Bones of Contentions.

Lets start with a single question:Is it racist to treat chimpanzees as a seperate and mentally inferior species from modern humans ?If that is racist, then how about the other apes ?If that is still racist, how about the other mammals ?

The relevant definitions for "racism" as it is usually understood are 1) and 2). Are these the ones you intend to refer to ?

That the definitions are relevant to "race" does not mean that they are relevant to "racism" as it is usually understood.Should adverts for yoghurt drinks containing "good" bacteria be considered racist since they elevate one strain of microorganisms over others ?I would say that that is absurd. "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.

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").

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.

Evolutionary trends are dominated be selection pressure. Modern humanity seems to be at a balance point when the birthing difficulties caused by large heads in babies are counterbalanced by the advantages of a large brain. The fact that brain size is not on a downward trend can be seen as a trace of the past trend.Intelligence is partly a function of brain structure and organisation but size relative to body size plays a large part. So far as I know there is no reason to believe that there were any major reorganisations of the brain in human ancestry - a chimp brain has a similar organisation to a human brain, although some parts of a human brain are proportionally larger.My understanding of the mitochondrial Eve studies was that the whole point was to identify when and where this particular common ancestor lived. That they would find such an ancestor was a given.The original paper can be found here:
http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~landc/html/cann/(unfortunately without footnotes or references)It is clear that they were looking for human ancestry and origins (which would entail finding a single ancestral mtDNA lineage).The surprie expressed in the wikipedia article refers to the relatvely recent date - from the next paragraph:

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If Eve had lived among a million or a billion other females, it is very unlikely that the matrilineal ancestries of all humans alive today would converge on Eve (or any one contemporary of Eve's).

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In other words the article does not deny that convergence will happen, it simply states that if there had been a large human population the covergence would almost certainly not be at that point in time.As for competition with other hominids, given the date of 150,000 years ago quoted in the Wikipedia article, which hominid species were still extant ? To the best of my knowledge, only Neanderthals and perhaps the "hobbits" were around (and the Neandertals may be a subspecies of Sapiens).If you are at a loss to consider how varying traits can be found without geographic islation, I simply have to point out that local variations are ubiquitous in widespread species. There is no need for geographic isolation for some variations to become dominant in a region. It is speciation that is felt to usually require geographic isolation, not local variations. So no, I don't beleive that the usual there human "races" have diverged to the point where any can be considered incipient species. You yourself appeal to "other factors" in the case of lung capacity.As to your final comments you have misunderstood badly. Darwinism does not say or imply that the regional differences within a species must be any that we would consider important or that any of these could be considered "higher" or "lower". And the huamn "races" are not even an accurate assessment of local variations. So there is no basis in evolutionary theory to claim that there should be differences between the races of humanity.Likewise "Special Creation" does not imply that all groups of humanity are equal. Ideas that propose multiple creations for the human races (e.g. Agassiz's polygenism), for instance do not imply that they were all created equal.

So your reason for trying to construct a new definition of "racism" is that the existing definition seems unlikely to apply and you cannot reasonably argue that it could be extended to encompass evolutionary science.In that case why insist on using the word "racism" when it will almsot certainly be misunderstood. Is the whole point of the exercise just to find an excuse to label science as "racist" ?

Since you claim to be willing to discuss your definition of racism I will repeat the questions you have so far ignored.First:

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Is it racist to treat chimpanzees as a seperate and mentally inferior species from modern humans ?

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If that is racist, then how about the other apes ?

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If that is still racist, how about the other mammals ?

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and

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Should adverts for yoghurt drinks containing "good" bacteria be considered racist since they elevate one strain of microorganisms over others ?

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I will note that you specifically stated that this definition was one you considered relevant:
4 a genus, species, breed or variety of animals, plants or micro-organisms.I would also like you to explain which "neo-Darwinist" definitions you are refusing to use and why. I've not raised any - I've been talking about common usage for "racism" and "race".

So you don't actually know what "neo-Darwinist definitions" you are talking about. So why exactly did you raise the issue ? And why are you asking me to tell you what you meant ?As for the rest if your answer is serious it confirms that your definition of "racism" is so far from the usual definition that there is really no point in discussing it. Indeed there's no point in using it except if you want to be misleading.

By definition the "balance point" is where selection pressures balance. A net pressure of zero cannot drive change either way. And my understanding is that developmental constraints mean that the brain has to be largely formed in the womb. Likewise modifications to the female bodily structure would also have detrimental consequences.And if human evolution is a hoax, then why are there so many hominid but non-human fossils. Are they ALL fakes ? Qutie frankly the evidence is quite sufficient to show that suhc a view is not rational.However it happened it appears that the greater intelligence of modern humans allowed our ancestors to escape the extinctions of the many other species. There is no other factor that appears likely to be decisive.As to the mutations required for the human brain to develop from our common ancestor with chimps I have no idea why you come up with "millions-trillions" - especially when I am pointing out that the differences are relatively straightforward.

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PaulK, do you also believe that this phenomenal big headed evolutionary development has produced human beings in such a short order (relatively speaking) but that all distinguishing evidence of this supposedly super successful and relatively fast evolutionary platform has disappeared among present populations?

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The time period isn't that short (millions of years). Speciation involves replacing genes and the replaced genes MUST have been wiped out from our lineage (by definition). If there were other hominids surviving then their lineage would show some of the earlier stages of our evolution - but they're all gone. So really I don't see what evidence you would expect to find.As for Mitochondrial "Eve" the study itself indicates that they expected to find a single common ancestor. That is what the analysis attempts to find. And to the best of my knowledge the "Out of Africa" model was already dominant at the time, so yes - a single mitochondrial line stemming from Africa was the expected result.

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Other posters may be interested in disccusing various concepts of race and species.

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It's your concept that isn't worth discussing. Do you usually make sure that people fully understand that under your view using antibiotics is an act of racist genocide ?

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Neo-Darwinists don't say that Europeans directly evolved from ape-like creatures in Africa but that they are naturally descended by normal sexual reproduction from a very human species of African people who did evolve from apes! If that's not a racist theory castigating and defaming all African people, I can't imagine what your definition of racism or race is.

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I guess that your imagination missed the fact that racism is discrimination on the basis of race. However, if you really believe that Europeans and Asians are so awful that Africans should be insulted at the idea that they share a recent common ancestor it is likely that you are racist.

On thinking some more it is apparent, the closer the common ancestor the more closely related and therefore the less different the races should be.In other words the multi-regional model favoured by Lubenow is more congenial to racism than the out-of-Africa model he calls racist. (The more so since much racism is directed against people of recent African descent - any hypothesis which minimises the African contribution to the modern gene pool is likely to be favoured by racists who discriminate against "blacks").