Bones of Contentions.

In terms of the biblical Eve perhaps, but in terms of mitochondrial Eve that isn't in fact the case. We are all descendants of one woman, but that is quite diffrent to all having come from one woman. Mitochondrial Eve was only one woman within a population not the only woman, it is simply that due to the way mitochondria are inherited the descendants of her mitochondria are the only ones still extant in the population of modern humans.TTFN,WK

Geographical isolation is believed to be a requirement for the most frequent way in which populations diverge into different species ("allopatric speciation"). There are other ways. Human evolution does show a trend towards large brains and higher intelligence but this is just one lineage. It is not something that can be generalised to evolution as a whole. (And this is where part of the confusion may lie - evolution SOMETIMESS producea more complex life, but it does not ALWAYS do so - parasites, for instance, are more likely to become simpler).

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If the theory of human evolution is true, there should be evidence within the general worldwide population that we can measure today in the supposed continuum of genetic traits within the lineage of human beings.

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This is not true. Where modern humans differ from ancestral species the traits in question will likely have been completely replaced. It is a theoretical possiblity that some could hang on in small numbers, but only a possibility. The fact that modern humans are the only surviving branch means that many genes necessary for this "continuum" are not to be found in ANY living species.

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Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t Mitochondrial Eve adopted into human evolutionary theory a few years ago after DNA analysis from people all over the world surprisingly pointed to a single common female "Mother of ALL human Beings"?

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You are quite wrong to say that this result was surprising. It was expected, even inevitable. The question of interest was when and where the mitochondiral Eve lived. There was no need to do a study to find out that there was a mitochindrial Eve - that fact could be worked out in advance simply from the knowledge that mitochondria are inherited (almost) only down the female line.

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In other words, the evidence indicates we have a single genetic source point rather than merging of beneficial mutations from disparate gene pools among tribes and individuals. Wow, she must have been some kind of WOMAN — since ONLY her lineage survived among all the supposed competing hominid type groups and sub-groups!

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This is even MORE wrong. It is only her mitochondrial lineage that has any claim to excusivity. And that is just a matter of having daughters. And by the time she lived many of the "competing groups" would have been extinct already.

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This would seem, to me at least, to be evidence against Darwinian evolutionary theory since it states the human species includes geographically isolated genetic pools branching out from an evolutionary continuum. A continuum with many branches since the time our intellectually challenged great great grand-critters supposedly climbed down out of the trees.

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There may be some gene pools that have been geographically isolated for a while (the Australian Aborigines being an obvious example) but the Old World human populations are not in general geographically isolated and may never have been geographically isolated from each other. Geographical isolation may be sufficient to produce speciationm if sufficiently prolonged, but in fact it has not - and in itself it does not guarantee that the seperated population would become "superior" or "inferior" in matters we would find important even if speciation occurred.Assuming allopatric speciation modern humans would only form a continuum with the ancestral species if we included the long-dead individuals that were part of the original isolated group and their immediate descendants. There is no equirement for there to be such a continuum if we only consider the living human population.

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However, Darwinian evolutionary theory postulates that some geographically isolated branches are diverging toward subgroups and
eventually new types of organisms.

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If there are any geographically isolated groups of modern humans they would be remote tribes in inaccessible areas - New Guinea for instance. The mnjor groups associated with the idea of "race" have probably never been geograpjhically isolated from each other.

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The Darwinian theory infers that some branches are naturally a little higher than others with respect to certain functions and capabilities. No? Please explain if I am misrepresenting the theory at all.

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So long as you remember that "certain functions and capabilities" need not include anything we consider greatly important (e.g. the naturally higher lung capacity of the inhabitants of the higher parts of the Andes is the sort of local variation we might expect - but I've never heard any reference to that described as "racism").

There seems to be some confusion about the mitrochondrial eve. I'm not a biologist so I might only add to it but let me try.Let's pick a simplified example. All humans are in some small tribe and it happens that there are only 10 females in the tribe at some time. Five of them have 3 sons each and 5 have 3 daughters.In the next generation all the females are decendents of only the latter 5 original females. Let's say that all the female descendants of 3 of the original 10 happen to have all sons in this generation. Now all of the females are decendants of only 2 of the original females. If this happens once more then finally all of the females will be descendents of only 1 of our original 10 females.Note that it is females that are the special descendents of that "eve". Some males may be descendents of one of the other 9 females.Of course, after this point everyone is a descendent of the "eve" because we have to have a mother in there somewhere.This is not totally guarenteed at all, IMHO, it depends on the population begin small enough at some point that the statistical fluctuations at birth allow for cutting off of a mitrochrondial line of descent.The same thing can happen in the Y chromosome lineage. And it appears that it has. Just at a very much different point in time.

Well,let me try to explain my position in another way. Perhaps it will become clearer.I said that I don't believe intellegence is a necessary component of Evolution. The reason I believe that is true is that there are myriads of very successful critters that have evolved with little or no intellegence.In relation to humans, I see no evidence that todays humans are nay more intellegent than those from considerably distant in the past.But before going much further, I think we need to come up with some working definition of intellegence. For the purposes of this thread, would you agree that we are talking about that capability that can be used to imagine new solutions to problems?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Wow, she must have been some kind of WOMAN — since ONLY her lineage survived among all the supposed competing hominid type groups and sub-groups!

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Actually, as PaulK points out, this isn't so surprising. It is to be expected.Consider all the people alive today. Now take a set that consists only of the mothers of this first group. Since a woman can have several children and we are excluding childless women, this second group must be smaller than the first.Now take all of the mothers of the women in this second group. Again, we are ignoring women who had no children or only sons, and one woman can have several daughters, so this third group is going to be smaller than the second.Likewise, if we take the set of all mothers of this third group, this fourth group will be smaller still.So, going backwards like this, we always have a set of females that are small (in numbers) than the previous group.Eventually, we will get a group that consists of a single female -- the common female ancestor of all of the women in the previous groups, and so of all the humans in the first group.As PaulK points out, this simply has to happen -- the only question is how far back do we need to go before we reduce the female ancestry to one? Perhaps only a few thousand years, perhaps we need to go all the way back to a mammalian ancestor in the Cretaceous.As it turns out, an examination of the mitochondrial DNA (which is usually only inhereted from the mother) suggests that this "mitochindrial Eve" lived about 60,000 years ago.

I will take your last objection first. Regarding "lying for Jesus", yes, I do think that is what is going on in "Bones of Contention"
The author accuses evolutionists of racism. This is a serious charge. Does he offer any evidence? No, just poorly founded assertions and misrepresentations about the prevailing thought of evolutionary biology. Misrepresenting someone's position is lying, I am sorry, there is no nicer way to put it. The "pattern" was set by the creationists - they constantly misquote, quote out of context, and set up evolutionary strawmen.Now, as to geographic isolation....Yes, of course this is a major (but not the only) mechanism for speciation. But what is the relevance to human races? Human races all belong to the same species. Whatever geographic isolation of the different races may have occured in the past, obviously it was not long enough (or complete enough) for genetic barriers to develop. That doesn't mean there wasn't some divergence in some superficial characters - skin pigmentation, for example - that aided adaptation to particular latitudes. But clearly being white skinned in the tropics isn't enough of a survival issue to create a genetic barrier between white and pigmented races.I don't understand your big deal about the mitochondrial Eve data. Yes, this is evidence for common ancestry in a direct line. And so what? This has been the prevailing human evolutionary thought for some time, and it is just another way of saying we are all the same species. It is what we would expect.On the "highly evolved" question, I think I already answered your response there. You appear to be confused about the role of geographic isolation in evolution. In general more genetic diversity is beneficial to survival. So when it comes to mating, there is a biological imperative to find a mate that is different from you. This is why kissing your sister isn't much fun. So we all have a built in "wanderlust" when it comes to selecting a mate. We desire someone who is different. The stranger from a foreign land will be desireable, particularly if they look exotic, because our bodies are telling us that they have different genes from us. Therefore for a genetic barrier to develop, there truly has to be some character that is crucial to survival (and reproduction) at issue. The ability (and desire) to reproduce with a wide variety of individuals is going to be conserved - it is not likely to change easily. So for geographic isolation to result in speciation it has to be relatively complete, exist for a long time (evolutionary time scale), and the two environments have to be different enough to select for radically different characters. Apparently these conditions have not occured for Homo sapiens sapiens.A final thought on "highly evolved" - you are making way too much of this. Modern evolutionary biologists do not think in terms of hierarchies - Man is not really a "higher animal" than a cockroach. We have both evolved to exploit certain niches in the environment and we both do very well at what we do. Think about it. (This is in no way a value judgement on the relative "worth" of man vs. cockroach - obviously from man's standpoint, a cockroach is... well, a cockroach).

In defence of cockroaches, there was the cockroach who had been to hell.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Thanks for your analysis PaulK.
I don't have time to respond to all others but your post seemed thoughtful. If true, why shouldn't that trend or some trace of that trend be measurable today? Did those mutations causing billions (trillions) of increased brain connections, size, and related intellectual abilities just explode on the scene and then disappear into a completely homogenous transfigured population with no relative measure today? Similar mutations never to be ongoing or detectable again among billions of people?Do you believe that intelligence is a function of increased brain size as measured in supposed hominid progression?
If you do, why would that same phenomena not be measurable today? If you do not beleive that, what would be the evolutionary advantage of relatively bigger heads? Not true - but theoretically possible? OK.
It is reasonable to me that whatever mechanism propelled such a relatively rapid alleged advancement from a group of critters to mankind should be detectable and measurable today. The brief discussions here indicate there is a wide range of evolutionary thought as to what that mechanism is and human evolution in general — relatively big brains vs body size, Neandertal mating with Sapiens, etc. Don’t forget Bigfoot! PaulK, if it were expected, it should have been predicted. Do you know of any predictions of this result before the analysis was published?
Surely, others were surprised as the Wikipedia expresses the same. Moving on. Not sure exactly what you refer to as wrong. Granted, the concept is not absolutely certain — but I’m not sure any of us can state with certainty what is wrong or More wrong. Here is a good reference on the analysis for interested gallery viewers:Mitochondrial Eve - Wikipedia.The evidence points to a bottleneck in the population.If it is true that all women today are direct descendents of this fine old Lady, then by necessity, all men are also (since men are only born from this line of women).By the time this fine lady lived - after millions of years of various alleged critter to hominid type transitions - there were likely some form of competing groups spread all across inhabitable land.There seems to be two potential causes if the analysis is correct. Either something supposedly caused a severe bottleneck in the evolutionary gene pool (either due to or coincident to Mega Benificial Mutations), or it was the actual origin of the gene pool. groups associated with the idea of "race" have probably never been geograpjhically isolated from each other.
PaulK - I am at a total loss to understand how you logically conclude the distinguishing features among human races are the result of anything but genetic isolation of those traits via geographic isolation over many generations.We know certain populations have been largely isolated from others for millennia! What else could it possibly be??? Do you believe distinguishing racial features are the result of mutations and that these races have already started to deviate toward new species?It is reasonable and logical to conclude the Himalaya range has isolated different populations to the degree that various facial features became pronounced compared to other populations on the continent.Certainly, geographic isolation (with minimal outside influence) is responsible for various superficial features.However, this is isolation of pre-existing genetic traits within the overall population, not mutations.In other words, with genetic trait selection, a poodle can be bred from a general dog population — no mutations necessary. It’s still, and always will be, a genetic dog as much as any other dog. This, I think, is the meat of the matter. No, I don’t think anyone has described that as racism.On the other hand it isn’t Darwinian evolution either, in my opinion. It is highly unlikely that evolutionary mutations have increased the lung capacity of people living in higher parts of the Andes. Other factors are likely responsible.For example, if you use your biceps to carry heavy buckets of water from a well several times a day — your bicep size and strength (capacity) will naturally increase beyond that of the average population. No mutations necessary.
Those that have weaker arms will likely relocate to a water source where they don’t have to carry water so much.Alternatively, those people within the existing genetic population who happen to be fortunate enough to inherit exceptional lung capacity (as opposed to other larger than normal organs) are more likely to be comfortable at higher altitudes and migrate there.Even though Darwinian evolution does not necessarily include anything we consider greatly important as you say, the theory hinges upon critical mutations as a mechanism for new branches (certain functions and capabilities) via natural selection.These supposed distinguishing capabilities will necessarily cause some branches to be a little higher than others over time with respect to mutational advantages
— how much time is largely conjecture within the Darwinian theory.This is diametrically opposed to human origins via special creation in which all human variation is limited within certain established genetic bounds and diverse lineages will never produce anything but genetic human beings.Analytical Regards to "Big Headed" Hominids!

Any scrap of evidence for that claim? How exactly would you go about preventing any mutations in all the generations of breeding?TTFN,WK

"In terms of the biblical Eve perhaps, but in terms of mitochondrial Eve that isn't in fact the case. We are all descendants of one woman, but that is quite diffrent to all having come from one woman. Mitochondrial Eve was only one woman within a population not the only woman, it is simply that due to the way mitochondria are inherited the descendants of her mitochondria are the only ones still extant in the population of modern humans."African Eve herself could have been a direct descendent of Adam and Eve since no one really seems to know for certain where or who her genetic mother came from according to DNA tests.

"Racism" as it is commonly understood deals with divisions within the modern human species - divisions which are more social than biological. Even the distinction between Neanderthals and modern humans has a more solid biological basis. So any extension of the concept of "racism" to extinct hominid species (or sub-species) needs to establish that it is a valid extension of the current usage of "racism".not to redefine "racism" based on a dictionary definition of race."We have no other definition of race to go by other than that of a good dictionary like Oxford, since evolutionists don't biologically define race and usually substitute "species" for any racial differences between human fossils. Besides, without knowing what race is, how can anyone define racism?

If the point is to say that scientists are "racist" in the ordinary sense of the word then we should use that sense. Why should we construct a new definition ? Especially one which uses a VERY wde definition of "race" when no reason is given. The more so when you don't seem willing to discuss applications of the definition.And I should add that "species" is NOT substituted for "race" in the ordinary sense applied to modern humans. Nobody suggests that the "races" of modern humans are different species (and it does not appear that they can even be considered subspecies). But the other hominid species do have clear morphological differences which warrant classifying them as being distinct from ALL modern humans. If your argument rests on the claim that the taxonimic classifications are wrong then you need to support that claim.

"I really don't see what the problem is. Whether we have distinct species, Homo erectus, H. heidelbergensis, H. rudolfensis, H. floriensis, H. neanderthalensis, and H. sapiens, or whether we lump them altogether in the same species is largely irrelevant."Hardly irrelevent when neo-Darwinists have been trying to associate and link the human race to a species of African apes for well over 100 years now since the ultimate purpose of evolutionist theory is to prove the origin of species. If all the many diversified members of the human race who ever lived on earth are only considered racial varieties of the one and only human race, then it would be more difficult for neo-Darwinist racial theorists to associate and prove the human race's common ancestry and genetic descent from a race or "species" of non-human primates in Africa. At it stands now, the Multi-regional Continuity Model of human evolution prefers to regard Neandertals, Homo erectus and sapiens as one species, but the African Eve people believe that gives way to charges of evolutionary racism, so they prefer to dehumanize our Neanderthal ancestors by labelling them an extinct "species" with whom modern sapiens didn't want to interbreed. Either way, all neo-Darwinist theories of human origins in, and evolution out of, the continent of Africa, are a form of scientific racism.

"Oh NO! Say it's not true! Lumpers vs. splitters is the very soul of academic debate and now you say it's irrelevant?! Aren't careers made and broken over these crucials distinctions? ***shudders***"Really! I love the way Lubenow divides neo-Darwinists up into Wolpoff lumpers and Tattersall splitters. If Tattersall had his way, he'd divide the present human race up into six hundred different species! Of course, 599 of them would be extinct since neo-Darwinists can only tolerate one human species at a time.

"The prevailing theory of of human evolution has all of the races evolving from a common ancestor in direct line. There is no suggestion of one race being more "highly evolved" than another. The races all belong to the same species, there is more genetic variation within races than between races for characters associated with 'IQ", so where is the racism?"What's your scientific definition of racism (based on a scientific definitin of race, of course) and how do you distinguish between current members of the human race and former racial varieties which neo-Darwinists call 'different and separate' species?