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.

[ST88]

Hi, jcrawford, and welcome to the forums.

Yours is a worthwhile goal, to be sure. But we would ask that you provide a clear question(s) for debate. I suspect that there are a few people here who are familiar with Lubenow & his theories, but it would be helpful if you could paraphrase them for us and give us your interpretations before asking us to joust with you about that version of Creationism.

For example -- myself, I would like to know about these "Neo-Darwinist" theories that are purported to be racist. Could you provide some text of the offending theories and also the rationale behind the offense?

[Nyril]

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.

I contend that the theories are neutral. I don't see how racism factors into this, except as a sidewas "ad hom" attack against evoluition. Perhaps if you could give the evidence you believe shows the theory is racist, we can discuss that and make much better progress.

[jcrawford]

quote="ST88"

"Hi, jcrawford, and welcome to the forums."

Hello ST88, and thank you for the warm welcome.

"Yours is a worthwhile goal, to be sure. But we would ask that you provide a clear question(s) for debate. I suspect that there are a few people here who are familiar with Lubenow & his theories, but it would be helpful if you could paraphrase them for us and give us your interpretations before asking us to joust with you about that version of Creationism."

Fair enough, since many posters may not be familiar with Lubenow's many theses concerning neo-Darinist theories of human evolution.

"For example -- myself, I would like to know about these "Neo-Darwinist" theories that are purported to be racist. Could you provide some text of the offending theories and also the rationale behind the offense?"

Since Lubenow's "Bones of Contention" is readily available from most leading booksellers, I would prefer to paraphrase my understanding of his main thesis which may be summarized as follows:

Neo-Darwinst theories about the origin and evolution of species are a form of scientific racism when applied to any or all members of the human race because dividing and separating our human ancestors into different species reduces and degrades them to an inferior and unequal biological status regarding their human capacity of inter-fertility, sexual reproduction and breeding with all other members of the current human race.

It is a form of scientific racism to theorize that Middle Eastern and European Neanderthal people and Homo erectus people in Asia and Africa were not fully human but were rather an evolutionary subspecies of humanity which became extinct. (Sub-humanism) To be fully human as a race or species means being capable of inter-fertility with all other people.

It is racial and scientific prejudice against people of Middle Eastern, European and Asian descent when theories of evolution deny their Neanderthal or Homo erectus ancestry and insist on substituting an African line of descent for them today. Since evolutionists maintain that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens both evolved from H. Erectus, either in Europe or Africa, there is no scientific reason or justification to assert that Homo erectus people in Asia were not the ancestors of today’s Asian people. All changes in human skull shapes, sizes and structural facial contours may be attributable to the passing of the Ice Age and the advent of current climatic conditions around the world.

It is a racist scenario to theorize that both European and Middle Eastern Neanderthals and Asian Homo erectus types of people were eliminated and replaced by more “highly evolved” Homo sapiens who originally migrated from Africa and didn’t or wouldn’t interbreed with other humans simply because evolutionists label them as a separate species of humans who couldn’t sexually reproduce with other humans even if they wanted to.

It is a form of scientific racism against people of Muslim, Jewish and Christian descent who believe that some human ancestors were descendants of Abraham and that all of their human ancestors were descended from Noah's family, to theorize that Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ shared common genealogical ancestry with a mythological Homo sapiens woman named Eve in Africa who is theoretically associated and identified with a species of hon-human primates who are then also claimed to have evolved from some other non-human "species" in Africa.

[jcrawford]

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.

I contend that the theories are neutral. I don't see how racism factors into this, except as a sidewas "ad hom" attack against evoluition. Perhaps if you could give the evidence you believe shows the theory is racist, we can discuss that and make much better progress.

Thanks for stating your position on such a hotly debatable and contentious issue. The evidence which Lubenow uses to document and demonstrate intrinsic racism in neo-Darwinism is the human fossil record itself and the many historical claims, actions and statements made by leading paleoanthropological theorists themselves during the last two centuries.

I'm sorry that I can't quote snippets of Lubenow's 2004 edition of "Bones of Contention" over the Internet because it's publication is not on a CD, but in book form, and quoting sentences, paragraphs, pages and chapters ad infinitum would be too tedious for my creative typewriting fingers to endure. I would much rather use his published theses as the basis of the presentation of my own understanding of the inherent racism is neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution, if you don't mind, since it's the best I can do at the present time.

[ST88]

Neo-Darwinst theories about the origin and evolution of species are a form of scientific racism when applied to any or all members of the human race because dividing and separating our human ancestors into different species reduces and degrades them to an inferior and unequal biological status regarding their human capacity of inter-fertility, sexual reproduction and breeding with all other members of the current human race.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but you (or Lubenow) appear to be making the assumption that Neanderthals were the direct ancestors of anyone not from Africa. This hypothesis is not supported by recent DNA evidence. Mitochondrial studies have indicated, rather, that there was no interaction between Sapiens and Neanderthalensis. Thus, no inter-fertility.
Source: http://www.psu.edu/ur/NEWS/news/Neandertal.html

But from what I gather, that debate is not quite settled on anthropological grounds. All chemical studies done to date, however, would tend to indicate that Neanderthalensis was a separate species, so where is the problem? Even if there were interbreeding, it isn't racism to state that humans are composed of the lineages of more than one species or sub-species any more than it is to observe that the skin color of Africans tends to be darker than the skin color of Europeans.

I disagree with the assumption that the process of classification inevitably leads to the "degredation" of any particular individudal or group. Simple classification, which is what we're talking about here, can be used by bad people for nefarious purposes, but the classification itself does no harm.

It's important to note that Lubenow's book was published in 1994, and these mitochondrial studies were done 1997-2000.

[jcrawford]

quote="ST88"

"Correct me if I'm wrong here, but you (or Lubenow) appear to be making the assumption that Neanderthals were the direct ancestors of anyone not from Africa."

Correct. As creationists, Lubenow and I would make the basic assumption that Neandertal ancestors came from the Near East after the flood and before the ensuing Ice Age.

"This hypothesis is not supported by recent DNA evidence."

Lubenow documents and demonstrates how the DNA evidence supporting the African Eve theory is highly flawed and debatable.

"Mitochondrial studies have indicated, rather, that there was no interaction between Sapiens and Neanderthalensis. Thus, no inter-fertility.
Source: http://www.psu.edu/ur/NEWS/news/Neandertal.html"

I know, but Lubenow documents and demonstrates how mtDNA testing is invalid when testing for interfertility between human fossils. For instance, there is no way of knowing whether African Eve mated with Middle Eastern Neandertals or Homo ergaster (African erectus) or whether her daughters all had the same father.

"But from what I gather, that debate is not quite settled on anthropological grounds. All chemical studies done to date, however, would tend to indicate that Neanderthalensis was a separate species, so where is the problem?"

Evolutionists are theoretically forced to classify Neandertals as a separate species because if they were just a geographical variation of the human race living through an Ice Age in Europe, there's no reason to think that they couldn't interbreed with new immigrants once warmer climates returned.

"Even if there were interbreeding, it isn't racism to state that humans are composed of the lineages of more than one species or sub-species any more than it is to observe that the skin color of Africans tends to be darker than the skin color of Europeans."

The difference in your analogy though, is the fact that the latter is truly observable whereas the former is only a racial theory.

"I disagree with the assumption that the process of classification inevitably leads to the "degredation" of any particular individudal or group. Simple classification, which is what we're talking about here, can be used by bad people for nefarious purposes, but the classification itself does no harm."

This seems to be the crux of the matter ever since neo-Darwinists started dividing and classifying the human race into different species in accordance with racial theories of genealogical ancestry based on assumptions about human fossils.

"It's important to note that Lubenow's book was published in 1994, and these mitochondrial studies were done 1997-2000."

BakerBooks published a revised and updated version in 2004 in which Lubenow's predominent theses are the lack of evidence of human evolution in the human fossil record and the inherent racism in neo-Darwinist theories of human evolution, even when backed up by so-called scientific evidence found by geneticists.

[Jose]

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.

Well, let's see here...there can be no inherent racism in evolutionary theories of human origins, since these do not involve races. These are species. Even anthropological data do as the Bible does, and suggest a single origin for our species. The different races result from diversification after that point.

You have suggested that different races are different species, which, of course, is not true. So far, none of us has speciated away from the others.

However, it seems to me--based on the data--that the popular notion of "race" is incorrect. People tend to classify "races" on the basis of skin color. Yet, the genetic diversity of humans is much greater for different populations on the African continent than throughout the rest of the world. Furthermore, the genetic data place almost all non-Africans into a single group with a subset of Africans. Therefore, if there are "races" at all, they would be several African races, one of which has some color-variants elsewhere in the world.

We can explain the color variants on the basis of the intensity of UV light in equatorial vs temperate parts of the globe. It's just natural selection for a few variations on the production of melanin. No big deal.

I know, but Lubenow documents and demonstrates how mtDNA testing is invalid when testing for interfertility between human fossils. For instance, there is no way of knowing whether African Eve mated with Middle Eastern Neandertals or Homo ergaster (African erectus) or whether her daughters all had the same father.

You've overlooked the analogous investigation looking at Y-chromosomal DNA. It came to the same conclusion. Since mitochondria are maternally-inherited, you (and Lubenow) may be correct that the mtDNA studies don't evaluate the paternal contribution. But it would be naive to assume that inter-racial breeding, and all subsequent generations from such interbreeding, would be such that only males would ever mate with the "traditional" humans. This kind of sex bias would be required to prevent the mitochondria from the other race from being passed on. Fortunately, the Y-chromosome data rule this out--or require the same weird assumption, but in reverse.

The most recent study, which I read a few weeks or months ago in Science or Nature, used the DNA sequence data to reconstruct the pathway that ancient humans used to migrate from Africa to Europe. It had been thought that they had gone more-or-less straight north, but the new data indicate that they proceeded along the coast, and a subgroup migrated north and west from Asia.

Now, it seems to me, that if the DNA data were bunk, it would be impossible to derive such detailed historical information. It should be more-or-less random, and fail to match archeological information.

...all of which begs the question of whether classification is racist. Sure--any classification of any species (plant or animal) into races is "racist" by virtue of the fact that it creates races. However what we usually mean by "racist" is one group of humans treating another poorly, on the basis of some kind of "racial" distinction. The classification provides no basis for this. Rather, it is people's inherent behavior that does this.

If we look at many of the major wars/conflicts/ethnic cleansing/crusades/jihads, etc in the history of our species, we find that race is rarely the issue. It's ethnicity. Many tribes fought against one another, even though they were of the same "race." This is still true. Usually, the conflicts are over land, but often result from the simple fact that the other guys are of the wrong religion. It's pretty common among religions, and among tribes, to consider themselves to be True People, and others to be some kind of lower life form, worthy of fighting against.

In this context, I find it ironic that it is the Creationist Lubenow--presumably a True Christian--who seeks to paint science as racist.

[jcrawford]

quote="Jose"

"Well, let's see here...there can be no inherent racism in evolutionary theories of human origins, since these do not involve races. "

You've got it backwards since evolutionists intentionally divide the whole human race into different and separate species just to prove that the whole human race 'evolved' from a non-human species of African apes. You do admit that the human race is a race, don't you, and that theoretical evolutionist attempts to divide the whole human race into different and separate species, some of whom directly evolved from African apes is racist, don't you?

The rest of your post is just based on neo-Darwinst racial theories of human evolution and hostility towards Christian scholars who document and demonstrate the intrinsic racism inherent if all theories of the human race's evolutionary descent from non-human African primates.

[McCulloch]

"Well, let's see here...there can be no inherent racism in evolutionary theories of human origins, since these do not involve races. "

You've got it backwards since evolutionists intentionally divide the whole human race into different and separate species just to prove that the whole human race 'evolved' from a non-human species of African apes. You do admit that the human race is a race, don't you, and that theoretical evolutionist attempts to divide the whole human race into different and separate species, some of whom directly evolved from African apes is racist, don't you?

Actually, most scientists do not use the term "human race". Humanity is not a race, according to evolutionary science. The term you are looking for is "species", specifically the species "Homo Sapiens". Homo Sapiens, Chimpanzees and Bonobos are thought to have evolved from another primate species. The common ancestor of this species and the great apes goes even further back in time. As Jose rightly put it, evolutionary theories of human origins do not involve races.

The rest of your post is just based on neo-Darwinst racial theories of human evolution and hostility towards Christian scholars who document and demonstrate the intrinsic racism inherent if all theories of the human race's evolutionary descent from non-human African primates.

I would think that linking the various racial origins to the myth about Noah, his children and his grandchildren is more intrinsical racist than the evolutionary point of view.