The Origin of the Races of Homo Sapiens
A Case of Rapid Divergent Non-Evolution
by James Strickling
Race: How much simpler life might be, or might have been, without it. How many wars have been fought in the past with race as one of the underlying factors? Today, despite a growing tolerance, it is used as a tool for political gain. Without the constant agitation, “racial issues” might become a thing of the past, allowing us to just enjoy the “varieties of humanity.”
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Unfortunately, understanding our racial origins will not likely make matters any better. But sometimes “We just want to know”—especially if we doubt what conventional wisdom is telling us. And there are enough flaws in evolutionary theory to raise many doubts about Darwinist assertions. Physical anthropologists studying racial differences now rely more on research in blood groups, hemoglobins, teeth, and other features than on anthropometry (physical measurements). These factors reveal racial differences just as great as the more conspicuous anatomical variations. In fact, biochemistry divides us into the same subspecies that have long been recognized on the basis of other criteria. It is claimed that reproductive isolation of different human populations comes chiefly by way of geographical barriers. Such a barrier, we are told, is the key to the formation of race. As is true for all evolutionary theory, “evolutionary science” asserts that the only factor underlying the development of race is natural selection taking place over immeasurable spans of time. What evidence is there for any development by natural selection? The pigmentation responsible for skin color serves a definite purpose. In equatorial regions, a higher concentration of pigmentation protects the skin from damage by solar ultraviolet radiation. The synthesis of vitamin D, so useful in the higher latitudes, is enhanced by reduced amounts of pigment. And the conclusion of conventional wisdom regarding this color gradient? |
It is voiced by C. D. Darlington: “It is therefore evidence of adaptation by natural selection that darker peoples live nearest to the tropics and there is a gradient of skin color correlated with latitude.”
Look closely. We are being told that the fact that some biological entity exists is evidence for natural selection (?)!
The ad hoc nature of this explanation is somehow lost on its adherents. Darlington himself goes on to point out that the correlation is lacking in eastern Asia. Even over a range of forty degrees latitude, adaptation to sunlight is almost absent. With minor exceptions, such as the Ainu, the people there are more homogeneous in all respects than are Western peoples. Darlington says this homogeneity is a result of Eastern peoples’ isolation from stocks carrying black pigment and that there is no scope for selective change and adaptation. He extends the same “principle” to the Amerindians and then writes that the contrast between Caucasians and Mongoloids provides a test: “Where color variation is present it is selected and distributed adaptively. But where it is not present it does not easily arise.”
This is a remarkable “test.” It provides a priori results. And the only conclusion allowed is “selection,” even when selection cannot fully explain the facts. Another explanation is not even considered. Thinking “outside the (selection) box” is not an option.
The so-called “evidence” stands despite known contradictions:
Karp confesses that the picture of a Negroid race evolving for tens of thousands of years in isolation is belied by the facts. The Sahara Desert, probably the most significant geographical barrier of relevance, is neither ancient nor extremely formidable to gene flow.
Coon maintains that the boundary between Negroes and Bushmen is not impenetrable and that the two subspecies could not have evolved each on its own side of that barrier because the required isolation did not exist.
We must therefore contend with the resultant mysteries:
Where did the dark-skinned people of Africa come from? “The origin of the African Negroes, and of the Pygmies, is the greatest unsolved mystery of racial study,” Coon writes.
Caucasians are no less a problem. We are told that they have no clear-cut racial origins.
Meanwhile, far from Europe, nestled in northern Japan, there resides a small and dwindling group of white-skinned people known as the (afore-mentioned) Ainu. These people are a major anthropological enigma. They are thousands of miles from any possible Caucasoid relatives. Their origin is a complete mystery. But still no solutions are offered other than natural selection.
Evolutionary scientists Gould and Lewontin confess, however, that … [uniformitarians] appear to ignore opposed explanations even when these seem to be more interesting and fruitful than the preferred untestable speculations (i.e., natural selection).
What other scenario might shed some light on our mysteries?
There is general agreement that the Amerindians and their Eskimo cousins to the north migrated to the New World from the Old. Compelling evidence for this conclusion is found in the many racial characteristics shared by Amerindians and East Asians.
Coon finds the Amerindians to be fully Mongoloid in skin texture and color range, hair form, hair texture, hair distribution, and degree of sexual dimorphism (differences between the male and female of a given species). He also contends that these two peoples most likely could not have acquired these characteristics independently in Asia and America, and that the Asiatic Mongoloids must have acquired them by the time the Amerindian ancestors left Asia. (More properly, we should say the characteristics existed when these people left Asia.)
There exist many records attesting to the historicity of the Great Deluge. Not unexpectedly, the Amerindians have their own recollections of this catastrophe, attributing it to their own gods. Diffusion of Old World memories is not apparent. It thus would appear that the New World was populated prior to the Deluge and that the inundation of the land bridge from Asia resulted from a higher sea level caused by The Flood, rather than from glacial melt.
Given a racial connection between the respective inhabitants of the two hemispheres and their separation as a result of The Flood, certain Mongoloid characteristics must have existed before the watery catastrophe. And a question urges itself: Just what did Antediluvian man look like?
The two most populous racial groupings in the world today are the Mongoloids and other moderately dark-skinned peoples with black hair. Why should this be? Did all modern races exist somewhere before the Deluge? And were there more survivors in some groups than in others?
More likely, these people constituted a primal group who proliferated after The Flood, before racial types existed. In effect, they got a head start. And that head start is the likely reason for their making up such a large proportion of mankind today.
Possibly, therefore, these large modern populations bear a strong resemblance to our pre-Deluge ancestors. Perhaps we can even see the reflection of our ancient forebears in the Mongoloids of today.
If they do present a rough picture of our remote ancestors, whence the other races? What does the evidence suggest?
Given the ultimate (pre-Columbian) distribution of the living races, that which has been suggested in the way of a primal race forces the conclusion that mankind experienced a basically East (Yellow)-West (White-Black) racial division of its previously anatomically uniform ranks, although certainly with peripheral variations. The possibility of such a division has been cited by Karp.
The deepest differences in blood-group traits lie not between races, but between peoples living east and west of the great central Asian mountain desert barrier.
Obviously, there was a further Western latitudinal subdivision into White and Black.
The mystery of Negro origins, cited above, revolves around the apparent suddenness of their occurrence. When this race of men finally made the scene, they seem to have appeared in a very nonuniformitarian fashion. According to Coon:
As far as we know, the Congoid line started on the same evolutionary level as the Eurasiatic ones in the Early Middle Pleistocene and then stood still for a half million years, after which [in the Upper Pleistocene] Negroes and Pygmies appeared as if out of nowhere.
Additional testimony to the Blacks’ sudden appearance is provided in the writings of Ovid, drawn from ancient remembrances, where a recent origin is implied:
It was [when Phaethon set the earth aflame], as men think, that the peoples of Aethopia became black skinned . . . Then also Libya became a desert, for the heat dried up her moisture [Ovid’s allegation of sudden concurrent and compatible changes in man and his environment is thought-provoking.]
The drying-out of the Sahara is believed to have occurred during the Upper Pleistocene or early in the Holocene.
The possibility has been raised of an East-West racial division based on blood groups. Compatible with that assertion is a “general resemblance in blood-group traits between Caucasoids and Africans, as well as [an] occurrence in Africa of certain otherwise exclusively Caucasoid blood-group genes,” suggesting a common black-white ancestry. Moreover, Negro teeth seem to be most like those of primitive Caucasoids.”
Sharing with the Blacks of Africa what seems to be a nonexistent past, did the European Caucasoids sprout from Mongoloid roots? Karp writes that “. . . In Croatia . . . there are skulls dating back some 100,000 years which have shovel-shaped incisors [a Mongoloid characteristic] and flat ‘Mongoloid’ faces.” And Coon notes: “The teeth of these Europeans of the last interglacial period [Upper Pleistocene] . . . contain morphological features that relate in part to the Sinanthropus-Mongoloid line . . .”
The Ainu also appear to have had a relatively short history, since “all the known Ainu skulls are recent” (i.e., from the Holocene Epoch) and seem to be an offshoot of their Mongoloid neighbors. “The teeth of modern Ainu are similar to those of prehistorical Japanese, whereas the teeth of modern Japanese are similar to those of ancient Chinese. Despite their Caucasoid appearance, the Ainu are definitely descended from Mongoloid stock.”
We can summarize our results as follows:
- Black Africans came into existence suddenly in the Upper Pleistocene.
- European Caucasoids apparently were preceded by Mongoloid stock in the Upper Pleistocene.
- There are genetic commonalities between European Caucasoids and Black Africans that are not shared by Mongoloids.
- The white-skinned Ainu are descended from Mongoloid stock, with no remains known prior to the Holocene.
Immanuel Velikovsky elaborated at length on past cataclysms preserved in myths and histories around the world. Moreover, he speculated that some Pleistocene fossils were emplaced [in historical times] during one of these disturbances.
It seems likely that the beginning of the Holocene in some parts of the world coincided with, or closely paralleled, the beginning of the Upper Pleistocene in other parts. Both periods followed the Middle Pleistocene. (See the proposed Geo-historical Column in my book.) The first appearance of the Ainu (Holocene) would then parallel that of Caucasoids and Negroids (Upper Pleistocene).
The Middle Pleistocene would have been terminated by The Flood, and soon thereafter mankind was racially divided. Civilization began to emerge in some parts of the world (such as the Middle East), while hunter-gatherers and cave dwellers struggled to survive elsewhere (as in Europe).
There was probably some degree of human anatomical differentiation through environmental adaptation prior to The Flood, and perhaps even more afterward. But geographical barriers to gene flow were not responsible for the many racial types so familiar today. These types came about not at a uniformitarian pace in the distant past, but catastrophically—suddenly—as the result of widespread, and virtually simultaneous, transmutations (cause unknown).
The “unknown cause” can almost certainly be related to other concurrent biological disruptions. But “simultaneity and suddenness” are reasonable conclusions based on the evidence. This stands in stark contrast to “existence of the situation proves natural selection.”
From a monotonous homogeneity, there quickly emerged a veritable rainbow of humanity: fair skin, light-colored eyes, and golden hair to black skin and black hair that was no longer straight, i.e., distinct racial types.
Moreover, race came first; the barrier maintaining it followed. That barrier is universal: It is socio-psychological. Only recently have we begun to see a significant breakdown in this barrier.
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Above article is based on excerpt from MAN AND HIS PLANET – An Unauthorized History by James E. Strickling, Eloquent Books ISBN: 978-1-60693-099-1. Go to www.jimstrickling.com.
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About the Author
James E. Strickling holds degrees in electrical engineering and marketing. He is also a cum laude graduate in Interdisciplinary Studies (natural sciences, ancient history, philosophy). He is a former N.A.S.A. contractor and a former Member of the AT&T Technical Staff (now retired). He also taught mathematics for fifteen years at Georgia State University.
Mr. Strickling’s publications have appeared in the American interdisciplinary journals KRONOS, Aeon, Catastrophism and Ancient History, Creation Research Society Quarterly, the British Society for Interdisciplinary Studies Workshop, and the journal Genesis in Sweden.