How to make the Bible and Science match...a very original view

[Gbob]

"Barbarian (野) gentleman (蛮绅士)

Well, my Mandarin is pedestrian at best and very rusty at worst. I grouped the characters differently.

 

[The Barbarian]

I should have grouped them properly. I did the lazy thing and just set them up in one line.

I'm downloading your stuff; I'm going to have to take some time to look it all up. Sounds interesting and so far, plausible.

Keep writing if there's more.

 

[Gbob]

Does a small brain make you dumb part 2 extracted from here

The Hobbit
Finally, we come to the most enigmatic fossils anthropology has found, Homo floresiensis, the 'Hobbit'. This population will challenge everyone's view of who has the image of God. This being is believed to be the descendant of H. erectus, or H habilis who had undergone severe island dwarfism. Often on isolated islands, evolution shrinks the size of large animals so that they match the available calories on the island. Karen Baab says:

"Two main evolutionary scenarios have been proposed to explain the presence of the small bodied and small-brained Homo floresiensis species on the remote Indonesian island of Flores in the Late Pleistocene. According to these two scenarios, H. floresiensis was a dwarfed descendent of H. erectus or a late-surviving remnant of a older lineage, perhaps descended from H. habilis. Each scenario has interesting and important implications for hominin biogeography, body size evolution, brain evolution and morphological convergences. Careful evaluation reveals that only a small number of characters support each of these scenarios uniquely. H. floresiensis exhibits a cranial shape and many cranial characters that appear to be shared derived traits with H. erectus, but postcranial traits are more primitive and resemble those of early Homo or even australopiths."24

One of the interesting things about this creature, with his small brain, he was still able to manufacture stone tools with the same methodology as used by H. erectus 700,000 years earlier. Brumm states:

"In the Soa Basin of central Flores, eastern Indonesia, stratified archaeological sites, including Mata Menge, Boa Lesa and Kobatuwa (Fig. 1), contain stone artefacts associated with the fossilized remains of Stegodon florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and various other taxa.Thesesiteshavebeendatedto840–700kyrBP (thousand years before present)1. The authenticity of the Soa Basin artefacts and their provenance have been demonstrated by previous work2–6, but to quell lingering doubts7, here we describe the context, attributes and production modes of 507 artefacts excavated at Mata Menge. We also note specific similarities, and apparent technological continuity, between the Mata Menge stone artefacts and those excavated from Late Pleistocene levels at Liang Bua cave, 50kmto the west. The latter artefacts, dated to between95–74 and 12kyr ago8,9, are associated with the remains of a dwarfed descendent of S. florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and a small-bodied hominin species, Homo floresiensis, which had a brain size of about 400 cubic centimetres"25
In the article they note:

"Despite being separated by 50 km and at least 700,000 yr, there are remarkable similarities between the stone artefact assemblage from Mata Menge and that found with H. floresiensis at Liang Bua "26

While this is still a very controversial hominid, one thing does seem certain. this small brained being was able to not only make stone tools but pass that information on to its offspring. H. floresiensis has the smallest of the small brains among the hominids. He is not a human ancestor, but with this tiny brain, he was able to manufacture stone tools. This should put to rest the concept that Adam couldn't have a small brain. No I don't think Adam had a brain as small as the floresiensis, but however much bigger his was, it could have carried a fairly intelligent soul.

I want to show the tools that H. Floresiensis made. These tools are smaller versions of the tools made by H. erectus on the island 800,000 years earlier. The consensus is that H. floresiensis descended from erectus but was subject to island dwarfism, a well known phenomenon in biology. Anyway, here are the tools.

One of the most interesting aspects of hominids found on Flores is that it is on the Wallacea side of Wallace's line. This line is one of the most hard and fast biological barriers known.

"Only two terrestrial mammal groups are known to have crossed Wallacea (the area between the two lines) to migrate into Australasia: rodents and anatomically modern humans. The discovery of Homo floresiensis ('Hobbits') on Flores in 2003 indicates a separate dispersal across Wallace's Line, whereas a ~67,000 year old foot bone from Callao in the Philippines represents a small-bodied hominin of unknown taxonomic affiliation. These taxa remain enigmatic, but suggest that other hominin species had the capacity to cross the powerful marine current that forms and maintains Wallace's Line even during times of lowered sea levels." A. Cooper and C. B. Stringer, "Did the Denisovans Cross Wallace's Line? Science Oct 18, 2003, p. 321

This is because the currents in the straits which must be crossed to get to Flores takes any drifting object out to sea in the Indian Ocean. To cross this strait, one must have steerable boats, not rafts. And this raises the possiblity that H. erectus had that level of technology 800,000 years ago.

We have shown here that brain size should not be barrier to believing that Adam was way back in time. My view is that Adam was likely an H. erectus, but he could have been habilis. I know some will note that fossilized H. erectus isn't found before 2 million years ago. That is true, but do you really think that the first fossil erectus was the very first erectus on earth? Fossilization is a statistical thing. Species get fossilized AFTER they are numerous and widespread, so that there is plenty of chance for a rare fossilization event to take place and preserve them. When a species is few, and limited to a small locale, it is unlikely that a fossilization event would happen. That will be discussed when we talk about the fossil record. For now, just know, that brain size is not the obstacle for an ancient Adam that everyone thinks it is--it is just a new concept, not an impossibility.

References


24. Karen L. Baab, " The place of Homo floresiensis in human evolution," Journal of Anthropological Sciences Vol. 94 (2016), pp. 5-18, p 5. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/60f1/38afdace8300979a7615984d7e03064c458e.pdf
25.Adam Brumm, Early stone technology on Flores and its implications for Homo floresiensisNature, |Vol 441|1 June 2006 p 624
26,Adam Brumm, Early stone technology on Flores and its implications for Homo floresiensis Nature, |Vol 441|1 June 2006p 627

 

[The Barbarian]

I think one consideration is the Encephalization Quotient (EQ). Because muscle takes so much brain to operate, more massive animals need a much larger brain. For example, Neandertals had larger brains (on the average) than modern humans. But they were much more muscular, which accounts for at least some of that difference.

Early anatomists (all men, of course) concluded that men were smarter than women, because most men had significantly larger brains than most women. The situation is, if anything, reversed when you account for muscle mass.

It's an interesting fact that even the first primates had higher EQs than other animals. From the beginning primates were preadapted to become intelligent. For whatever reason big brains first evolved (and intelligence might be an "exaption" (where an adaptation for one thing makes it possible for something else to evolve), primates were "front loaded" to be intelligent.

So Homo floresiensis was probably a lot smarter than the absolute size of his brain might lead one to think. I'll see if I can find the data or calculate it for you.

I've often wondered about just which species actually gave rise to Adam and Eve. If it was H. erectus, how exactly does that matter to anything?

 

[Gbob]

I've often wondered about just which species actually gave rise to Adam and Eve. If it was H. erectus, how exactly does that matter to anything?

Not much as far as I can tell. If Jesus doesn't really need us humans to cheer him at the Triumphal entry and could have used stones for the same purpose, that kinda puts us humans in our place.

There is a large misunderstanding among non-geologists about the nature of the fossil record. It seems most people think that the oldest known fossil is the time the species arose. That isn't true for a lot of reasons. Because of the nature of the fossil record , H. erectus, H. hobilis could easily have lived long before their first fossils.

First. only 3% of living species are found as fossils. This means that MOST animals that have lived on earth never left a trace of themselves. Most people view the fossil record as showing us all of what was on earth in the past. It only shows 3% of what was on earth in the past. Here are two paleontologists talking about this.

" Logic dictates, too, that the oldest known fossils cannot possibly be the oldest representatives of their kind. Fossilization is a rare event, after all; and when animals first appear, they are rare. The earliest fossil bones are therefore likely to date from a time when their erstwhile owners were already common. Logic similarly dictates that if an animal is particularly unlikely to form fossils–as primates seem to be–then paleontologists are particularly unlikely to find the very earliest types. In fact, this logic can be translated into a mathematical formula (see Robert D. Martin, ““Primate Origins: Plugging the Gaps,”” Nature, May 20, 1993, pp 223-234). The fewer fossils there are (relative to the calculated number of extinct species), the older the group is liable to be, relative to the number of fossils found. " Colin Tudge, The Time Before History, (New York: Scribner, 1996), p. 172

" The number of living species that have been described is about 1.5 million…If we focus on the paleontologically important groups, present-day diversity is about 180,000 species. …Suppose we assume that the present-day level of diversity was attained immediately at the beginning of the Cambrian Period and has been maintained since then. Then 25 percent of 180,000 species, or 45,000 species became extinct and were replaced by new species every million years. In rough terms, the Phanerozoic is 550 million years log. this leads to an estimate that there have been 180,000+(45,000 X 550) or about 25 million species. Comparing this with the 300,000 described fossil species implies that between 1 percent and 2 percent of species are known as fossils." Michael Foote et al, Principles of Paleontology, (New York, W. H. Freeman and Co., 2007), p 23

If the above is true, and it is, it has one important implication that for some reason I have been unable to get people to understand. When early man lived on earth and were few in number, he could have lived for millions of years and left not one single fossil of himself. Indeed, one can compare the earliest fossil of a group with the 2nd earliest fossil of the group, and you will find HUGE gaps of time where that group lived on earth but left no fossils.

Elephants demonstrably lived on earth for 8 million years without leaving a known fossil. The earliest elephant fossil comes from 60 myr ago. The second earliest fossil of an elephant is from 52 myr ago. That is a gap of 8 myr and no fossil record of them! The fossil record is very spotty. Below are some other groups.

Angiosperms (flowering plants) lived 10 my years between the first and 2nd fossil without leaving a fossil

Tyranosaurs lived 20 my years between 1st and 2nd fossil examples --no trace of them in that time

marine turtles 10 myr between the first and 2nd known fossil

Loris 20 myr between the first and 2nd known fossil

This is enough- I have a big list of these.

So now, let’s turn to mankind. A tiny population living in forests would have little chance of being preserved. Also from the Tudge quote above, the earliest fossil of H. habilis, dated to 2.4 myr. is not the moment he was created–it is just the time of the first lucky fossil of that group! That group lived long before 2.4 myr ago. A fossil LD-350 lived 2.8 myr ago and depending on how it is classified he might be in the habilis clade. One thing to know about classifications, Ernst Mayr in 1950 was asked to study all the fossil available at that date and he claimed all should be in the genus Homo–including australopithecus. He said the differences between the creatures were less than what other taxonomic groups called the same genus. The differences were tiny in his eyes. The anthro community rebelled. lol. They wanted to emphasize differences.

I chose H. habilis because that is the earliest group that anatomy shows had pain in childbirth–a consequence of God’s curse. Documentation available by looking here.

So how long did H. habilis live on earth prior to that fossil? We don’t have anything other than statistics to say how long, But statistics don’t give us a certain date. If my cancer stats had applied to me, I would have died around 2005. I have outlived now 3 statistical prognostications of my death-- I am the outlier of an outlier. So for habilis, we don’t know if he is an outlier or not. Same with H. erectus who first leaves a fossil 2 myr ago(Drimolen published April 2020). Either of these could have lived undetected for millions of years. Either of them could have been created in Eden and been Adam and Eve. I would, of course, prefer it to be H. erectus, but I have no data. Because of the nature of the fossil record (3% rule) we are unlikely to ever get that information, which saddens me a lot, but that is reality and one must face reality.

So, the best I can offer is that one of these species was the descendant of whatever Adam and Eve looked like. But I do believe that they were small brained. Both curses relate to problems arising from a bigger brain.

When I am gone, I think I have answers to most questions one can ask on this theory to be found on my blog but it will require some digging.

By the way Barbarian, you have a great knowledge of Anthro. Are you an anthro graduate? I could have had a minor in it but Oklahoma U only let me have one minor--as a physicist I chose math. But I spent 10 years in the 1990s reading something like 3000 anthro articles and 500 anthro books, so I could have a working knowledge of this area.

 

[The Barbarian]

Not much as far as I can tell. If Jesus doesn't really need us humans to cheer him at the Triumphal entry and could have used stones for the same purpose, that kinda puts us humans in our place.

There is a large misunderstanding among non-geologists about the nature of the fossil record. It seems most people think that the oldest known fossil is the time the species arose. That isn't true for a lot of reasons. Because of the nature of the fossil record , H. erectus, H. hobilis could easily have lived long before their first fossils.

Yes. The more numerous the fossils of a given species, the more certain we are of the time in which it existed. So some are better known than others.

First. only 3% of living species are found as fossils. This means that MOST animals that have lived on earth never left a trace of themselves.

This is true of practically all species. But we do have better knowledge of higher taxa. Known species-to-species transitions are much less common than genus to genus transitions. For the reason you said.

Most people view the fossil record as showing us all of what was on earth in the past. It only shows 3% of what was on earth in the past. Here are two paleontologists talking about this.

" Logic dictates, too, that the oldest known fossils cannot possibly be the oldest representatives of their kind.

Yes. It would be remarkably unlikely that the precise organism that gave rise to a new species would be fossilized and then found. That's not what "transitional form"means. However, important new fossils turn up monthly. When I started in biology, many major transitions were not known. Now, many of them are filled in by finds since then.

Fossilization is a rare event, after all; and when animals first appear, they are rare.

And usually in unexpected places. Most speciation seems to be allopatric, that is away from the main group, and it happens when a small population gets isolated in some unusual environment. The relatively small population (founder effect) and different environment tends to make the population evolve relatively fast. The first clue for this was when Mayr's survey showed that aberrant species of a taxon tended to be found in isolated places. Later, Eldredge and Gould explained why.

The earliest fossil bones are therefore likely to date from a time when their erstwhile owners were already common. Logic similarly dictates that if an animal is particularly unlikely to form fossils–as primates seem to be–then paleontologists are particularly unlikely to find the very earliest types.

Yep.

If the above is true, and it is, it has one important implication that for some reason I have been unable to get people to understand. When early man lived on earth and were few in number, he could have lived for millions of years and left not one single fossil of himself. Indeed, one can compare the earliest fossil of a group with the 2nd earliest fossil of the group, and you will find HUGE gaps of time where that group lived on earth but left no fossils.

Yes. Paleontologists are getting better at figuring out where to look, but the fossil record will always be fragmentary.

So now, let’s turn to mankind. A tiny population living in forests would have little chance of being preserved.

And that's the thing. We have very few fossils of forest apes, because forests tend to destroy bones before they can fossilize. So we have lots of savanna hominins, but few forest ones. If there were early humans living in forests, it would be very unlikely we'd find any fossils of them.

One thing to know about classifications, Ernst Mayr in 1950 was asked to study all the fossil available at that date and he claimed all should be in the genus Homo–including australopithecus. He said the differences between the creatures were less than what other taxonomic groups called the same genus. The differences were tiny in his eyes. The anthro community rebelled. lol. They wanted to emphasize differences.

It's true. From Australopithecus on, there's not much difference in hominids; the differences are almost all in the skulls. Makes sense; Australopithecus and Homo are bipedal; so their postcranial skeletons reflect that adaptation.

I chose H. habilis because that is the earliest group that anatomy shows had pain in childbirth–a consequence of God’s curse.

Reasonable conclusion. I've leaned toward H. erectus, but there really is no way to know.

When I am gone, I think I have answers to most questions one can ask on this theory to be found on my blog but it will require some digging.

Bookmarked. I'm not ready to accept everything, but so far, you've shown reasonable and thought-out conclusions.

By the way Barbarian, you have a great knowledge of Anthro. Are you an anthro graduate? I

Actually, my undergraduate degree was in the area of microbiology, minored in zoology. I took a graduate program in systems, and focused on biological systems after I left immunology. So when I graduated, I became an ergonomist. And that involved a lot of anthropometry. The literature then led me into physical anthropology, and I was just fascinated, and kept reading.

could have had a minor in it but Oklahoma U only let me have one minor--as a physicist I chose math. But I spent 10 years in the 1990s reading something like 3000 anthro articles and 500 anthro books, so I could have a working knowledge of this area.

Have you read anything by Cavalli-Sforza? His Genetics of Human Populations has been hugely successful in explaining the genetics and cultural revolutions of prehistoric Europe.

Enjoying your contributions. Please go on.

 

[Gbob]

Have you read anything by Cavalli-Sforza? His Genetics of Human Populations has been hugely successful in explaining the genetics and cultural revolutions of prehistoric Europe.

Enjoying your contributions. Please go on.

I guess I haven't read that one. I read: L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paoli Menozzi and Alberto Piazzi, The History and Geography of Human Genes, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) and I read Luigi L. Cavalli-Sforza and Francesco Cavalli-Sforza, The Great Human Diaspora, (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1995)

That came out about the time I moved to Houston for a year and then moved to Scotland so, I guess I missed it. That was a turbulent time for us--I survived a 90% layoff at my company. lol I became the mgr of geophysics for the Gulf of Mexico and then Dir of subsurface technology for the North Sea. The book History and Geography of Human Genes was a monster of a book as I recall. I doubt I have time to read another big book so I read shorter journal articles now. Time has grown precious to me and I try to use it wisely. But God is so good even in the bad times.

I may only have a couple of other posts, discussing the rainbow and then the life that lived at the bottom of that incredibly deep basin--and there was lots of it. That post will be biological so I will try to be careful what I say given your background. lol

 

[The Barbarian]

The book History and Geography of Human Genes was a monster of a book as I recall.

Yep. And not always a page-turner. Like Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, good for you but not light reading.

May God bless and keep you; hope all goes well for you.

 

[Job 33:6]

One thing I wwonder about is how the timing of our birth might have weighed into our physical changes over time.

For example, if born pre maturely, people might have certain body proportions or traits that might be different than if we were born late. If a change were to happen, biologically, that might alter the rate of our development in the womb, or the timing of our development or birth, it could drastically alter our species. And I wonder how this might weight into our history.

Just while on the topic of wide hips, birth and big brains.

 

[The Barbarian]

One thing I wwonder about is how the timing of our birth might have weighed into our physical changes over time.

There's something to that. Our development is slower, and our infants are born, still incompletely developed, compared to infants of other primates. But it doesn't end there. Adult humans resemble infant apes in many ways, among them:

• Relatively larger crania
• Smaller face and jaws
• Foramen magnum (where the spinal cord connects to the skull) placed forward, under the braincase, instead of at the rear of the skull.

Neotony is a fairly common process in evolution, which is mediated by genes that pace development. If you're interested in this, about 100 years ago, D'Arcy Thompson wrote On Growth and Form, which illustrates the issue well. He wasn't right about everything, but he got a lot of it right:

Changes in chimpanzee and human skulls from infancy to adulthood:

For example, if born pre maturely, people might have certain body proportions or traits that might be different than if we were born late. If a change were to happen, biologically, that might alter the rate of our development in the womb, or the timing of our development or birth, it could drastically alter our species. And I wonder how this might weight into our history.

Turns out, it matters a lot.

 

[Gbob]

One thing I wwonder about is how the timing of our birth might have weighed into our physical changes over time.

For example, if born pre maturely, people might have certain body proportions or traits that might be different than if we were born late. If a change were to happen, biologically, that might alter the rate of our development in the womb, or the timing of our development or birth, it could drastically alter our species. And I wonder how this might weight into our history.

Just while on the topic of wide hips, birth and big brains.

I agree with Barbarian, who knows so much about this topic--maybe more than me and I thought I was good. lol. Everyone finds someone who is better and I bow to Barbarian's knowledge.

"Humans are simply born too early in their development, at the time when their heads will still fit through their mothers' birth canals. As babies' brains grow, during this extrauterine year of fetal life, so do their bodies. About the time of the infant's first birthday, the period of fetal brain growth terminates, coinciding with the beginnings of speech and the mastery of erect posture and bipedal walking. All of these defining characteristics of humans are developed or learned during the crucial first year of life. At this point, the human infant has reached a behavioral and developmental stage comparable to that reached by every other precocial mammal at birth. Discovering this has made me think differently about the first year. I am convinced it is the most important twelve months in our lives. The new born's brain is growing, absorbing, sucking in impressions and information at a fetal rate; these experiences, in turn, affect the growth and development of the brain itself." ~ Alan Walker and Pat Shipman, The Wisdom of the Bones, (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1996), p. 222

The interesting thing about human birth is that the infant spend it's last pre-natal year outside the womb, experiencing life and sensations it wouldn't experience if it were left in the womb. (we should be born at around 21 months according to the way other mammals are born.

"As mentioned previously, brain size probably expanded slightly during the first two or three million years in the evolution of the hominid (and pongid) clade. By approximately two million years ago, however, it had reached the maximum size that could be born to a mammalian lineage that followed the typical pattern of completing half of brain growth in utero. It was at this point, with the origin of the genus Homo, that a shift in the usual growth pattern occurred so that more than half the growth of the brain took place after birth." ." ~ Wenda R. Trevathan, Human Birth, (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1987), p. 223

The infant is in the world as his brain is developing, hearing things, seeing things, smelling things, feeling things, all the while is too small brain is rapidly building itself into the human brain. Being in the world at this stage certainly has to have an impact on human intelligence. This seems to be unique in the mammalian world. We triple our brain size after birth. Half of that extra natal growth is outside the womb. The great Apes only double theirs.

 

[Gbob]

Evidence for language in the hominids and tired old genes.

This post is cobbled together from several different discussions I have had.

I want to point out that the only time in geologic history that Christianity can hope to have a primal pair is at the time which matches closely our oldest gene ages. Most Christians use mtDNA to date Adam and Eve. This haploid strand of DNA only investigates a shallow time horizon. Using this Christians try to say Adam and Eve lived a few hundred thousand years ago.

This conflicts with the ages of nuclear genes. Here are some of the oldest genes:
gene age of the gene reference
green opsin >5,500,000 Ayala et al, 1994
HERVs ~5,000,000 Johnson and Coffin 1999
Lipoprotein ~2,000,000 Ayala et al, 1994
PDHA1 ~1,860,000 Harris and Hey, 1999

The average age of a human gene is about a million years old--which is a problem if God created Adam and Eve as Homo sapiens:

"In fact, while neutrally evolving autosomal loci have TMRCAs ranging from 0.8 to 1.5 million years (MY), gene regions under balancing selection may show coalescence times dating back more than 4 MY."6

As Templeton said, the TMRCA majority of nuclear DNA has a TMRCA of over a million years. Below is a chart showing the TMRCA of some genes. They chose 27 autosomal genes; the TMRCA is more than 2 million years old in 11 out of 27 of them. Only 2 of the 27 are under a million years in TMRCA. Click on picture to enlarge.

So we are supposed to ignore these old genes and say that the 16,000 base pairs of mitochondria outweighs the three billion base pairs of the nuclear DNA and just say nuclear DNA doesn't count? That is one of the most ridiculous ideas I have seen, yet that is what is happening. The 16,000 base pairs of the mitochondria is somehow considered the end all of knowledge about when our species arose. And it represents 0.0000053 or .00053% of our DNA. I don't know how many ways I can say it, but we are not a walking piece of mitochondrial DNA. This small piece of our genome (and not even part of our nuclear genome), is NOT what defines our species! Further, other genes have much to say about when they arose, and it differs from mtDNA.

Back when I wrote my books, I discussed the MHC genes and the claim that it would take 30 myr for the MHC to generate the diversity we see. I left that as an unexplained thorn in my theory back then. But since then, it has been found that these genes are not generated via point mutation, and thus their times to the most recent common ancestor is shorter, much shorter.

" The HLA class I and class II loci are the most highly polymorphic coding regions in the human genome. Based on the similarity of the coding sequences of alleles between species, it has been claimed that the HLA polymorphism is ancient and predates the separation of human (Homo) and chimpanzee (Pan), 4–7.4 Myr ago. Analysis of intron sequences, however, provides support for a more recent origin and for rapid generation of alleles at the HLA class II DRB1 locus. The human DRB1 alleles can be divided into groups (allelic lineages); most of these lineages have diverged from each other before the separation of Homo and Pan. Alleles within such a lineage, however, appear to be, on average, 250,000 years old, implying that the vast majority (greater than 90%) of the more than 135 contemporary human DRB1 alleles have been generated after the separation of Homo and Pan. " 31

In the article, they point out that these DRB1 alleles, which are so incredibly diverse might not have arisen via mutation but have arisen via sequence exchanges This has been demonstrated with the mouse.

“Exchange of sequences between different loci, which has been demonstrated conclusively in mouse class I sequences, most likely involves gene conversion.” 32

Bergstrom et al. note,

" Furthermore, the polymorphism at several class II loci, such as DRBI, is characterized by a ‘patchwork’ pattern of amino-acid motifs, indicating that the alleles may have been generated through sequence exchanges(that is, gene conversion-like events). This implies that adjacent coding sequences may not share the same evolutionary history and are therefore not suited to reconstructing evolutionary relationships among alleles. " 33

The 2015 article by Rajalingam et al, agrees,

" MHC genes evolve through duplication, followed by diversification, co‐ evolution, and sequence exchange . " 34

I need to talk about language. I seem to have forgotten that topic. Human language is very different from animal vocalization.

"Even the seat of human language in the brain is special. The vocal calls of primates are controlled not by their cerebral cortex but by phylogenetically older neural structures in the brain stem and limbic system, structures that are heavily involved in emotion. Human vocalizations other than language, like sobbing, laughing, moaning, and shouting in pain, are also controlled subcortically. Subcortical structures even control the swearing that follows the arrival of a hammer on a thumb, that emerges as an involuntary tic in Tourette's syndrome, and that can survive as Broca's aphasics' only speech. Genuine language, as we saw in the preceding chapter, is seated in the cerebral cortex, primarily the left perisylvian region." ~ Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct, (New York: Harper/Perennial, 1994), p. 334


Moving Adam back in time solves a problem H. sapiens Adamic theories have. They can't explain he fossil appearance of Broca’s area, long before the non-evolutionary anatomically modern Adam’s were formed. Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area are two areas on the left side of the brain which are word processing centers (no they are not the only areas). Damage either area and speech becomes difficult.
Broca’s area in humans has a bump on the brain that leaves an indentation on the inside of the skull. And it is this indentation that we first find in Homo habilis (rudolfensis) from 2.4-2.6 myr ago. The question is: Why did a word processing module develop if habilis had no language? What was it used for? How did it switch to our use of it in language? Such questions can’t be answered by most christian views in which homo sapiens is the first being to speak!. Again, along with the genetic data above, this can only be explained if speech were much older than Homo sapiens–not necessarily our kind of speech or mode of speech but speech none the less. By moving Adam and Eve back in time to 5.3 myr ago, we have an easy explanation for what is below:

“According to Ralph Holloway of Columbia University, the leading authority on ancient hominid brain structure, the markings revealing Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas appear millions of years before the Creative Explosion was allegedly triggered by the emergence of language, certainly by the time of Homo habilis. Holloway has also shown that habilis skulls reveal cerebral asymmetry: a left-hemisphere lopsidedness, which is associated in our species with language. More recently, Terry Deacon of Harvard University has pointed to language-related structures in the prefrontal cortex of the brain that also began to swell beginning with Homo habilis.” ~ James R. Shreeve, The Neandertal Enigma, (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1995), p. 274-275

If H. sapiens were the first hominid to speak, then why would habilis have a word processing area?

"The oldest evidence for Broca's area to date is from KNM-ER 1470, a H. habilis specimen from Kenya, dated at approximately two million years ago. From that date forward, brain size 'took off,' i.e., increased autocatalytically so that it nearly doubled in the genus Homo, reaching its maximum in Neanderthals. If hominids weren't using and refining language I would like to know what they were doing with their autocatalytically increasing brains (getting ready to draw pictures somehow doesn't seem like enough)." ~ Dean Falk, Comments, Current Anthropology, 30:2, April, 1989, p. 141-142.


But if we take a Baldwinian view of evolution, then speech precedes the development of Broca’s area. If habilis were dealing in symbolic communications, it would place demands on the brain for computational power. Deacon says:

“This one cognitive demand would introduce an incessant selection pressure in a society of hominids habitually dependent on symbolic communication in whatever form this symbolic communication took. As was explained in Chapter 9, the particular neural computations that are required to surmount this mnemonic-attentional threshold largely depended on processes that are this mnemonic-attentional threshold largely depend on processes that are carried out in the prefrontal cortex. Thus, the neural computations associated with symbol acquisition were unavoidably required by all languagelike behavior; they imposed a significant demand on a comparatively underdeveloped cognitive process; they were invariant across a wide range of sensorimotor applications; and they depended on a specific common neural substrate in all brains. This is a recipe for a powerful Baldwinian selection process.” ~ Terrence W. Deacon, The Symbolic Species, (New York: W.W. Norton, 1997), p. 335

“From this Baldwinian perspective, we can make one prediction and one observation. The prediction is that if complex deliberate communication requires a developed brain, then simple deliberate communication of some sort must have preceded the evolution of big brains. .” Stephen Oppenheimer, The Real Eve, (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003), p. 21

According to this Baldwinian view, it was speech which drove the development of structures capable of more powerful speech. Remember, our speech comes from the Neocortex. Every other animal vocalization comes from the deeper, emotional centers of the brain. We are absolutely unique in where our vocalizations arise from–and from my reading, no one really has a good explanation for how control of vocalization jumped from the emotional centers to the neocortex.

Remember it appears that Homo erectus crossed the Wallace line sometime between 880kyr and 600kyr (new dating as of 2018).

"In addition, palaeomagnetic dating samples obtained during these field trips yielded an estimated age of about 900 ka for the Tangi Talo fossil layer and a minimum age of 600 ka for the Mata Menge artefact-bearing layer (van den Bergh et al., 1996). The absence of an archaeologist in the team initially resulted in the status 68 of the Mata Menge stone artefacts being questioned by the broader archaeological community (Morwood & Aziz, 2009). However, Mike Morwood, an Australian archaeologist who analyzed the stone pieces excavated by the Indonesian-Dutch team at Mata Menge, was confident that they were indeed stone artefacts (Morwood et al., 1997). In 1997, Mike Morwood and Fachroel Aziz collected samples for fission-track dating, which provided ages that matched previous palaeomagnetic dating: 900 ka for Tangi Talo and 880-800 ka for Mata Menge. Based on these findings, Morwood and Aziz concluded that somehow early humans, presumably Homo erectus, had reached Flores between 880-800 ka. This arrival seemed to coincide with the extinction of pygmy Stegodon and giant tortoise, which were replaced by large-bodied Stegodon (Morwood et al., 1998; 1999)." Dida Yumaldi, " The Environmental Magnetism and Palaeomagnetic Dating Of Archaeological and Palaeontological sites: Case Studies from Flores and Sulawesi, Indonesia" Master's Thesis University of Wollongong. 2018. https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1518&context=theses1

"Located almost exactly halfway between the Asian and Australian continental areas, Flores is right on the geographical, cultural and linguistic boundary between Asia and Australia-Melanesia, and a possible route for initial colonization of Greater Australia by modern humans. But even at low sea levels, at least two sea crossings are needed to reach the island. The first of these deepwater sea barriers is a 25-kilometer trait between the islands of Bali and Lombok; the second is a 9-kilometer strait between Sumbawa and Flores. Up until recently it was assumed that only modern humans had the required intellectual, linguistic and technological capacity to make sea crossings. The Flores evidence demonstrated that this assumption might not be correct, which had mind-blowing implications. It made me realize that early humans must have been much smarter than most people think. People tend to consistently underestimate the abilities and achievements of our ancestors." Mike Morewood and Penny van Oosterzee, "A New Human: The Startling Discovery and Strange Story of the "Hobbits" of Flores, Indonesia, 2016 electronic edition.

Anthropologists have regularly argued that to build a steerable boat requires language. It appears that H. erectus built a steerable boat around 600-880kyr ago--implying they had language at that time. At least this would have the erectines actually USING Broca's area rather than having it sit uselessly in the brain as it waited for modern man to switch it on. But if they used it, what then is the argument that the 2 myr old erectines didn't use their Broca's area as well?


A real historical Bible is a powerful thing. A book of mythology doesn’t lead people to give their lives for the advancement a myth.

31 . Bergström T F, Josefsson A, Erlich H A and Gyllensten U (1998) Recent origin of HLADRB1 alleles and implications for human evolution, Nat Genet. 18 (3):237–242., p. 237
32 . John Trowsdale .“The gentle art of gene arrangement: the meaning of gene clusters,” Genome Biology, 2002, Volume 3, Number 3, The gentle art of gene arrangement: the meaning of gene clusters
33 .Tomas Bergstrom, et al, “Recent Origin of HLA-DRB1 alleles and Implications for Human Evolution,” Nature Genetics, 1998, p. 237 The gentle art of gene arrangement: the meaning of gene clusters
34 . Raja Rajalingam, et al, Transplant Immunology " Major histocompatibility complex” in Xian Chang Li Anthony M. Jevnikar editors, Transplant Immunology, Wiley, 2015, Error - Cookies Turned Off

 

[The Barbarian]

Yes, and Broca's area did not pop up out of nothing:

Cereb Cortex. 2010 Mar; 20(3): 730–742.
Broca's Area Homologue in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Probabilistic Mapping, Asymmetry, and Comparison to Humans

It is true that chimps have rudimentary language abilities. But they are very poor, relative to those of humans. However, Broca's area is homologous to a structure in chimpanzee brains. So it's not surprising that our ancestors would have them. If a very slightly lateralized chimpanzee brain has rudimentary language capability, then it seems obvious that Australopithecines and other early hominins would also have it.

 

[Gbob]

Yes, and Broca's area did not pop up out of nothing:

Cereb Cortex. 2010 Mar; 20(3): 730–742.
Broca's Area Homologue in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Probabilistic Mapping, Asymmetry, and Comparison to Humans

It is true that chimps have rudimentary language abilities. But they are very poor, relative to those of humans. However, Broca's area is homologous to a structure in chimpanzee brains. So it's not surprising that our ancestors would have them. If a very slightly lateralized chimpanzee brain has rudimentary language capability, then it seems obvious that Australopithecines and other early hominins would also have it.

First, I won't plant my flag on the hill of how language happened. I don't know how it happened. I have ideas, preferences, but that is largely what they are.

I am not sure who is right on chimp hand signs but I found this years ago in Pinker's book

"Actually what the chimps were really doing was more interesting than what they were claimed to be doing. Jane Goodall, visiting the project, remarked to Terrace and Petitto that every one of Nim's so-called signs was familiar to her from her observations of chimps in the wild. The chimps were relying heavily on the gestures in their natural repertoire, rather than learning true arbitrary ASL signs with their combinatorial phonological structure of hand shapes, motions, locations, and orientations." ~ Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct, (New York: Harper/Perennial, 1994), p. 337-338

There are still firm believers in ape hand sign language, but Goodall is certainly one to sit up an pay attention to.

One theory of language formation is that it started as a sign language, and the motor cortex for that is right next to Broca's area. So it is possible that that is how language started. The chimp gestures, whether able to communicate ASL or not may be why they have an enlarged area. But theirs doesn't leave a mark on the inside of the skull as I understand it.

All I am saying with that post with regard to language, is that if Language is a mark of post Adamic people, then evidence for language far precedes the time frame most Christians (and amazingly), Chomsky want language to arise. Chomsky advocated this:

"Chomsky (2010) maintains that there were no languages prior to 100,000 years ago, and that when language did emerge it was the outcome of a sudden event, perhaps a mutation, in a single individual. This occurred in Africa sometime after 100,000 years ago and was disseminated through the population prior to the dispersal of humans from Africa some 60,000 years ago." Michale C. Corballis, "The Big-Bang' Theory, M. Mody (ed.), Neural Mechanisms of Language, Innovations in Cognitive Neuroscience, 2017, p. 200

That is largely the time most Christians allow for language. I know that view is wrong. What is right? I don't know.

My trip to the hospital last week discombobulated me. I have already done a post on the animal life at the bottom of the Med. Thus, I think I have only one more post to give. Tomorrow.

 

[Gbob]

Why wasn't there a Rainbow in Noah's Pre-Flood World?

Glenn R. Morton March 21, 2020

There are two statements that Biblical scholars don't often connect and liberals dismiss as ridiculous. I believe the Bible is a record of God's interaction with mankind. And I believe that it can be scientifically/historically true, but not with the normal approaches taken by Christians. I believe that the events of Genesis 2-9 took place on a land that no longer exists, and that explains why these verses have appeared so troubling. Let's look at the verses.

When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens— 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground," Gen 2:4-5
There was no rain on the land upon which God was about to place Adam, and this was a time before farming.
The second verse is Genesis 9:11
"I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
I do not like the translator's choice of 'earth' because 'eretz means 'land', not 'planet earth'. the land that was destroyed, therefore, could have been an area of earth that no longer exists, but actually did long ago, when man's ancestors first appear in the geologic record. It was the Mediterranean desert.

But let's look at the other flood theories to see if any of them can explain a land with no rain and no rainbow? The global flood idea has the entire world flooded. Because rainbows can be seen anywhere on earth's surface today, including the driest area on earth, the Atacama desert, it is difficult to see how there would be no pre-flood rainbows.

Many global flood advocates say the rainbow was just given special significance, but to me that is like God saying to someone today, I make my covenant with you and I will set my grass upon the ground. It makes no sense because God didn't do anything as part of the covenant.

The Mesopotamian flood is popular with many Christians who don't believe in the global flood but want a real flood any way. The problem is, there is rain in Iraq and rainbows in the sky. So again, one must effectively have God take something that was already there and give it 'significance', but that isn't very satisfying. Having God give significance to something already there doesn't show his power to keep his part of the bargain.

The answer to this question lies in the idea that Eden existed in the Mediterranean Basin 5.3 myr ago. The details can be found in the here, but the world was different back then. The Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic ocean and it evaporated to 3 or 4 large lakes. So you will know this large desert is a mainstream idea, see Wiki and Wiki. The world looked like this:

Click to enlarge. Note that the Taurus mountains are the Mountains of Ararat. The four rivers mentioned in Genesis 2:8-14 are found flowing into the same region of this Mediterranean desert and what looked like a nutty geography to many Biblical scholars, like Ryle and Radday:
"For Ryle, 'The account...is irreconcilable with scientific geography.' Radday believed that Eden is nowhere because of its deliberately tongue-in-cheek fantastic geography." John C. Munday, Jr., "Eden's Geography Erodes Flood Geology," Westminster Theological Journal, 58(1996), pp. 123-154,p.128-130
The above scenario, recognized by modern geology as real, says that those rivers once were together in the same area. Details here.

Would there have been rain in that 5 km deep, empty basin? Not likely. First, the Mediterranean waters were mostly gone and the brine lakes remaining probably had salt crusts limiting further evaporation (A. Debenedetti, Marine Geology, 49,1982, p. 94.). There is river water pouring into the basin but, even today it is not enough to keep the Med filled with water. It is truly a small amount of water in the grand scheme of things.
Secondly, the Mediterranean is located in the Horse Latitudes. Of them, it is written:
"Horse latitudes, subtropical ridges or subtropical highs are the subtropical latitudes between 30 and 35 degrees both north and south where Earth's atmosphere is dominated by the subtropical high, an area of high pressure, which suppresses precipitation and cloud formation, and has variable winds mixed with calm winds." Horse latitudes - Wikipedia

You can see the 30 deg line along the coast of Egypt.

Thirdly, there is a very sharp rain shadow in all directions. The yellow lines on Mediterranean map above are the mountain ranges that cause a rain shadow.

From Wiki:

"A rain shadow is a dry area on the leeward side of a mountainous area (away from the wind). The mountains block the passage of rain-producing weather systems and cast a "shadow" of dryness behind them. Wind and moist air are drawn by the prevailing winds towards the top of the mountains, where it condenses and precipitates before it crosses the top. The air, without much moisture left, advances across the mountains creating a drier side called the "rain shadow"." Rain shadow - Wikipedia

In addition as the air flows down into the basin the relative humidity of that air drops, making rain even less likely. Britannica says of the descending air mass:

"As it descends on the downwind side of the range, it warms again and its relative humidity is further reduced. This reduction in relative humidity not only prevents further rainfall, but also causes the air mass to absorb moisture from other sources, drying the climate on the downwind side. The ultimate result is lush forest on the windward side of a mountain separated by the summit from an arid environment on the downwind side. " Rain Shadow | Encyclopedia.com

As the air descended 5 km down into the Mediterranean basin, the relative humidity would seriously drop, more so than anywhere today on the present earth. Rain would almost be impossible in such a basin, and especially in the eastern part of the basin. No rain; no rainbow.

 

[The Barbarian]

Yes, that's right. The Hebrew word for "world" is not "erets." It's "tevel."

The rain shadow in the Mediterranean has appeared and disappeared over the ages. The Sahara was, thousands of years ago, fertile pastureland. As the globe warms up, it is becoming so, again, even as the American west gets drier.

But yes, cold air, coming down from mountains onto plains, warms up and holds more moisture, meaning less rain.

 

[Gbob]

I didn't know about 'tevel'. Glad to learn that. I think I have presented my view here. Barbarian you are a gentleman and I have enjoyed our interaction. I think on Wednesday I will be referred to hospice. It is amazing how quickly I have gone from being able to do things around the house to I can't hardly do them any more. But as I pointed out in my reply to Runner, God has been good to me even during this tough time. Unlike with my parents, my kids like me and we are all close. And all my grandkids find me fun. My dad was an atheist who was never home cause he hated mom, and mom was an unloving Bible-spouting sociopath who tried to starve my baby cousin to death and who abused my brother and I . It took me a while to figure out that she wasn't what Christianity was all about. Take, care, I will look in every now and then.

 

[The Barbarian]

Thanks for all your information. I'll be a while, absorbing it. God bless and keep you.

 

[Gbob]

Hi all,

I’m Dan Morton, Glenn Morton’s son (oldest of his three!). Due to his health situation, which some of you may know about, he’s unable to respond or post now. We’re continuing to pray for his comfort.

I’m posting because he did finish the book and we helped him get it onto Kindle yesterday!

Finishing this book was hugely important to him, and we’re grateful it’s complete! I know he feels exceedingly grateful for the opportunity to have written it, as he does for the chance to engage with this community.

If you are interested in reading it, here’s the link:
Eden Was Here: New Evidence for the Historicity of Genesis – Glenn Morton

While he may not be able to post, I’m certain he’d be honored to have you all consider his viewpoint and the evidence he presents.

Thank you and Best,
Dan.

 

[Oaktree125]

Regarding Eden...
i think i can help. What is missing is the mechanism, the Scriptural support, for what you are witnessing. When God floods the world in Noah's day He drags creation backwards in time to the Days of Creation to recreate the moments of Gen 1:1. Ill assume that you have the capacity to see the equivalence of saying that or that the past emerges into Noah's present moment. When a miracle is called it is not some willy nilly magic. Only the real actual past is involved. Anachronisms answer our doubt. "Did this really happen 2000 yrs ago?" Yes it did because only reality is useful to a miracle. Discovering Eden in the past is actually a confirmation of the power that God enacted on the earth. Let's look at some other examples: What did Jesus walk on in the Sea of Galilee? Was it magic or was He merely interacting with the ground before the land subsided below sea level? What about the axehead? Does Scripture say it floated and displayed buoyancy properties or did it merely interact with the bottom of the river from a previous era? What about the BBC program that attributed all the plagues of Egypt to that of a volcanic eruption- did you see that? Did you remember that the eruption of Mt Perim closed off the mouth of the Red Sea and let it dry up allow us to cross? Do you agree with the evidence that this lava dam might have catastrophically broken and flooded the basin over the Egyptians? Do you agree that the miraculous observations of fire columns and 10mi ash clouds viewable in the day and columns of fiery discharge at night and all the Exodus miracles are in fact consistent with the historical nature of a triple junction and subsequent volcanic eruptions that would have occurred there? What about the petrified forest of Ridyah? Do you think prehistoric trees could have dropped strange foodstuffs in the desert for the wandering Hebrews? Those trees now lie petrified on the same exposed paleosurface that you and I can walk on today. And what about the baskets that feed thousands? Arent they taken to market again and again and again and wouldnt the clay pots have wine one time and then oil and then water another moment? So Im "naturalizing" a miracle by using ONLY real past events and making that one consistent definition of God's miraculous activity. Finding Eden in the geologic past is further evidence of an anachronistic mechanism. Consider: No one could have known these past things except God, and the information from the past is always present wherever you are. That is why Jesus goes into the past of his parents relationship- because that is what a miracle is.