StG wrote:

"Or you could do what the Chinese do and breed them out of existence."

That is not Chinese policy. China has a one-child per family policy to limit population growth. However this policy is only for ethnic Chinese, the Han. Non-Han Chinese are not restricted in having children.

Posted by david f, Friday, 2 May 2008 6:34:16 PM

Exporting nationals to occupied territories for the purpose of breeding out the occupied is intentional.

GOLLLLLLY! if only some of you could share the incredible joy I find at some of the wonderful insights you come up with... without realizing...

David F U first.

You mentioned the Palestinians and Kurds and the DNA connection to the Judaeans..Jews.. wonderful stuff. No particular argument from me on that. I was just pointing out that while those descended from Ishmael have a connection, they have an equal connection (through hagar) to the Egyptians.
For a 'pre-cursor' to the current troubles, I STRONGly recommend a read of 2 Old Testament books in case you have not already done it.. Ezra and Nehemiah. The first 'HAMAS' was led by Sanballat and Tobiah, they were mixed (Jew/other). See how it all shaped up :) then we can have a fantastic discussion.

YVONNEy :) u 2nd..

<<"Whether she existed in fact is immaterial to the relevance of her story as an instruction, a teaching.">>

*GONGGGGGG*.. sorrrrrY. No_no_no.

Watch...and learn my dear co poster :)

Ruth 4:13
So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. Then he went to her, and the LORD enabled her to conceive, and she gave birth to a SON.

4:6 And they named him OBED. He was the father of JESSE, the father of David.

WHO? u got it.. DAVID...... who was the father of Solomon...etc

Now lets turn in our Bibles (isn't this lounge room comfy? :) to..

MATTHEW...Chapter 1.
Perez(born of incest)the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,(a Prostitute)
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was RUTH, (a Moabite)
Obed the father of JESSE
6and Jesse the father of King DAVID.
David was the father of Solomon,

and so on..until.....

Matthan the father of Jacob,
and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, WHO IS CALLED CHRIST.

Halelujah! Now.. you know the point/position/importance of the book of Ruth :)

Boaz_D wrote:

For a 'pre-cursor' to the current troubles, I STRONGly recommend a read of 2 Old Testament books in case you have not already done it.

The Old Testament is not the same as the Jewish Bible, Christians have added to and changed the text. eg, The prediction in Isaiah in the Jewish Bible is that the Hebrew, alma, shall bear a child. Alma means young woman and could mean virgin like the English word, maiden, who could be an unmarried woman or a virgin. It is nothing unusual for a maiden or unmarried woman to have a child. Alma was translated into parthenos in the first translation of the Bible into Greek. Parthenos means virgin, and so the prediction of a virgin birth is merely a mistranslation. The Bible is not reliable history, but to get closer to the original Hebrew and Aramaic a translation from a Jewish source is closer to the original. However, the Bible relates to the current problems only because people have accepted the mythical elements in it as fact. I doubt the story of the real estate dealer God who doles out territory.

This thread has taken a rather weird turn and, after this post, I'm going to bow out.

I want to clear up a misunderstanding.

FOXY please take note.

I am NOT advocating the manufacture of an ethnic bomb as some posters here seem to imply. I am simply asking a question.

Is the accusation reported in the Trinity Uniting Church Of Christ's newsletter that Israel is manufacturing an "ethnic bomb" simply another example of Jeremiah Wright's paranoia? Or is there at least some scientific substance to the allegation?

My tentative conclusion. It may in the future be possible to manufacture such a weapon. It is certainly not science fact but nor is it, as CJ MORGAN suggests, science fiction. It is educated scientific speculation.

Or does CJ MORGAN think the British Medical Association doctors, whom I quoted in my original post, are uneducated in these matters?

I then went on to point out that if countries or groups thought such a weapon was possible they would certainly be exploring the technology.

The BMA doctors point out that the same technology that could lead to an ethnic bomb will in any case be conducted for legitimate medical reasons. It will probably not be possible to distinguish between genomic research for medical or military reasons.

Whether Israel is actually involved in researching an ethnic bomb I cannot say. However Israeli scientists are very active in medical research. For that reason they would be developing technology that could later be used in an ethnic bomb assuming such is possible.

I am not going to get into biblical discussion here.

Steven, I don't know about how knowledgeable you are with genetics, but I find that those black preachers are always up there on the cutting edge of science and military intelligence. They always seem to know things that no one else does!

But, seriously, the Reverend Wright did not make those accusations, an author called Ali Baghdadi (a very Christian name, LOL) did in his 'letter to Oprah'. So much for reading one's own sources.

The fact that the majority of Jews are closely genetically to Palestinians is not a matter of biblical interpretation either. In fact, the total unlikelihood of any 'ethno-bomb' comes into focus hen one realises that any of the groups ideologically likely to want to develop one are also very likely to be very close genetically. Except for Gibo's Asian-driver bomb of course.

Also, we would have to know much much more about how diseases infect people before they could ever be specifically targeted to anyone. That is years away, seriously. Anyone with with a basic understanding of the latest research in human genetics and a modicum of ethics would understand the futility of developing such technology. Some groups may have speculated, but as with most stupid ideas, they never get off the drawing board.

BUGSY,

As your post is rational I shall respond.

Technically it was "al-Baghdadi" that made the accusation, not Wright himself. However I find it difficult to believe that such a serious accusation could appear in the TUCC newsletter without Wright's knowledge and at least tacit approval.

You ask what I know about genetics.

My response is this. Unless you have been reading CURRENT JOURNAL ARTICLES – say articles that date after 2003 – much of what you thought you knew about genetics, and evolution, is wrong.

For instance, even 5 years ago, certainly 10 years ago, we thought human evolution had stopped about 50,000 years ago. Turns out we are evolving faster than ever. Here are some links.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=culture-speeds-up-human-evolution

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/science/07evolve.html?ex=1180670400&en=64c6dcbb41938be5&ei=5070

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/health/research/22coli.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=science&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1209960780-fuW/+bigltb/BBXIVMZ22Q

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10283306

The speed at which evolution happens is something many people have difficulty getting their heads around. We were all taught that evolution happened a long time ago and proceeds very slowly. I believed that until 4 years ago.

Today we know that the "DNA distance" between our ancestors of 10,000 years ago may be greater than the DNA distance between ancient humans and Neanderthals. We may in some sense be a different species to our remote ancestors. (See: The Making of the Fittest by Sean Carroll)

This one is my favourites. "How genes may help people learn Chinese."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11939-genes-may-help-people-learn-chinese-.html

Another discovery is that human evolution sometimes proceeds with changes to genes. More usually it proceeds with changes to DNA sequences that promote the expressions of genes. These are bits of DNA that a few short years ago were dismissed as "junk DNA."

See:

How DNA "Switches" Control Evolution, Sean Carroll et al, Scientific American, May 2008.

In other words, the similarity between our genes and those of, say, gorillas, may be illusory. We need an "all of DNA" approach which takes into account the so-called "junk DNA."

"Is there sufficient DNA distance between Jews and Arabs to make an ethnic bomb feasible?"

I don’t know.

Neither do you.

Like you I suspect not but that may be a pious hope on our part.

Time will tell.