From: "Santosh Helekar" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The above confusing statement and the morass of
confusion evident in the rest of Fr. Ivo's latest post
in this thread is precisely the disadvantage of using
religious myths as strained metaphors for scientific
facts.
***Dr.Santosh is misunderstanding my statement, namely that
the names Adam and Eve are biblical. These are not "religious myths",
they have their message and reliability.
By using the biblical names the scientists are not leaning on "science" of
the past.
Neither are the theologians proposing the Hebrew worldview of those times as
science for today.
Even if it is "inappropriate" the fact is that Adam and Eve are biblical
names.
What is the difficulty for a neuroscientist, if the geneticists themselves
have chosen those names?
Why such a bias against Bible in spite of the explanation of its message?
Let it not go unchallenged in this Forum.
"In the end, only religion claims to deliver
certainty. In other words, faith alone is immune from
doubt, although few believers seem troubled by the
fact that
each religion offers different answers."
*This is a quotation from the book of LLCavalli-Sforza, Genes, Peoples, and
Languages,
Chapter 1: "Genes and History.The Pride of An Emperor". "When we write
papers for scientific
journals, we know that many statements cannot be supported in their
entirety. This seems strange to the public: isn't science infallible? In
the
end, only religion claims to deliver certainty. In other words, faith
alone
is immune from doubt, although few believers seem troubled by the fact
that
each religion offers different answers". When it refers to Faith,
it does not mean the knowledge of the origins of the First Man and Woman.
Cavalli-Sforza is admitting that the scientific results achieved by him are
not definitive.
This confusion persists in the mind of Dr.Santosh, who is adamant in
distorting the statement
and in attributing it to me. He is harping time and again on conflict model.
Dr.Santosh should learn to apply scientific methods to the texts that he is
reading,
instead of distorting them.
...there were no first
parents in human evolution. No scientist ever claimed
that there were.
***Then how did they increase? Only by evolution, not by procreation?
Are not scientists trying to discover the ancestors?
A. The mitochondria of all humans alive today contain
DNA from the mitochondria of one woman out of many who
lived about 200,000 years ago, and
B. The Y-chromosomes of all boys and men alive today
contain DNA from the Y-chromosome of one man out of
many who lived about 59,000 years ago.
***So what is the conclusion of LLCavalli-Sforza?
Having lived approximately 140,000 years apart the man
and woman in question obviously did not know each
other. So they could not have been our first parents.
***So how did Man begin? LLCavalli-Sforza speaks of African origin.
That is what geneticists are trying to find out.
We have to go still back and investigate... The work is not over
and definitive answers have not yet been given.
>> Allan Wilson named 'Mitochondrial Eve' after Eve of
the Genesis Creation Story...
**This is what Allan Wilson himself says: the name is taken from the
biblical account.
Michael Hammer took it also when speaking of 'Y-chromosome Adam'.
Dr.Santosh thinks it is not appropriate. I would not question it. But also I
would add
that these names do not cease to be biblical and do not posit any
contradiction between
Science and Bible. The theologian would love to have answers from Science.
Regards.
Fr.Ivo
