Homo Sapiens: origin Africa or Eden?
[Originally published on September 2, 2008. Last revised on Feb 18, 2009.]
In previous article we talked about the basic scientific idea behind evolution and why the theories must not be 'injected' into the Biblical account. Theories made up from a naturalistic viewpoint (as is traditionally the case with an atheist point of view) must also be separated from science, a domain Christians must not let hijack by atheists as has happened for far too long. Further on, unlike the atheistic interpretations of the data of evolution, we are interested in the scientific data as it is. Besides all this, we are also interested in the question how we can understand creation in view of evolution. But we first try to understand a little more about what the evolution concept of the human species is really about. We have to talk about Homo Sapiens, and a little bit about the Neanderthal as well.
Scientific theory locates our ancestry in Africa. An African origin of mankind may appear to be contradicting with Christian faith, given that the garden of Eden leads us to what is now Iraq - not Africa. But are we talking about the same thing here? Given what we saw in the former blog, it is clearly justified to argue that the scientific outlook may not be the point where the Bible starts talking about Adam & Eve.
Origin of the human species: Africa
Evidence for the African origin of the human species was on the radar already from the research on our fossil records, but this evidence has been strongly fortified by evidence from the scientific study of genetics since about the 1990s, when the Human Genome Project (HGP) delivered data confirming a timing way beyond those 10,000 Biblical years. The leadership of the HGP - which unraveled the genetic make-up of the human species - was in the hands of Dr. Francis S. Collins, a physician-geneticist and a Christian.
The migration from the African continent started some 80,000 to 100,000 years ago. The first appearance of this human being, called Homo Sapiens - with brain capacity similar to yours and (hopefully) mine, has been dated some 200,000 years ago.
What is the data telling us exactly? The fact is, that the most varied DNA in humans is found on the African continent, while DNA in humans becomes less and less varied the more we look away from that continent.
When you look at the blueprint of this genetic data printed on a world map, as is shown here with a gradient starting from white (=very diverse genetic variation of people) and darker gradient when the genetic variation is less diverse, the result is impressive:
The gradient changes very slowly from Africa upward and westward, with the 'least variation' DNA coloring the place where the native Americans (Indians) arrived, somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000 years ago.
The theory that in turn makes sense of this data is, that it inevitably shows us a historical trace of how the human species spread out all over the world, starting from Africa as the country of origin. This theory explains the facts in a very straightforward way. Besides that, it confirms what science already revealed through the fossil records, and completes that picture in many ways. From these data it would be very hard to construct a better hypothesis. Doubts are always allowed, but when a theory supports the data very accurately, it is a good theory.
Is the Out of Africa model a 'fact' or just a theory? Again: the data on which it is based is factual. There may be mistakes in the estimations of time etc., but in general, they are conform with known anthropological, paleontological, archeological, geographical data. The different theories one can attach to it are of course not part of the facts. The replacement of the Multiregional hypothesis by the Single Origin hypothesis or Out of Africa hypothesis, which is now commonly seen as the more plausible hypothesis, demonstrates that this is indeed about theory building. Science is about fact classification, making sense of the data by explaining it in a defensible theory. There is nothing wrong with that. (By the way: theology is also theoretical, and in many ways simply a human activity. Theological systems have often changed as well. When errors in the theories are detected they need correction).
Wikipedia states that "Out of Africa has clearly emerged as the mainstream view since the 1990s" (Multiregional origin of modern humans), and this indeed reflects the latest scientific data, especially data from genomics and human genetics. The human genome "has served as the equivalent of fossilized footprints for geneticists", showing us "a genetic family tree that begins with the San people of Africa at its root ends with South American Indians and Pacific Islanders on its youngest-growing branches". The genetic markers work like "a kind of historical Global Positioning System" (The Migration History of Humans: DNA Study Traces Human Origins Across the Continents).
Still, accepting that this theory explains the data very well does not mean you have to agree with it as THE ultimate theory. More research will be done, questions and riddles will be there, as often happens in science. But normally you don't reject a theory just because it is your first impression that it does not 'fit' with what you thought about something - in this case, the way how exactly we came into being. God is necessarily always bigger than our brains, our ideas. That, in my opinion, is a simple given that Christians should always take into account.
Theological problem?
Of course, atheists may be happy with such maps, for non-scientific reasons. They will most likely presume - just like many Christians - that while Africa is not exactly the 'desired' location for the biblical Eve, theology has a problem. Of course, theology having a problem still does not mean the biblical account has a problem. Theology is a human activity that attempts to systematize the study of the Biblical and other sources about religion and God. But neither theology nor the totally irrelevant ideological 'profits' seen by atheists or others must influence our opinion about the date delivered by science. Ideological 'profits' are totally irrelevant in the context of either science or religion.
In a Biblical context, the appearance of the human being on earth has traditionally been linked with the Biblical genealogy, in the shape of the family tree of Adam and Eve as we find it described in the Old Testament, as well as repeated, in a shortened and stylized form, in the gospels (Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3). This is the major reason for pinning down the appearance of the human species to a point in time 6,000 years ago.
Be aware that is has been known for a long time that the Biblical genealogy records show gaps. It was permitted to skip generations in this kind of accounts. Describing history was accurate enough, but there were not the sophisticated modern requirements that would avoid misinterpretations, for instance with regard to when the reign of a King ends and a new one begins - in many cases both events fell in the same year, and was counted for 2 years. That does of course not distort the picture in terrible ways, but it was not very accurate either. More inaccurate are the cases where entire generations were skipped (as is clearly the case in Matt 1 and Luke 3 for instance). For these and other reasons it is possible to extend the real time span of this human genealogy to 10,000 or maybe even 12,000 years - that is, while remaining within the boundaries of a justified interpretation of these genealogical accounts.
The more important reason however why most people stick to 6,000 years in the first place may be related to the ancient Jewish thought that the history of mankind comprises 7 periods of 1000 years, the last one being considered the final millennium of the Messiah. So here is where Christians can already see how problematic it is to read certain things in all too literal ways. Note: Just to be sure: truth of God does not require literalism. Truth does not cease to be truth because there's some technical issue in the historical interpretation. We're not Christians because we have the biblical genealogy right, we're Christians because we trust Christ, God, and the Word of God as relevant and true. 'True' is more than technically conform to specific modern standards. (Compare: the Psalms may not be in agreement with modern poetry either - that does not make them untrue in any way).
Has Francis Collins been doing something terribly wrong then? No, he was just doing science. He was at the front lines of inquiry, where Christians should have been all the time (and many Christians have always been in the past). If faith in God is to be something real, there cannot be such a thing like being 'embarrassed by discoveries', by facts. Embarrassment with facts indicates a failure of our own perceptions and interpretations, and imagination as well. True faith may believe in miracles, but not in fallacies. While miracles may appear to be justified - for instance if one happens - fallacies will never 'happen'. Neanderthals have opted out
Interestingly, the Out of Africa theory has by now led to the exclusion of the Neanderthals as being another species at the origin of a part of 'us'. The supposed interbreeding with 'archaic species' such as Homo Erectus was already knocked off its feet, and the Neanderthal link is very close to becoming extinct as well.
The so-called Neanderthals are those humanoids who disappeared from Asia some 50,000 years ago, and reached extinction some 33,000 to 24,000 years ago, in Europe. The were said to be very much like us - 99.5 percent of their genome like ours (that of Homo Sapiens), although with a significantly different Y-chromosome.
When it was said that "New study finds Neanderthals had human gene for speech", as the Scientific American put as comment with the image shown alongside, the discovery of this genetic similarity is data (fact), but the suggestion that they could speak like you and me is only theory. The photo itself of course is just fun. Even given the fact that this kind of thing is also regularly used in a desire to ridicule the Biblical record of creation, it remains good fun for anyone who can see it - and you should.
But it is also a nice example of why believers should not be upset about all this stuff. Aforementioned article, and the photo, dates from October 19, 2007. Not even one year later, in an article dated July, 2008, the argumentation in the same Scientific American admits that the outcome of research in genetics has pretty much blown off the table any theory about a supposed interbreeding between the Neanderthal and the Homo sapiens (our ancestors). In the meantime, atheists of all kinds (non-scientist amateurs at the forefront as well) have for years been throwing Neanderthal pictures to our heads as if they were taling about 'facts'.
So here we see that 'facts' are not always what people think it is. Many people have a problem with distinguishing facts from the theories. The 'fact' about Neanderthals is, still, that they were very similar to us, physically. It is an intriguing thing. Yet, the facts about the Neanderthal have always shown, even before genetic discoveries, that skeletal evidence for possible interbreeding was rather sparse. It was of course also the wishful thinking of certain people that has driven some research enthusiasm. This is not in itself wrong. It would have been wrong if a Christian scientist would have refused to investigate this possibility - because that would make him a rather bad scientist: a scientist has to research the facts. But no one should complain about a Christian scientist not being enthusiast about the idea. All scientific research is about a certain amount of 'faith', expectations, and in all sciences it turns out that some expectations were great and others not.
The imagination of an atheist may of course especially be focused on discovering something that proves a multiregional ancestry - not a single species but multiple different ones making up what mankind is today. However, the reason for that was (as far as I see) not to find support for racist ideas or so (although this is something that happened in science, in the past). But it was certainly attractive for some people to have something that would seel to bring evidence against the Genesis 1 idea that that 1 man (or woman) would be at the origin of mankind. From a pure scientific viewpoint, such considerations are not science but ideology. But sometimes, they're just questions, considerations, in a more neutral way.
To be sure: there is nothing to be ridiculed about the Neanderthal - the data about this species are interesting materials anyway. But the species exists as bones and DNA, and artefacts such as imprints, and traces of rather primitive life. A "human gene for speech" is of course great, but the fact remains that nobody ever talked with a Neanderthal. Therefore, theories about the Neanderthal 'being like us' have always been theory, not facts. The human being as we know him today is Homo Sapiens - the one who created history, wrote books, has built piramids and the hanging-gardens of Babylon, and so on. There is no proof that any Neanderthal came anywhere close to even a fraction of what our human ancestors did.
Yet, to put the Neanderthal in a schema of humanoids, according to the rules of classification of similar patterns in species, that is correct data, categorized facts. You may not want to read the connections as ancestry, but you will have to read them as correct categorization of how different species show levels of resemblance to each other.
Geneticists are actually still studying DNA sequences from Neanderthal bones. Homo sapiens has, according to the data, migrated to Europe 15,000 years before the extinction of the Neanderthal, so Homo Sapiens lived together with them for a quite long period, and interbreeding was theoretically possible.
It is no surprise that many young atheists are still pimping up their social network profiles with a big and sturdy ape or Neanderthal head. But these guys are really missing a key point here. From an intellectual viewpoint, this isn't about science anymore at all. It is about advocating a strange kind of message. Given the fact that it advertises an entity who has never delivered proof of having the capacity to think the way we humans do, it is not a very impressing or progressive message anyway. Many believers of course are traditionally far more interested in human beings, be it as people who are in need, or as people capable of helping others. In other words, humans are the future, while the ancient Big Apes and Neanderthals are a thing of the past - it's that simple. This is no impressive propaganda anymore.
Today, the multiregional thesis being exposed to the theory-slaughter caused by the outcome of genetic research projects, it becomes even less impressive. These materials are good for scientists who study ancient species who missed out on their major promotion if I may say so. The project currently still running on the Neanderthal has so far not shown any sign of a DNA transfer between the two lineages. The overall expectation today among leading professionals is that no convincing evidence will be found.
Single Origin: interesting option
Of course it is an interesting thing that the Out of Africa model basically brings us back to the Genesis 1 idea. At the same time it is clear that our African ancestor still comes with some 200,000 years attached to his original appearance - you are not going to get rid of that huge time span any time soon. But there is certainly something funny about the fact that we are back to a single ancestor theory now due to scientific research. You DON'T HAVE to be a 'literalist' or 'biblicist' or 'fundamentalist' to find such a thing intriguing. If you are really open-minded, it may occur to you that we can learn quite a couple of lessons about ourselves here - without suggesting any 'biblical proof' whatsoever here.
Our ancestor was, from a scientific viewpoint, a woman. We must imagine a woman at some point in time (200,000 years ago in evolution theory interpretation), who disposed of the particular DNA which was the source of the DNA in all of us today. Scientists call this woman - to no one's surprise - the mitochondrial Eve, even though this is just a wink to our common Christian tradition. It could be seen as an indirect acknowledgment that both religion and science came to the same conclusion at this point - as if we reached a stage in history where even scientists would no longer compare this species to 'apes' whatsoever.
By the way, this is not opposite to the comcept of the first 'man' in Genesis 1. Actually both man and woman were immediately represented in this man, because "in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Gen. 1:27). That does not sound like stupid to me, it is rather smart. Male gender cannot (and should not) be stripped of here - but the intent to promote a non-discriminatory view on the male/female issue is present here.
Any direct 'translation' of the scientific findings into Genesis 1 will be risky. As I argued already in previous, the Gap Theory was no good idea either. Whenever scientific outcome changes, we will also have to review our 'transpositions' in theology. The Bible text has not been designed to 'fit with science' in the first place. But of course, that does not exclude useful comparison of the outcome from science with what we find in the Bible.
To put it simply, the Genesis account may be allegorical, but that still does not mean there would be no logic behind it. While we can avoid retroactive interpretation of our current knowledge in an old document, we can still understand that ancient people had much wisdom of their own. We now know this to be true even for the oldest people we know, like the Sumerians. There is no reason why the Jews would be the exception - although many scholars tend to treat their writings as such. The Jews certainly did not think of the world as resting like a disk on four elephants standing on a giant turtle. We should not ridicule other kinds of allegory, but certainly does the Jewish allegorical account seem to reflect logical thought, almost a philosophy of life. The issue of the revelatory character of the Scriptures does not put a damper on that either, as revelations are usually announced as such. Genesis 1 is not announced as a revelation, it is no part of the Nevi'im (the prophetic books of the Bible). Yet, in a way, it reveals something marvelous - if you decide not to be blind for it or simply reject. It's like with the Vedas: while Max Muller wrote that "the Vedas were worse than savage", but in the understanding of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, the Sanskrit understanding of these Indologists was "like that of young schoolboys". That can certainly be said about the religious insights of many who do not even want to reconsider what religion is really about.
Who, after all, is Homo sapiens? Since the study of the genome, it appears more clearly than ever that this is the only species who ever took the lead - and is still doing so, with no other kind of species challenging that. Science digs all kinds of '(arte)facts' from the earth's surface, but it is only the human being doing that kind of activity. And look at Genesis 1: who is the crown of God's creation? It looks very much like today's Homo sapiens isn't it? It still is all about us, in a way: no scientist who writes about drosophila does that to please drosophila, or to please a chimp. It is meant to trigger the mind of Homo Sapiens.
Is it so strange then, to admit that in this religious book, the focus was on that particular 'species' more than anything else? Is it so strange that the creation of the plants was set in an earlier 'day' than the creation of animals - even while we know that some basic, important plants cannot survive without animal life being present? Of course not: the biblical account is not about scientific insights, but insights in how life (in the fullest sense of the word) is structured. Plants are a lesser form of life than animals, who are lower than humans - this is how we still perceive it today, grosso modo.
It all makes sense, not science.
Even if there would have been interbreeding with other humanoids like Neanderthal, that would be a thing of the past. If you would be capable of going back in time and tell an ancient Hebrew scribe about this interbreeding, he might very probably listen with much attention, thank you for the insight, but still not mention it in his writings, because he would very probably not see it as new essence about mankind. Science helped us to discover a lot of new means to improve life, but the essence of life itself is still very close to the Genesis 1 account (and why do you think the Bible is so intriguing for people all over the globe?). We discovered the Milky Way and many other galaxies, we sort of know even better now how tiny we really are. But even that record was already present in Genesis - science may have improved that insight by adding the immense numbers of distances to it. Without telescopes, the stars were unreachable. With telescopes, we have looked far beyond the nearby ones and we still discover how unreachable it all is.
The ancient Hebrews may not have had any idea about how huge it really was out there - but they understood something about 'huge' that some modern people don't understand anymore. And there is no need to read even one iota of science into Genesis one to see that - it's just a matter of respect for ancient people - they had brains too, and we know it. They also had a wisdom of mind that we sometimes seem to be lacking now.
Conclusion
Genesis 1 still matters, and it certainly mattered before science appeared on the scene in its current, highly productive form. And while scientific data and iron logics could so easily be used to make monstrous ideologies succeed, Genesis 1 still taught mankind at that point that Homo Sapiens was not a German brand for instance - nor could the dangerous Aryan mythology be considered anything else but dangerous nonsense. Today, science tends to confirms this knowledge with strong data. The study of the Genome has shown that all human beings are astoundingly similar to each other, more than any other species out there. Once again: science must not be considered the enemy of religion. The fact that 'evolution' explains this in a language seemingly not in pair with Genesis 1 should not be our first concern: the data is the data, full stop.
Of course, science has a different kind of message. We are so similar, says the geneticist, because we are so recent, compared to our (pre-Homo sapiens) ancestors. That leaves us with those 200,000 years of evolution of course. That is 5000 generations (the Bible counts 40 years for a generation). We cannot possibly trace back 5000 generations in the Biblical genealogy. So what does that mean? Should we reject science? No, we should realize that the Bible has a totally different kind of story. It's pretty much clear already that the mitochondrial Eve is not the same person as the Biblical Eve. The next 2 articles will zoom in Genesis 1 and consider how we can read and understand this chapter.
Scientists in general should also learn something. They should stop considering religion, especially the Christian religion that helped building up Western society the way it did, as an enemy. Richard Dawkins has completely gone 'out of his mind' so to speak, when he was writing his The God Delusion. As was Bertrand Russell. Because his Celestial Teapot (also quoted by Dawkins) is not even approximately close to what God means to 99,9% of those who believe in a God. The same is true for many of his examples. (A good book to read on this one is: Darwin's Angel. An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion). Sometimes one would suspect some scientists to reason about Homo sapiens from the perspective of a Neanderthal. I do realize that Dawkins reacted against a fundamentalist flavor of Christians, mostly found in North America. Nevertheless, he has been selling all religion wholesale as pure nonsense. And that is, by all means, what I call a man out of his mind - at least on the subject of religion.
We should remember how scientific data has been used to our own peril just as well - for instance, how it has targeted people for 'race preference' reasons, and also especially the Jews - all of it with alleged 'scientific evidence' for these monstruosities. Think about it: with science as argument, the Germans hit ruthlessly on the very people whose thoughts about us, created beings, claimed oneness of human nature - created out of one man/woman. Today, this very same science detected an equivalent argument against these monstruosities only since the 1990s, that is some 3500 or more ears after the Jews formulated this vision on human oneness, and 35 years after the Holocaust. Now, finally, the emergence of sophisticated DNA analysis could confirm the similarity of all human beings.
Shouldn't that make arrogant scientists a little bit more unpretentious?
To be continued.
Some references
In previous article we talked about the basic scientific idea behind evolution and why the theories must not be 'injected' into the Biblical account. Theories made up from a naturalistic viewpoint (as is traditionally the case with an atheist point of view) must also be separated from science, a domain Christians must not let hijack by atheists as has happened for far too long. Further on, unlike the atheistic interpretations of the data of evolution, we are interested in the scientific data as it is. Besides all this, we are also interested in the question how we can understand creation in view of evolution. But we first try to understand a little more about what the evolution concept of the human species is really about. We have to talk about Homo Sapiens, and a little bit about the Neanderthal as well.
Scientific theory locates our ancestry in Africa. An African origin of mankind may appear to be contradicting with Christian faith, given that the garden of Eden leads us to what is now Iraq - not Africa. But are we talking about the same thing here? Given what we saw in the former blog, it is clearly justified to argue that the scientific outlook may not be the point where the Bible starts talking about Adam & Eve.
Origin of the human species: Africa
Evidence for the African origin of the human species was on the radar already from the research on our fossil records, but this evidence has been strongly fortified by evidence from the scientific study of genetics since about the 1990s, when the Human Genome Project (HGP) delivered data confirming a timing way beyond those 10,000 Biblical years. The leadership of the HGP - which unraveled the genetic make-up of the human species - was in the hands of Dr. Francis S. Collins, a physician-geneticist and a Christian.
The migration from the African continent started some 80,000 to 100,000 years ago. The first appearance of this human being, called Homo Sapiens - with brain capacity similar to yours and (hopefully) mine, has been dated some 200,000 years ago.
What is the data telling us exactly? The fact is, that the most varied DNA in humans is found on the African continent, while DNA in humans becomes less and less varied the more we look away from that continent.
When you look at the blueprint of this genetic data printed on a world map, as is shown here with a gradient starting from white (=very diverse genetic variation of people) and darker gradient when the genetic variation is less diverse, the result is impressive:
The gradient changes very slowly from Africa upward and westward, with the 'least variation' DNA coloring the place where the native Americans (Indians) arrived, somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000 years ago.
The theory that in turn makes sense of this data is, that it inevitably shows us a historical trace of how the human species spread out all over the world, starting from Africa as the country of origin. This theory explains the facts in a very straightforward way. Besides that, it confirms what science already revealed through the fossil records, and completes that picture in many ways. From these data it would be very hard to construct a better hypothesis. Doubts are always allowed, but when a theory supports the data very accurately, it is a good theory.
Is the Out of Africa model a 'fact' or just a theory? Again: the data on which it is based is factual. There may be mistakes in the estimations of time etc., but in general, they are conform with known anthropological, paleontological, archeological, geographical data. The different theories one can attach to it are of course not part of the facts. The replacement of the Multiregional hypothesis by the Single Origin hypothesis or Out of Africa hypothesis, which is now commonly seen as the more plausible hypothesis, demonstrates that this is indeed about theory building. Science is about fact classification, making sense of the data by explaining it in a defensible theory. There is nothing wrong with that. (By the way: theology is also theoretical, and in many ways simply a human activity. Theological systems have often changed as well. When errors in the theories are detected they need correction).
Wikipedia states that "Out of Africa has clearly emerged as the mainstream view since the 1990s" (Multiregional origin of modern humans), and this indeed reflects the latest scientific data, especially data from genomics and human genetics. The human genome "has served as the equivalent of fossilized footprints for geneticists", showing us "a genetic family tree that begins with the San people of Africa at its root ends with South American Indians and Pacific Islanders on its youngest-growing branches". The genetic markers work like "a kind of historical Global Positioning System" (The Migration History of Humans: DNA Study Traces Human Origins Across the Continents).
Still, accepting that this theory explains the data very well does not mean you have to agree with it as THE ultimate theory. More research will be done, questions and riddles will be there, as often happens in science. But normally you don't reject a theory just because it is your first impression that it does not 'fit' with what you thought about something - in this case, the way how exactly we came into being. God is necessarily always bigger than our brains, our ideas. That, in my opinion, is a simple given that Christians should always take into account.
Theological problem?
Of course, atheists may be happy with such maps, for non-scientific reasons. They will most likely presume - just like many Christians - that while Africa is not exactly the 'desired' location for the biblical Eve, theology has a problem. Of course, theology having a problem still does not mean the biblical account has a problem. Theology is a human activity that attempts to systematize the study of the Biblical and other sources about religion and God. But neither theology nor the totally irrelevant ideological 'profits' seen by atheists or others must influence our opinion about the date delivered by science. Ideological 'profits' are totally irrelevant in the context of either science or religion.
In a Biblical context, the appearance of the human being on earth has traditionally been linked with the Biblical genealogy, in the shape of the family tree of Adam and Eve as we find it described in the Old Testament, as well as repeated, in a shortened and stylized form, in the gospels (Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3). This is the major reason for pinning down the appearance of the human species to a point in time 6,000 years ago.
Be aware that is has been known for a long time that the Biblical genealogy records show gaps. It was permitted to skip generations in this kind of accounts. Describing history was accurate enough, but there were not the sophisticated modern requirements that would avoid misinterpretations, for instance with regard to when the reign of a King ends and a new one begins - in many cases both events fell in the same year, and was counted for 2 years. That does of course not distort the picture in terrible ways, but it was not very accurate either. More inaccurate are the cases where entire generations were skipped (as is clearly the case in Matt 1 and Luke 3 for instance). For these and other reasons it is possible to extend the real time span of this human genealogy to 10,000 or maybe even 12,000 years - that is, while remaining within the boundaries of a justified interpretation of these genealogical accounts.
The more important reason however why most people stick to 6,000 years in the first place may be related to the ancient Jewish thought that the history of mankind comprises 7 periods of 1000 years, the last one being considered the final millennium of the Messiah. So here is where Christians can already see how problematic it is to read certain things in all too literal ways. Note: Just to be sure: truth of God does not require literalism. Truth does not cease to be truth because there's some technical issue in the historical interpretation. We're not Christians because we have the biblical genealogy right, we're Christians because we trust Christ, God, and the Word of God as relevant and true. 'True' is more than technically conform to specific modern standards. (Compare: the Psalms may not be in agreement with modern poetry either - that does not make them untrue in any way).
Has Francis Collins been doing something terribly wrong then? No, he was just doing science. He was at the front lines of inquiry, where Christians should have been all the time (and many Christians have always been in the past). If faith in God is to be something real, there cannot be such a thing like being 'embarrassed by discoveries', by facts. Embarrassment with facts indicates a failure of our own perceptions and interpretations, and imagination as well. True faith may believe in miracles, but not in fallacies. While miracles may appear to be justified - for instance if one happens - fallacies will never 'happen'. Neanderthals have opted out
Interestingly, the Out of Africa theory has by now led to the exclusion of the Neanderthals as being another species at the origin of a part of 'us'. The supposed interbreeding with 'archaic species' such as Homo Erectus was already knocked off its feet, and the Neanderthal link is very close to becoming extinct as well.
The so-called Neanderthals are those humanoids who disappeared from Asia some 50,000 years ago, and reached extinction some 33,000 to 24,000 years ago, in Europe. The were said to be very much like us - 99.5 percent of their genome like ours (that of Homo Sapiens), although with a significantly different Y-chromosome.
When it was said that "New study finds Neanderthals had human gene for speech", as the Scientific American put as comment with the image shown alongside, the discovery of this genetic similarity is data (fact), but the suggestion that they could speak like you and me is only theory. The photo itself of course is just fun. Even given the fact that this kind of thing is also regularly used in a desire to ridicule the Biblical record of creation, it remains good fun for anyone who can see it - and you should.
But it is also a nice example of why believers should not be upset about all this stuff. Aforementioned article, and the photo, dates from October 19, 2007. Not even one year later, in an article dated July, 2008, the argumentation in the same Scientific American admits that the outcome of research in genetics has pretty much blown off the table any theory about a supposed interbreeding between the Neanderthal and the Homo sapiens (our ancestors). In the meantime, atheists of all kinds (non-scientist amateurs at the forefront as well) have for years been throwing Neanderthal pictures to our heads as if they were taling about 'facts'.
So here we see that 'facts' are not always what people think it is. Many people have a problem with distinguishing facts from the theories. The 'fact' about Neanderthals is, still, that they were very similar to us, physically. It is an intriguing thing. Yet, the facts about the Neanderthal have always shown, even before genetic discoveries, that skeletal evidence for possible interbreeding was rather sparse. It was of course also the wishful thinking of certain people that has driven some research enthusiasm. This is not in itself wrong. It would have been wrong if a Christian scientist would have refused to investigate this possibility - because that would make him a rather bad scientist: a scientist has to research the facts. But no one should complain about a Christian scientist not being enthusiast about the idea. All scientific research is about a certain amount of 'faith', expectations, and in all sciences it turns out that some expectations were great and others not.
The imagination of an atheist may of course especially be focused on discovering something that proves a multiregional ancestry - not a single species but multiple different ones making up what mankind is today. However, the reason for that was (as far as I see) not to find support for racist ideas or so (although this is something that happened in science, in the past). But it was certainly attractive for some people to have something that would seel to bring evidence against the Genesis 1 idea that that 1 man (or woman) would be at the origin of mankind. From a pure scientific viewpoint, such considerations are not science but ideology. But sometimes, they're just questions, considerations, in a more neutral way.
To be sure: there is nothing to be ridiculed about the Neanderthal - the data about this species are interesting materials anyway. But the species exists as bones and DNA, and artefacts such as imprints, and traces of rather primitive life. A "human gene for speech" is of course great, but the fact remains that nobody ever talked with a Neanderthal. Therefore, theories about the Neanderthal 'being like us' have always been theory, not facts. The human being as we know him today is Homo Sapiens - the one who created history, wrote books, has built piramids and the hanging-gardens of Babylon, and so on. There is no proof that any Neanderthal came anywhere close to even a fraction of what our human ancestors did.
Yet, to put the Neanderthal in a schema of humanoids, according to the rules of classification of similar patterns in species, that is correct data, categorized facts. You may not want to read the connections as ancestry, but you will have to read them as correct categorization of how different species show levels of resemblance to each other.
Geneticists are actually still studying DNA sequences from Neanderthal bones. Homo sapiens has, according to the data, migrated to Europe 15,000 years before the extinction of the Neanderthal, so Homo Sapiens lived together with them for a quite long period, and interbreeding was theoretically possible.
It is no surprise that many young atheists are still pimping up their social network profiles with a big and sturdy ape or Neanderthal head. But these guys are really missing a key point here. From an intellectual viewpoint, this isn't about science anymore at all. It is about advocating a strange kind of message. Given the fact that it advertises an entity who has never delivered proof of having the capacity to think the way we humans do, it is not a very impressing or progressive message anyway. Many believers of course are traditionally far more interested in human beings, be it as people who are in need, or as people capable of helping others. In other words, humans are the future, while the ancient Big Apes and Neanderthals are a thing of the past - it's that simple. This is no impressive propaganda anymore.
Today, the multiregional thesis being exposed to the theory-slaughter caused by the outcome of genetic research projects, it becomes even less impressive. These materials are good for scientists who study ancient species who missed out on their major promotion if I may say so. The project currently still running on the Neanderthal has so far not shown any sign of a DNA transfer between the two lineages. The overall expectation today among leading professionals is that no convincing evidence will be found.
Single Origin: interesting option
Of course it is an interesting thing that the Out of Africa model basically brings us back to the Genesis 1 idea. At the same time it is clear that our African ancestor still comes with some 200,000 years attached to his original appearance - you are not going to get rid of that huge time span any time soon. But there is certainly something funny about the fact that we are back to a single ancestor theory now due to scientific research. You DON'T HAVE to be a 'literalist' or 'biblicist' or 'fundamentalist' to find such a thing intriguing. If you are really open-minded, it may occur to you that we can learn quite a couple of lessons about ourselves here - without suggesting any 'biblical proof' whatsoever here.
Our ancestor was, from a scientific viewpoint, a woman. We must imagine a woman at some point in time (200,000 years ago in evolution theory interpretation), who disposed of the particular DNA which was the source of the DNA in all of us today. Scientists call this woman - to no one's surprise - the mitochondrial Eve, even though this is just a wink to our common Christian tradition. It could be seen as an indirect acknowledgment that both religion and science came to the same conclusion at this point - as if we reached a stage in history where even scientists would no longer compare this species to 'apes' whatsoever.
By the way, this is not opposite to the comcept of the first 'man' in Genesis 1. Actually both man and woman were immediately represented in this man, because "in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Gen. 1:27). That does not sound like stupid to me, it is rather smart. Male gender cannot (and should not) be stripped of here - but the intent to promote a non-discriminatory view on the male/female issue is present here.
Any direct 'translation' of the scientific findings into Genesis 1 will be risky. As I argued already in previous, the Gap Theory was no good idea either. Whenever scientific outcome changes, we will also have to review our 'transpositions' in theology. The Bible text has not been designed to 'fit with science' in the first place. But of course, that does not exclude useful comparison of the outcome from science with what we find in the Bible.
To put it simply, the Genesis account may be allegorical, but that still does not mean there would be no logic behind it. While we can avoid retroactive interpretation of our current knowledge in an old document, we can still understand that ancient people had much wisdom of their own. We now know this to be true even for the oldest people we know, like the Sumerians. There is no reason why the Jews would be the exception - although many scholars tend to treat their writings as such. The Jews certainly did not think of the world as resting like a disk on four elephants standing on a giant turtle. We should not ridicule other kinds of allegory, but certainly does the Jewish allegorical account seem to reflect logical thought, almost a philosophy of life. The issue of the revelatory character of the Scriptures does not put a damper on that either, as revelations are usually announced as such. Genesis 1 is not announced as a revelation, it is no part of the Nevi'im (the prophetic books of the Bible). Yet, in a way, it reveals something marvelous - if you decide not to be blind for it or simply reject. It's like with the Vedas: while Max Muller wrote that "the Vedas were worse than savage", but in the understanding of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, the Sanskrit understanding of these Indologists was "like that of young schoolboys". That can certainly be said about the religious insights of many who do not even want to reconsider what religion is really about.
Who, after all, is Homo sapiens? Since the study of the genome, it appears more clearly than ever that this is the only species who ever took the lead - and is still doing so, with no other kind of species challenging that. Science digs all kinds of '(arte)facts' from the earth's surface, but it is only the human being doing that kind of activity. And look at Genesis 1: who is the crown of God's creation? It looks very much like today's Homo sapiens isn't it? It still is all about us, in a way: no scientist who writes about drosophila does that to please drosophila, or to please a chimp. It is meant to trigger the mind of Homo Sapiens.
Is it so strange then, to admit that in this religious book, the focus was on that particular 'species' more than anything else? Is it so strange that the creation of the plants was set in an earlier 'day' than the creation of animals - even while we know that some basic, important plants cannot survive without animal life being present? Of course not: the biblical account is not about scientific insights, but insights in how life (in the fullest sense of the word) is structured. Plants are a lesser form of life than animals, who are lower than humans - this is how we still perceive it today, grosso modo.
It all makes sense, not science.
Even if there would have been interbreeding with other humanoids like Neanderthal, that would be a thing of the past. If you would be capable of going back in time and tell an ancient Hebrew scribe about this interbreeding, he might very probably listen with much attention, thank you for the insight, but still not mention it in his writings, because he would very probably not see it as new essence about mankind. Science helped us to discover a lot of new means to improve life, but the essence of life itself is still very close to the Genesis 1 account (and why do you think the Bible is so intriguing for people all over the globe?). We discovered the Milky Way and many other galaxies, we sort of know even better now how tiny we really are. But even that record was already present in Genesis - science may have improved that insight by adding the immense numbers of distances to it. Without telescopes, the stars were unreachable. With telescopes, we have looked far beyond the nearby ones and we still discover how unreachable it all is.
The ancient Hebrews may not have had any idea about how huge it really was out there - but they understood something about 'huge' that some modern people don't understand anymore. And there is no need to read even one iota of science into Genesis one to see that - it's just a matter of respect for ancient people - they had brains too, and we know it. They also had a wisdom of mind that we sometimes seem to be lacking now.
Conclusion
Genesis 1 still matters, and it certainly mattered before science appeared on the scene in its current, highly productive form. And while scientific data and iron logics could so easily be used to make monstrous ideologies succeed, Genesis 1 still taught mankind at that point that Homo Sapiens was not a German brand for instance - nor could the dangerous Aryan mythology be considered anything else but dangerous nonsense. Today, science tends to confirms this knowledge with strong data. The study of the Genome has shown that all human beings are astoundingly similar to each other, more than any other species out there. Once again: science must not be considered the enemy of religion. The fact that 'evolution' explains this in a language seemingly not in pair with Genesis 1 should not be our first concern: the data is the data, full stop.
Of course, science has a different kind of message. We are so similar, says the geneticist, because we are so recent, compared to our (pre-Homo sapiens) ancestors. That leaves us with those 200,000 years of evolution of course. That is 5000 generations (the Bible counts 40 years for a generation). We cannot possibly trace back 5000 generations in the Biblical genealogy. So what does that mean? Should we reject science? No, we should realize that the Bible has a totally different kind of story. It's pretty much clear already that the mitochondrial Eve is not the same person as the Biblical Eve. The next 2 articles will zoom in Genesis 1 and consider how we can read and understand this chapter.
Scientists in general should also learn something. They should stop considering religion, especially the Christian religion that helped building up Western society the way it did, as an enemy. Richard Dawkins has completely gone 'out of his mind' so to speak, when he was writing his The God Delusion. As was Bertrand Russell. Because his Celestial Teapot (also quoted by Dawkins) is not even approximately close to what God means to 99,9% of those who believe in a God. The same is true for many of his examples. (A good book to read on this one is: Darwin's Angel. An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion). Sometimes one would suspect some scientists to reason about Homo sapiens from the perspective of a Neanderthal. I do realize that Dawkins reacted against a fundamentalist flavor of Christians, mostly found in North America. Nevertheless, he has been selling all religion wholesale as pure nonsense. And that is, by all means, what I call a man out of his mind - at least on the subject of religion.
We should remember how scientific data has been used to our own peril just as well - for instance, how it has targeted people for 'race preference' reasons, and also especially the Jews - all of it with alleged 'scientific evidence' for these monstruosities. Think about it: with science as argument, the Germans hit ruthlessly on the very people whose thoughts about us, created beings, claimed oneness of human nature - created out of one man/woman. Today, this very same science detected an equivalent argument against these monstruosities only since the 1990s, that is some 3500 or more ears after the Jews formulated this vision on human oneness, and 35 years after the Holocaust. Now, finally, the emergence of sophisticated DNA analysis could confirm the similarity of all human beings.
Shouldn't that make arrogant scientists a little bit more unpretentious?
To be continued.
Some references
- The Genographic Project (with interactive map)
- Scientific American: Whole Genome results
- Video: Human Evolution: Tracing Our Origins with DNA (Michael Hammer, Research Scientist, Division of Biotechnology and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology)
- The Migration History of Humans: DNA Study Traces Human Origins Across the Continents, July 2008, Gary Stix (Originally published with the title, "Traces of a Distant Past")
- The Great Human Migration, July 2008, Guy Gugliotta
- Human Migration on Wikipedia
- The Multiregional origin and the Single origin hypothesis on Wikipedia
- Also relevant: Ken Miller on Intelligent Design, a Catholic scientist explaining the case for evolution.
- Have you always wanted to decode your own ancestry? Check out 23andMe, or DeCodeMe