RE: paleonet ID in the Classroom

[Nancy Meyer <marsglow@xxxxxxxxx>]

Basically, I agree with you, but please bear in mind that
I'm a lawyer, not a paleo expert.  My understanding is that
Coon's work has been discredited - you might try googling
him to see.  I just read a book titled, The Real Eve, which
is by a science writer whose name I can't remember but I
will get to you tomorrow.  He talked to a lot of
paleoanthropologists, including Fred Smith, for whom I have
enormous respect, as well as some geneticists, and he
discusses his findings about the exodus from Africa, which
he proposes a theory to date, and the subsequent evolution
of humans.  He also goes into the DNA evidence, including
DNA studies on modern populations.  I guess I just don't
see hwo the multiple origins theory is racist, because as I
understand it it claims that we are all from the same
ancestor.  I'm willing to be corrected, I just don't see it
right now.  I'm not disputing you.  It's my failure to
understand.
--- Andy Rindsberg <arindsberg@gsa.state.al.us> wrote:
> Fair enough. I regard the multiple-origins hypothesis as
> one of those ideas
> that can be, and has been, used for racist purposes
> although the idea is not
> inherently racist and people who hold it are not
> necessarily racist. I'm a
> bit out of my depth here, but I first read about it in
> this widely read
> book:
>  
> Coon, Carleton S. (1962) .  The Origins of Races.  New
> York: Alfred A.
> Knopf.
>  
> Coon's work was engagingly written and not overtly
> racist, though he was
> accused of racism, e.g., by anthropologist Ashley
> Montagu, and I do not know
> the truth of that matter. Coon was certainly curious
> about how humans
> developed and whether their physical differences
> represent climatic
> adaptations. The results, although often interesting,
> were inconclusive and
> further research in this area is evidently discouraged.
>  
> Setting all thoughts of racism aside, a scientific
> question can be framed
> whether isolated populations of a species can all develop
> simultaneously
> into another species -- perhaps under the influence of
> simultaneous climatic
> change. To me, this hypothesis seems so complex as to
> make it extremely
> unlikely. How many identical mutations would have to
> occur at once on
> different continents? Or are we supposed to believe that
> a preexisting
> genetic switch was turned on, like industrial melanism in
> several species of
> moths?
>  
> Warning flags are also raised by these considerations: 
> (1) I know of no other species for which such a complex
> history has been
> proposed. 
> (2) Coon based his hypothesis on a very small number of
> specimens.
>  
> One can posit nearly isolated populations receiving new
> genes from a common
> source as a far more likely scenario, but this compromise
> is not what
> Carleton Coon proposed. Coon thought that H. erectus
> races in Europe, Asia,
> and Africa developed regionally and independently into H.
> sapiens races in
> the same places. But so far, the molecular evidence, such
> as the
> "mitochondrial Eve" tree, seems to indicate that this
> sort of "genetic
> leavening" of various races of Homo erectus never
> happened. Instead, a great
> wave of Homo sapiens erupted out of Africa and replaced
> the preexisting
> populations.
>  
> I'm at the extreme edge of my knowledge on the topic, so
> that will be all
> for me. But if anyone has heard of another totally
> interfertile species that
> is supposed to have developed from multiple lines of
> ancestors, it would be
> apt to hear about it now.
>  
> Your cousin,
> Andrew K. Rindsberg
>  
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk
> [mailto:paleonet-owner@nhm.ac.uk] On Behalf
> Of Bill Chaisson/Deirdre Cunningham
> Sent: Monday, March 28, 2005 3:04 PM
> To: paleonet@nhm.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: paleonet ID in the Classroom
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not convinced that it's racist, but I still don't
> agree
> with it.  -And my grandfather was from Alabama, so we
> could
> be cousins!  I'm just a few miles away from Dayton, Tn,
> 
> home of the Scopes trial.
> 
> 
> Isn't this issue something that can be settled with DNA
> evidence?
> 
> I also don't understand why it seems unlikely that a
> large highly mobile and
> highly adaptable organism like Homo sapiens could not
> become globally
> distributed after originating from a single population of
> H. erectus.
> 
> Please provide a reference where the multi-origins
> evidence is presented.
> 
> Thanks,
> Bill
> -- 
> ---------------------------------------------------
> William P. Chaisson
> Adjunct Assistant Professor
> Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
> University of Rochester
> Rochester, NY  14627
> 607-387-3892
> 
> 
> -- 
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>  
> 

"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian religion." - George Washington


		
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