism since half the people see a full jar of science and the other half, a full jar of scientific racism?

No. And neither is anyone else until you bother with giving us more information. We're not going to do your work for you.

As an informal poll, were any creationists here persuaded by jcrawford?

[jcrawford]

quote="McCulloch"

"What I am looking for from jcrawford is specifically how a scientific theory has been used to foster and promote a specific racist policy in a specific place ant time."

NeoDarwinist racist theories have specifically been used to foster and promote a specific racist policy in a specific place and time in U.S. public schools at the present time since it is common knowledge that neo-Darwinist racial theories have been taught there in the past, are currently being taught there in the present and will probably continue to be taught there in the immediate future as long as the American people continue to allow it.

How are neo-Darwinist so-called 'scientific' theories of human evolution from some species of African apes racist? That's the main subject of Professor Lubenow's 2004 edition of "Bones of Contention" and this topic on this forum.

What I am looking for from supporters of neo-Darwinist racial theories 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 without our tacit approval, since our fossilized human ancestors can't speak for themselves, but must depend on American Christians to speak for them.

[jcrawford]

quote="Nyril"

"I would be inclined to debate with you, but you've taught me a valuable lesson here. I feel that my time is more valuable than yours (at an exchange rate of 1:100), and as such you should actually wander around the internet and work out the answer to this problem yourself instead of asking people who put forward positions to be bothered to do this."

What on earth are you talking about?

"We're not going to do your work for you."

And I'm not going to do your work for you!

"As an informal poll, were any creationists here persuaded by jcrawford?"

Yes, both my wife and daughter were, and Lubenow would probably also laud my efforts in support of his scholarly thesis that all theories of human evolution are racist.

[USIncognito]

"Who is calling African people apes?"

Neo-Darwinist racists who call all human beings apes. That's who.

"We are all African! Get it?"

If we are all Africans, then some of us Africans don't like being classified in the taxonomic family of Hominidae with the rest of your apish ancestors, and consider it racist.

This "exchange" is hilarious. It's a perfect example of how pathetic a level the Darwinism = Racism folks will dive. I'm not entirely convinced that this isn't John Crawford from Christian Forums, nor am I convinced that he is a troll and not a Creationist nutter (as opposed to an atheist or Scientologist or UFOlogist or whatever nutter...), but I would like to comment on some of jcrawfords posts from the past frew days, and I just don't have time.

Instead let me postit a question - if Evolutionary theory is supposedly racist, then why do these several factors remain:

- Racism existed long before Darwin was ever born.
- The U.S. Constitution, supposedly a document ordained and authored by God defines black people as 3/5s of a human and codifies them as "property" and not "persons."
- The Baptist sect in the United States split, based on Scripture, and prior to the publication of Origin.
- Evolutionary theory actually welcomes blacks into the collective of humanity, while Bible quoting Southerners still claimed Africans were sub-human until the 1960s (and many still do, but don't have the force of law supporting them).

I don't want to engage in tu quoque, but since you want to play the race card in your rediculously absent of facts/evidence tangent, then how about you address these four points before I got back and point out --- again --- where you're logically, semantically and factually incorrect in what you're asserting?

[jcrawford]

quote="USIncognito"

"- if Evolutionary theory is supposedly racist, then why do these several factors remain:

"- Racism existed long before Darwin was ever born."

Historical racism.

- The U.S. Constitution, supposedly a document ordained and authored by God defines black people as 3/5s of a human and codifies them as "property" and not "persons."

Political racism.

"- The Baptist sect in the United States split, based on Scripture, and prior to the publication of Origin."

What's that got to do with racism?

"- Evolutionary theory actually welcomes blacks into the collective of humanity, "

Humanist collective racism.

".. while Bible quoting Southerners still claimed Africans were sub-human until the 1960s (and many still do, but don't have the force of law supporting them)."

Religious racism.

"I don't want to engage in tu quoque, but since you want to play the race card in your rediculously absent of facts/evidence tangent, then how about you address these four points before I got back and point out --- again --- where you're logically, semantically and factually incorrect in what you're asserting?"

Neo-darwinist theories about the origin and evolution of black Americans and Africans are a scientific form of racism.

[USIncognito]

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

Historical racism.

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?

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

Political racism.

Another non-answer. 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?

What's that got to do with racism?

You troll.

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

Humanist collective racism.

I'm sorry, but neither you pathetic attempt at a response nor the content of the response itself make any sense. Could you please clarify what you mean?

Religious racism.

Great. 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?

Neo-darwinist theories about the origin and evolution of black Americans and Africans are a scientific form of racism.

Yawn. I work nights and it's getting past my bed time. How about instead of assinine unsupported assertions you actually demonstrate this claim by evidencing it with quotes or citations? 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.

Sorry Darth Vader, but your Sith mind tricks won't work on me...

[micatala]

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.

I'm not going to copy in all the other quotes of jcrawford along these lines, but my reading of the thread so far is as follows.

1. 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.

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

3. 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.

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.

This whole thread seems to be nothing more than an attempt to slander evolution and those who accept evolution as racist. So far, no evidence has been provided for the central thesis of the initial thread.

[Jose]

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."

Unfortunately, wrong again. There is no "identification" of African Eve as the "first person" evolved from apes. Look at the data! If you don't, you'll continue to make absurd statements like this. 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.

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.

Still, though, it doesn't fit the definition of "racism."

the idea of common descent from one of Noah's grandchildren has historically been used as a racist justification.

That's irrelevent to any discussions or debates about neo-Darwinist racism.

What a silly idea. It fits, though, with the creationist debate strategy: say things that make a point, then refuse to discuss information that proves the opposite of that point. What's so mind-boggling is that so many people actually buy this kind of gibberish.

The African Eve model of human evolution says that European descendents of African Eve are fully human only because she was. Since she was as modern a Homo sapiens as they are, there is no evolution involved, but merely natural human reproduction, descent and racial ancestry...

Huh? 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!

...However, these same neo-Darwinist theorists go one step further and claim that African Eve and her tribe were not only reproductively descended from other H. sapiens humans in Africa, but that their African ancestors came into existence as the result of some sub-human species of African apes evolving into the first African human beings.

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.

Such neo-Darwinist racial theories about the origins of the whole human race in Africa are obviously racist. Can't you see that the glass test tube and jar of human evolutionism is half science and half scientific racism since half the people see a full jar of science and the other half, a full jar of scientific racism?

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

NeoDarwinist racist theories have specifically been used to foster and promote a specific racist policy in a specific place and time in U.S. public schools at the present time since it is common knowledge that neo-Darwinist racial theories have been taught there in the past, are currently being taught there in the present and will probably continue to be taught there in the immediate future as long as the American people continue to allow it...

...What I am looking for from supporters of neo-Darwinist racial theories 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 without our tacit approval, since our fossilized human ancestors can't speak for themselves, but must depend on American Christians to speak for them.

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.

And, of course, you continue to mis-use, and apparently mis-understand, the term "species." You know, it's very hard to have a discussion with someone who insists on using private definitions. Please learn the language, or else tell us what you mean.

Neo-darwinist theories about the origin and evolution of black Americans and Africans are a scientific form of racism.

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. 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.

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