Edwards v. Aguillard [Edwards, Governor of Louisiana, et al v. Aguillard et al]

Before the Supreme Court of the United States 482 U.S. 578, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, presiding.

Argued: December 10, 1986

Decided: June 19, 1987

Vote: 7 to 2. Majority opinion by Justice Brennan, dissent by Scalia, joined by Rehnquist.

Ruling: Teaching creationism in public schools is unconstitutional because it attempts to advance a particular religion.

Background:

Issues of evolution versus creationism had been introduced into states’ legislatures through legislation from creationist activists. Opponents of creationism countered by having the courts abolish such legislation on the basis that they violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids the government from advancing a particular religion. The creation science movement arose during the 1960s, presenting what was claimed to be scientific evidence supporting young earth creationism. Critics in the mainstream scientific community–including many Christians–denounced the movement and its underpinnings as pseudoscience lacking any evidential basis whatsoever. Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) had ruled that bans on teaching evolutionary biology are unconstitutional.

In the early 1980s, the Louisiana legislature passed a law entitled the “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science in Public Instruction Act”. The Act did not require teaching of either creationism or evolution, but did require that when evolutionary science was taught, the creation science had to be taught as well. The state argued that the Act was about academic freedom for teachers. Creationists lobbied particularly aggressively for the law.

When challenged, lower courts ruled that the state’s actual purpose was to promote the religious doctrine of creation science; the District Court issued a summary judgment, but the state appealed to the SCOTUS. It was not the first such appeal; but the previous one, McLean vs. Arkansas, in which the lower courts ruled against creationism, was not appealed to the national courts. Creationists believed they had a better chance to prevail in Edwards vs. Aguillard; so, they marshaled their best personnel and arguments and appealed to SCOTUS who–for the first time–agreed to hear a case about the merits of creationism vs. evolution.

The SCOTUS majority opinion by Justice Brennan was based on the three-pronged Lemon test and ruled that the Act constituted an unconstitutional infringement on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Justice Brennan stated that it was clear that legislative sponsor, Senator Bill Keith’s, purpose was to narrow the science curriculum thereby undermining the provision of a comprehensive scientific education. Senator Keith testified before the legislature that evolution violated his own personal religious beliefs. The Court found that, although the Louisiana legislature had stated its purpose to be to protect academic freedom, it was deemed dubious because the Act gave Louisiana teachers no freedom they did not already possess and instead limited their ability to determine what scientific principles should be taught. Because it was unconvinced by the state’s proffered secular purpose, the Court went on to find that the legislature had a “preeminent religious purpose in enacting this statute”.

Justice Scalia, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, dissented. They accepted the Act’s stated purpose of protecting academic freedom as being sincerely secular, construing the term, academic freedom, to refer to “students’ freedom from indoctrination” to decide for themselves how life began, based on a fair and balanced presentation of the scientific evidence. In a telling observation, the two justices criticized the first prong of the Lemon test because it was not possible to find with finality the sole purpose of even a single legislator let alone the entire voting body. The ruling of the Appeals Court was affirmed.

Consequences:

The ruling only affected state schools. Independent schools, home schools, Sunday schools, and Christian schools remained free to teach creationism. Within two years a creationist textbook, Of Pandas and People, was produced. The book attacked evolutionary biology without mentioning the identity of the supposed ‘intelligent designer’. Early drafts had used the terms ‘creation’ and ‘creator’, and they were removed in favor of the more benign and scientific sounding ID terminology. Clearly, the contest was not over. Further cases, most employing the Lemon test, included:

Webster v. New Lenox School District (1990)

Bishop v. Aronov (1991)

Peloza v. Capistrano School District (1994)

Hellend v. South Bend Community School Corporation (1996)

Freiler v. Tangipahoa Parish Board of Education (1997)

Edwards v. California University of Pennsylvania (1998)

LeVake v. Independent School District 656 (2000)

The most important and attention riveting case, Kitzmiller v. Dover, which grew out of the continuing controversy, was to become the putative landmark decision. The 139 page opinion by the presiding judge was hailed as a definitive presentation of the cogent arguments for both opinions and regarding the law. Most scholars and legal experts thereafter have conceded that creationism or intelligent design were religious teachings, not legitimate scientific research or conclusions, and The Theory of Evolution was uncontested legitimate science in the view of the overwhelming majority of modern biological and other interested scientists.

Lemon v. Kurtzman [Alton J. Lemon, et al v David H. Kurtzman, Superintendent of Public Instruction of Pennsylvania, et al. John R. Earley, et al v. John DiCenso, et al. William P. Robinson, Jr. v. John DiCenso, et al.]

Before the Supreme Court of the United States 403 U.S. 602 (1971), Chief Justice Warren Burger, presiding

Argued: March 3, 1971

Decided: June 28, 1971

Vote: 8-1. Majority by: Burger joined by seven justices (8-0 in Rhode Island and 8-1 in Pennsylvania)

Dissent by: White

Ruling: Held. For a law to be considered constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, the law must have a legitimate secular purpose, must not have the primary effort of either advancing or inhibiting religion, and must not result in an excessive entanglement of government and religion. If any of these three prongs is violated, the government’s action is deemed unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution.

Background:

The case dealt with Rhode Island and Pennsylvania programs that supplemented the salaries of teachers in religiously based private schools for teaching secular subjects. The cases were bundled together. Rhode Island provided for a 15% salary supplement to be paid to teachers in nonpublic schools at which the average per-pupil expenditure on secular education is below the average in public schools. Eligible teachers were required to teach only courses offered in the public schools, using only materials used in public schools, and must agree not to teach courses in religion. Pennsylvania’s law authorized the state Superintendent of Instruction to purchase certain secular educational services from nonpublic schools, directly reimbursing those schools solely for teachers’ salaries, textbooks, and instructional materials. Reimbursement was restricted to courses in specific secular subjects, the textbooks and materials must be approved by the Superintendent, and no payment is to be made for any course containing any subject matter expressing religious teaching, or the morals or forms of worship of any sect. The concern of the Court was that the two states’ policies could result in the states having to have detailed and complicated financial and other dealings with parochial schools thus violating the entanglement prong of the Lemon test.

What came to be known as the Lemon test is to determine when a law has the effect of establishing religion. While the case and the test do not relate directly to the teaching of evolution, they have significant direct effect on future cases. Even if a scientific theory like evolution expressly goes against a religious belief, teaching just that theory and not the opposing belief does not violate the neutrality requirement of the Establishment Clause. Teaching science has a clearly secular purpose, and is not primarily designed to undermine religion. Any undermining of religion by science is an incidental, not primary effect. It would–under the Lemon test–be unconstitutional to teach a theory whose primary intent or effect was to undermine or to promote religion.

Consequences:

Despite considerable concern and public argument by critics, including recognized Constitutional scholars, the Lemon test has been successfully used in multiple cases of evolution vs scientific creationism or intelligent design. However, the SCOTUS did not hear a case directly involving the teaching of creationism until Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987.

Susan Epperson, et al v. Arkansas, docket #7, 1968

Before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), Chief Justice Earl Warren, presiding.

Argument Date: 10-16-1968

Decided: 11-12-1968

Vote: 9-0

Ruling: Held, the statute violates the Fourteenth Amendment, which embraces the First Amendment’s prohibition of state laws respecting an establishment of religion. [States may not require curricula to align with the views of any particular religion.]

Issue: Whether an anti-evolution statute that the State of Arkansas adopted in 1928 to prohibit the teaching of the theory that man evolved from other species of life violates the no establishment provision of the First Amendment.

Background:

In 1928, Arkansas–following the lead of Tennessee in 1925–adopted a law which prohibited any public school or university from teaching the theory or doctrine that mankind ascended or descended from a lower order of animals. During the forty years the Arkansas law was in effect, no one was ever prosecuted for violating it. Only Arkansas and Mississippi had such laws on their books.

In the mid-1960s, Forest Rozzell, secretary of the AEA [Arkansas Education Association] sought a person to challenge the Arkansas law forbidding the teaching of the Theory of Evolution in Arkansas schools. Rather than have that individual violate the law as in the Tennessee Scopes case and thereby have her dismissed as a law breaker, lawyers, headed by Eugene Warren, from the AEA instead tried to find someone to request a declaratory judgment on the law. Susan Epperson–a Little Rock Central High School tenth grade biology teacher and a theistic evolutionist–agreed to be that test person. H. H. Blanchard–a parent of children attending the public schools–intervened in support of the action.

Ms Epperson was a product of the Arkansas school system and then obtained her master’s degree in zoology at the University of Illinois. She was (and is) the daughter of a biology professor and was reared in a devoutly Presbyterian family for whom evolution was never a problem. The text for biology Ms Epperson was given as a new

The Old Senate Chamber during the US Supreme Court's residency (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

teacher contained a chapter setting forth the theory of the origin of man from a lower form of animal. Epperson was chosen to be the figurehead of the case because she was an all-Arkansas girl, not “some Yankee communist troublemaker with long hair and tattoos carpet-bagging her way through Arkansas. She was the biology teacher next door.”

Nevertheless when the suit was filed in 1965, Ms Epperson immediately began to receive heavy media attention and hate mail including comments on her appearance being similar to a monkey. The Creation Research Society stated that “evolution was on the way out.”

In the original Chancery Court trial in 1966, the AEA’s attorneys made an effort to keep the matter in Chancellor Murray O. Reed’s chambers to prevent the media spotlight and circus atmosphere that had accompanied the Scopes trial. However, the Attorney-General of Arkansas disagreed, and an open trial was arranged. In the trial Ms Epperson testified, but the scheduled three week trial lasted only one day with Judge Reed finding the law unconstitutional based on the First Amendment. The Attorney-General appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court who gave a very short ruling that the law was “a valid exercise of the state’s power to specify the curriculum in its public schools” adding further that “the court expresses no opinion on the question whether the Act prohibits any explanation of the theory of evolution or merely prohibits teaching that the theory is true, the answer not being necessary to a decision in the case, and the issue not having been raised.” That issue of ambiguity was important.

The AEA appealed to the SCOTUS which concluded in the majority opinion by Justice Abe Fortas with concurrences by Justices Black, Harlan, and Stewart and joined by all nine members of the Court: “Arkansas’s law cannot be defended as an act of religious neutrality. Arkansas did not seek to excise from the curricula of its schools and universities all discussion of the origin of man. The law’s effort was confined to an attempt to blot out a particular theory because of its supposed conflict with the Biblical account, literally read. Plainly, the law is contrary to the mandate of the First, and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution [because it fell within the condemnation of the Fourteenth Amendment due to being vague and uncertain].” Justice Fortas described the opinion of the Arkansas Supreme Court as “quixotic”. He firmly held that the law could not stand despite any definition of teaching because of its violation of the separation of church and state. He cited the Court’s decision in Keyishian v. Board of Regents which held that, “the First Amendment does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.” Justice Fortas concluded, “The judgment of the Supreme Court of Arkansas is reversed.”

Consequences:

Epperson, herself, remarked that the decision did not change much; evolution was still not taught in many Arkansas schools because of religious fundamentalist community pressure. As a result of the ruling in Epperson v. Arkansas, creationists changed their tactics to push for the teaching of ‘scientific creationism’ in schools. Adeptly side-stepping court challenges, they began to focus on influencing science standards and textbook adoption processes and to infiltrate school boards. The result was a complicated and wide spread involvement in the school systems of the United States making a defense for teaching the theory of evolution a sort of Hercules vs. Hydra battle (as characterized by Susan Epperson). So-called Intelligent Design had a strong and far reaching attractiveness to religious people throughout the country.

The Epperson decision was the first in a cascade of legal setbacks to creationists working to promote their brand of religion through the public school systems. Some of those cases include:

Lemon v. Kurtzman-1971, which put forth the test for any state law regarding religion.

Wright v. Houston Independent School District-1972

Willoughby v. Stever-1973

Daniel v. Waters-1975

Hendren v. Campbell-1977

Seagraves v. California-1981

And finally, in Edwards v. Aguillard-1987, the issue was faced head-on by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Carl Douglass wrote a fictional account of a man who, with best intentions, became a legally sanctioned assassin for the United States and made a significant contribution to the efforts of the president and the CIA to achieve peace. His compensation for so doing was to be abandoned by his organization, his president, and his country. He became public enemy number one and a fugitive who eluded a world-wide dragnet. At one critical point In the Sheep Dog and The Wolf-A Story of Terrorism and Response, and the Sheep Dogs Who Protect, the fugitive Hunter Caulfield desperately needed to obtain guns that were not traceable to him. He made his way to a flea market in Memphis, Tennessee where he was able to buy three guns without a background check, a permit, or there being a record made. In this fictional account, “Each of the weapons had been used in at least one murder; one was used in three separate murders. The three guns were first seized by the Memphis area sheriff’s office, then were sold by the Sheriff’s Department to a reputable gun dealer who sold them to a lawful concealed weapon holder who sold them to a friend of a friend at a flea market–all for a profit–and finally; they came into the possession of Emer Hadclif from Berryville, Arkansas, who was either drunk or did not care. Many states destroy such guns, but Tennessee and Kentucky–among a few others–sell or trade the guns for such things as Kevlar vests thanks to the lucrative efforts of the NRA. They can be resold legally in those states and are all but untraceable thereafter.”

That bit of fiction made for a good story, but it could not have happened in the real world, right? No, that is not right. The segments on guns in Sheep Dog are the product of careful research and are all too true. In five states 2.5 million warrants for fugitives were not reported to the FBI. In Washington state alone, 13,000 people accused of felonies were not recorded by the FBI. In Michigan, only seven percent of warrants were shared with the FBI which resulted in the missing of 900,000 fugitives. Kevin Collins, the Michigan Fugitive Database supervisor, is quoted in USA Today, Gun Checks Miss Millions of Fugitives [April 4, 2014] is quoted as saying, “When I bought my first gun, I could have had a felony warrant for murder, and they wouldn’t have known.” When Hunter Caulfield, the fictional protagonist in Sheep Dog was able to buy his guns, he was not an imaginative extreme, he would fit in well with the experience in any flea market in the country with guns for sale.

Mr. Collins points out that literally millions of fugitives can pass undetected through federal background checks. The checks are built into gun law to prevent felony fugitives, felons, the mentally ill, people with records for domestic abuse, and many others who should not be carrying guns, from being able to obtain them. The NRA advocates for almost unfettered rights to own guns of almost any kind and lobbies successfully about the enactment or enforcement of laws governing gun sales in flea markets. The NRA has successfully stymied efforts to prevent the mentally ill from having guns—a national bill that specifically prohibits anyone with a history of hospitalization for mental illness in the past three months. If the law were to function as it is written, no one with an record of having an outstanding arrest warrant for either a major or a minor crime, would be able to purchase a weapon legally. The laws are on the books. However, the U.S. government’s National Instant Background System is rife with gaps. Several tens of thousands of individuals with outstanding warrants for violent felonies go undetected and could buy a gun at a reputable gun store with minimal effort—agree to a background check–and at a flea market even more easily and walk away with a deadly and unrecorded weapon. Again, it is not fiction that such fugitives are responsible for a significant amount of the violent crime committed in the United States each year.

In thirty states and the District of Columbia, gun buyers are checked only against the federal database, and the records of a woefully few criminals are contained in that data base. Georgia and California each have over 600 warrants out per 100,000 residents. That enormous number of criminals constitutes a pool of potential gun owners available to keep violent crime a major social ill of our society. Police and courts are not required to share information with the FBI! Citizens should mount an appeal to states, to the federal government, and to the immensely powerful and influential NRA to bring a halt to this travesty.

The issue of teaching scientific based Darwinian evolution as opposed to teaching Creationism and its offspring, Intelligent Design—a Christian religious doctrine—as science in public schools has spawned several historic law suits. Given the current tendency to insist on evidence as opposed to feeling in the courts, it is of interest to consider a short review of the landmark cases about such public school instruction.

1. Tennessee v.  John Scopes

Popularly known as the “Monkey Trial”.

Dates of the Trial: July 10, 1925 to August 2, 1925

Judge: John T. Raulston

For the prosecution: William Jennings Bryan, William Jennings Bryan, Jr., A.T. Stewart, Ben B. McKenzie. Of these, Stewart and McKenzie were former attorneys general for Eastern Tennessee.

For the defense: Clarence Darrow, Arthur Garfield Hays, prominent free speech advocate, Dudley Field Malone, international divorce attorney.

Background:

The 1920s was a chaotic era for social patterns—traditionalists and older Victorians versus young modernists. William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic candidate for president and an ardent populist, led a fundamentalist crusade to banish Darwin’s Theory of Evolution from American classrooms because it would undermine traditional religious values. By 1925, he and his followers had succeeded in getting legislation introduced in 15 states to ban the teaching of evolution. In February of that year, John Butler introduced a bill in the Tennessee legislature making it “unlawful to teach any theory that denies the story of divine creation as taught by the Bible and to teach instead that man was descended from a lower order of animals” which was enacted handily.

In a meeting in Fred Robinson’s drugstore in Dayton, Tennessee, George Rappalyea showed friends a newspaper containing an ACLU announcement that it was willing to offer its services to anyone challenging the new statute. Rappalyea argued that staging such a trial would be a way to bring publicity and new income to their declining town. The conspirators approached John Scopes–a young general science teacher and part-time football coach–who agreed with the conspirators that it was not possible to teach biology without evolution. The class text book, Hunters Civic Biology, expressly contained evolutionary teachings and–acting as a part time fill-in teacher–Scopes had been giving out assignments on evolution to his students. Since that was against the new law, Scopes agreed to stand for a test case against the new anti-evolution statute.

After some argument, Clarence Darrow, who was not the first or even the second choice of the ACLU or the conspirators, was accepted to lead the defense team. The prosecution team was headed by William Jennings Bryan, the crusader, but who had not tried a case in over 30 years.

The trial was set for July 10, 1925 in the Rhea County Courthouse. The town of Dayton was taken up in a carnival atmosphere which included bringing in chimpanzees to testify, but had to settle for being displayed in a side-show on Main Street. There were banners, lemonade stands, Anti-evolution League members selling copies of TT Martin’s book, Hell and the High School, and holy rollers rolling in the surrounding hills and riverbanks. Judge Raulston–a staunch conservative Christian–attended a sermon by Bryan in the Dayton Methodist Church on the evening before the trial’s opening, in which the crusader attacked the defense strategy in the case. On opening day, a thousand people, with 300 standing, jammed the court house. The proceedings opened, over Darrow’s protest, with a prayer.

On the first business day, the defense moved to quash the criminal indictment on state and federal constitutional grounds in order to obtain an eventual declaration by the U.S. Supreme Court. As expected, the motion was denied. The prosecution opened its case by asking the court to take judicial notice of the Book of Genesis. During the trial, Darrow said that the anti-evolution law made the Bible, “the yardstick to measure every man’s intellect, to measure every man’s intelligence, to measure every man’s learning”. Students testified that they had indeed been taught that man had evolved from one-celled organisms. The prosecution rested its simple case after drugstore owner, Fred Thompson, testified that John Scopes had made a statement that he knew that, “any teacher in the state who was teaching Hunter’s Biology was violating the law”.

On July 16, the defense called its first witness, a prominent zoologist; the judge allowed part of the testimony to be heard, which evoked a long speech by Bryan. The defense responded that Bryan’s outburst was born of the same ignorance “which made it possible for theologians…to bring Old Galilee [Galileo] to trial”. Raulston ruled the zoologist’s testimony inadmissible. Darrow protested and earned himself a contempt finding, which was later dropped when Darrow apologized.

Because of the mass of people in the courtroom and fear that the floor might collapse, the trial was moved outside before a crowd of 5000. The defense read into the record, for the purpose of an appellate review, excerpts of the prepared statements of eight scientists and four experts on religion who had been prepared to testify. Defense attorney Hays requested that Bryan, the lead prosecution attorney, be sworn in to testify as an expert on the Bible. At first, Bryan contended that “everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there”. Later he conceded that rather than six literal days of creation, his impression was “that they were periods”. His testimony did not go well, and the withering defense questioning befuddled the old gentleman. The next day, Judge Raulston ruled that Bryan could not return to the stand, and that his previous testimony was to be stricken from the record.

Darrow asked the jury to return a verdict of guilty in order that the case might be appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, and Bryan was thereby denied the opportunity for a grand summation, a speech he had labored over for weeks. The jury complied; John Scopes was found guilty, and Judge Raulston fined him $100. Six days later, as a complication of eating an enormous dinner, William Jennings Bryan died. A year later, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Dayton court on a technicality. Since it was not on constitutional grounds, the case ended; there was no further action that could be taken. Of the 15 states with pending anti-evolution legislation in 1925, only 2 (Alabama and Mississippi) enacted the laws. It would be 43 years later in the Epperson v. Arkansas case before the substantive question would be tested.

Consequences:

Although both sides claimed victory, historians agreed that the traditionalists of the 1920s felt a tragic sense of irreparable loss; it was as if they had seen their gods tremble and die, and they felt as if they had given up the awe, fear, and comfort of living in a simple world in which gods made the rules, and all man had to do was to obey. Paul R. Conkin wrote that, “It was like the loss of a father.”

The Theory of Evolution, like other firmly held scientific principles such as the cell theory, the atomic theory, the germ theory, the plate tectonic theory, and the theory of gravity, permits definite testable and verifiable predictions which result consistently in demonstrably correct results. Examples include:

~1. Prediction: cell theory, the atomic theory, the germ theory, the plate tectonic theory, and the theory of gravity in rock strata with the oldest and most primitive fossils being found in the deepest layers, and the youngest and most modern in the superficial layers. That is a consistently verified finding. For example, throughout the world, in the deepest, oldest geologic layers of sedimentary rock are found fossils of cyanobacteria, 3.5 billion years old. In successively shallower layers are consistently found rocks that are between 635-540 million years old and contain traces of soft-bodied multicellular organisms; fossils from rock 330 million years old yield large amphibians and early tetrapods. 230 year old sedimentary rock yields fossilized skeletons of dinosaurs evolving from earlier reptiles. 155 million year old sediment yielded Archaeopteryx, a dinosaur with feathers and wings. Birdlike fossils found in China were preserved in 110 million year old rocks. Above those levels, in recent years, palentologists have found, successively more modern animals including whales, elephants, armadillos, horses, and primitive hominids all the way to modern humans 100-200 thousand years old.

~Prediction: Some evidence of speciation, new species forming in the wild, should be found in fossils. This has been verified in examination of core samples from the ocean floor demonstrating deep layers with ancient marine foraminiferans changing over millions of years as they were deposited on the sea floor and erratic changes in Antarctic sea floor samples of a marine microorganism, the radiolarian Pseudocubus vema, which demonstrated periods of quiescence in terms of morphological change and occasional periods of marked change.

~Prediction: Fossil evidence of intermediate or transitional species should be found. This has been verified in numerous examples, e.g. Tiktlaatic roseace, the 375 million year old “fishopod” found on Ellesmere Island—intermediate between fish and tetrapods; the 125 million year old feathered dinosaur, Sinornithosaurus millenii, found in China, the 120 million year old four winged dinosaur Microraptor gui, and the 70-200 million year old Archaeopteryx lithographica found in Germany—intermediates between the small dinosaur Compsognathus, and the modern birds such as chickens.

~Prediction: Species should show intraspecies variation. This has been verified in many examples. For example, eight variations of ancient fossil trilobites were found in stratified Welch shale layers spanning three million years. A plankton, Eucyrtidium matuyami, found in core sample studies revealed conspicuous changes in size and shape over a period of millions of years.

~Prediction: As opposed to Creation by a Designer, imperfections should be found in species, even humans. This prediction is readily verifiable in the form of vestigial organs, e.g. the vermiform appendix and 3^rd molars in humans, the awkward and difficult descent of the testes with incomplete descent not rarely being recognized as a clinical condition, and flightless birds such as kiwis and ostriches.

There are more evidences, not only in the evolution of man, but from the closer approximation of descendancy between humans and chimpanzees. The evolutionary changes in both species’ CMT1A gene were mutated and directed thereafter because the retroelements located close to each other target the DNA between them for duplication. This clearly explains the duplication of CMT1A in the two species and predisposes the area to even further duplications. In the case of CMT disease, duplication of the sequence between the two CMT1A segments adds another copy of a gene that has come to be known as PMP22. Two copies of that gene result in CMT [Charcot-Marie-Tooth] disease, a debilitating and wasting neurological condition. This is an unfortunate legacy of our imperfect evolutionary heritage and militates against the Creationist argument of a designer driven process; it would be a violation of such a concept to suppose that the Creator would create or even allow such an erroneous and unfortunate inheritable condition.

Another rather apparent example is the reproductive process in sea turtles. The females slowly and clumsily make their way up the beach and dig a hole in the sand with their soft flippers, a painful, slow, and clumsy process. If a designer had been involved, surely more shovel like flippers or an additional set of retractable scoop shaped hard flippers would have been created. But, then, the turtles might not have been able to swim as well. In truth, turtles simply work with the Bauplan they inherited. Fewer of them survive the arduous process of egg laying, hatching into a dangerous world complete with a harrowing descent into the ocean and facing a myriad of predators than a conscientious designer would have wanted if an intelligent design had been the intent. In truth, turtles work with the Bauplan they inherited, and enough of them do survive to procreate that the species has prospered for 110 million years since they diverted from other turtles.

The flounder and other flatfish are examples of poor design. Flatfish are born as otherwise normal appearing fish that swim vertically with one eye placed on each side of a flat body. A month after birth, strange things happen to the young fish: one eye moves upward and migrates over the skull to join the other eye so that both eyes end up on the same side of the head. The fish then tips over to have its eyeless side down and then begins to swim on its side. A far more sensible way to design such a fish would be to copy the design of the skate, a flat shaped fish, which started out life lying on its belly without having to achieve flatness by going through a series of contortions and bodily deformations to get to that shape as do flounders.

Probably the most obviously poorly designed structure, at least in humans and giraffes, is the course of the recurrent laryngeal nerve. The nerve runs from the brain to the larynx, a distance less than a foot. However, the nerve is far longer than it needs to be because, instead of taking the obvious and logical pathway, it runs all the way down into the chest, loops around the aorta and a ligament derived from an artery (the ligmentum arteriosum), then travels all the way back up to connect finally with the larynx. The situation in the giraffe is the same as in humans making it the height of absurdity. The nerve travels all the way down the long giraffe neck and back up again, a distance of fifteen feet longer than it has to be. Not only would it be absurdly poor design, but it is also maladaptive because the nerve is exposed to damage by trauma over a considerable portion of its traverse. No intelligent designer would concoct such a poor design; he or she would be drummed out of the designer union.

99% of all species that ever lived have become extinct. It appears self-evident that it would be a poor designer–not an intelligent designer–that would establish such an abysmal record, but that record is exactly what the theory of evolution would predict, and exactly what has happened. In fact, the process of evolution is the only explanation for such oddities of design. We–and all other animals and plants–are what we are due to the processes and constraints of evolution, not the whims and mistakes of a designer.

~Prediction: Natural selection should be identifiable in the wild. This has been verified in a great many instances, e.g. Darwin’s finches, the development of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, and the changes in stickle-back fish related to transposition from marine to fresh water environments.

At this point in time—2014–six observations are apparent and are based on rock-solid evidence regarding evolution and specifically, the evolution of humans. No evidence by any detractor or detractors from the world of science or the realms or religion has ever been evinced with supporting evidence to contradict the following observations:

1. DNA analysis experiments, including hundreds of large-scale studies, overwhelmingly confirm the reality of evolution. The title of a highly respected scientist’s book states the reality. The professor was a lifelong devotee of the Russian Orthodox Church: T. Dobzhansky, Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution, American Biology Teacher 35:125-129, 1973.
2. The vast amount of DNA sequence information now available allows scientists to reconstruct evolutionary relationships among species currently alive on earth.
3. Conclusions derived from DNA analysis can be integrated usefully with information from earlier and current traditional studies of anatomy, physiology, the fossil record, archeology, and geology to decipher the history of life on earth—an ongoing study.

4.         Evolution is not a “theory in crisis” as anti-evolutionists are quick to opine. It is a robust, well-documented, satisfactory theory–approaching the level of a biological law–it is the truth. The theory is no longer being challenged by mainstream scientists. Charles Darwin stated, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” The Darwinian Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection has not “broken down”, not in 150 years of effort. The work on evolution now involves the “how”, “when”, and “import” issues of the discipline.

5.         The National Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious and respected group of scientists in the United States, and the one that presidents and legislators depend on for the last, best opinion on any scientific subject, stated without reservation: “It is no longer possible to sustain scientifically the view that living things did not evolve from earlier forms or that the human species was not produced by the same evolutionary mechanisms that apply to the rest of the living world.”[Emphasis, the present author’s]. (National Academy of Sciences, Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, National Academy Press, p. 16, Washington D.C., 1998.). 45% of Americans accept the view that a Creator or Designer created humans in a single act less than 10,000 years ago (Gallup Polls). Many people are willing to accept that other animals evolved but draw the line at human evolution—only 12% were of the opinion that evolution without the involvement of a Creator was the correct conclusion. Both of the first two opinions regarding a Creator/Designer are unsupportable archaic opinions—the intellectual equivalent of denying the existence of gravity—that fly in the face of overwhelmingly convincing evidence to the contrary.

6.         It is true that science cannot prove beyond all doubt that the young earth view is wrong, nor can it produce Absolute Truth; that is the purview of religion. What science can and does do well is to observe, to formulate hypotheses, test, experiment, and verify. The evidence that the earth is old includes several verifiable observations:

a) A count of the rings of a tree gives an accurate number of years the tree lived. The oldest known trees, bristlecone pines, live in the mountains of California. By the ring count of some of those living trees, they are 4,500 years old. By matching rings between recently felled trees and those of old, downed trees, the age of the examined trees exceeds 8,000 years.

b) Continental drift is an early twentieth century observation based on a continuity and inter-locking match-up between the eastern coastlines of North and South America and those of Western Europe and Africa. An even better match-up is present for the continental shelves. There is a very close match-up between certain interlockable locations in Africa and South America and in Europe and North America. This is taken to be reasonable evidence that the continents were drifting apart from each other. Achievement of the 2,500 mile separation of the continents, moving at the rate of two centimeters a year, had to require a time of 200 million years to reach that distance.

c) Magnetic pole reversals contribute evidence of continental drift by providing a magnetic record of their movements. Molten rock, magnetized by the earth’s core, oozes up into the Mid-Atlantic plate, cools, and freezes its magnetism there. Sophisticated and delicate magnetometers dragged on the ocean’s surface can measure the magnetic polarity of the rocks on the ocean floor. The magnetic field of the earth reverses itself approximately every 500,000 years on average. This is a reliable technology for the most recent segment up to 5 million years ago based on direct radioactive dating of sequences of lava flows. A reliable estimate of the earth’s age, based on this technology, approaches 4.5 billion years.

d) Radioactive dating relies on data that measures the half-life of unstable atomic nuclei which break down at random, but at a known and fixed half-life for each element. Half of the element will be present at that time, half of that when another half-life time passes, and so on. These radioactive elements thereby serve as accurate atomic clocks.  Lunar rocks have been found to have ages of 4.5 billion years. There are few rocks on the earth older than 2.8 billion years. Analysis of that sort of evidence leads to the conclusion that the bodies of our solar system formed over 100 million years beginning about 4.6 billion years ago, a very old earth indeed.

e) Radiocarbon dating is important and accurate over relatively short periods of geological time—about 50,000 years. Carbon 14 is a radioactive trace element that decays to hydrogen with a half-life of about 5,730 years. The accumulation stops at death, and decay begins with a half-life of 5,730 years. Radio carbon, or rather, how much carbon 14 is left, can be detected with radiation counters. This technology is especially useful for measuring the age of fossils or bones of fairly recent origin and is useless for determining the age of such distant creatures as dinosaurs. Using radiocarbon dating, there have been found a plenitude of animals and plants that existed far in excess of 6,000 years ago.

f) The fossil record includes tens of millions of studied specimens throughout the world. The relative sequence of index fossils is based on the superimposition of horizontal geological strata, not vice versa. Biostratigraphy is based on three laws: the Law of Initial Horizontality, the Law of Superimposition, and the Law of Biotic Succession, the explanations of which are too lengthy to present here. None of these laws have anything to do with evolution, i.e. one need not pre-suppose the fact of evolution to accept the above stated laws. The chronology of fossils derives from the rocks and is not imposed on them by an evolutionary theory bias. It follows invariably that, in undisturbed rock strata, the fossils found in them are of the same age. Using radiometric dating, it is possible to assign a number of years to the rocks on the global chronostratigraphic time scale, an interval scale.

Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716), the inventor of infinitesimal calculus (independent of Newton) and the binary system–which is the foundation of all modern computer architectures–was one of the most brilliant minds in history. He attacked the law of the attraction of gravity by describing it, “as subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion.” It would be accurate to state that no modern scientist and virtually no rational person or even a convinced religionist would subscribe to that point of view regarding what is probably one of the greatest discoveries every made by man. Leibnitz’s opinion bore important sway in his time, but it was wrong on the level of absurdity. Many evolutionists feel the same sense of frustration at being unable to convince even thoughtful and educated people about the truths of evolution as the 16^th century physicists who were proponents of the principle of gravity must have felt.

A new trilogy by Carl Douglass has just been released. Readers who read it before its formal appearance on the book market expressed very similar opinions to that of one woman: “The tag-line for books by Carl Douglass is, ‘Former Neurosurgeon writes with gripping realism.’ I have read most of his books, and agree with the tag-line. His new trilogy, The Trojan Horse in the Belly of the Beast, most assuredly has gripping realism. I cried; I gritted my teeth; I swore. I got angry. The books are well written, perhaps too well written. The description of the maltreatment of girls in Iran is soul scorching—so much so that I had doubts about how close to the truth these books of fiction are. By the time I finished them, I was completely convinced. The story is so real that it hurts, and it is convincing. The author spins a spell-binding story that left me wanting to fight. How could any people, any religion, even any lunatic fringe, treat its females with such utter disregard for their humanity? I won’t spoil the story, but there is a silver lining to the black clouds, and it is a compelling adventure.”

Other readers strongly felt that we should not be subjected to such information. It is too disturbing. My answer to that is, take a look at the news. Nigeria—the largest economy in Africa–is an Islamic dominated country. One of the dominant forces in that hapless country is an extremist group known as the Boko Haram. The group is widely heralded, feared, and treated with deference by the nation’s government as a result. On April 14, 2014, a terrorist explosion–for which the Boko Haram took credit—took place in the capital city of Abuja killing at least 75 people. The explosion occurred less than a 15 minute drive away from the office and residence of the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan. The following morning, a government leader in the city of Chibok received a cellphone warning that the local boarding school for girls was going to be raided by 200 terrorists. He sought urgent help which never came, and the raid was successful despite the heroic efforts of the 15 woefully outnumbered and outgunned guards. 326 innocent girls were abducted. 53 escaped and 276 were taken deep into Boko Haram controlled territory—the Sambisa Forest–in northeast Nigeria. Grief stricken parents appealed to the government and were fed lies. The following day, the military stated that all but eight girls had been returned from captivity. When the school principal demanded evidence that they had been returned, the military retracted its lie. Courageous family members entered the danger zone but were eventually turned back by threats that the terrorists would kill both the girls and their families if they persisted.

In the last two or three days, the terrorists released a video of dozens of heavily total body covered hajib clad young girls chanting rote phrases from the Qur’an under obvious duress. One report stated that 77 of the Chibok School girls were identified, but it is very disturbing that many of the girls were not recognized and were presumed to be the victims of other kidnappings. The leader of the terrorists demanded a ransom of seven million dollars or the girls would be sold into slavery. For three weeks, the Nigerian president refused to allow the U.S. or other interested countries to assist in the rescue of the girls; and the military has done nothing to rescue its innocent young citizens. The families regularly receive threats. Finally, under heavy international pressure, President Jonathan agreed to allow an elite Israeli counterterrorism unit to come to Nigeria to help. The Associated Press reported that leading Islamic scholar warned that accepting Israel’s help would “turn Nigeria into another global arena and battlefield for filthy neocolonial squabbles by interest groups.” It was his contention, speaking for a substantial Muslim population, that “allowing Western soldiers onto Nigerian soil could make the country a new magnet for foreign Islamic militants who want to confront the United States and others.”

It is apparent that there is considerable subliminal support for the Islamic terrorists in the Nigerian population, and tacit acceptance of the fate of these girls—forced marriage, potential involuntary prostitution, limb amputations and other heinous punishments for disobedience, robbery of their freedom of choice in almost any matter of their own well-being including the right to receive an education. It is this author’s opinion that this is an event not generated solely from a group of lunatic fringe terrorists, but is part of the warp and woof of the nation’s fabric.

Nicholas Kristoff, writing in the New York Times May 13, 1014 entitles his op-ed piece with a question. “What’s so scary about smart girls?” He points out that the Boko Haram targeted educated girl, their worst nightmare.  He answers the question posed in his title, “Because there is no force more powerful to transform a society.” Kristoff lists multiple reasons why education for girls is so important for a nation and so frightening for Islamic fundamentalists. The most important reason is that educated girls have fewer children which reduces the bulge of unemployed and fractious youth a decade later. Girls with education can double the labor force, boost the economy, and raise living standards—all anathema to extremists who depend on a continually growing population of ignorant and poor people who are not equipped to think or act for themselves. That is what is scary about smart girls.

So, I’ll leave it to you, my readers, to decide if my trilogy of novels, The Trojan Horse in the Belly of the Beast, are overdrawn or wholly unreasonable. An interested investigator can also look into the behavior towards girls and women in Saudi Arabia where the Wahhabis bear sway, or large areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan where the Taliban is in control, or in any African nation or section of India with a predominant Muslim population. Include the 148 million living victims of FGM in that investigation and make up your own mind. When you do, let us all consider what should be done about this ongoing travesty. Consider a $40 donation to Camfed, the Campaign for Female Education which helps impoverished girls to get to school, to stay there, and to pay it forward.

The genomes of humans and orangutans differ by 2.4%, humans and gorillas by 1.4%, and humans and chimpanzees by only 1.2%. There is more difference between chimps and orangutans (1.8%) and gorillas and orangutans (2.4%) than for humans and gorillas or chimps. A group of New Zealand biologists studied five different proteins in eleven different animals, including humans, to see if a tree of relationships based on one protein would hold true for five proteins and for as many of the eleven widely different animals as possible. Computer studies produced a parsimonious tree of relationships, five trees, in fact. The probability of that all five trees would be identical by sheer chance or “luck” is infinitesimally small. The five trees from five different proteins were in substantial agreement but were not identical. However, all five proteins studied placed monkey, chimpanzee, and human molecular agreement as the closest of all of the organisms studied. There was some disagreement in the results about which of the remaining organisms fell in which order of relationship to that cluster, but not about humans.

The differences between our closest relatives, chimpanzees, and us are multifactoral. The most telling difference is genetic: Chimps have 24 chromosomes, and humans have 23. The genomes of all of the primate groups have been established. Comparison of human chromosomes to those of the great apes—chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans—reveals only that one glaring difference: the human genome contains one fewer chromosome than the genomes of the great apes. They all have 24, whereas the human has only 23. The exception is human chromosome 2, which matches two different chromosomes in chimpanzees and the other great apes.

In a land mark article, researchers confirmed the findings of several earlier studies in exquisite detail. They demonstrated that chromosomes from humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans are highly similar and can be aligned with one another. (Jorge Ynis and Om Prakash, The Origin of Man: A Chromosomal Pictorial Legacy, Science 215:1525-1530, 1982). More recent studies have confirmed that, not only are the chromosomes of primates remarkably similar, but even the DNA sequences and configurations match to a heretofore undreamt of degree. In chimpanzees and humans the match of sequence and organization is strikingly more than 98%. All researchers arrived at the same conclusion that all human and chimpanzee chromosomes are very nearly identical with the exception of the human chromosome 2 which matches two different chimpanzee chromosomes.

This occurred either by a duplication of a chromosome in chimps–which turned to be the correct hypothesis–or a merger in a human chromosome after we separated from the common ancestor, a matter of some debate among scientists until fairly recently. The DNA sequence in humans contains around 3 billion base pairs, and in 98.8% of chimp DNA, the bases are identical–a difference of only 1.2%. That 1.2% is 36 million different base pairs–half of which are chimp specific–which leaves 18 million pairs. About 5% of our DNA is used in coding or regulatory functions leaving only a few thousand for changing human form—apparently enough for considerable Hox gene, tool-kit, and switch gene–probably the most important ones for changing form–space in the protein base for differing functions to arise and persist. In humans as in most other animals, evolutionary differences are largely due to changes in gene regulation.

The process which separated humans from chimpanzees from a common ancestor and each other has been very clearly explained by Daniel J. Fairbanks, PhD., Relics of Eden, The Powerful Evidence of Evolution in Human DNA, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2007. In 1991, Yale University scientists sequenced the DNA from the site in the middle of human chromosome 2 and found it to match the telomeres (ends) of chimpanzee chromosomes 2A and 2B. Their findings clearly revealed that fusion of two chimpanzee chromosomes was the process that produced human chromosome 2, perhaps the clearest evidence yet of the evolution of humans from a common ancestor with chimpanzees. In the region of the human chromosome studied, there is a DNA sequence with 158 copies of the tandem repeat found in telomeres of the chimps. It is inarguable that at some point in human ancestry, the telomere of one chromosome of the common ancestor fused head-to-head with the telomere of a different chromosome, and that exact fusion site is preserved in the DNA, indicative of one of the crucial elements of becoming human.

At the fusion site, the sequence in the upper strand abruptly changes from repeats resembling TTAGGG–as it does in 50-100 repeats of the same 6 pairs of amino acids–to repeats resembling CCCTAA. This abrupt switch is convincing evidence that the DNA in a telomere of one chimpanzee chromosome and the DNA in the telomere of the other chromosome broke, and then the two chromosomes fused at the broken ends, and they did so rotated 180 degrees which inverted the DNA sequence. This abrupt switch is convincing evidence that the DNA in a telomere of one chimpanzee chromosome and the DNA in the telomere of the other chromosome broke, and then the two chromosomes fused at the broken ends. The fusion event was survived and presumably had at least neutral or even selective survival value. Further study of the fusion site indicates, in fact, that the ancient telomere at the fusion site is now a nonfunctioning relic of evolution embedded in the middle of human chromosome 2. Furthermore, in humans, there is only one centromere where there should be two.

The findings at this site in humans compared to chimpanzees is a vivid example of the cause of a genetic change that produced a great leap forward by producing the human branch separate from a chimpanzee branch of the common ancestor stem. The more generations humans are separated from the fusion event in the common ancestor with chimpanzees, the more mutations we should expect to accumulate in the sequence. Because the majority of the repeated segments now have mutations in them, the chromosomes

A small piece of human DNA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

must have fused a very long time ago, probably tens of thousands of generations deep into our ancestry. The work of R. Avarello, et al, Evidence for an Ancestral Alphoid Domain on the Long Arm of Human Chromosome 2, Human Genetics 89: 247-249, 1992, and A. Baldini, et al, An Alphoid Sequence Conserved in All Human and Great Ape Chromosomes: Evidence for Ancient Centromeric Sequences at Human Chromosomal Regions 2q21 and 9 q13, Human Genetics 90: 577-583, 1993 is an eloquent proof of what happened very long ago to produce the last surviving member of the hominin line.

There are myriads of remnants of ancient gene errors in the human genome that attest to the frequency of such errors. Most of our genetic makeup consists of such relics which demonstrate the history of our genome as the tens of thousands of generations followed upon each other. These so-called retroelements—the relics–provide significant evidence of human evolution when human and other primate retroelement genomic positions are compared. The statistical chance of two retroelements independently inserting themselves into two different individuals, let alone two individuals of different species is infinitesimally small. Through the course of many genomic studies of different primate species, molecular geneticists have found an unmistakable pattern. In a remarkable number of instances, they found transposable elements in human DNA that were present in exactly the same positions in chimp DNA and to a lesser degree in gorillas and an even lesser degree in orangutans. Chimp and humans were 98% similar. These findings can only be explained by the existence of a common ancestor of the two species with subsequent variations by mutations after the species diverged.

There is one more evidence, not only of the evolution of man, but of the closer approximation of descendancy between humans and chimpanzees. The evidence of human evolution comes from an unlikely and negative source—the genetics of CMT [Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease] which is one of the most common inherited neurological disorders, affecting approximately 1 in 2,500 people in the United States. CMT–also known as HMSN  [hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy] or peroneal muscular atrophy–comprises a group of disorders that negatively affect peripheral nerves. Typical features include weakness of the foot and lower leg muscles.

The evolutionary changes in both species were directed after the chromosomal duplication error because the retroelements located close to each other target the DNA between them for duplication. The target in question for the serious neurological disease is a retroelement—ancient relic gene, or pseudogene—known as CMT1A. Duplication of CMT1A in the two species predisposes the area to even further duplications. In the case of CMT disease, duplication of the sequence between the two CMT1A segments adds another copy of a gene that has come to be known as PMP22. Two copies of that gene result in CMT disease. This is an unfortunate legacy of our imperfect evolutionary heritage and militates against the Creationist argument of a designer driven process; it would be a violation of such a concept to suppose that the perfect Creator would create or even allow such an erroneous and unfortunate inheritable condition.

Another example—another evidence—of primate (and human) evolution is the presence of a unitary pseudogene called the GULO (or ψ GULO) pseudogene. There is no functioning GULO gene in humans, but a functional version is present in many other animals, which allows them to make vitamin C. Animals with a functioning GULO gene–such as dogs and cats–do not need to consume vitamin C in their diet. Their cells can make it from other food substances. All primates lack the gene and must consume vitamin C to survive. As it turns out, the difference between function and nonfunction in GULO is the result of a change in only a single nucleotide.

From an evolutionary point of view, it is reasonable to question why we lack such an essential gene. In fact, a piece of the gene is still in our DNA, but it is highly mutated as a unitary pseudogene with much of the original gene missing and is therefore nonfunctioning. About 20% of the DNA sequence is mutated in comparison to other mammals. The presence of so many mutations requires that the original gene had to have been disabled long ago. The evidence of our evolution from a common ancestor of the primates is found in the fact that all primates have the same highly mutated fragment; so, the gene had to have been disabled before the different primate lineages diverged from the common ancestor. Chimpanzees and humans have nearly identical (98%) copies of the useless pseudogene in the same place in the DNA. Remarkably, the same can be said for almost every other pseudogene in the human genome which is incontrovertible evidence of our evolutionarily close relationship to chimpanzees. The reason primates ended up with only a relic of such a beneficial gene is quintessential Darwinian natural selection—which allows for nonfatal errors. The scientific molecular genetics data accumulated by decades of patient work has identified literally millions of such examples.

The laws of probability govern inheritance of DNA in part, and mutations occur as random variations. When very large amounts of DNA sequences are compared, the random variations—the ‘noise’—are averaged out, and the signal becomes much more apparent. Satta, et.al., compared 45 chromosomal genes covering 46,855 base pairs and determined that the human-chimpanzee relationship is closest in the trichotomy—which includes gorillas. (Y.Satta, et.al., DNA Archives and Our Nearest Relative: The Trichotomy Problem Revisited. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 14:258-275, 2000). Wildman, et. al., evaluated 97 genes encompassing nearly 90,000 base pairs in 2003 and came to the same conclusion. Shi, et.al., studied 127 genes on chromosome 21 in 2003 and concluded unequivocally that their research, “unambiguously comes to the conclusion that chimpanzees were our closest relatives to the exclusion of other primates”.

Man is related to all flora and fauna of the earth, past and present, through a relatively few ancient collections of DNA proteins that remain remarkably very little altered to the present. Man evolved. Man is still evolving. Evolution is not a matter of man becoming a more prestigious species or a “higher animal”, but rather evolution through natural selection led to a truly remarkable species, one that has dominated the earth for tens if not hundreds of thousands of years. Barring cosmic, climatic, or self-inflicted catastrophes, it is likely that gradually evolving man will continue to be dominant in the foreseeable future. Paleoanthropology, the scientific discipline that studies hominids, will undoubtedly have sufficient new material to keep the study of man a vibrant exercise well into the future.

After about 6 KYA, evidence reveals a sequence of use of metals—copper, bronze, and finally iron—in the development of weaponry along with the progress of agriculture. Cro-Magnons evolved a more linear body shape adapted to warm climates and had the ability to make warm clothing and insulated habitations. They burned mammoth bones for warmth, engaged in far-flung trade, produced art, recorded time, had carved spear throwers, and buried votive articles. They survived in Europe for 25,000 years. Fossils in Sri Lanka and China during the same time period demonstrated similar art and production of artifacts. After the end of the Pleistocene Age about 10 KYA years ago, there is ample evidence of village and cooperative life among the Cro-Magnon humans. An example is Jericho in modern Israel. A set of stone steps found there date to around 8,000 BCE, at least 4,000 years before the Biblical chronology puts man on the earth. Caves and other excavations on the outskirts of Jericho reveal that people lived there and practiced primitive agriculture using wild grains and beginning to select out traits in the wheat that served them better well before that.

Cro-Magnon man–Homo sapiens sapiens–was the sole surviving member of the human species, and some have suggested that the Cro-Magnons may well have hastened the extinction of their last competitors, the Neanderthals. This remarkable last surviving humanoid species–our true ancestors–made excellent shelters and clothing to protect against the cold, had specialized tools for carving on mammoth tusks, made beautifully carved and functional spear throwers (atlatls) fashioned from reindeer antler, produced calendars etched onto ivory, and produced figure sculptures and nuanced large cave paintings of extant animals during the Upper Paleolithic age. They probably caused the extinction of mammoths. Skeletal evidence indicates that some of the huge elephantine creatures were still alive as late as 1700 B.C. Cro-Magnon DNA–although more difficult to come by than from Neanderthals–is similar to or virtually identical to that of recent Europeans and is similarly identical to the mtDNA of fossil Australians.

The original human diaspora largely–but not entirely—involved Homo sapiens sapiens. Fossil and DNA evidence indicates that genus homo left Africa around 1.8 MYA with erectus evolving in Europe to a dead end and sapiens evolving first in Africa and western Asia after 400 KYA. After 500 KYA, human-like populations persisted in Europe until about 20 KYA at the peak of the last ice age. During the height of the ice ages, areas of northern Europe and Asia were completely depopulated. During the warmer Holocene periods, populations grew to hundreds of thousands in Southern Europe, Central Asia, India, and Southeast Asia. During those warmer periods, ice caps were small and sea levels were high; so, many areas were cut off from each other. Corridors for human contact were periodically opened and closed. In glacial ages the sea level dropped as much as 100 meters (330 feet), and new coast lines and land bridges appeared. Some areas, notably Madagascar, New Zealand, Australia, and New Guinea were never colonized by modern humans. Only when modern humans finally did arrive did those areas become populated.

Skeletal specimens indicated that by 160 KYA, Homo sapiens sapienswere present throughout Africa. About 120-100 KYA the African stock started to spread from Africa north into the Middle East, to Europe in a second wave about 40 KYA, to Sri Lanka and China about 30 KYA, to Japan about 20 KYA, to Madagascar, New

Male Cro-Magnon skull (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Zealand, and Polynesia around 12 KYA. Humans colonized Australia some 60-70 KYA, a considerable feat because there was no land connection to other continents, and they would have had to sail there by water craft. 50 KYA they occupied rock shelters. 40 KYA they practiced burial ceremonials. At the time, they lived in a fertile land of trees and lakes that has since become a desert. Human-built structures have been found in Papua-New Guinea from as far back as 30 KYA, but evidence of stone tools is only dated to 10 KYA. After dispersal through the world, regional changes—races—developed.

Stringer and Matthews state that it is “generally assumed that the first colonizers [of the Americas] traveled across the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska.” They were probably following wild reindeer herds. During the period between 25-11 KYA, Beringia, the dry land bridge, was 900 miles wide. Many may have traveled by island hopping on boats, very similar to present day kayaks. In Clovis, New Mexico archeologists and paleoanthropologists have found a distinctive stone tool culture industry dated to 12-13 KYA which may have contributed to the extinction of elephants, horses, camels, and ground sloths. Evidence of pre-Clovis colonies have been found in South America contemporaneously with Clovis; and in Monte Verde, southern Chili, a culture flourished as far back as 14.5 KYA. Traveling overland would have required entrance into Alaska as early as 20-30 KYA. Many experts accept an alternative view that those southern-most colonizers traveled along the west coast from Alaska to southern Chili by boat.

All branches of study have confirmed that there were multiple culturally diverse populations separated across the Americas, and, indeed, that DNA composition differs. For example, there is no evidence that European ancestors contributed to the gene pool south of the northern Mexico border, but haplogroup X2, found in some northern Amerindian groups, has been traced back to areas in the Mediterranean and southern Europe and India. Human fossils dated to 9 KYA have been found in North, Central, and South America. Other fossil remains in North America have been dated to several different periods, the latest being about 9 KYA. All the oldest ancestral Americans were from Asia. It appears that subsequent colonizers were the more definite ancestors of modern day Native Americans and that they came as a result of multiple migrations and as the result of isolation and regionalization, i.e., racial evolution. It is generally accepted that the last of these migrations was 12.5-15 KYA, but there are researchers who believe that there is evidence of migrations 20 and 30 KYA. continued…