Foyle

What amazes me is that so many spend so much time and effort trying to prove the God that don't believe in. It actually takes more faith to believe in the fantasy of evolution and your silly little explanations of origins. Jesus accurately described the state of the human heart and to this day is without equal when it comes to teachings about life. Your pathetic links are not scientific or rational in nature, just a pathetic excuse not to yield to the Creator of the universe. A corrupt mind and imagination will always lead to the nonsense you espouse.

"we need to internalise what Berg tells his audience: we are all blacks."
Well my skin is pink/white, my wife's is brown/black, my children are light brown but why are we are all blacks?

When scientists took some uniquely female body parts, the placenta discarded after childbirth and DNA Tested them, from every race on earth, they found they had one common gene marker.

The conclusion that modern man is descended from one female was reached, and the time was indicated at about 250,000 years ago. I do not know where the idea that all Africans are black comes from. Egypt is in Africa, half the Mediterranean fronts Africa. We can be Africans without being black. They say that 10,000 years in the sun makes a person naturally selective towards darker skin. I have known Sri Lankans, who had to smile on a dark night before you could see them.

Racism is not an option

runner: << All science points to us having common ancestors (and it certainly ain't monkeys). >>

Nice to see Prof Runner get something right for a change. If he could bring himself to watch ABC1 TV tonight with an open mind, he might actually learn something about what appears to be our oldest common ancestor so far discovered:

<< The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor?
8:30pm Thursday, 30 Jul 2009

The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor? tells the story of the 47-million-year-old fossil known as Ida, which scientists believe could be an indication of one of the roots of anthropoid evolution - the point at which our primate ancestors began first developing the features that would evolve into our own >>

Ignorant fools like Leigh might like to rubbish evolutionary anthropology that provides a scientific basis for the unity of humankind, but more enlightened folk find such evidence useful in debunking the racist bigotry that is still all too common.

Peter the Believer,

Just a few comments regarding your post.

"When scientists took some uniquely female body parts, the placenta discarded after childbirth and DNA Tested them... "

The placenta is an organ which develops from the implanted blastocyst, thus will have the DNA of the baby, be it male or female. I believe this piece discusses studies of mtDNA which actually stands for mitochondrial DNA. This DNA is present in every cell of the body, 99% of which is derived from the mother due to the process of fertilization.

"The conclusion that modern man is descended from one female was reached, and the time was indicated at about 250,000 years ago."

Is this your conclusion or the authors of the study? Do you have a reference for this study?

I generally agree agree with the argument that race is not 'black and white' and unfortunately racism would still be present even if we were all 'black' as the author says.

Whether our relatives all did come out of Africa 250,000years ago or not will make not a jot of difference to people’s tribal loyalties if or when war breaks out. This author is overlooking one other big piece of scientific knowledge from BASIC biology, that overrides this. We are born from the multiplication of a couple of original cells, those cells grow into human beings they then produce new young cells (children) because they must die, but the new cells will be their continuing immortality here on earth. Their most closest living cells are the ones they will fight wars to protect NOT dead cellular connections from 250,000years ago.

I was taught this very basic biology in primary school. That is why humans spend most of their lives fussing over and protecting their children. It is a basic instinct in an otherwise pretty self interested animal. Now I know someone will say we do this because we love out children. Yes, but we only love our children because we are instinctively wired to do so.

Have you ever seen the gentleness with which a big mother crocodile holds those fragile little baby crocodiles in her huge bone crushing jaws. Not usual behaviour in a fierce animal like that. That’s the kind of power that the survival instinct has in the wiring of that mother’s brain to protect her new cellular self. The same biologocal wiring that exists in the human mother’s brain. She and the father will protect the living, those closest cells alive NOW not from some dead and distant past.
None of us needs science books to tell us who and where those cells are. Just think who’s side you would fight on if world war three breaks out.

We may share 98% DNA or whatever with Africans, as we share close DNA with monkeys but those few percentage make one hell of a difference in the makeup between a human and an ape. So having that close DNA with Africans means nothing, its the small percentage that makes the huge differences between people.