From: btd@IASTATE.EDU (Benjamin T Dehner)
Subject: Re: White skin-how did it develope?
Reply-To: btd@IASTATE.EDU (Benjamin T Dehner)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 19:36:50 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.102900.9620@city.cs>, lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
writes:
> In article <37172@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> slinke@sdcc3.ucsd.edu (Steven Linke)
writes:
> >In article <1992Aug21.121440.24522@city.cs> lionel@cs.city.ac.uk (Lionel Tun)
writes:
> >>
> >>According to evolutionist thinking, whites and blacks can be
> >>considered two separate species.
> >
> >I know Lionel Tun has been asked at least twice to apologize for
> >this statement and his implications that "evolutionary thought"
> >somehow contributes to racism.  Most of the insipid creationist
> >arguments posted in talk.origins, although contributing to general
> >ignorance, are otherwise rather harmless.  However, this statement
> >is outrageous and inexcusable.  Mr. Tun--apologize immediately for
> >your ignorance of evolution.
> >
> 
> There are examples of dictators in powerful countries who decide
> that `their' race is the super race, and decide to subdue other
> races in their own and neighbouring countries - eg Europe in the
> middle of this century. They justify their atrocities by quoting
> the concept of `survival of the fittest' and genetic selection
> to evolve a new super race and eventually a new super man. What
> they do not realise is that there are no mechanisms to achieve
> their aims.

	There are also just as many examples of people shouting Christian
platitudes to kill or enslave others: the crusades, the inquisition, the
reformation, to name a few.  Would you think I was being fair if I judged
christianity as a whole on the basis of these episodes?   This is an ad hoc
attack on evolutionists based on the misuse and misunderstanding of the
theory by radicals and megalomaniacs.
 
> Secondly can you deny that evolutionists illustrate `speciation'
> by pointing to organisms that are alike in every way but cannot
> interbreed merely due to behaviour (eg mating behaviour, colour,
> smell etc) or geographical separation. Or at least evolutionists
> quote these as a hopeful precursor of a speciation `event'.

	A seperate species, I believe, requires a biological inability to
form vialble offspring.  Any 'race' human being can have children with any
other.  Furthermore, mixed-'race' couples are too common for this to be a
viable arguement.

> 
> Accepting the evolutionary paradigm does strip humans of their
> sense of purpose, sometimes their worth and dignity. Evolution
> says that we are just a walking and breeding bag of chemicals
> which arose by pure chance. We are no different from animals
> and the rules of the jungle such as dog eats dog and survival
> of the fittest reign. 

	Your moral dissastisfaction or philosophical problems with the theory
have absolutely no bearing on its validity.  

>                        In actual fact, humans are special, made
> in God's own image, created to have fellowship with Him and
> with each other - of whatever race. 

	This is a statement of a personal religious doctrine, which really,
again, has no bearing on the validity of a scientific theory.

>                                      It is God who says all
> people are equal in His sight. It is humans who assume that
> bigger or stronger or more virile is better because it enhances
> survival of one's offspring and therefore genetic lineage.

	This is a really sad statement.  You are totally mis-applying the
mechanism of natural selection to an entire society, and it doesn't work that
way.  You are jumping from the evolutionist posisition 'in a natural
environment, the strong are MORE LIKELY to survive' to an unwarranted value
judgement of 'in human society, only the strong SHOULD survive', and
attributing this leap of logic to evolutionists.

> Where is Jesus's genetic offspring? There are none. God's
> people are born not physically but spiritually - hence the
> term being `born again'.

	Again, religious doctrine.	
 
> Apartheid, racism, bullying etc are man-made evils. The
> rejection of God and man's decision not to obey God's
> will are the major contributors to this sorry state of
> the world. Where is `love your neighbour' in the
> evolutionary philosophy? 

	This is a value judgement which science NEVER CLAIMED THE RIGHT TO
MAKE.  If you want a reason to love your neighbor, you will have to look inside
yourself and find that maybe your decision to do so is what seperates you from
the animals.  You seem to want a God to make this decision for you.

>                           We have already established that
> evolution has no scientific basis and is merely a
> system of belief. A recent post by someone on the book
> `In the beginning' confirms this.

	BULLSHIT.   WE have never established any such thing.  YOU have
merely made assertion after unsupported assertion about 'beliefs', and
left it at that.  I'm sure lots of people have FAQ's handy if you are 
interested in the science of evolution.
 
> >>Actually I think the main three racial groupings (black, white,
> >>yellow) are descended from Noah's three sons.
> >
> >Since skin color is a genetic attribute that arises from multiple
> >alleles, how could Noah have produced the three sons with all the
> >different loci.  Answer: he couldn't have.  Maybe God "willed" it to
> >be that way.  Or maybe Noah was a Pleidean from another planet who 
> >had twelve sets of triple-stranded DNA chromosomes.  Picture an
> >ancient hot tub hyperventilation session that eventually led to the
> >separation of the races.  :-)
> 
> How strange. I thought evolutionists reckoned that all humans alive
> today are descended from a pair of ape-men from the distant past.
> Creationists believe all humans today are descended from Adam and
> Eve. Are the two approaches so different that you can brand one as
> impossible? Again this confirms that evolutionism is based on
> belief. Ie some top notch evolutionist makes a speculation, and
> others believe. Take the collection of speculations and just-so
> stories that I predicted would come in response to the original
> question that started this thread. Every budding evolutinist can
> come up with his own theory. None of these can be tested let alone
> proven.

	I'll leave this one to someone more versed in evolutionary biology.
(Chris?)

> --
> Lionel Tun   (lionel@cs.city.ac.uk)
> Vision Group, City University, London, EC1V 0HB. 071-477 8000 x 3889

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Benjamin T. Dehner    Dept. of Physics and Astronomy 
btd@iastate.edu       Iowa State University 
                      Ames, IA 50011

Newsgroups: talk.origins