Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mibby529 · 10-29-2002, 05:06 AM

I took a few months off to think, and now would be a good time to talk about missionary antiscience. A lot of this occurs on reservations, where missionaries are given government money to witness.

The classic example was Deloria's Red Earth White Lies. He had no idea what evolution was, but missionaries told him that evolution was social Darwinism. Ironic, since the Lakota creation story includes evolution from bison, but we were traditionally communists. (LOL)

The irony is that, when talking about Indians, Xians have free reign to say whatever they want. So what if the Bering Strait was still 50 meters below sea level? Ppl must have crossed it. (Now, I know we're good swimmers, but...LOL) And so what if Quetzalcoatl is portrayed as ophidian? He must be a white man. Thus we get a whole bunch of racial theories from ppl who clearly have an agenda of conversion regarded as truth.

Tom Sawyer · 10-29-2002, 06:20 AM

If missionaries are given government money to witness on a reservation, then that's a real problem and you should look into doing something about it. I don't know all that much about native reservations, but from what I've heard, there's better ways to be spending the money given to help them out than by trying to spread christianity.

Godless Dave · 10-29-2002, 07:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mibby529:
<strong>The irony is that, when talking about Indians, Xians have free reign to say whatever they want. So what if the Bering Strait was still 50 meters below sea level? Ppl must have crossed it. </strong>

Well in this case I think they're getting their information from anthropologists, and i don't see how they could twist it into a Christian agenda. But I suppose they could twist anything into their agenda.

Mibby529, it's clear you don't accept the Bering land bridge explanation. Do you find it racist in some way? How do you think American Indians got to the Americas?

mibby529 · 10-29-2002, 01:33 PM

No, but I find it flawed. And since the truth is more important than a lie by ppl with an agenda..."Pre-Indian Caucasian" theories are just plain BS; I could just as easily say it meant the Chinese settled Iceland before the Norse b/c IMO, Bjork looks more Chinese than European.

The racist element is the idea that ppl with no evidence can tell someone else's story. Sort of like an unauthorized biography.

ps418 · 10-29-2002, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Mibby: The irony is that, when talking about Indians, Xians have free reign to say whatever they want. So what if the Bering Strait was still 50 meters below sea level? Ppl must have crossed it. (Now, I know we're good swimmers, but...LOL)

Welcome back Mibby. I see that you are still choosing to ignore the evidence I presented to you indicating that global sea-level dropped 120+ meters many times during the past 5 glacial cycles, that the Bering strait was emergent as recently as ~10.5ka, and that many many animals, including mammoths, made the journey from north-east Asia to north-west North America during the Pleistocene-Holocene.

For anyone else who would like to know where Mibby is coming from, see <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=000284" target="_blank">this thread</a> and <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001232&p=" target="_blank">this thread</a> and <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001329&p=" target="_blank">this one too.</a> These will give you a good idea.

Patrick

Tom Sawyer · 10-29-2002, 01:56 PM

Mibby,

Quote:

I could just as easily say it meant the Chinese settled Iceland before the Norse b/c IMO, Bjork looks more Chinese than European.

If you had DNA, fossil and geological evidence to back that up you could say that. The evidence of mongoloid ancestry for native americans that crossed the land bridge has all of those.

Lex Talionis · 10-30-2002, 04:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mibby529:
<strong>The racist element is the idea that ppl with no evidence can tell someone else's story. Sort of like an unauthorized biography.</strong>

Hi Mibby,

I have to question the idea of it being racist to "tell someone else's story".

For example, according to Athenian legend, the Athenians sprung from the ground at or near the acropolis in the center of the city. Historians tend to dismiss this and posit that Athens was settled by Hellenic migrants by way of modern Bulgaria.

Now, is it racist for a non-Athenian to say that Athenians were not autochthonous (that is, sprung from the ground at Athens itself)? If so, how?

Godless Dave · 10-30-2002, 05:45 AM

The Bering land bridge explanation and "pre-Indian Caucausian" hypothesis are very different. The former has archealogical and geological evidence supporting it, the latter has just one skull that might have Caucasoid features. The former is accepted by most anthropologists (in some form - some people think there were other avenues of immigration as well, including boats from Polynesia), the latter has been proposed by a few.

I think some Mormons have latched onto the idea of Caucasians living in North America before Columbus because it fits in with the stories in the book of Mormon. This is a religious view, not a scientific hypothesis. Are those the missionaries you're talking about? Can you provide evidence they received government funding? I don't want my tax dollars paying for that shit.

MortalWombat · 10-30-2002, 06:10 AM

Here are a couple of scientific articles dealing with the genetic evidence for an Asian origin for Native Americans.

One using mitochondrial DNA:

Quote:

Hum Biol 1992 Jun;64(3):403-16

American Indian prehistory as written in the mitochondrial DNA: a review.

Wallace DC, Torroni A.

Center for Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322.

Native Americans have been divided into three linguistic groups: the reasonably well-defined Eskaleut and Nadene of northern North America and the highly heterogeneous Amerind of North, Central, and South America. The heterogeneity of the Amerinds has been proposed to be the result of either multiple independent migrations or a single ancient migration with extensive in situ radiation. To investigate the origin and interrelationship of the American Indians, we examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation in 87 Amerinds (Pima, Maya, and Ticuna of North, Central, and South America, respectively), 80 Nadene (Dogrib and Tlingit of northwest North America and Navajo of the southwest North America), and 153 Asians from 7 diverse populations. American Indian mtDNAs were found to be directly descended from five founding Asian mtDNAs and to cluster into four lineages, each characterized by a different rare Asian mtDNA marker. Lineage A is defined by a HaeIII site gain at np 663, lineage B by a 9-bp deletion between the COII and tRNA(Lys) genes, lineage C by a HincII site loss at np 13259, and lineage D by an AluI site loss at np 5176. The North, Central, and South America Amerinds were found to harbor all four lineages, demonstrating that the Amerinds originated from a common ancestral genetic stock. The genetic variation of three of the four Amerind lineages (A, C, and D) was similar with a mean value of 0.084%, whereas the sequence variation in the fourth lineage (B) was much lower, raising the possibility of an independent arrival. By contrast, the Nadene mtDNAs were predominantly from lineage A, with 27% of them having a Nadene-specific RsaI site loss at np 16329. The accumulated Nadene variation was only 0.021%. These results demonstrate that the Amerind mtDNAs arose from one or maybe two Asian migrations that were distinct from the migration of the Nadene and that the Amerind populations are about four times older than the Nadene.

And another using the Y chromosome:

Quote:

Am J Hum Genet 1999 Feb;64(2):619-28

The central Siberian origin for native American Y chromosomes.

Santos FR, Pandya A, Tyler-Smith C, Pena SD, Schanfield M, Leonard WR, Osipova L, Crawford MH, Mitchell RJ.

Departamento de Biologia Geral, ICB/UFMG, Caixa Postal 486, 31. 270-910 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil. fsantos@mono.icb.ufmg.br fsantos@mono.icb.ufmg.br

Y chromosomal DNA polymorphisms were used to investigate Pleistocene male migrations to the American continent. In a worldwide sample of 306 men, we obtained 32 haplotypes constructed with the variation found in 30 distinct polymorphic sites. The major Y haplotype present in most Native Americans was traced back to recent ancestors common with Siberians, namely, the Kets and Altaians from the Yenissey River Basin and Altai Mountains, respectively. Going further back, the next common ancestor gave rise also to Caucasoid Y chromosomes, probably from the central Eurasian region. This study, therefore, suggests a predominantly central Siberian origin for Native American paternal lineages for those who could have migrated to the Americas during the Upper Pleistocene.

Clutch · 10-30-2002, 12:27 PM

Mortal Wombat,

You don't get the force of Mibby's view, do you?

It doesn't matter how much evidence you can present now. The fact is, once upon a time, somebody racist said something that looked vaguely, from a distance, at sundown with the light behind it, sorta like something related to what your evidence supports.

Therefore, what you said and probably you yourself are utterly wrong and racist besides.

See how that follows?

10-29-2002, 05:06 AM	#1
mibby529 Regular Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Cali Posts: 170	Missionary antiscience I took a few months off to think, and now would be a good time to talk about missionary antiscience. A lot of this occurs on reservations, where missionaries are given government money to witness. The classic example was Deloria's Red Earth White Lies. He had no idea what evolution was, but missionaries told him that evolution was social Darwinism. Ironic, since the Lakota creation story includes evolution from bison, but we were traditionally communists. (LOL) The irony is that, when talking about Indians, Xians have free reign to say whatever they want. So what if the Bering Strait was still 50 meters below sea level? Ppl must have crossed it. (Now, I know we're good swimmers, but...LOL) And so what if Quetzalcoatl is portrayed as ophidian? He must be a white man. Thus we get a whole bunch of racial theories from ppl who clearly have an agenda of conversion regarded as truth.

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10-29-2002, 06:20 AM	#2
Tom Sawyer Talk Freethought Staff Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Toronto, eh Posts: 42,293	If missionaries are given government money to witness on a reservation, then that's a real problem and you should look into doing something about it. I don't know all that much about native reservations, but from what I've heard, there's better ways to be spending the money given to help them out than by trying to spread christianity.

10-29-2002, 01:33 PM	#4
mibby529 Regular Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Cali Posts: 170	No, but I find it flawed. And since the truth is more important than a lie by ppl with an agenda..."Pre-Indian Caucasian" theories are just plain BS; I could just as easily say it meant the Chinese settled Iceland before the Norse b/c IMO, Bjork looks more Chinese than European. The racist element is the idea that ppl with no evidence can tell someone else's story. Sort of like an unauthorized biography.

10-30-2002, 05:45 AM	#8
Godless Dave Contributor Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: With 10,000 lakes who needs a coast? Posts: 10,762	The Bering land bridge explanation and "pre-Indian Caucausian" hypothesis are very different. The former has archealogical and geological evidence supporting it, the latter has just one skull that might have Caucasoid features. The former is accepted by most anthropologists (in some form - some people think there were other avenues of immigration as well, including boats from Polynesia), the latter has been proposed by a few. I think some Mormons have latched onto the idea of Caucasians living in North America before Columbus because it fits in with the stories in the book of Mormon. This is a religious view, not a scientific hypothesis. Are those the missionaries you're talking about? Can you provide evidence they received government funding? I don't want my tax dollars paying for that shit.

10-30-2002, 12:27 PM	#10
Clutch Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Canada Posts: 3,751	Mortal Wombat, You don't get the force of Mibby's view, do you? It doesn't matter how much evidence you can present now. The fact is, once upon a time, somebody racist said something that looked vaguely, from a distance, at sundown with the light behind it, sorta like something related to what your evidence supports. Therefore, what you said and probably you yourself are utterly wrong and racist besides. See how that follows?

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