From: lgarde@scorch.apana.org.au (Leon Garde)
Subject: Re: Evolution implied by the Bible
Organization: Craggenmoore public Unix system , Newcastle , Oz
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 15:39:13 GMT

martin@cs.curtin.edu.au (Martin Dougiamas) writes:

|Christians among you: explain this.

|If Man was created only thousands of years ago, and we are all
|descended from common stock... why is there such a wide variety
|in our genetic pool today?

|Do you believe that the ancestors of people as diverse as South
|American forest pygmies, Zulus, Europeans and Japanese were the
|same as yours only a few thousand years ago?  If you do (and you
|must, if you take the Bible at all seriously) then you must believe
|a great deal of evolution has occurred since then.  If not, I 
|would like to hear your arguments.

|If you do admit this much evolution can take place in such a short
|time (hundreds of generations) then what objections can you take
|against the extension of the idea to the theory of Darwinian
|evolution as it stands today?

|Martin
|--
|Your eyes are weary from staring at the screen.  Your eyelids feel very heavy.
|You feel sleepy. Notice how restful it is to watch the cursor blink. Close your
|eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt
|otherwise.  When you awake you will follow up this post and enthusiastically
|agree with it.  Then you will send all your money to martin@cs.curtin.edu.au.

Um .. the only way of comparing genetics is to note differences and
similarities.
Now, I get the impression that the genetics of a 'native' south
american is simply indistinguishable from that of a 'native' New
Zealander. IE: the genetics are the 'same' but when decoded, there are
obvious differences ( eg hair, skin colour, eye colour, other physcial
characteristics) that distinguish races. Since nobody can actually
decode the genes, then all humans have genes which are basically
indistinguishable. There goes you 'evolution' argument. Sorry, but
the good news is you are close to the mark, but its fairly new and
not so clear cut. 

See I'm not saying that there aren't races which show different genes,
I just dont accept the ones you cite do. They are all 'human', homo
sapian, and thus evolution isnt seen. People simply adapt to
the climate, albiet slowly over generations, but thats something
all humans display
Australian aboriginals, because they have been on an isolated
continent for so long , do apparantly show evolution. This is 
a contrarsial topic, because if one was to pedantic, they might
not be considered 'human', or homo sapian. The theory which
probably takes precedence though is the one which says animals of
the same species can interbreed (to produce fertile off spring),
whilst animals of different species can't.

What I dont understand though, is why god only talks to people in the
old world. It seems that god has been considerate enough to
leave australian aboriginals labouring under there belief that
they were created from 'animal spirits'. (ob. the only thing 
they knew about creation was that animals procreate and modify the
world. . Even the earth thus is a product of animals to them.)
for say around 300 000 years. Some god !


leon
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc