I broadly agree with the theory of human evolution and the dispersal history of our hominid ancestors. I say “broadly” simply because I am only familiar with the popular science accounts of the subject; my own training kicks in when homo sapiens was established in Eurasia and approaching civilisation. Still, what I’ve read seems to make sense of the data, fragmentary and contested though it is.
The most accepted model of human evolution states that homo sapiens evolved from earlier hominids and left Africa about one hundred thousand years ago. For whatever reason, our ancestors beat other homo species in the game of survival. Studies of the mitochondrial DNA from some skeletal remains complicates the picture somewhat, but the above is the generally accepted view.*
Lost in the politics of evolution are some of the more remarkable stories of our early ancestors. My personal favourite is the Amazing Journey of Mungo Man.
“Mungo” was found near Lake Mungo in New South Wales, Australia in 1974. He is a homo sapiens skeleton about 40,000 years old (give or take). The first cool thing about Mungo is that he was covered in red ochre, suggesting, perhaps, some form of primitive “funeral” practice. The second is even cooler.
Australia has always been an island. Lake Mungo is 3,000km from the northern coast of Australia, where the ur-Mungoes presumably landed. For a breeding population to reach that far south, the Mungo people must have arrived in Australia much earlier.
Here’s the amazing thing, then: at some point, perhaps as early as 60,000 years ago, people got on boats and sailed from south-east Asia to Australia — 100km at its shortest point back then. 100km is further than you can see with the eye from the coast, so someone must have “found” Australia on his or her boat, and then returned to tell the story. Substantial expeditions to this new land then took place. This is a remarkable feat, one part of the amazing story of humanity. Cavemen indeed.
________
*Some studies, for example, suggest that there were regional evolutionary origins for homo sapiens.
June 9, 2007 at 1:28 pm
Cap’n Caveman! Excellent, Ronan.
p.s. you deny the faith and are going to hell for being a proponent of the heresy of evolution, of course.
June 9, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I am a proponent of the Truth, Stephen.
Anyway, in hell I shall turn out the devils, and make it a heaven, etc., etc.
June 9, 2007 at 1:32 pm
In which of the twelve tribes of Israel was this Mungo guy?
June 9, 2007 at 1:33 pm
A patriarch in Australia has given him a patriarchal blessing. You could ask Salt Lake.
June 9, 2007 at 1:35 pm
No, I’m with you Ronan, just clearing the air. I guess I am simply curious as to what, if any, aspects of the LDS creation story you think actually are historical. Did God create the Earth, for example? Wither the Creator? I am not trying to say that there is a way you ought to see it, just trying to flesh out your view (without speaking as to my own, which I will keep quite private, thanks).
June 9, 2007 at 1:35 pm
So much of the popular history of humanity is written within the context of condescension toward and oversimplification of our ancestors. Social evolutionist theories often lose stories like this one simply because such advanced enlightenment 60,000 years ago doesn’t square with the narrow-mindedness and “primitive” perspectives common during the European Dark Ages – if you assume the foundation of most social evolutionists.
June 9, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Steve,
All I’ll say for now is that the scientists are not making this stuff up. Whatever view of creation we take, we must not pretend ol’ Mungo, Peking Man, and homo neanderthalis do not exist. Given our exhausting discussion this week of human “bloodlines,” etc., I find the complicated origins of our species strangely comforting.
June 9, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Agreed, and a good answer.
June 9, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Here’s a further theological complication:
Are we really engaged in a work that must, at some point, offer baptism to Mungo Man…?
I only half jest. He’s as human as you and I.
June 9, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Plus, given that he’s human, one has to abandon the notion that a fully civilised “Adam” lived before him. Or you have to say the fossil record is wrong.
(One can of course join the dark side and note that a major hint as to Adam’s theological status is given in the translation of his Hebrew name: “Earthling.” Adam is you. Adam is me. But can Mormons overcome fundamentalist and scientifically impossible readings of scripture, or will we forever collide with science? Mungo Man is not going away.)
June 9, 2007 at 1:50 pm
All I will say is that, based on what I have read as actual scripture and heard in the temple during my lifetime, I think all we can say is that at some point and in some way God took a physical body (or embryo) and placed a spirit inside that body (or embryo) – creating an articualte man who was capable of envisioning God. He then repeated or modified that process in creating a woman. I have absolutely no idea approximately when that occurred.
I believe that all other aspects of our creation stories are figurative, as they relate to the creation of man and woman as we define them.
June 9, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Don’t give Mungo man too much credit… I saw on the Discovery Channel that during the Ice Age the polar ice caps had a lot of the earth’s water locked up in them and so Australia was not too far away from ES Asia at the time.
But maybe this is what was meant in the post by “south-east Asia to Australia — 100 km at its shortest point back then.”
June 9, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Also, thanks, Ronan for the final comment in #10. No matter the historical situation of Adam and Eve, it should be clear to us that Adam also is allegorical – and that it is that understanding that is the most important one for us today.
June 9, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I for one find this rather comforting… after all, if hominids like Mungo-Man (or, as you pointed out, his ancestors) could build a boat and cross even only 100 kilometers over the water – possibly more, so long before homo sapiens actually developed, much less a cilvilized world… Perhaps I can finally convince my parents the the flight of Lehi’s (and Ishmael’s) family to the land Bountiful by BOAT is not such a far-fetched theory after all.
June 9, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Virgnia,
Chile is a lot more than 100 km away from the Arabian peninsula.
June 9, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Yeah, Johh, Virginia obviously knows that based on her comment.
June 9, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Mungo looks very hungry. Red ocher has long been posited as a ritual attempt to recapitulate the ruddiness of the capillary blood of the living body. I rather like the idea of mixing blood-colored earth with the earth-bound body as part of the last rites. One could as easily speculate that it was a formualic immolation, invoking the redness of some flames. thanks for the post.
A Russian Orthodox priest in the 1970s actually wrote a kid’s book that had Adam as the first moral homo sapiens, detailing his shabby treatment at the hands of his neighbors and colleagues, and his withdrawal from the Garden thus represented his estrangement from his pre-moral, hence mostly bestial, colleagues. I’ve not seen it advanced outside that children’s book, but I rather like it as a possible tie between thoroughly literal and thoroughly symbolic readings.
June 9, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Ray, I just think it’s fool’s errand to try to use science to prove that the Book of Mormon is true.
June 9, 2007 at 2:47 pm
We agree on that, John. You should have said that and only that. All Virginia said is that it shows that a boat journey like what is described in the BofM isn’t ridiculous on its face. I thinnk we’re done with that, since we agree. :-)
June 9, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Adam as archetype is a fairly solid reading, I think. Deciphering Adam as a historical figure requires pure speculation; Sam, I think your priest has as good a shot as any at being right.
But mostly I want to say that I like ol’ Mungo.
Note also how his arms are crossed: a deliberate burial position.
June 9, 2007 at 2:59 pm
John Williams,
I agree that 100km is a relative spit in the ocean. But I’m guessing that some people would find such a 60,000 year old human achievement fairly impressive.
June 9, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Ronan, yes, it is impressive that pre-historic man made it to Australia by boat. I really just wanted to mention what I had seen on the Discovery Channel about the Ice Age. I was only kidding when I said “Don’t give Mungo man too much credit…”
June 9, 2007 at 3:13 pm
re: 20
I thought that, too; the positioning looks funereal.
Cool post, Ronan. Thanks for teaching us so many interesting things. Can we get continuing education credit for this somehow?? : )
June 9, 2007 at 3:19 pm
On the Discovery Channel I think I saw a professor explaining that he believes Asian homo sapiens evolved separately from European homo sapiens. I think that’s an interesting idea.
June 9, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Ronan, you’ve misinterpreted the body language. He was clearly a volleyball player who died suddenly preparing to hit the ball.
June 9, 2007 at 3:39 pm
or, more likely, one who had been hit by the ball and died a very painful death
June 9, 2007 at 3:42 pm
John and Ray: That is exactly what I was trying to say. Sorry for the unclear wording.
I just find it interesting that my parents can believe in all of the scientific things they do about pre-sapien homonids (especially sotories like Mongo’s) and completely dismiss everything in the BoM as too farfetched to give any thought to.
Dunno. It wasn’t the direction the comments were headed in, it was just what I thought of when I read the post.
June 9, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Virginia, I’m a believer in the Boof of Mormon, but in the face of science a lot of it is pretty far-fetched. It’s like the Bible.
June 9, 2007 at 3:45 pm
We meander occasionally, too, Virginia. Just don’t lead us astray! :-)
June 9, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Given that poor Brother Brigham has taken such a beating here this past week, let us all raise a mug of ale in his honor for his comment about not having to believe in “baby stories.”
June 9, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Ray, it’s not 1998 anymore… you don’t have to put a smiley face in every comment.
June 9, 2007 at 4:14 pm
I, for one, think they’re is refreshingly retro. Keep smilin’, Ray!
June 9, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Please disregard the “is,” above. Seriously, I am fairly coherent in person.
June 9, 2007 at 4:18 pm
John, :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
June 9, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Do I need to do another smiley crackdown? Don’t tempt me!!
June 9, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Smileys are very AOL.
June 9, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I think emoticons _can_ be helpful. :p And I’m a long long long time interent communicator. I first did this on Prodigy with a modem that did something like 256 baud. (Go to google groups and search on alt.gothic albatross – not neccesarily PG rated – but full of my usual dyslexia). They aren’t usually helpful – but they can be. Especially a ;> or a :P.
~
June 9, 2007 at 6:46 pm
This reminds me of the story of whashersbananas who escaped her imprisonment in Australia in a little dinghy–with two toddlers in tow. And to think that taking mine to the grocery store pretty much does me in . . .
June 9, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Um, why? What’s so hard about believing that Adam and Eve simply lived further in the past than we’d thought, or that scientists (who didn’t create the world) may have misunterstood the methods they use to age things?
*shrug* I don’t have any problem with the idea that Adam lived before Mungo Man.
June 9, 2007 at 7:30 pm
pdoe, the trick then is connecting Adam to all the other patriarchs the way OT does. If you don’t mind skewing the OT chronology, one could argue why would you mind reading Adam metaphorically?
June 9, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Why did Adam have to live before Mungo Man? The Bible doesn’t say that Adam was the first Homo Sapiens; it says he was the first man. Homo Sapiens is a scientific concept. “Man” can just as easily be interpreted in a spiritual context as a human who is accountable. If Mungo Man was not accountable, he could have preceeded Adam.
June 9, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Re #40–
I think it takes a real leap of faith to read the genealogies in Genesis literally; the more natural reading is symbolic.
June 9, 2007 at 8:17 pm
and remember, in that culture “son” can be used to mean “descendant”. Therefore, even a literal reading could cover an indeterminately LONG period of time and imply extensive, complicated genealogies. I subscribe to the symbolic reading, but I do not reject the concept of a literal reading completely – especially as a best guess or oral tradition.
June 9, 2007 at 9:03 pm
Aye to last lemming.
I’ve got no trouble seeing mungo man as an animal, homo sapien or no – and I don’t mean that as a disparagement. It seems to me the distinguishing feature for Adam and Eve is that they have breathed into them their spirit: a spirit which is of a particular order, a divine order, that occupied a certain position in heaven. If we take that at some point, and not before, spirits of this kind began coming to earth – then there must have been a first one, and that one is Adam. I personally would put that not long before the time recognizable human civilization begins blossoming: not all that long ago – I’d like to hear a discussion by people in the know of when that would have been.
I’m not married to anything. I mean – who the heck knows.
re: geneologies. We now feel pressure on all our faith stories due to the way that science has encroahed on the illustrations that accompany them. Saying this or that is merely symbolic is one way out. But symbols point to realities. One sees the cross and says that it is a symbol of Christianity, or whatever. But beyond that symbol opens up a whole panalopy of realities, and that, rather than mere psycholgical effect, is what lends the symbol its numinosity.
I should find Harold Bloom talking about why he isn’t Jungian. Iirc, it matches why I’m not a Jungian anymore, either. Because symbols are spiritually significant in so far as they can point to concrete rather than merely psychological realities. The other way coalesces a kind of solipsism, self-absorbtion. So that Adam is only interesting to me if as a symbol if the symbol Adam also points to a reality or set of realities beyond the symbol. Hence, intellectually as well as by faith I’m a Mormon – because I anthropomorphize everything, and consider that the higher, mature spirituality.
:)
~
June 9, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Since it has come up–the two polar views of human origins are the ‘out of Africa‘ and the ‘multiregional‘ hypotheses. From what I’ve read, the truth seems to be a mixture of the two, but weighted toward ‘out of Africa.’
BTW, Adam is difficult enough, but Adam in America is even more difficult.
June 9, 2007 at 11:58 pm
If “Adam” lived more than 40,000 years ago, one would have to wonder why the trappings of civilisation enjoyed by “Adam” (e.g. writing) did not appear for tens of thousands of years. The Bible portrays the fallen Adam as very much part of the civilised world, one of the early patriarchs. In that sense, the biblical chronology is fairly accurate: it places “Adam” 3-4,000 BC, just when civilisation emerged. Given that framework, if we are to accept an historical Adam and Mungo Man, we’re already reading the Bible as less than pure history (a very wise thing to do, btw). One can salvage a historical Adam if that is one’s desire, but it requires a great deal more flexibility with the story than most Mormons are prepared for.
Jared, thanks for adding that.
To clarify what someone said: Mungo Man is a homo sapiens, i.e. a modern human.
June 10, 2007 at 8:45 am
#46: Because of entropy and decay. That kind of reminds me of the argument that Man is the tool-user and Woman is not because they can find things like arrowheads and stone hatchets. But baskets and textiles are soft and disintegrate faster than stone, bone and crystal. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. As far as I know there are a few basic materials for writing: animal skins (like vellum), plant matter (like papyrus or paper), metal (like the Golden Plates) and clay (like the Sumerians used). The first two would have disintegrated long ago. Metal plates may have been beyond Adam — finding enough ore and producing enough heat to melt the ore would, imo, require a larger culture and population base that I would think he had. Clay would have been easy but in 40,000 years? It’d probably be dust.
I’m wonder why you used that number, “40,000.” If I recall correctly, the scientists say that Homo Sapiens has been around for about a 1 million years.
Y’know, the Garden of Eden could well have been in America. Remember that Adam and Eve were banished from it; God could well have moved them to Africa. Moving someone to a completely separate continent seems like a pretty final banishment to me. :)
June 10, 2007 at 9:02 am
PDoE,
If you want to believe that a man called Adam was writing 40,000 years ago, that’s entirely up to you.
It’s Mungo Man who is 40,000 years old.
June 10, 2007 at 9:09 am
“The Bible portrays the fallen Adam as very much part of the civilised world, one of the early patriarchs.”
Could you expand on this? It’s certainly true of his children, but in what ways is it true of Adam? With the exception of making clothing, (what may be an editor’s comment regarding) matrilocality, God’s command/warning to farm, in what ways is Adam civilized?
June 10, 2007 at 9:27 am
Julie,
Good question. The monogamist, nuclear family thing is a hint, I think. He seems to be settled too, which would make him a farmer, not a hunter-gatherer. Also, his sons must have learned agriculture from somewhere. The “Mormon Adam” heightens all of this by making him literate, of course. The Bible wants us to move from Adam to city-building civilisation in a blink.
Which is all to say that I think the biblical writers see Adam as a man like them, not some 60,000 year old wandering Mungo Man (not that they were aware of such people anyway). He even has a Hebrew name (Hebrew being a branch of Semitic (Canaanite) that emerged in the 2nd millennium BC). The one difference is that he has antediluvian superpowers of longevity, something also echoed in the antediluvian kings of the Sumerian King List.
More to the point is where the Nodites came from…!
June 10, 2007 at 9:52 am
Two-Adam Theory
For those wanting a better harmony of Adam and science, you might consider the Two-Adam theory. It’s not something I personally find necessary, but it might offer food for thought.
Forget Genesis 1. The humans there are simply male and female as a generic creation.
Genesis 2-3 is an archetype of human existence. The Adam here is the generic man, Eve the generic woman. Eden is our innocence, the Fall is our sin. Earthling (Adam) and Mother (Eve) are not historical individuals. Eden is a myth that teaches a profound truth about life.
The second Adam is another Adam altogether. His story begins in Genesis 4. This Adam is in some way a historical person, although the story is still obviously written in mythical style. He may be considered the first man to know God, the grand patriarch of what would be Israel, or what have you, but he is not the first man. He may also be archetypal to some degree, but of the early moral, God-knowing man rather than the generic type described in Gen 2-3.
The Mormon Missouri linkage remains an Area 51 in all of this, but I think Mormons should be open to the possibility of the grand, geographic myth-making offered by Joseph Smith. Symbols, after all, still teach Truth. Zion is Eden.
June 10, 2007 at 10:12 am
I should add that the above is pure eisegesis as I don’t think the biblical writer made a distinction between Adams. But if everyone else does it, why can’t I?!
Mostly, I want us to look more maturely at the figure of “Adam” and find a scientifically tenable position. The Genesis-Adam-as-first-man model is simply impossible. Perhaps the Bible itself realises this with its reference to the enigmatic land of Nod. Much of the problem exists because we read Gen 1 as referring to the specific characters of Adam and Eve and choose to ignore the symbolism that drips all over Gen 2-3. “History” (if we can call it that) really begins from Gen 4, although it is certainly only meant to be a “history” of one tribe of people (plus it offshoots).
June 10, 2007 at 11:55 am
“I want us to look more maturely at the figure of “Adam†and find a scientifically tenable position.” Keep looking, we are not there yet
June 10, 2007 at 1:17 pm
I was just reading a paper that suggested the timing for civilization emerging was climatically-driven (first page is here). The authors posit that agriculture (required for civilization) was impossible during the Pleistocene, but mandatory during the Holocene (last appprox. 10,000 years). The first human settlements showing evidence of agriculture and domesticated animals show up about 9,000 years ago, which is shortly after climate stabilized enough that you could expect climate to be consistently amenable to agriculture over the course of one or more human lifetimes. Humans were humans, and smart and sophisticated, far longer than they’ve lived in towns.
Not that it has anything to do with Eden, but primates did evolve in Southeastern North America.
Ronan–thank you for this post.
June 10, 2007 at 4:08 pm
On the Discovery Channel I think I saw a professor explaining that he believes Asian homo sapiens evolved separately from European homo sapiens. I think that’s an interesting idea.
I’ve also heard speculation that the Basque people are descendant from Neanderthals–the hominid branch otherwise wiped out by invading homo sapiens in Europe like 35,000 years ago.
June 11, 2007 at 5:12 am
re # 20, Ronan, don’t want to rain on your parade, but so are any theories you or anyone else has about Mungo, his life, and his culture based on his bones.
June 11, 2007 at 5:13 am
To be clear, my #56 is in response to your statement in #20 that “Deciphering Adam as a historical figure requires pure speculation.”
June 11, 2007 at 5:57 am
John,
What is the “speculation” that I have offered regarding Mungo, and how is it like “Adam”?
June 11, 2007 at 6:19 am
“at some point, perhaps as early as 60,000 years ago, people got on boats and sailed from south-east Asia to Australia — 100km at its shortest point back then. . . . someone must have “found†Australia on his or her boat, and then returned to tell the story. Substantial expeditions to this new land then took place.”
That’s all speculation Ronan. I’m not saying it might not be true, but it’s still speculation based on pretty scant evidence. As exhiliarating as it might be to try to reconstruct a picture of the life of Mungo’s society, it is largely conjecture.
June 11, 2007 at 6:27 am
Eh?
There’s some speculation in the gaps, but given the facts, it’s not wild-eyed and crazy:
- Mungo Man is real, i.e. we have his bones.
- He’s really old. Yes, there’s some debate as to his exact age, but he’s at least 30,000 years old (based on a range of scientific dating techniques), and probably older.
- Given that Australia has always been an island, the “Mungo” people must have got there on a boat.
What’s the objection? Where’s the egregious speculation?
And how on earth is this similar to Adam, for whom there is zero hard data?
June 11, 2007 at 7:03 am
Who said anything about “egregious”?
Scientists and religious speculate about Mungo and scientists and religious people speculate about Adam.
A skeleton covered in red ochre exists for Mungo. Coupled with a lot of deduction and speculation, a theory can be formed. Nothing egregious about that. But it is still speculation and not fact. The only facts are the skeleton itself and any facts that can be gleaned from it, such as clues about diet and age.
June 11, 2007 at 7:06 am
I would dispute that there is “a lot of deduction and speculation” in the case of Mungo Man. That’s all.
June 11, 2007 at 7:23 am
Ronan, how is any of that stuff about Mungo Man not mere inference?
June 11, 2007 at 7:31 am
You mean the rather logical “stuff” in my comment 60? If it’s merely an “inference” / “speculation” there must be other plausible possibilities for this stuff. Care to suggest any?
Here’s your task:
You have 30,000+ year old homo sapiens bones in Australia. The age and type of the find are broadly settled, so there’s no inference needed there. All that’s left to “infer” is “how did the Mungo people get there?” They cannot have walked to Australia. What’s left?
June 11, 2007 at 7:51 am
As Patri Friedman (grandson of Milton) put it,
The instance on display here is the chest beating last week over race and priesthood, followed by speculation that there have been members of the species homo sapiens who didn’t qualify as Man.
June 11, 2007 at 7:53 am
Mr. Mansfield,
What on earth are you talking about?
June 11, 2007 at 8:40 am
First, I’ll explain the Friedman quote. Conservatives don’t like evolution because it messes up religious beliefs. Liberals like it for the same reason. “Liberals don’t believe in biology” means that though liberals, who believe in evolution, think current humans are the descendents of creatures that were quite different from them, it rises to the level of thoughtcrime with them to consider that there could be any meaningful difference between races that have propagated mostly apart for 20,000 years. Race for them is primarily a social construct with only a trivial biological component. Conservatives are OK with biologically based concepts of race.
Second, last week BCC carried several posts on the ban on priesthood ordination of blacks. The party line was that this was all a result of Brigham Young’s racist heart, that race and lineage couldn’t possibly have any meaning to God. Now, several commenters on this Mungo Man post have speculated that there were homo sapiens that were not Man. You, Ronan, have accorded Mungo Man all the respect you would any historical personage, but you haven’t seen any need either to denounce others’ notions of homo sapiens lacking the spirits of Men. Also, back on that Elder Nelson thread, you seemed to be angling for some distinction in the meanings of “homo sapiens” and “Man”.
Third, Mr. Head, in addressing me, you, of all people, should be playing up the prestige of a JHU degree. Or, for someone with as prestigious an M. Phil. as yours, will the Hopkins doctorate be a step down in the world? [This last paragraph is a joke, just to be explicit.]
June 11, 2007 at 8:49 am
(Ahem) Dr. Mansfield,
I don’t remember what I said on the Elder Nelson thread. If it contradicts with what I say now, ignore it. I have acquired further light and knowledge since then. On June 11 2007, I believe Mungo was indeed Man.
June 11, 2007 at 10:14 am
Ronan, are you saying that the portion of your post that I quoted in my # 59 is not inference but rather fact?
June 11, 2007 at 11:13 am
I remember reading last year that evolutionists claimed the last recorded evolutionary step of homo sapiens occurred about 10,000 years ago, with some sort of change in brain chemistry. The details of exactly what the change was escapes me at the moment.
For me, this seemed to sit will with the time frame of Adam.
So, I would have a hard time completely lumping Mungo man with contemporary homo sapiens.
For me, I’ve come to think of Adam as being the first spiritual son of god, rather than the first man. But this brings up the whole question of inter-breeding with others living at that time.
June 11, 2007 at 12:12 pm
John,
I believe that the three things on offer — homo sapiens bones / very old homo sapiens bones / Australia as island — are facts. The fourth thing — that the ancestors of these very-old-Australian-homo-sapiens-bones sailed to Australia — must also be a fact.
But I suppose it’s possible that they were put there by the devil and/or UFO’s. It’s also possible that the inferred factuality of my existence is in fact an error and that I am, in fact, living in a pod somewhere with my mind plugged in to the Matrix.
I know what you want — to persuade me that our scientific “facts” of early human existence are no more secure than our view of a historical Adam gleaned from scripture. On this you won’t persuade me though, but please believe what you will.
June 11, 2007 at 1:59 pm
I know what you want — to persuade me that our scientific “facts†of early human existence are no more secure than our view of a historical Adam gleaned from scripture.
That’s not true. Frankly I am surprised you would think that’s what I want. We know each other.
We have a skeleton of Mungo. That alone is a huge fact and piece of evidence. We have no such thing for Adam, nor am I implying that we do. I am not suggesting that we have any kind of view of historical Adam gleaned from scripture at all, much less a more secure one than we have about about Mungo.
June 11, 2007 at 2:49 pm
“Now, several commenters on this Mungo Man post have speculated that there were homo sapiens that were not Man.”
Not only do I posit that Mungo Man may not have been Man, I positively don’t want Mungo Men in my children’s schools, or Mungo Men riding on the bus with me, or Mungo Men serving in public office. I do, however, really like the Mungo Men’s groovy disco beats.
~
June 17, 2007 at 8:38 pm
When did the continents separate? Would that be before or after Mungo’s time?
June 18, 2007 at 12:58 am
Before. We’re talking in the millions rather than in the thousands of years. Mungo is modern.
June 25, 2007 at 3:00 pm
I think its cool that our ancestors go back tens of thousands of years and evolution is the process that we have to thank for that (and thank God too). Because of our capabilities in genetic research we can now figure out (at least roughly) where and what time frame we came from. Of course we ALL go back to Africa. This is a good thing!
I dont “beleive” in evolution because it requires no belief. I accept evolution because of the overwhelming evidence for it. Belief for me comes into play for my religion. I choose to beleive in many aspects of mormonism because beleif and mainly hope is all I got when science cant answer religious questions.
Too often we get tied up in mental headgames because a past church leader made a statement which conflicts logical scientific evidence. We’ll consequences be damned, I think we should think rationally, treat each other kindly and without discrimination. O.k. Ill stop here before I get carried away into preaching!