> I'm hearing lots of different "origin stories."
> Could we not also have more than one place of
> origin (seems like Jay Gould was suggesting that is his Stanford
> presentation this Spring).
Native North Americans have many physical characteristics in common
with the people of Mongolia, and even some of the same oral
traditions and similar traditional costume. One of the most indicative
is the inner shape of the upper and lower front teeth, which are
shoveled, or square-notched.
Humanity having more than one place of origin has serious cultural
and moral overtones. If we are not all of the same origin,
then it is logically possible to ascribe differing stages of things
such as intelligence, and in the final analysis, "humanity" to
the different races, with the same consequences of horror played
out in Germany in the first half of this century, as well as here
in America. I for one am hardly surprised that the acceptance of
evolutionary theory coincided with the attempted genocide by
Europeans against those who already occupied this continent in
the mid-nineteenth century. Study of newspapers, speeches and books
of the time show the idea of superior racial theories to be very
much the justification for conquest, confiscation and genocide, and
even the "kinder" oppression of paternalism for a "child-like" race.
In our own era, we have seen cultural and scientific elites
proposing abortion as a solution to aboriginal poverty, that is,
genocide. I suppose when a "race" (as opposed to nation) is
considered less developed along the human path, then the value of
human life in that group is considered of less consequence.
Gould is, of course, against racism, and realizes this is a serious
challenge to evolutionary theory. But Gould doesn't exist in a
vacuum, and his own cultural and spiritual milieu of materialism, Marxism
and atheism have formed the shape of his "discoveries" and theories.
They are certainly viewed by him as of greater "value" than the
"debased" spiritual outlook of Indians, for instance.
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