Religious Discrimination and Scientific Racism

[jcrawford]

Since there seems to be a lot of confusion about what exactly constitutes the nature of religious discrimination and scientific racism, I thought it advisable to start a thread on the matter which might not become too discursive.

I'll open the conversation with the fact that most neo-Darwinist 'scientists' seem to believe, if not assert, that such topics as race, racism, religion and discrimination based on such categories are beyond the purvue of scientific enquiry.

The first question I would pose to supporters of neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution is whether you agree with the above presumptions and propositions. If so, why, and if not, why not?

[jcrawford]

According to your 'scientific' definitions of race and species and the African Eve Model of modern human evolution then, a race or species of African people migrated out of Africa 100 - 200 tya and reduced all early and archaic Homo sapiens in Asia and Europe to the evolutionist status of extinction. Consequentially, as a result of this definitional hypothesis (or hypothetical definitions, as the case may be), no modern Asian, European or Middle Eastern people may rightfully claim their original biological descent from an Asian, European or Middle Eastern woman.

Don't you see the racial implications inherent in all modern neo-Darwinist biological theories of human ancestry? If not, at least millions, if not billions of other people do.

All of a sudden Lubenow's anti-darwinist rant about scientific racism has billions of supporters? Please, evidence of such a level of support should be supplied.

65% of Americans, Africans and Europeans don't believe that their ancestors evolved from a non-human ape-like ancestor in Africa. One billion Chinese think that their ancestors were Chinese as do one billion Indians think that their ancestors were Indians. That adds up to 3 billion.

[Cathar1950]

How many believe or don't believe is not the question or the problem.
They could all be wrong. It is the data and the reasoning that makes the difference. Their blood and genes tell a different story.

[McCulloch]

The evolutionists racist "take" on this is that a genetically superior breed, race or tribe of early African Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa about 100tya and outbreeded and replaced all other early Asian and archaic European Homo sapiens who subsequently became extinct and left no descendents themselves. (African Eve theory)

That ancestral scenario is nothing but a racial dream of world conquest by 'scientists,' and belongs in the category of ancient mythology or science fiction.

Jcrawford should spend a bit more time reading evolutionary biologists and less time constructing racist neo-darwinist straw men. The evolutionists position is that Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa at the same time as other archaic European Homo species were becoming extinct. One possibility is that Homo sapiens may have been partly or completely to blame for this extinction. They have certainly been implicated with other species' extinctions. But I am unaware of any evolutionist who holds the position that jcrawford attributes to evolutionists that the archaic Homo species in Europe and Asia before the migration of Homo sapiens from Africa were, in fact, Homo sapiens.
If jcrawford disagrees with the majority of current modern scholarship, at least he should have the decency not to misrepresent their position.

[Jose]

I still don't see why. It affects all humans the same, and those beings whose fossils are considered non-human are not put down by science with that classification in any way. That only comes when one thinks of humans as some sort of pinnacle of evolution, but that's not science's take on this.

The evolutionists racist "take" on this is that a genetically superior breed, race or tribe of early African Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa about 100tya and outbreeded and replaced all other early Asian and archaic European Homo sapiens who subsequently became extinct and left no descendents themselves. (African Eve theory)

That ancestral scenario is nothing but a racial dream of world conquest by 'scientists,' and belongs in the category of ancient mythology or science fiction.

No, evolutionists say nothing of the kind. The evidence, if you'd care to look at it and throw out Lubenow's misleading book, is that our species migrated out of Africa and displaced a different species with whom they could not interbreed. It's as racist as talking about lions outcompeting tigers.

There were no H. sapiens in Asia or Europe until the African population expanded enough and migrated there. There were erectus (or if you'd rather, ergaster) there, but so what? They were anatomically different, no matter what Lubenow says.

The "archaic" humans in Asia did leave descendents. They co-existed with our species for some time. Eventually, our species took over. That's why we don't find modern examples of erectus in those locations or anywhere else.

Besides--who cares? Africa or "eden" gives the same result. Our species came from somewhere, and diversified by evolutionary processes into the many different groups of people who now exist. The difference between evolution and creation is that the different "races" are merely the results of different environmental selection (according to evolutionary theory), but the result of god's punishment according to biblical creation. Which is more racist?

[Jose]

According to your 'scientific' definitions of race and species and the African Eve Model of modern human evolution then, a race or species of African people migrated out of Africa 100 - 200 tya and reduced all early and archaic Homo sapiens in Asia and Europe to the evolutionist status of extinction. Consequentially, as a result of this definitional hypothesis (or hypothetical definitions, as the case may be), no modern Asian, European or Middle Eastern people may rightfully claim their original biological descent from an Asian, European or Middle Eastern woman.

Don't you see the racial implications inherent in all modern neo-Darwinist biological theories of human ancestry? If not, at least millions, if not billions of other people do.

All of a sudden Lubenow's anti-darwinist rant about scientific racism has billions of supporters? Please, evidence of such a level of support should be supplied.

65% of Americans, Africans and Europeans don't believe that their ancestors evolved from a non-human ape-like ancestor in Africa. One billion Chinese think that their ancestors were Chinese as do one billion Indians think that their ancestors were Indians. That adds up to 3 billion.

What kind of fuzzy math is this? Knowing that your relatively-recent ancestors lived on your continent is entirely irrelevant to the idea that you agree with Lubenow about "the racial implications of neo-Darwinist theories." Furthermore, not understanding enough evolutionary science to see how it all works also says nothing about accepting Lubenow's goofball notions.

uhhh...is this the kind of "evidence" he uses, too?

[Cathar1950]

jcrawford wrote:

The evolutionists racist "take" on this is that a genetically superior breed, race or tribe of early African Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa about 100tya and outbreeded and replaced all other early Asian and archaic European Homo sapiens who subsequently became extinct and left no descendents themselves. (African Eve theory)

That ancestral scenario is nothing but a racial dream of world conquest by 'scientists,' and belongs in the category of ancient mythology or science fiction.

This is not evolutionary theory. No where does it say they out breed other Homo sapiens and replaced them. The people you speak of are not there.
The Homo sapiens are still there. Your the only one presenting mythology.
There is no racial dream of conquest by evolutionist. And they are not racist.

[jcrawford]

According to your 'scientific' definitions of race and species and the African Eve Model of modern human evolution then, a race or species of African people migrated out of Africa 100 - 200 tya and reduced all early and archaic Homo sapiens in Asia and Europe to the evolutionist status of extinction. Consequentially, as a result of this definitional hypothesis (or hypothetical definitions, as the case may be), no modern Asian, European or Middle Eastern people may rightfully claim their original biological descent from an Asian, European or Middle Eastern woman.

*sigh* This is pretty much equivalent to saying that no US citizen can claim ancestry from a European woman. It seems to me that, since my great-great-great-(howevermanygreats)-grandmother was Scottish, I should be able to make this claim. My son can also make this claim, but he can also claim ancestry from a Native American woman on his mother's side, some great-great-howevermanygreats time ago. It doesn't matter whether there are ancestors even farther back. We can still claim this ancestry, correctly. Likewise, all "modern Asian, European or Middle Eastern people may rightfully claim their ... biological descent from an Asian, European or Middle Eastern woman."

As for "original" biological descent, I don't see why we should care about this. Whether we consider biblical Eve or the scientific data, there was still only one starting point for humans, and we are all descended from this original population.

The reason we should care about this Jose, is because your assumption that "there was still only one starting point for humans, and we are all descended from this original population," is based on both a non-racist religious belief, and a 'scientific' assumption, premise and theory which cannot be proved without becoming implicitly and inherently racist.

It sounds to me like your real quibble is with the location of the Garden of Eden--whether it's Africa or Lucas, Kansas. All of the theories here say the same thing: all humans are descended from one original human group.

Knowledge of Biblical Eve is not based on theory but on an historically acknowleged written testament; whereas any 'scientific' theories of human evolution are based on racial myths about the ancestral and geographic origins of various human populations.

And, yes, the data do show that "anatomically modern" humans migrated out of Africa, and wiped out the other types of hominids, like erectus and neandertalensis. Those other hominids did, indeed, become extinct. It's not just the "evolutionist status of extinction," it's real, honest-to-god extinction. They ain't no more.

But Jose, there "ain't" no scientific evidence that early Asian Homo sapiens didn't evolve into modern Indian, Chinese, Indonesian and Japanese people or that archaic Homo sapiens in Europe didn't further evolve into modern Anglo-Saxons and Latinos outside of that racist 'African Eve' test some UC chemists at Berkeley did recently on 136 women of 'various' racial backgrounds.

[Cathar1950]

jcrawford wrote:

Knowledge of Biblical Eve is not based on theory but on an historically acknowleged written testament; whereas any 'scientific' theories of human evolution are based on racial myths about the ancestral and geographic origins of various human populations.

It is not an historically acknowledged testament. It is a Myth and not even the original myth. You seem to have the two backwards.

[jcrawford]

Don't you see the racial implications inherent in all modern neo-Darwinist biological theories of human ancestry? If not, at least millions, if not billions of other people do.

It kinda looks like any theory of human origins has to come to the same conclusion, given that all existing "races" must have descended from a common ancestral "Eve."

Introducing the biblical account of human descent from common ancestors in the Garden of Eden is irrelevent to any discussion about whether neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution are racist or not, especially in view of the fact that only neo-Darwinist theories of racial origins and descent are being taught in U.S. public schools.

Why are you so dead-set against the idea that this "Eve" might have lived in Africa?

Because, as the African Eve race theorists like to proclaim; if the whole human race really is descended from a person of African descent, (African Eve) then we are all Africans who can genetically trace our ancestral roots back to a shared common ancestry with a non-human form of African ape ancestors. I wouldn't mind this at all if it were true but since my definition of truth is embodied in the person of our Lord, Jesus Christ, I can't just take neo-Darwinists at their word because they 'say it so.' Besides, it is scientifically obvious that not everyone in the world is of African descent. That's what I like about scientific faith in common descent from Biblical Eve. The Garden of Eden was washed away in the Great Flood and all human ancestry may now only be traced back to Noah's three sons and their wives. Six lines of genetic descent are better able to account for current racial diversity than one, no?

Are you somehow anti-African? Are you, perhaps, painting this with your own racist brush?

My wife and three beautiful children are not ashamed of their shared Caribbean and African ancestry. Why should I be ashamed of my early Homo sapiens and Neanderthal ancestors in Europe? Just because neo-Darwinists don't like them? If my parents were from India or China, I wouldn't let any neo-Darwinist tell me that my parents ancestors were from Africa without a good religious and scientific debate which would expose neo-Darwinst 'theories' about human evolution as a modern form of scientific racism.

[jcrawford]

It's not racist if those human ancestors were Adam and Eve but it is a form of scientific racism to theorize that descendents of Asian, European and Middle Eastern Eve were also biological descendents of some African tribe, race or 'species' of African human beings which neo-Darwinist race theorists speculate originated from non-human ancestors of African apes.

Thanks for following the logic here.

Logic? Honestly, there is no logic here at all.

This is like saying that if my ancestors moved from Spain to Italy, and then hundreds of years later moved to the U.S., that I am being racist if I say if I am of Italian descent, but I'm not racist if I say I am of Spanish descent.

[/quote]

Sorry. I don't follow your logic here. Maybe we are using different logical systems. Have you ever heard or read of the Christian teachings of Cornelius van Til on 'presuppositional logic?' If not, that may be our basic communicational problem. You are using Greek logic while I am using Christian logic. By Greek logic, I mean the logic of autonomous human thinking. By Christian logic, I am referring to a logical system of thought based on the Word and Mind of Christ (God) as revealed in scripture.

What do you propose to do? Debate the human fossil record from an ancient Greek POV or a modern Christian POV?