9月2日
Evolutionary coup, or 'Intelligent Design' cuckoo?
New
archaelogical and fossil evidence shows that nearly 35,000 years ago modern humans and Neanderthals co-existed on this Earth side-by-side for 1,000 years in the region of Europe now known as France.
This co-habitation took place nearly 31,000 years before 'the scriptures' came and told us that such a thing was 'impossible' since by all accounts from the time of Genesis*, the Biblical reckoning of the age of the Earth cannot be more than 6,000 years old. Once again we are at an impasse between fact and fantasy. We must either accept with a very large grain of salt the notion of a rather young Earth is as it is implied in the scriptures, or we must look to the facts and consider some serious revision to the Biblical account of history to include at least an additional 30 thousand years of unmentioned prehistory where we walked the Earth at the same time as the Neanderthals (a second intelligent species of human who had villages, communities, communication, culture, language, walked upright, and used tools as we do). The only difference is that the Neanderthals didn't have a Home Depot and MacDonald's on every street corner, though I'd bet if they had survived long enough, they'd have a chain of retail outlets today called Hominid Depot and OggDonalds, but I digress. (more on Ogg later)
A second but equally important revision we'd have to accept to the Biblical account of Creation (now rebranded with the chique new lablel 'Intelligent Design') is that there must have been another progenitor couple besides Adam and Eve, for how else could we account for two completely separate species of Humans coming from the same two parents? There HAD to be another pair of people created by Him (let's call them Ogg and Unga) who served as the progenitors of the Neantherthal race.
But if Neantherthals were decended from Ogg and Unga, then a curious set of questions arise:
- Why is there no mention of them in any of our scriptures?
- Surely the All-knowing, All-seeing knew we would find this out for ourselves one day, so why try and hide this from us?
- Why did the myriad prophets and messengers of the Benevolent One who have come before fail to ever make mention of our long lost cousins?
- Why would He create a second race of humans and not tell us anything of their existence?
- In real life, when a person fails to provide a particularly relevant detail or piece of information in an investigation and it can be proven than they knew of it at the time of inquiry, they are said to be perjuring. But people normally only do this when they have something big to lose or something to fear in telling the truth. But what would the Almighty, Most Holy have to lose or fear by telling us the truth about something He *must* have known we'd eventually find out anyway?
- So, why did the Neanderthals all die out?
- Did they incur the ire and wrath of the Almighty and were smote in a fit of His furious wrath and vengeance?
- Did the world need yet another warning against its wicked ways, and a lesson had to be taught, and where the Neanderthals lost the coin toss and had to pay with their complete and utter extinction?
- Or was it just a slow millenia and the world just needed a little shake-up; a little excitement?
- How many other races have come and gone before and who have not been mentioned to us? Could we be next?
I suspect we will never be 'told' the answers to these questions, and some would rather have us not ask them in the first place. But regardless why the Neanderthals died out, let us not forget that according to scripture, it was h.sapiens that originally put the 'sin' in cousin and the fact remains that an entirely different race of human that once walked the Earth with us is no longer with us today and only through Science might we ever know the real reasons why.
For now dear Neanderthals, rest in peace, for your hominid cousins will be missing you.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming of what we ought to be teaching our children in Science class... SCIENCE!
From the September 2, 2005 issue of
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A weekly newsletter on Science and Technology issues in Politics
Friday, September 2, 2005
Senator John McCain made it clear last week that he too can read polls. In an interview with the Arizona Daily Star, McCain said "all points of view" should be available to students studying the origins of mankind. WN was unable to reach Senator McCain for clarification, but by "all" we think he means just evolution and intelligent design. Or maybe he hopes to corner the votes of those who worship "the giant frog from whose mouth the river of life flowed." McCain's appeal to evolution deniers came just four days after Senator Frist made a pitch to the scientifically challenged (WN 26 Aug 05).
The respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 64% of Americans favor teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools. A scary 38% want to REPLACE evolution with creationism. The tiny glimmer of hope for civilization was the number of inconsistencies in the responses, suggesting confusion over the meaning of the terms. There is room for education.
Actually, no. The President didn't consult his science advisor about intelligent design because he doesn't have one. George W. Bush eliminated the job when he named John Marburger Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Previous OSTP directors held both titles, and WN always referred to Marburger as "Science Advisor." We were wrong, but not alone. We Googled "science advisor" and got 597,000 hits on a nonexistent job. As they used to say at Stony Brook when he was president, "this would never have happened if Jack Marburger was alive."
Scientists at MIT and Washington University, St. Louis, announced Wednesday that they have determined the precise order of the 3 billion bits of genetic code needed to make a chimpanzee. There is only a 1 percent difference from the human genetic code. But for that 1 percent, chimpanzees would have a seat in the UN. Robert Waterston, who led the Washington University team, was quoted in yesterday's Washington Post saying, "I can't imagine Darwin hoping for a stronger confirmation of his ideas." |
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