Origins
PINOY KASI
Origins
Origins
Published on Page A15 of the November 29, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
NEANDERTHALS have been making headline news lately. No, I don't mean the politicians; in fact, I will clarify that unfounded insult in a while. I'm referring to Homo neanderthalis, currently believed to be our closest relative in the increasingly complex human ancestral tree.
The other week, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany announced that they had reconstructed part of the genome, the genetic make-up, of a Neanderthal man who lived 38,000 years ago, using new techniques called metagenomics. They did this using a thighbone to extract DNA, the building blocks of genes.
The breakthrough represents the new directions that are being taken as we try to unravel the mysteries around our origins. Before this, scientists -- mainly physical anthropologists -- could study the bones to look at evolutionary changes only.
From the Neanderthal bones that have been recovered, we do know something about their external appearance. We know they were about as tall as we, Homo sapiens, are, but were stockier. They had a larger skull than we do, although that still doesn't tell us how intelligent they were, since brain size doesn't really correlate with mental ability. Their skull bones tell us they had high eyebrow ridges and a more massive jaw, a bit of the Arnold Schwarzenegger look, which contributed to the idea that Neanderthals weren't very smart. That, of course, is an unfair stereotype; US President George Bush doesn't have any of those Neanderthal features and yet...
With the advances in genetics, it'll be possible to have fossils tell more detailed stories. By reconstructing the Neanderthals' genetic make-up, we will be able to get down to figuring out what the color of their hair, eyes and skin were. Scientists are looking forward as well to finding out more about their brain function, and even their capabilities for speech and language as we have today. (To do this, they'll be looking for a gene FOXP2, responsible for the development of language skills. The gene is found in Homo sapiens but not in chimpanzees, our other close relative.)
There was a brief period, between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago, when Neanderthals and Homo sapiens lived in Europe. So scientists are intrigued, too, as to whether the two crossed paths. Was it a hostile relationship, where Homo sapiens might even have contributed to Homo neanderthalis' extinction? Or was it one of tolerance? Even more tantalizing is the possibility that there might have been, you know, friendlier relations that led to Neanderthals contributing to our own gene pool.
The last two or three years, scientists have been coming up with different opinions on whether Homo neanderthalis and Homo sapiens interbred. Technically, breeding between two different species shouldn't occur but all over nature we do find this happening occasionally, so maybe there was some of that between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalis, which would mean they're actually ancestors, rather than just cousins.
If scientists do confirm that interbreeding happened, I can imagine Hollywood films capitalizing on this to create some Paleolithic love story, with maybe Governor Arnold playing a lead role.
Need to know
Governments and private foundations pour millions of dollars each year into research on our origins, whether to get more fossil bones, or, now for this very sophisticated metagenomics research. All those investments tell us something about our being human: our need to know where we come from.
More dogmatic Christians will insist the answer is simple: God created all species as is, and that's it. But many Christians are willing to accept that there is a creator God who allows evolution to take place. The head of the Human Genome Project in the United States, responsible for mapping out the genes of Homo sapiens, is an evangelical Christian who recently came out with a book arguing that there is no conflict between the Christian faith and evolution.
Still other scientists say there is no creator God, that nature is, in the words of Richard Dawkins, a "blind watchmaker" in which things just happen, or rather, just evolve.
Whatever one's personal beliefs are, there can be no denying the growing fossil record in support of evolution. When I first did a biological anthropology course back in the early 1980s, I had to plaster my walls with the names of different fossils in our ancestral tree. Now that I have to teach the anthropology courses myself, I find myself having to update the handouts every semester to incorporate new fossil names. I don't ask the students to memorize them since there are so many now.
From the 19th century into the first half of the 20th century, people still thought of human evolution as a matter of looking for a "missing link" between apes ( e.g., chimpanzees, gorillas) and humans. Today, scientists don't use that term anymore, recognizing that our ancestral tree consists of many branches and side branches, rather than a straight line.
IMSCF syndrome
Our need to know about our origins takes many forms, and is certainly not confined to bones and fossils. In the past, adopted children often had a difficult time finding out who their biological parents were. Today, in countries like the United States, adoption agencies and adoptive parents will take pains to establish who those biological parents are, in case an adopted child wants to look for them someday. The need to know has been transformed into a right to know.
The need to know translates into the current craze to reconstruct genealogies or family trees. Ofelia Ac-ac, a Filipina anthropologist who now lives in Belgium, came visiting earlier this year and told me about how she had gotten her hometown, Paete in Laguna province, to go into a huge family tree project, using fairly simple computer software.
Genealogical mapping helps build community solidarity, and may even bring peace to warring ones. In the province of Kalinga, retired anthropology professor M. C. Barrameda has been working with communities to map out genealogies. The result? People from different villages are now discovering relatives in other villages, and are questioning why they have such bitter, even murderous, feuds.
But then maybe it's because some people choose to forget the ties that bind. Jean Dumont, a French anthropologist who wrote "Visayan Vignettes," observes how we sometimes go into selective amnesia to forget or exclude relatives who are poorer. Maybe, in other cases, as in Kalinga, we choose to forget relatives who wronged us.
All that again tells us something about humans. Deep down, the need to go back to the past, several millions of years or just a generation or two, is a need to anchor ourselves in the present.
The other week, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany announced that they had reconstructed part of the genome, the genetic make-up, of a Neanderthal man who lived 38,000 years ago, using new techniques called metagenomics. They did this using a thighbone to extract DNA, the building blocks of genes.
The breakthrough represents the new directions that are being taken as we try to unravel the mysteries around our origins. Before this, scientists -- mainly physical anthropologists -- could study the bones to look at evolutionary changes only.
From the Neanderthal bones that have been recovered, we do know something about their external appearance. We know they were about as tall as we, Homo sapiens, are, but were stockier. They had a larger skull than we do, although that still doesn't tell us how intelligent they were, since brain size doesn't really correlate with mental ability. Their skull bones tell us they had high eyebrow ridges and a more massive jaw, a bit of the Arnold Schwarzenegger look, which contributed to the idea that Neanderthals weren't very smart. That, of course, is an unfair stereotype; US President George Bush doesn't have any of those Neanderthal features and yet...
With the advances in genetics, it'll be possible to have fossils tell more detailed stories. By reconstructing the Neanderthals' genetic make-up, we will be able to get down to figuring out what the color of their hair, eyes and skin were. Scientists are looking forward as well to finding out more about their brain function, and even their capabilities for speech and language as we have today. (To do this, they'll be looking for a gene FOXP2, responsible for the development of language skills. The gene is found in Homo sapiens but not in chimpanzees, our other close relative.)
There was a brief period, between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago, when Neanderthals and Homo sapiens lived in Europe. So scientists are intrigued, too, as to whether the two crossed paths. Was it a hostile relationship, where Homo sapiens might even have contributed to Homo neanderthalis' extinction? Or was it one of tolerance? Even more tantalizing is the possibility that there might have been, you know, friendlier relations that led to Neanderthals contributing to our own gene pool.
The last two or three years, scientists have been coming up with different opinions on whether Homo neanderthalis and Homo sapiens interbred. Technically, breeding between two different species shouldn't occur but all over nature we do find this happening occasionally, so maybe there was some of that between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalis, which would mean they're actually ancestors, rather than just cousins.
If scientists do confirm that interbreeding happened, I can imagine Hollywood films capitalizing on this to create some Paleolithic love story, with maybe Governor Arnold playing a lead role.
Need to know
Governments and private foundations pour millions of dollars each year into research on our origins, whether to get more fossil bones, or, now for this very sophisticated metagenomics research. All those investments tell us something about our being human: our need to know where we come from.
More dogmatic Christians will insist the answer is simple: God created all species as is, and that's it. But many Christians are willing to accept that there is a creator God who allows evolution to take place. The head of the Human Genome Project in the United States, responsible for mapping out the genes of Homo sapiens, is an evangelical Christian who recently came out with a book arguing that there is no conflict between the Christian faith and evolution.
Still other scientists say there is no creator God, that nature is, in the words of Richard Dawkins, a "blind watchmaker" in which things just happen, or rather, just evolve.
Whatever one's personal beliefs are, there can be no denying the growing fossil record in support of evolution. When I first did a biological anthropology course back in the early 1980s, I had to plaster my walls with the names of different fossils in our ancestral tree. Now that I have to teach the anthropology courses myself, I find myself having to update the handouts every semester to incorporate new fossil names. I don't ask the students to memorize them since there are so many now.
From the 19th century into the first half of the 20th century, people still thought of human evolution as a matter of looking for a "missing link" between apes ( e.g., chimpanzees, gorillas) and humans. Today, scientists don't use that term anymore, recognizing that our ancestral tree consists of many branches and side branches, rather than a straight line.
IMSCF syndrome
Our need to know about our origins takes many forms, and is certainly not confined to bones and fossils. In the past, adopted children often had a difficult time finding out who their biological parents were. Today, in countries like the United States, adoption agencies and adoptive parents will take pains to establish who those biological parents are, in case an adopted child wants to look for them someday. The need to know has been transformed into a right to know.
The need to know translates into the current craze to reconstruct genealogies or family trees. Ofelia Ac-ac, a Filipina anthropologist who now lives in Belgium, came visiting earlier this year and told me about how she had gotten her hometown, Paete in Laguna province, to go into a huge family tree project, using fairly simple computer software.
Genealogical mapping helps build community solidarity, and may even bring peace to warring ones. In the province of Kalinga, retired anthropology professor M. C. Barrameda has been working with communities to map out genealogies. The result? People from different villages are now discovering relatives in other villages, and are questioning why they have such bitter, even murderous, feuds.
But then maybe it's because some people choose to forget the ties that bind. Jean Dumont, a French anthropologist who wrote "Visayan Vignettes," observes how we sometimes go into selective amnesia to forget or exclude relatives who are poorer. Maybe, in other cases, as in Kalinga, we choose to forget relatives who wronged us.
All that again tells us something about humans. Deep down, the need to go back to the past, several millions of years or just a generation or two, is a need to anchor ourselves in the present.
posted by Icarus | 9:09 AM
2 Comments:
Hello Michael,
With the subjects of creation & evolution & religion
being very popular these days,
I was wondering if you are familiar with:
Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation
Traditional Catholic Creation Apologetics on Origins.
...
Defending Genesis from a Traditional Catholic Perspective
www.kolbecenter.org
One interesting article
on the main page is:
What Does The Catholic Church Teach about Origins?
http://www.kolbecenter.org/church_teaches.htm
(Appended is a partial quote)
- Genesis does not contain purified myths.
(Pontifical Biblical Commission 1909[1])
- Genesis contains real history—it gives an account
of things that really happened. (Pius XII)
- Adam and Eve were real human beings—the first parents of all mankind.
(Pius XII)
. . .
- The body of Eve was specially created from a portion of Adam's body (Leo XIII).
She could not have originated via evolution. . . .
- All the Fathers who wrote on the subject believed
that the Creation days
were no longer than 24-hour-days.
(Consensus of the Fathers of the Church)
. . .
- Evolution must not be taught as fact,
but instead the pros and cons of evolution must be
taught. (Pius XII, Humani Generis)
- Investigation into human "evolution" was allowed in
1950,
but Pope Pius XII feared that an acceptance of
evolutionism might
adversely affect doctrinal beliefs.
. . .
What Does Cutting-Edge Science Teach about Origins?
- Molecules-to-man evolutionary theory violates the
second law of thermodynamics
by positing spontaneous increases in order through
random interactions of matter.
- Matter from explosions does not condense to form
objects like galaxies.
- Chemicals do not react together randomly to form
amino acids through natural processes.
- Amino acids do not randomly interact to form living
cells through
undirected natural processes.
- Molecules-to-man evolutionism
violates the Law of Biogenesis:
Life does not come from non-life
. . .
CONCLUSION:
Natural science offers no evidence that would contradict the plain and obvious sense of Genesis 1-11, the consensus of the Fathers of the Church, or the magisterial teaching of the Catholic Church on creation and the origins of man and the universe.
(End of partial quote)
From: http://www.kolbecenter.org/church_teaches.htm
Correction
to web Address:
What Does The Catholic Church Teach about Origins?
www.kolbecenter.org
/church_teaches.htm
Post a Comment
<< Home