The End of the World is Near!!!

The End of the World is Near!!! — Commentaries on the Times

A Vision of Doomsday Sixty Minutes Exposes the Doomsday Machine God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign/No more water/The Fire Next Time! This is an exceedingly strange political season where the bizarre has become common place. For instance a New York real estate huckster and transparent con man with no experience in government is threatening to […]

via The End of the World is Near!!! — Commentaries on the Times

The Human Brain – The Origin of Human Language- The Historical Background and Myths Concerning the Brain

AUGUST 23 2016 WITTROCK THE HUMAN BRAIN

The Human Brain, M. C. Wittrock, Jackson Beatty, Joseph E. Bogen, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Harry J. Jerison, Stephen D. Krashen, Robert D. Nebes, Timothy J. Teyler (Prentice-Hall, Inc: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey), 1977

Harry J. Jerison, Evolution of the Brain, in The Human Brain, M. C. Wittrock, Jackson Beatty, Joseph E. Bogan, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Harry J. Jerison, Stephen D. Krashen, Robert D. Nebes, Timothy J. Teyler (Prentice-Hall, Inc: Englewood Cliffs: New Jersey), 1977

“It is Society that shapes the mind”:

Evolutionary biology and behavior – – the evolution of language and conscious awareness – how the human mind evolved:

John McCrone, The Ape That Spoke: Language and the Evolution of the Human Mind (William Morrow and Company, Inc: New York), 1991:

“John McCrone studied zoology and psychology at Auckland University and then became a journalist, working first on a London newspaper and then with the Australian news agency, Australian Associated Press. McCrone has spent five years researching and writing this book. He lives in London.”

John McCrone studied zoology and psychology at Auckland University and then became a journalist, working first on a London newspaper and then with the Australian news agency, Australian Associated Press. McCrone has spent five years researching and writing this book. He lives in London.”
Commentary:

James Shreeve, co-author with Donald Johanson of Lucy’s Child:

“The Ape That Spoke is the cleares, mostdelighful excursion imaginable into the maze of the human mind. McCrone navigates the neural pathways of our memories, dreams,and emotions and returns with a fully realized portrait of consciousness. He does so with such an artful use of language and metaphor is no accident: In McCrone’s reckoning it was the origin of language itself that drove the evolution of intelligence, and the birth of metaphor that empowered the brain beyond the reach of any computer.”

Roger Lewin, Bones of Contention and The Origin of Modern Humans:

“The origins of language and conscious awareness tantalize us because, more than anything else, they seem to be the very essence of humanity, of being human.

John McCrone has done a skillful job of tracing the source of these elements of humanness in homo sapiens, by going back to the basics of evolutionary biology and behavior. It is a thoughtful and thought-provoking exposition.

In the book label of The Ape That Spoke it was indicated:

Myth:

Self-consciousness is something built into the human mind.
Reality:

Every child has to learn the trick afresh and would have a mind no more self-aware than an animal’s without the helping hand of society.

Myth:

Our higher emotions are pure, uncontrollable, and irrational.
Reality: Habits of thought forged by generations of cultural evolution and impressed on us at an early age make us act in society=s best interest.
Myth:
Our memories are a faithful record of events.
Reality: Every memory is a skillful re-creation that depends on the use of language to prod our brain into doing something it was not even designed for.

Myth:
The mind is a mystery that can never be explained.
Reality: The Ape That Spoke is a book that will stun you with the clarity it brings to the muddled subject.

The Ape That Spoke is the sstory of how the human mind evolved. It starts out with the naked animal of our primitive ancestors and goes on to describe what happened once homo sapiens learned to speak.

Along the way it offers many fresh insights into the workings of the brain.

Among its achievements, The Ape That Spoke gives a careful description of how language evolved, how our memorie and imaginations work, what purpose all our mental advances serve, and how we almost inadvertently learn the trick of self-awareness as we grow up.

Anyone who has ever wondered what déjà vu is, how we make creative leaps of understanding, how we form the sentences we speak, or why we have a conscience, will find the answers within its pages.

The book ends by demonstrating how shallow-rooted and culturally dependent our high mental abilities actually areCand asks why we should not set about making a few improvements.

Major Trends in Human Evolution:

Paleoanthropologist and Specialist Areas of Disagreement were with regard to the Major Trends in Human Evolution:

Bi-pedalism, Brain Size, and Neuropsychological Restructuring and What Influene Each Had in the Origin ofLLanguage andIntelligence:

The primary areas of disagreement by paleoanthropologists and specialists with regard to controversial issues have been concentrated upon the major trends of human evolution that include:

(1) the anatomical restructuring necessary for bipedalism
(2) what role increasing brain size and cranial/brain neural mechanisms necessary for speech played with regard to evolutionary growth and development, and
(3) what influence, if any, each may have had in the origin of language and intelligence in modern humans.

McCone indicated that arguments concerning those issues have been going on since the early 1980s.

THE AFRO-ASIATIC LANGUAGE WAS SPOKEN 11,000 YEARS AGO IN SYRIA-PALESTINE.
fischler
====================
The origin of language in the human species is a widely discussed topic, with little or no mainline consensus by many scholars.

1866: The Linguistic Society of Paris banned dabates on the subject.

1799: George W. Stocking, Jr.,

The Société des Observateurs de lHomme, (the first anthropological society) founded in the eighth year of the first French Republic (November or early December 1799),and its purpose, objectives, and activities in Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology

(The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London), 1982, pp. 15-21.

Its members included the biologists Cuvier, Lamarck, Jussieu, and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire; the physicians Cabanis and Pinel; the chemist Fourcroy; the explorers Bougainville and Levaillant; the linguists Destutt de Tracy and Sicard; and a number of other scholars in various fields.

[Footnote: Quoted from the Magasin encyclopédique by Georges Hervé, Le premier programme, p. 521; members are listed by Bouteiller, “La Société,” p. 449, and by Reboul, Jauffret, p. 34]

Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (Ballantine Books: New York), 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979,

Chapter 1: Broca’s Brain,” p. 7:

Paul Broca, a French surgeon, a neurologist and an anthropologist, and a major figure in the development of both medicine and anthropoogy, it was indicated:

“ …(Paul Broca) encountered great difficulty in establishing a society in France. The Minister of Public Instruction and the Prefect of Police believed that anthropology must as the free pursuit of knowledge about human beings be innately subversive to the state.

When permission was at last and reluctantly granted for Broca to talk about science with eighteen colleagues, the Prefect of Police held Broca responsible personally for all that might be said in such meetings ‘against society, religion, or the government.’ Even so, the study of human beings was considered so dangerous that a police spy in plain clothes was assigned to attend all meetings, with the understanding that authorization to meet would be withdrawn immediately if the spy was offended by anything that was said.

Inthese circumstances the Society of Anthropology of Paris gathered for the first time on May 19, 1859, the year of the publication of the Origin of Species. In subsequent meetings an enormous range of subjects was discussed – archaeology, mythology, physiology, anatomy, medicine, psychology, linguistics and history – and it is easy to imagine the police spy nodding off in the corner on many an occasion.

“… Not only the police but also the clergy opposed the development of anthropology in France, and in 1876 the Roman Catholic political party organized a major campaign against the teaching of the subject in the Anthropological Institute of Paris founded by Broca.
=============
Chapter 4: Origin of Language:

John A. Hawkins, University of Southern California and Murray Gell-Mann, California Institute of Technology,
“Preface,. About the Workshop, SFI Studies,

“The Sciences of Complexity,” Proceedings Volume X, Editors, J. A. Hawkins and M. Gell-Mann, Addison-Wesley, 1992 in

The Evolution of Human Languages, A Proceedings Volume in the SFI Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, of the Workshop on the Evolution of Human Languages held August 1989 in New Mexico, Editors, John A. Hawkins, Department of Linguistics , University of Southern California and Murray Gell-Mann, California Institute of Technology

and Volume XI, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity (Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,

The Advanced Book Program: Redwood City, California; Menlo Park, California; Reading, Massachusetts; New York, Don Mills, Ontario; Wokingham, United Kingdom; Amsterdam, Bonn, Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo, Madrid, San Juan), 1992,

xiii, it was indicated:

“The Evolution of Language and Intelligence”:

“In August 1989 a five-day workshop was held at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico on the subject of the evolution of human languages.

Its goal was to bring together some leading scholars for a joint discussion of many aspects of this general theme. Most of the participants were linguists, but representatives from psycholinguistics, anthropology, neuroanatomy, biology (population genetics), and physics were also present.

The Santa Fe Institute is founded on the premise that there may be common principles that determine the behavior of complex adaptive systems, and it seeks to discover these principles by studying specific systems in the context of more general themes.

“Human language is one such system, and understanding how it works and how it has evolved and changed over time has a potential significance well beyond the narrow confines of the field of linguistics.”

A Roman Catholic Priest Hans Kung (Author: “Does God Exist?” – “On Being A Christian” – A Hebrew Prophet Jeremiah -The Hebrew/Jewish Messiah – WernerHarenberg (Author “Der Spiegel The New Testament- A Guide to the Struggle Between Radical and Conservativein EuropeanUniversity and Parish

Hans Kung experience as a young Roman Catholic Priest working in a lower income German Parish and later Ex-Communication Proceedings against him by the Roman Catholic Church

A late 19th Century experience of a German Baptist Minister in an urban New York lower income parish, Walter Rauschenbusch in Four Modern Prophets: Walter Rauschenbusch, Martin Luther King Jr, Gustavo Gutierrez, Rosemary Ruether by William M. Ramsay (Author) – Four Mordern Prophets explores the life and thought of four twentieth-century Christian leaders who epitomize the struggle for freedom and justice. William Ramsay summarizes the work of these four modern thinkers and challenges us to join in the struggle.

Observe the following:

111111111111111111111111111111″Indeed, the Lord God does nothing without revealing hiS plan to his servants the prophets. (Amos 27)

Prophets like Jereiah felt especially embattled:

“The cry was raised: “Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah. There will still be priests to guide us, still wise men to give counsel, still prophets to proclaim the word. Let us invent some charges against him. (Jer. 18:18)

In return, Jeremiah condemned the entire religious establish of Judah together with its written texts.

“How can you say, we are Wise, we have the law of the Lord, when scribes with their lying pens have falsified it. The wise are put to shame; they are dismayed and entrapped. They have spurned the word of the Lord, so what k sort of wisdom is theirs? … For all high and low are out for ill-gotten gain; prophets and priests are frauds every one of them. Jer. 8:8-10)

For this prophet the word of the Lord was only what he, Jeremiah said it was. No written texts of the wise, not even the Law of Moses itself, could be trusted , he declared, since hand-copied books quickly become corrupt amd the leaders speak onley for themselves and their own interests anyway. Understandably, Jeremiah’s claim that he alone spoke for God in his time met considerable resistances from the three groups he so roundly attacked. ” Source: Randel McCraw helms, The Bible Agsinst Itself: Why the Bible Seems to Contradict Itself, illenium Press, Altadena, California (2006)

Who was Jeremiah and when did he live? wHAT What was his eference to the Messiah what has been his association with the New Testament?

EREMIAH
WRITTEN BY:
J. Philip Hyatt
Alternate Titles: Jeremias, Yirmeyahu
Jeremiah
HEBREW PROPHET
ALSO KNOWN AS
Yirmeyahu
Jeremias
BORN AFTER
650 BCE?
Anathoth, Israel
DIED
c. 570 BCE
Egypt

SIMILAR PEOPLE
Moses
Amos
Nehemiah
Zechariah
Elijah
Zephaniah
Isaiah
Samuel
Ezra
Ezekiel

Jeremiah, Hebrew Yirmeyahu, Latin Vulgate Jeremias (born probably after 650 bce, Anathoth, Judah—died c. 570 bce, Egypt) Hebrew prophet, reformer, and author of a biblical book that bears his name. He was closely involved in the political and religious events of a crucial era in the history of the ancient Near East; his spiritual leadership helped his fellow countrymen survive disasters that included the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 bce and the exile of many Judaeans to Babylonia.

Jeremiah, detail from a fresco by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican, c. 1512.
Alinari/Art Resource, New York
LIFE AND TIMES

Jeremiah was born and grew up in the village of Anathoth, a few miles northeast of Jerusalem, in a priestly family. In his childhood he must have learned some of the traditions of his people, particularly the prophecies of Hosea, whose influence can be seen in his early messages.

The era in which Jeremiah lived was one of transition for the ancient Near East. The Assyrian empire, which had been dominant for two centuries, declined and fell. Its capital, Nineveh, was captured in 612 by the Babylonians and Medes. Egypt had a brief period of resurgence under the 26th dynasty (664–525) but did not prove strong enough to establish an empire. The new world power was the Neo-Babylonian empire, ruled by a Chaldean dynasty whose best known king was Nebuchadrezzar. The small and comparatively insignificant state of Judah had been a vassal of Assyria and, when Assyria declined, asserted its independence for a short time. Subsequently Judah vacillated in its allegiance between Babylonia and Egypt and ultimately became a province of the Neo-Babylonian empire.

According to the biblical Book of Jeremiah, he began his prophetic career in 627/626—the 13th year of King Josiah’s reign. It is told there that he responded to Yahweh’s (God’s) call to prophesy by protesting “I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth,” but he received Yahweh’s assurance that he would put his own words into Jeremiah’s mouth and make him a “prophet to the nations.” A few scholars believe that after his call Jeremiah served as an official prophet in the Temple, but most believe that this is unlikely in view of his sharp criticism of priests, prophets, and the Temple cult.

Jeremiah’s early messages to the people were condemnations of them for their false worship and social injustice, with summons to repentance. He proclaimed the coming of a foe from the north, symbolized by a boiling pot facing from the north in one of his visions, that would cause great destruction. This foe has often been identified with the Scythians, nomads from southern Russia who supposedly descended into western Asia in the 7th century and attacked Palestine. Some scholars have identified the northern foe with the Medes, the Assyrians, or the Chaldeans (Babylonians); others have interpreted his message as vague eschatological predictions, not concerning a specific people.

In 621 King Josiah instituted far-reaching reforms based upon a book discovered in the Temple of Jerusalem in the course of building repairs, which was probably Deuteronomy or some part of it. Josiah’s reforms included the purification of worship from pagan practices, the centralization of all sacrificial rites in the Temple of Jerusalem, and perhaps an effort to establish social justice following principles of earlier prophets (this program constituted what has been called “the Deuteronomic reforms”).

Jeremiah’s attitude toward these reforms is difficult to assess. Clearly, he would have found much in them with which to agree; a passage in chapter 11 of Jeremiah, in which he is called on by Yahweh to urge adherence to the ancient Covenant upon “the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem,” is frequently interpreted as indicating that the prophet travelled around Jerusalem and the villages of Judah exhorting the people to follow the reforms. If this was the case, Jeremiah later became disillusioned with the reforms because they dealt too largely with the externals of religion and not with the inner spirit and ethical conduct of the people. He may have relapsed into a period of silence for several years because of the indifferent success of the reforms and the failure of his prophecies concerning the foe from the north to materialize.

World Religions & Traditions World Religions & Traditions

Some scholars doubt that Jeremiah’s career actually began as early as 627/626 bce and question the accuracy of the dates in the biblical account.

This view arises from the difficulty of identifying the foe from the north, which seems likely to have been the Babylonians of a later time, as well as the difficulty of determining the prophet’s attitude toward the Deuteronomic reforms and of assigning messages of Jeremiah to the reign of Josiah. In the opinion of such scholars, Jeremiah began to prophesy toward the end of the reign of Josiah or at the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim (609–598).

Early in the reign of Jehoiakim, Jeremiah delivered his famous “Temple sermon,” of which there are two versions, one in Jeremiah, chapter 7, verses 1 to 15, the other in chapter 26, verses 1 to 24.

He denounced the people for their dependence on the Temple for security and called on them to effect genuine ethical reform.

HE PREDICTED THAT GOD WOULD DESTROY THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM, AS HE HAD EARLIER DESTROYED THAT OF SHILOH, IF THEY CONTINUED IN THEIR PRESENT PATH. JEREMIAH WAS IMMEDIATELY ARRESTED AND TRIED ON A CAPITAL CHARGE. HE WAS ACQUITTED BUT MAY HAVE BEEN FORBIDDEN TO PREACH AGAIN IN THE TEMPLE.

The reign of Jehoiakim was an active and difficult period in Jeremiah’s life. That king was very different from his father, the reforming Josiah, whom Jeremiah commended for doing justice and righteousness. Jeremiah denounced Jehoiakim harshly for his selfishness, materialism, and practice of social injustice.

THE BATTLE OF CARCHEMISH IN 605 B.C.:

NEAR THE TIME OF THE BATTLE OF CARCHEMISH, IN 605 B.C.,

WHEN THE BABYLONIANS DECISIVELY DEFEATED THE EGYPTIANS AND THE REMNANT OF THE ASSYRIANS,
JEREMIAH DELIVERED AN ORACLE AGAINST EGYPT.

Realizing that this battle made a great difference in the world situation, Jeremiah soon dictated to his scribe, Baruch, a scroll containing all of the messages he had delivered to this time. The scroll was read by Baruch in the Temple. Subsequently it was read before King Jehoiakim, who cut it into pieces and burned it. Jeremiah went into hiding and dictated another scroll, with additions.

When Jehoiakim withheld tribute from the Babylonians (about 601), Jeremiah began to warn the Judaeans that they would be destroyed at the hands of those who had previously been their friends. When the King persisted in resisting Babylonia, Nebuchadrezzar sent an army to besiege Jerusalem. King Jehoiakim died before the siege began and was succeeded by his son, Jehoiachin, who surrendered the capital to the Babylonians on March 16, 597, and was taken to Babylonia with many of his subjects.

The Babylonians placed on the throne of Judah a king favourable to them, Zedekiah (597–586 bce), who was more inclined to follow Jeremiah’s counsel than Jehoiakim had been but was weak and vacillating and whose court was torn by conflict between pro-Babylonian and pro-Egyptian parties.

AFTER PAYING BABYLONIA TRIBUTE FOR NEARLY 10 YEARS, THE KING MADE AN ALLIANCE WITH EGYPT. A second time Nebuchadrezzar sent an army to Jerusalem, which he captured in August 586 B.C..

Early in Zedekiah’s reign, Jeremiah wrote a letter to the exiles in Babylonia, advising them not to expect to return immediately to their homeland, as false prophets were encouraging them to believe, but to settle peaceably in their place of exile and seek the welfare of their captors. When emissaries from surrounding states came to Judah in 594 to enlist Judah’s support in rebellion against Babylonia, Jeremiah put a yoke upon his neck and went around proclaiming that Judah and the surrounding states should submit to the yoke of Babylonia, for it was Yahweh who had given them into the hand of the King of Babylonia. Even to the time of the fall of Jerusalem, Jeremiah’s message remained the same: submit to the yoke of Babylonia.

When the siege of Jerusalem was temporarily lifted at the approach of an Egyptian force, Jeremiah started to leave Jerusalem to go to the land of the tribe of Benjamin. He was arrested on a charge of desertion and placed in prison. Subsequently he was placed in an abandoned cistern, where

HE WOULD HAVE DIED HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR THE PROMPT ACTION OF AN ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH, EBED-MELECH, WHO RESCUED THE PROPHET WITH THE KING’S PERMISSION AND PUT HIM IN A LESS CONFINING PLACE. King Zedekiah summoned him from prison twice for secret interviews, and both times Jeremiah advised him to surrender to Babylonia.

WHEN JERUSALEM FINALLY FELL, JEREMIAH WAS RELEASED FROM PRISON BY THE BABYLONIANS AND OFFERED SAFE CONDUCT TO BABYLONIA, BUT HE PREFERRED TO REMAIN WITH HIS OWN PEOPLE. So he was entrusted to Gedaliah, a Judaean from a prominent family whom the Babylonians appointed as governor of the province of Judah. The prophet continued to oppose those who wanted to rebel against Babylonia and promised the people a bright and joyful future.

AFTER GEDALIAH WAS ASSASSINATED, JEREMIAH WAS TAKEN AGAINST HIS WILL TO EGYPT BY SOME OF THE JEWS WHO FEARED REPRISAL FROM THE BABYLONIANS.

Even in Egypt he continued to rebuke his fellow exiles. Jeremiah probably died about 570 bce. According to a tradition that is preserved in extrabiblical sources, he was stoned to death by his exasperated fellow countrymen in Egypt.

PROPHETIC VOCATION AND MESSAGE

THIS SKETCH OF JEREMIAH’S LIFE PORTRAYS HIM AS A COURAGEOUS AND PERSISTENT PROPHET WHO OFTEN HAD TO ENDURE PHYSICAL SUFFERING FOR HIS FIDELITY TO THE PROPHETIC CALL.

He also suffered inner doubts and conflicts, as his own words reveal, especially those passages that are usually called his “confessions” (Jer. 11:18–12:6; 15:10–21; 17:9–10, 14–18; 18:18–23; 20:7–12, 14–18). They reveal a strong conflict between Jeremiah’s natural inclinations and his deep sense of vocation to deliver Yahweh’s message to the people. Jeremiah was by nature sensitive, introspective, and perhaps shy. He was denied participation in the ordinary joys and sorrows of his fellowmen and did not marry. He thus could say, “I sat alone,” with God’s hand upon him. Jeremiah had periods of despondency when he expressed the wish that he had never been born or that he might run away and live alone in the desert. He reached the point of calling God “a deceitful brook, . . . waters that fail” and even accused God of deceiving and overpowering him. Yet there were times of exaltation when he could say to God: “Thy words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart”; and he could speak of Yahweh as “a dread warrior” fighting by his side.

AS A PROPHET JEREMIAH PRONOUNCED GOD’S JUDGMENT UPON THE PEOPLE OF HIS TIME FOR THEIR WICKEDNESS.

He was concerned especially with false and insincere worship and failure to trust Yahweh in national affairs. He denounced social injustices but not so much as some previous prophets, such as Amos and Micah. He found the source of sin to be in the weakness and corruption of the hearts of men—in what he often called “the stubbornness of the evil heart.” He considered sin to be unnatural; he emphasized that some foreign nations were more loyal to their pagan (false) deities than Judah was to Yahweh (the real God), and he often contrasted nature’s obedience to law with man’s disobedience to God.

Jeremiah had more to say about repentance than any other prophet. He called upon men to turn away from their wicked ways and dependence upon idols and false gods and return to their early covenantal loyalty to Yahweh. Repentance thus had a strong ethical colouring, since it meant living in obedience to Yahweh’s will for the individual and the nation.

In the latter part of his career Jeremiah had to struggle against the despair of his people and give them hope for the future. He expressed his own hope vividly by an action that he undertook when the Babylonians were besieging Jerusalem and he was in prison. He bought, from a cousin, a field in Anathoth, his native town. In the presence of witnesses he weighed out the money and made the contracts and said, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.” In this and other ways he expressed his hope for a bright future for Israel in its own land.

Jeremiah’s most important prophecy concerning the future is one regarding the New Covenant (Jer. 31:31–34). While the present literary form of the passage is probably not Jeremiah’s, the thought is essentially his. He prophesied of a time when Yahweh would make a covenant with Israel, superseding the old Mosaic Covenant; YAHWEH WOULD WRITE HIS LAW UPON THE HEARTS OF MEN (RATHER THAN ON TABLES OF STONE), AND ALL WOULD KNOW GOD DIRECTLY AND RECEIVE HIS FORGIVENESS.

This New Covenant prophecy was very influential in New Testament times. It is quoted in the Letter to the Hebrews and lies behind words attributed to Jesus at the Last Supper:

“This cup
WernerHarenberg (Author “Der Spiegel The New Testament- A Guide to the Struggle Between Radical and Conservativein EuropeanUniversity and Parish the new covenant in my blood.”

WernerHarenberg (Author “Die Spiwfwlon The New Testament- A Guide to the Struggle Between Radical and Conservativein EuropeanUniversity and Parish:

“HERESY” is the watchword of one party in the Protestant faith struggle.

The word of the other party is “SUPERSTITION.” On March 6, 1966 … The battle was begun: the battle of the congregations against the professors using biblical criticism, the battle concerning Jesus, concerning his words and miracles, concerning belief in the virgin birth and resurrection. Twenty-two thousand Protestants filled the Westfefenhatten, in Dortmund for a great “rally which was in fact, a combination “heresy trial” and “prayer meeting.”

With the battle between the defenders of the biblical Jesus and the university theologians underway, Werner Herenberg began a series of articles on the conflict for the German news magazine Der Spiegel. Here is is his highly important report about what the biblical criticism of modern theology means for the ‘confession of faith’.” The Macmillan Company: Collier-Macmillan Ltd, London (1970)

TODAY’S LLECTURE 101: AFRICA IN AUTHENTIC WORLD HISTORY:

THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE AND AFRICAN PREHISTORY:

BEGINNING WITH GEOLOGICAL PERIODS:

Book of Fossil Evolution, The Fossil Book: A Recordof Prehistoric Life with over 1500 Illustrations, by Carroll Lane Fenton & Mildred Adams Fenton:;;;;;;;; The Classic Work for Fossil Collectors and Enthusiasts Revised and Expanded by Patricia Vickers Rich, Thomas Hewitt Rich, and MildredAdams

The time-scale of evolution:

Geological periods of time: [Modified after Harland and ohers, 1982]

Priscoan Eon – 4600 Million Years Ago:

African Pre-history began during the Archean Eon (4000 – 2400 Million Years Ago) during the Proterozoic Era (3.7 Billion – .6 billion Years Ago),

THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE:

Azoic Eon:

Archean eon – 4000 Million Years Ago:

The earliest period of earth=s history: 4.6 billion years ago:
AThe Archean eon comprises 43%of our planet=s history. The earth and the rest of the solar system are 4.6 billion years old and the first photosynthetic organisms arose earlier than about 3 billion years ago. [Milner 1990: 23]

THE AGE OF THE EARTH:

AGE OF THE SEAS – ENCYCLOPEDIA

JAMES TREFIL

Richard Milner, The Encyclopedia of Evolution: Humanity=s Search for Its Origins (Henry Holt And Company: New York, 1990), p. 23

Origin of Oceans – Life in the Seas:

The Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, General Editor James Trefil, a noted physicist and author and professor of physics at George Mason University and co-author of The Dictionary Of Cultural Literacy and the author of 101 Things You Don=t Know About Science And No One Else Does Either; and contributing editors Harold Morowitz, a biophysicist and professor of biology at George Mason University who has published widely on popular topics in science; and Paul Ceruzzi, Curator of Aerospace Electronics And Computing at The Smithsonia=s National Air And Space Museum, and the author of two books on computing, including The History Of Modern Computing, and has served as a consultant for two BBC Television Series on computing and science (Routledge: New York, London), 2001, indicated:

AOceans, origin and evolution of: the origin of the oceans, which cover more than three-quarters of earth=s surface, dates back to Earth;s formation 4.6 billion years ago.
Oceans

FROM CHRONOLOGY OF GEOLOGIC TIMES TOLANDING ON THE MOON – THE AFRICAN HERITAGE

Richard Currier – Author of UNBOUNDED – Thank you for the further indications of the recommendations and approvals of your book UNBOUNDED . Attached is the updated Preface to my pending publication of The African Heritage in World History and Human Biological and Cultural History thaat I recently sent to the publisher. – ”
PREFACE:

A Chronological Summary of the origins of the Geologic Time Scale:

Aristotle:

Persian geologist Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Avicenna also first proposed one of the principles underlying geologic time scales, the law of superposition origins of mountains in The Book of Healing in 1027.[12][13]
13th century Dominican bishop Albertus Magnus (Albert of Saxony)

The Chinese naturalist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) also recognized the concept of ‘deep time’.[14]

Formation of primary principles[edit]

The principles underlying geologic (geological) time scales were later laid down by Nicholas Steno in the late 17th century.

Steno argued that rock layers (or strata) are laid down in succession, and that each represents a “slice” of time. He also formulated the law of superposition, which states that any given stratum is probably older than those above it and younger than those below it. While Steno’s principles were simple, applying them to real rocks proved complex. Over the course of the 18th century geologists realized that:

The Neptunist theories popular at this time (expounded by Werner) proposed that all rocks had precipitated out of a single enormous flood.

A major shift in thinking came when James Hutton presented his Theory of the Earth; or, an Investigation of the Laws Observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land Upon the Globe before the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March and April 1785.

It has been said that “as things appear from the perspective of the 20th century, James Hutton in those readings became the founder of modern geology”.

[15] Hutton proposed that the interior of Earth was hot, and that this heat was the engine which drove the creation of new rock: land was eroded by air and water and deposited as layers in the sea; heat then consolidated the sediment into stone, and uplifted it into new lands.

This theory was called “Plutonist” in contrast to the Neptunist” flood-oriented theory.

Formation of geologic time scale – Encyclopedia Wikipedia:

“The first serious attempts to formulate a geological time scale that could be applied anywhere on Earth were made in the late 18th century.

The most influential of those early attempts (championed by Abraham Werner, among others) divided the rocks of Earth’s crust into four types:

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary.

Each type of rock, according to the theory, formed during a specific period in Earth history.

It was thus possible to speak of a “Tertiary Period” as well as of “Tertiary Rocks.”

Indeed, “Tertiary” (now Paleogene and Neogene) remained in use as the name of a geological period well into the 20th century and “Quaternary” remains in formal use as the name of the current period.

The identification of strata by the fossils they contained, pioneered by William Smith, Georges Cuvier, Jean d’Omalius d’Halloy, and Alexandre Brogniart in the early 19th century, enabled geologists to divide Earth history more precisely.

It also enabled them to correlate strata across national (or even continental) boundaries. If two strata (however distant in space or different in composition) contained the same fossils, chances were good that they had been laid down at the same time. Detailed studies between 1820 and 1850 of the strata and fossils of Europe produced the sequence of geological periods still used today.

Naming of geologic periods, ERAS and EPOCHS:

The process was dominated by British geologists, and the names of the periods reflect that dominance.

The “Cambrian”, (the classical name for Wales)

and the “Ordovician”, and “Silurian”, named after ancient Welsh tribes,

were periods defined using stratigraphic sequences from Wales.

The “Devonian” was named for the English county of Devon,

and the name “Carboniferous” was simply an adaptation of “the Coal Measures”,

the old British geologists’ term for the same set of strata.

The “Permian” was named after Perm, Russia, because it was defined using strata in that region by Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison.

However, some periods were defined by geologists from other countries.

The “Triassic” was named in 1834 by a German geologist Friedrich Von Alberti from the three distinct layers (Latin trias meaning triad) —red beds, capped by chalk, followed by black shales — that are found throughout Germany and Northwest Europe, called the ‘Trias’.

The “Jurassic” was named by a French geologist Alexandre Brogniart for the extensive marine limestone exposures of the Jura Mountains.

The “Cretaceous” (from Latin creta meaning ‘chalk’) as a separate period was first defined by Belgian geologist Jean d’Omalius d’Halloy in 1822,

using strata in the Paris basin[17] and named

for the extensive beds of chalk (calcium carbonate deposited by the shells of marine invertebrates).

British geologists were also responsible for the grouping of periods into Eras

and the subdivision of the Tertiary and Quaternary periods into epochs.

In 1841 John Phillips published the first global geological time scale based on the types of fossils found in each era.

Phillips’ scale helped standardize the use of terms like

Paleozoic (“old life”) which he extended to cover a larger period than it had in previous usage,

and Mesozoic (“middle life”) which he invented.[18]

Dating of time scales:

When William Smith and Sir Charles Lyell first recognized that rock strata represented successive time periods, time scales could be estimated only very imprecisely since various kinds of rates of change used in estimation were highly variable.

While creationists had been proposing dates of around six or seven thousand years for the age of Earth

based on the Bible,

early geologists were suggesting millions of years for geologic periods with some even suggesting a virtually infinite age for Earth. Geologists and paleontologists constructed the geologic table based on the relative positions of different strata and fossils,

and estimated the time scales based on studying

rates of various kinds of weathering, erosion, sedimentation, and lithification.

Until the discovery of RADIOACTIVITY in 1896 and the development of its geological applications through RADIOMETRIC DATING during the first half of the 20th century

(pioneered by such geologists as Arthur Holmes)

which allowed for more precise absolute dating of rocks, the ages of various rock strata and the age of Earth were the subject of considerable debate.

The first geologic time scale that included absolute dates was published in 1913

by the British geologist Arthur Holmes.[19] He greatly furthered the newly created discipline of GEOCHRONOLOGY and published the world-renowned book

The Age of the Earth in which he estimated Earth’s age to be at least 1.6 billion years.[20]

In 1977, the Global Commission on Stratigraphy (now the International Commission on Stratigraphy) started an effort to define global references known as GSSP (Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points) for geologic periods and faunal stages.

The commission’s most recent work is described in the 2004 geologic time scale of Gradstein et al.[21] A UML model for how the timescale is structured, relating it to the GSSP, is also available.[22]

Condensed graphical timelines:

The following four timelines show the geologic time scale. The first shows the entire time from the formation of the Earth to the present, but this compresses the most recent eon. Therefore, the second scale shows the most recent eon with an expanded scale.

The second scale compresses the most recent era, so the most recent era is expanded in the third scale.

Since the Quaternary is a very short period with short epochs, it is further expanded in the fourth scale. The second, third, and fourth timelines are therefore each subsections of their preceding timeline as indicated by asterisks.

The Holocene (the latest epoch) is too small to be shown clearly on the third timeline on the right, another reason for expanding the fourth scale. The Pleistocene (P) epoch. Q stands for the Quaternary period.

====…

Outline List, partially annotated, of Primary Bibliographical Sources – Chapter 1 – Section 1:

Chapter 1: Origin of the universe, origin of the oceans and origin of life in the oceans.

This chapter discusses the scientific version of the the origin of the universe, the planet earth,and the emergene of life in the oceans – from origins of the universe, to single cell organisms and multicellular organisms, to early sea life .

The Fossil Book: A Record Of Prehistoric Life (With Over 1500 Illustrations), Carroll Lane Fenton & Mildred Adams Fenton (the classic work for fossil collectors and enthusiasts revised and expanded by Patricia Vickers Rich, Thomas Hewitt Rich, and Mildred Adams Fenton (Doubleday: New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland), 1958, 1989:

Section 1: Prehistory: Origin of the Universe 20 – 10 billion years ago:

A Short History of the Universe (Scientific American Library: A Division of HPHLP: New York), 1994, written by Joseph Silk, Professor of Astronomy and Physics at the University of California, Berkeley and also the author of The Big Bang (Freeman, 1989) and co-author of The Left Hand of Creation (Oxford University Press, 1993)

Steven Weinberg, The First Three Minutes: A Modern View Of The Origin Of The Universe (Basic Books Inc., Publishers: New York), 1977, 1988

Time Magazine, “A Person Of The Century: Albert Einstein: 1879-1955,” and “A Brief History Of Relativity” By Stephen Hawkins (What Is It? How Does It Work? Why Does It Change Everything? An Easy Primer by the World’sMost Famous Living Physicists,” December 31, 1999:

Richard Milner, The Encyclopedia Of Evolution: Humanity’s Search For Its Origins, Foreward By Stephen Jay Gould (Henry Holt And Company: New York), 1990

Stephen Hawkin’s The Grand Design (Bantam Books: New York), 2010 is described as “the first major work in nearly a decade by one of the world’s great thinkers—a marvously concise book with new answers to the ultimate questions of life: when and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the nature of reality? Why are the laws of nature so finely tuned as to allow for the existence of beings like ourselves? And finally, is the apparent ‘grand design’ of our universe evidence of a benevolent creator who set things in motion—or does science offer another explanation?”

Stephen Hawkins, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for thirty years, and has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors including most recently, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His books for the general reader include the classic A Brief History of Time, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, The Universe in a Nutshell and A Briefer History of Time. He lives in Cambridge, England.

http://www.hawking.org.uk

“When and how did the universe begin? Why were we here? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the nature of reality? Why are the laws of nature so finely tuned as to allow for the existence of beings like ourselves? And, finally, is the apparent ‘gra Tnd design’ of our universe evidence of a benevolent creator who set things in motion—or does science offer another explanation? That we create history by observing it, rather than that history creates us.” [Book Jacket]

Victor J. Stenger, The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe is Not Designed for Us (Prometheus Books: Amherst, New York), 2011 Physicist Victor J. Stenger responded to the “laws of nature finely tuned” question in The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe is Not Designed for Us (Prometheus Books: Amherst, New York), 2011.

Among the commentaries on Victor J. Stenger’s New York Times bestseller, God: The Failed Hypothesis.” The New Scientist indicated: “In this much needed book physicist Victor Stenger isolates and then debunks the claims of two kinds of ‘quantum belief’ … With Stenger in charge … we are on sure ground. He adds even more value by weaving a thorough beginner’s course in quantum physics into his debunking exercise. … Stenger is a pleasure to read. And, pleasingly,the title … sounds just crockpot enough to attract those readers who will benefit most.”

“Victor J. Stenger, Ph.D., is adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado and emeritus professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii. He is the autor of the New York Times bestseller God: The Failed Hypothesis, and many other books, including Quantum Gods, The Unconscious Quantum, Has Science Found God?, The Comprehensible Cosmos, Timeless Reality, Physics and Psychics, and The New Atheism.”

Robert Jastrow, in The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe (Simon And Schuster: New York), 1981, in Chapter 1: “Across the Threshold of Life,” discussed the formation of the sun, earth, moon, and humans; and the sudden beginning of the universe and of every star, every planet and every living creature in the universe, stating:

“Scientific discoveries of the last decades have created a new explanation for the appearance of man on the earth. In the scientist’s version of Genesis, as in the Bible, the world begins with the dazzling splendor of the moment of creation. A few astronomers could have anticipated that this event – the sudden birth of the universe – would become a proven scientific fact, but observations of the heavens through telescopes have forced them to that conclusion.

“The first scientific indication of an abrupt beginning for the world appeared about fifty years ago. At that time, American astronomers, studying the great clusters of stars called galaxies, stumbled on evidence that the entire universe is blowing up before our eyes. According to their observations, all the galaxies in the universe are moving away From us and from one another at very high speeds, and the most distant are receding at extraordinary speeds of hundreds of millions of miles an hour.
“This discovery led directly to the picture of a sudden beginning for the universe; for if we retrace the movements of the expanding galaxies backward in time, we find that at an earlier time they must have been closer together than they are today; at a still earlier time, they must have been still closer together; and if we go back far enough in time, we find that at a certain critical moment in the past, all the galaxies in the universe were packed together into one dense mass, at an enormous pressure and temperature.

“Reacting to this pressure, the dense, hot matter must have exploded with incredible violence. The instant of the explosion marked the birth of the universe. The seed of everything that has happened in the universe was planted in that first instant; every star, every planet and every living creature in the universe came into being as a result of events that were set in motion in the moment of the cosmic explosion. It was literally the moment of creation.

Dr. Jastrow attended Townsend Harris High School and went to Columbia University for college and graduate school where he received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D in theoretical physics. Afterwards he joined National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) when it was formed in 1958 as head of its theoretical division which did basic research in fields like cosmology and astronomy. In 1961 he became director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies which worked within NASA on projects like the robotic probes Pioneer, Voyager and Galileo which sailed through the solar system. He received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and the Arthur S. Flemming Award for Outstanding Service to the United States Government, as well as the Columbia University Medal of Excellence.

Time Magazine, APerson of The Century: Albert Einstein: 1879-1955, and A Brief History Of Relativity By Stephen Hawkins (AWhat Is It? How Does It Work? Why Does It Change Everything? An Easy Primer By The World’’sMost Famous Living Physicists,December 31, 1999

John F. Haught is Senior Fellow, Science and Religion, Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University and the author of fifteen books, including God After Darwin, The Promise of Nature, Theology in Global Perspective Series,
Peter C. Phan, General Editor, Ignacio Ellacuria, and is a Professor of Catholic Social Thought, at Georgetown University, in the Preface of Christianity and Science: Toward a Theology of Nature (Orbis Books: Maryknoll, New York), 2007.

Research Report: “A Very Big Bang,” Ohio State Alumni Magazine, September – October, 2006:

“Scientists have found evidence of a massive meteor impact that devastated life on Earth millions of years ago”

“What caused the biggest mass extinction in Earth’s history? It wasn’t the meteor that killed the dinosaurs—that happened a mere 65 million years ago . Scientists have found evidence of a much earlier and larger impact, the Wilkes Land meteor. A crater some 300 miles wide—big enough to hold the sttate of Ohio—lies more than a mile beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

The People’s Almanac By David Wallechinky and Irving Wallace (Doubleday & Company, Inc.: Garden City, New York), 1975, Chapter 11: Universe – Spaced Out:

“Earth: The Earth spins through space like a top. It makes one complete spin or revolution every 24 hours.

CULTURAL HISTORY OF “TRYING TO BE BLACK” – TANNING – IN AMERICA

VON LUSCHEN SCALE

The Von Luschan’s chromatic scale made by anthropologist Felix von Luschan. The riginal was self-made from scratch with the paint program in the likeness of the chart originally printed in Voelker, Rassen, Sprachen (1927). The skin colors used were copied from the original chart box per box using the paint program’s dropper tool.
Date 1927; 2007-10-05
Source Own work with Inkscape with color RGB values from en:Image:Felix von Luschan Skin Color Chart

Von Luschan’s chromatic scale
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Lüscher color test.

Von Luschan’s chromatic scale

Geographic distribution of skin colors for native populations prior to 1940.
Von Luschan’s chromatic scale is a method of classifying skin color. It is also called the von Luschan scale or von Luschan’s scale. It is named after its inventor, Felix von Luschan. The equipment consists of 36 opaque glass tiles which were compared to the subject’s skin, ideally in a place which would not be exposed to the sun (such as under the arm). The von Luschan scale was used to establish racial classifications of populations according to skin color; in this respect it is in contrast to the Fitzpatrick scale intended for the classification of the skin type of individuals introduced in 1975 by Harvard dermatologist Thomas B. Fitzpatrick to describe sun tanning behavior.[1]
The von Luschan scale was used extensively throughout the first half of the 20th century in race studies and anthropometry. However, it was considered problematic, even by its practitioners, because it was very inconsistent. In many instances, different investigators would give different readings of the same person. The von Luschan scale was largely abandoned by the early 1950s, replaced instead by methods utilizing reflectance spectrophotometry.
The following table shows the 36 categories of the von Luschan scale in relation to the six categories of the Fitzpatrick scale:[2][3]
Fitzpatrick type von Luschan scale Also called
I 0–6 Very light or white, “Celtic” type[4]
II 7–13 Light or light-skinned European[4]
III 14–20 Light intermediate, or dark-skinned European[4]
IV 21–27 Dark intermediate or “olive skin”[4]
V 28–34 Dark or “brown” type
VI 35–36 Very dark or “black” type
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Fitzpatrick TB: Soleil et peau [Sun and skin]. Journal de Médecine Esthétique 1975; 2:33-34
Jump up ^ Nina Jablonski, Michael P. Muehlenbein (ed.) (2010). Human Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge University Press. p. 177. ISBN 0521879485. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
Jump up ^ “Fitzpatrick Skin Type” (PDF). Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
^ Jump up to: a b c d these are commonly encountered names for the types, e.g. US Army “Healthy Skin Campaign” goldnbrown.co.uk, hautzone.ch etc. Archived August 15, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.

SKIN COLOR – A SCALE OF THE VARIOUS TYPES OR GRADATION OF SKIN COLOR:

von Luschan scale

I Very light or pale Often Occasionally 1–5
II Light or light-skinned Usually Sometimes 6–10
III Light intermediate Rarely Usually 11–15
IV Dark intermediate Rarely Often 16–21
V Dark or “brown” type No Sometimes darkens 22–28
VI Very dark or “black” type No Naturally black-brown skin 29–36

Sunless tanning[edit]

Main article: Sunless tanning

To avoid exposure to UVB and UVA rays, or in sunless seasons, some people take steps to appear with darkened skin. They may use sunless tanning (also known as self-tanners); stainers which are based on dihydroxyacetone (DHA); bronzers, which are simply dyes; tan accelerators, based on tyrosine and psoralens. Some people use make-up to create a tanned appearance[10] while others may get a tanned appearance by wearing tan-colored stockings or pantyhose.

Many sunless tanning products are available in the form of creams, gels, lotions, and sprays that are self-applied on the skin. Another option is the use of bronzers, which are cosmetics that provide temporary effects. There is also a professional spray-on tanning option or “tanning booth” that is offered by spas, salons, and tanning businesses.[11]

Spray tanning does not involve a color being sprayed on the body, instead it uses a colorless chemical which reacts with proteins in the top layer of the skin, resulting in a brown color. The two main active ingredients used in most sunless tanners are dihydroxyacetone and erythrulose.[citation needed] The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved the use of DHA spray tanning booths because it has not received safety data to support this specific use. DHA is a permitted color additive for cosmetic use restricted to external application. When used in a commercial spray tanning booth, areas such as the eyes, lips or mucous membrane can be exposed to the DHA, which is a non-permitted use of the product.[12]

Other agents include afamelanotide and melanotan II, which induce the production of dark dermal pigmentation (melanogenesis) without sun exposure.

Health aspects[edit]

Main article: Health effects of sunlight exposure

The most-common risk of exposure to ultraviolet radiation is sunburn, the speed and severity of which vary among individuals. This can be alleviated at least to some extent by the prior application of a suitable-strength sunscreen, which will also hinder the tanning process due to the blocking of UV light.

Overexposure to ultraviolet radiation is known to cause skin cancer,[13] make skin age and wrinkle faster,[14] mutate DNA,[15] and impair the immune system.[16] Frequent tanning bed use triples the risk of developing melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.[17] The International Agency for Research on Cancer places the use of tanning beds in the highest cancer risk category, describing them as carcinogenic to humans, if used as the manufacturer recommends. Tanning bed use under the age of 35 increases melanoma risk by 87%. In Australia, 1 in 6 melanomas in people aged 18 to 29 are caused by tanning beds, and they have been attributed to an estimated 281 new melanomas a year, 43 melanoma-related deaths, and 2,572 new cases of squamous cell carcinoma.[18]

Several tanning activators have used different forms of psoralen, which are known to be photocarcinogenic.[19][20][21] Health authorities have banned psoralen since July 1996.[22]

Treatment[edit]

Various home-made remedies are suggested to remove sun tans including lemon juice, yogurt, tomato juice, aloe vera, raw potato, cucumber juice, etc.[23][24][25]

Cultural history[edit]

See also: Human skin color § Social status, colorism and racism

La promenade (1875) by Claude Monet. End of 19th century in the upper social class, people used umbrellas, long sleeves and hats to avoid sun tanning effects.
Throughout history, tanning has gone in and out of fashion. In the United States before about the 1920s, tanned skin was associated with the lower classes, because they worked outdoors and were exposed to the sun. Women went to great lengths to preserve pallid skin, as a sign of their “refinement”.[26]

Women’s outdoor clothing styles were tailored to protect against sun exposure, with full-length sleeves, and sunbonnets and other large hats, headscarves, and parasols shielding the head. Women even went as far as to put lead-based cosmetics on their skin to artificially whiten their skin tone.[13] However, when not strictly monitored, these cosmetics caused lead poisoning. Light-skinned appearance was achieved in other ways, including the use of arsenic to whiten skin, and lightening powders. The preference for fair skin continued until the end of the Victorian era.

By the early 20th century, the therapeutic benefits of sunlight began to be recognised.[27] In 1903, Niels Finsen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his “Finsen Light Therapy”.[28] The therapy was a cure for diseases such as lupus vulgaris and rickets. Vitamin D deficiency was found to be a cause of rickets, and exposure to the sun would allow vitamin D to be produced in a person. Therefore, sun exposure was a remedy to curing several diseases, especially rickets. In 1910 a scientific expedition went to the island of Tenerife to test the wider health benefits of “heliotherapy”,[29] and by 1913 “sunbathing” was referred to as a desirable activity for the leisured class.[30]

Shortly thereafter, in the 1920s, fashion-designer Coco Chanel accidentally got sunburnt while visiting the French Riviera. When she arrived home, she arrived with a suntan and her fans apparently liked the look and started to adopt darker skin tones themselves. Tanned skin became a trend partly because of Coco’s status and the longing for her lifestyle by other members of society. In addition, Parisians fell in love with Josephine Baker, a “caramel-skinned” singer in Paris, and idolised her dark skin. These two women were leading figures of the transformation that tanned skin underwent, in which it became perceived as fashionable, healthy, and luxurious.[31][32][33] Jean Patou capitalised on the new tanning fad, launching the first suntan oil “Huile de Chaldee” in 1927.[34]

Just before the 1930s, sun therapy became a popularly subscribed cure for almost every ailment from simple fatigue to tuberculosis. In the 1940s, advertisements started appearing in women’s magazines which encouraged sun bathing. At the same time, swimsuits’ skin coverage began decreasing, with the bikini radically changing swimsuit style after it made its appearance in 1946. In the 1950s, many people used baby oil as a method to increase tanning. The first self-tanner came about in the same decade and was known as “Man-Tan,” although it often led to undesirable orange skin.[13] Coppertone, in 1953, marketed its sunscreen with a drawing of a little blond girl and her cocker spaniel tugging on her bathing suit bottoms; this is still the same advertisement used today. In the latter part of the 1950s, silver metallic UV reflectors were common to enhance one’s tan.

In 1962, sunscreen commenced to be SPF rated, although SPF labeling in the US was not standardised by the FDA until 1978. In 1971, Mattel introduced Malibu Barbie, which had tanned skin, sunglasses, and her very own bottle of sun tanning lotion. In 1978, both sunscreen with an SPF 15 rating as well as tanning beds first appeared. In 2009 there were an estimated 50,000 outlets for tanning, whereas in the 1990s there were only around 10,000.[35] The indoor tanning business was a five-billion-dollar industry in the United States in 2009.[35] The popularity of indoor tanning spawned auxiliary industries in tanning bed skin care and indoor tanning lotions including bronzers, intensifiers, and accelerators. In China, darker skin is still considered by many to be the mark of the lower classes. As recently as 2012, in some parts of China, ski masks were becoming popular items to wear at the beach in order to protect the wearer’s face from the effects of the sun.[36]

Visible tan lines are regarded by many people to be un-aesthetic and embarrassing. Many people want to avoid tan lines on those parts of the body which will be visible when they are fully clothed. Some people try to achieve an all-over tan or to maximize their tan coverage. To achieve an all-over tan, tanners need to dispense with clothing; and to maximize coverage, they need to minimize the amount of clothing they wear while tanning. For women who cannot dispense with a swimsuit, they at times tan with the back strap undone while lying on the front, or removing shoulder straps, besides wearing swimsuits which cover less area than their normal clothing. Any exposure is subject to local community standards and personal choice. Some people tan in the privacy of their backyard where they can at times tan without clothes, and some countries have set aside clothing-optional swimming areas (also known as nude beaches), where people can tan and swim clothes-free. One such beach in the United States is Mazo Beach in Mazomanie, Wisconsin. Some people tan topless, and others wear very brief swimwear, such as a microkini or thong. A 1969 innovation of tan-through swimwear[37][38][39] uses fabric perforated with thousands of micro holes that are nearly invisible to the naked eye, but which let enough sunlight through to produce a line-free tan. Tan-through swimwear typically offers protection equivalent to SPF 6 or less, and an application of sunscreen even to the covered area is recommended

RELIGION AND SCIENCE – CHRISTIANITY – COLLEGE STUDENTS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC’S CONCLUSIONS ON THE AFTERLIFE THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE, HUMANITY, AND THE WORLD AROUND US

Gallup Polls and other reliable polls indicate that the majority of college students when polled had stated their adherence to their upbringing at home, and church, and American society culture with regard to a fundamentalist literalist belief in the afterlife and and the creation of the universe and humanity as stated in Genesis 1 of the Old Testament. Embeded in my mind is that classroom lecture presented by a Columbia University professor assigned to teach college level biology to Pre=Med and Humanities freshmen. The response to his presentation of research findings and conclusions with regard to the evolutionary forms that are the origin of our body’s physical features such as our hands and arms et al. drew spirited denials from both myself and other students in the classroom who prior to the next lecture hastily compiled our reasons for disbelieving what had been presented as “scientific evidence.” Before we even opened our mouths and stated what would be our opposition that next lecture had uncannily detected exactly what would be questioned and left us stunned, as might be said, flabbergasted and set back by the strength of his argument anticipating what denials and questions we had prepared to challenge him with at the next lecture Neil Shubin is today’s counterpart of that professor. His presentation of the scientific facts with regard to the latest updated knowledge concerning the subject matter and issues involved has been described in editorials of his book The Fish in Us as follows – Readers unfamiliar with the jargon of genetic research needn’t fear; Ridley provides a quick, clear guide to the few words and concepts he must use to translate hard science into English. His writing is informal, relaxed, and playful, guiding the reader so effortlessly through our 23 chromosomes that by the end we wish we had more. He believes that the Human Genome Project will be as world-changing as the splitting of the atom; if so, he is helping us prepare for exciting times–the hope of a cure for cancer contrasts starkly with the horrors of newly empowered eugenicists. Anyone interested in the future of the body should get a head start with the clever, engrossing Genome. –Rob Lightner –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
HSoon we’ll know what’s in our genes: next year, the Human Genome Project will have its first-draft map of our 23 chromosomes. Ridley (The Red Queen; The Origins of Virtue) anticipates the genomic news with an inventively constructed, riveting exposition of what we already know about the links between DNA and human life. His inviting prose proposes “to tell the story of the human genome… chromosome by chromosome, by picking a gene from each.” That story begins with the basis of life on earth, the DNA-to-RNA-to-protein process (chapter one, “Life,” and also chromosome one); the evolution of Homo sapiens (chromosome two, which emerged in early hominids when two ape chromosomes fused); and the discovery of genetic inheritance (which came about in part thanks to the odd ailment called alkaptonuria, carried on chromosome three). Some facts about your life depend entirely on a single gene–for example, whether you’ll get the dreadful degenerative disease Huntington’s chorea, and if so, at what age (chromosome four, hence chapter four: “Fate”). But most facts about you are products of pleiotropy, “multiple effects of multiple genes,” plus the harder-to-study influences of culture and environment. (One asthma-related gene–but only one–hangs out on chromosome five.) The brilliant “whistle-stop tour of some… sites in the genome” passes through “Intelligence,” language acquisition, embryology, aging, sex and memory before arriving at two among many bugbears surrounding human genetic mapping: the uses and abuses of genetic screening, and the ongoing debate on “genetic determinism” and free will. Ridley can explain with equal verve difficult moral issues, philosophical quandaries and technical biochemistry; he distinguishes facts from opinions well, and he’s not shy about offering either. Among many recent books on genes, behavior and evolution, Ridley’s is one of the most informative. It’s also the most fun to read. Agent, Felicity Bryan.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Written in 23 chapters corresponding to the 23 pairs of chromosomes comprising the human genome, this is an engrossing account of the genetic history of our species. Each chapter focuses on a newly discovered gene on each chromosome, tracing its genetic contribution to such areas as human intelligence, personality, sexual behavior, and susceptibility to disease. Ridley (The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature) is a zoologist-turned-science writer. As the Human Genome Project nears completion (the first findings are expected to be released February 2000), this book will be particularly relevant to lay readers, providing insight into how far we have come and where we are heading in the understanding of our genetic heritage. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
-Leila Fernandez, Steacie Science Lib., York Univ., Toronto
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Scientific American
The human genome is becoming a celebrity. It already has its own fan magazines, in the form of two professional journals devoted exclusively to genome research, and its own web sites, including National Human Genome Research Institute and at the private company Celera Genomics. The unveiling of the first draft of its complete primary sequence–which Celera has promised to produce within the year–is as eagerly anticipated as the next Madonna album. Now, thanks to science writer Matt Ridley, it even has its own autobiography: Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters.
It is no surprise that Ridley, an avid proponent of the Darwinian view of the world, perceives the genome not as a cookbook or a manual but as a quintessentially historical document–a three-billion-year memoir of our species from its beginnings in the primal ooze to the present day. The first popular book written by Ridley, who has a Ph.D. in zoology and covered science for The Economist for nine years, was The Red Queen, an engrossing account of sexual selection. His second volume, The Origins of Virtue, delved into the sociobiology of good and evil. Genome continues the author’s interest in evolution and at the same time offers excursions into molecular biology, medicine and biotechnology.
Unlike many celebrity autobiographies, Genome is largely free of gossip and personal digs; for example, the vicious catfight between Francis S. Collins, leader of the government-supported Genome Project, and Craig Venter, president of Celera, is barely mentioned. Nor is it a long recitation of “disease-gene-of-the-month” discoveries, for as Ridley reminds us more than once, “Genes are not there to cause diseases.” Instead he gives us a freewheeling, eclectic, often witty tour of modern molecular biology, illustrated by picking one gene from each of our 23 chromosomes.
It is an exciting voyage. We learn about the homeobox genes, which guide the development of the entire human body from a single cell. The gene for telomerase, an enzyme that repairs the ends of frayed chromosomes, is the focus for a discussion of aging and immortality. Ethnic differences in the frequency of a particular breast cancer gene are used to describe the relations among population genetics, prehistoric migrations, and linguistic groups, while the gene for the classical ABO blood groups is the springboard for a discussion of genetic selection and drift. The book describes genes that we share with all living creatures and those that are unique to our species, genes that are essential to every cell and those that seem to serve no useful purpose at all, genes that predict disease with complete certainty and those that only tilt the scales.
Although Ridley covers a broad range of topics, his love of evolutionary psychology is evident from the number of chapters devoted to behavior. He writes about recent evidence of genetic links to memory and intelligence, personality, language and even free will. But Ridley is no genetic determinist. He sees the brain as part of a complex, interconnected system, equally influenced by genes and environment, with no one force predominant: “You are not a brain running a body by switching on hormones. Nor are you a body running a genome by switching on hormone receptors. Nor are you a genome running a brain by switching on genes that switch on hormones. You are all of these at once…. Many of the oldest arguments in psychology boil down to misconceptions of this kind. The arguments for and against ‘genetic determinism’ presuppose that the involvement of the genome places it above and beyond the body.”
Ridley includes just the right amount of history and personal anecdotes to spice up the science. He’s a good storyteller. I have read many versions of the discovery of DNA as the carrier of genetic information, from Friedrich Miescher’s extraction of pus-soaked bandages to Watson and Crick’s elucidation of the structure of the molecule, but still found Ridley’s version captivating. His capsule descriptions of some of the modern genome researchers are concise yet revealing.
It is clear that Ridley is a big fan of the Genome Project. He writes with gusto about the rapid advancement of the science, the thrill of discovery and the power of the new technology it has unleashed. But at times his enthusiasm may lead him astray. For instance, Ridley advocates that people be tested for the APOE gene that is a predictor of susceptibility to Alzheimer’s disease. His argument is that people who are genetically at risk should avoid sports such as football and boxing because of the connection between head injury and disease onset. But given that there is no true prevention or treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, it seems likely that such information would cause at least as much harm as good. For example, a person who could have become a millionaire professional athlete might instead decide to take a lower-paying job, even though he is destined to die of other causes long before Alzheimer’s would ever have set in. Or another individual who never would have played sports at all might not be able to obtain desperately needed health insurance because of his test results. Although Ridley clearly understands the scientific distinction between genetic determinism and predisposition, he sometimes fails to consider the policy implications.
At times Ridley’s enthusiasm about the science even causes him–like a devoted fan who believes every one of Madonna’s songs is perfect in every way–to gloss over potential weaknesses and inconsistencies in the evidence. For example, the “intelligence gene” and “language impairment gene” described in chapters 6 and 7 are merely statistical linkages, not actual genes, and the results have yet to be replicated by independent scientists. And the dopamine receptor gene highlighted in the chapter on personality was originally thought to be involved in thrill seeking but now appears to be more important in attention-deficit disorder.
On the other hand, Ridley’s excitement about the science has the benefit that the book is very much up-to-date, with many of the references from just the past year. And even the most speculative of his ideas is made palatable by the consistently graceful language and imaginative use of metaphors.
To biologists, the genome is simply the complete set of genes contained in our 23 pairs of chromosomes, and the Genome Project is merely a funding strategy to make sure it gets decoded. But different people have different views of the genome, just as they often do of celebrities. To advocates, it is the “Human Blueprint” or, more grandiosely, the “Book of Life.” To critics, it is a Doomsday book, full of unwanted information just waiting to be abused by unscrupulous insurers, employers, eugenicists and social Darwinists. And to Wall Street investors it is cold cash; despite negative earnings, shares in Celera have soared almost 20-fold in less than one year. But what the Genome Project really is, above all else, is a beginning–the start of a new way of doing biology, of understanding diseases, of comparing organisms, of tracing our origins and even of understanding ourselves. Genome provides a delightful introduction to all who wish to follow the career of this rising star. DEAN H. HAMER is a molecular biologist, co-author of Living with Our Genes and The Science of Desire, and chief of gene structure and regulation at the National Cancer Institute. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From The New England Journal of Medicine
We have come a long way since the public confrontation in 1860 between Bishop Samuel Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley, one of Charles Darwin’s chief advocates. When the bishop asked him whether apes were on his grandmother’s or grandfather’s side, Huxley snapped that he would prefer an ape to a man who “introduces ridicule into a grave scientific discussion” (Adrian Desmond. Huxley. Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1997). In his latest discourse on evolution, Genome, Matt Ridley, a fluent science writer, points out that “we are, to a ninety-eight per cent approximation, chimpanzees, and they are, with ninety-eight per cent confidence limits, human beings.” Yet in August 1999, the Kansas Board of Education voted to delete any mention of evolution from the science curriculum of the public schools in its jurisdiction. This act of political flimflam denies Kansas students not only the right to think for themselves but also the ennobling awareness of the fundamental unity of all living creatures. Ridley says it well: “Wherever you go in the world, whatever animal, plant, bug or blob you look at, if it is alive, it will use the same dictionary and know the same code. All life is one.” How unfortunate that students in Kansas cannot share Ridley’s enthusiasm for life.
Genome is a gambol through the 23 human chromosomes. It is not a catalogue of the 80,000 or so genes that wind around beads of histones to form chromatin, the stuff of chromosomes. Instead, Ridley samples one or two genes from each chromosome, selecting them to form a base from which he can wander freely into realms of biology and medicine that reach from the Prader-Willi and Angelman syndromes (for an essay on genetic imprinting) to why Mediterranean people eat cheese (Ridley will tell you). In Genome you will find essays on, among many topics, alkaptonuria, asthma, Huntington’s chorea, the immune system, eugenics, and cancer. The emphasis is not so much on the genome as on evolution and natural selection, especially on how we became the way we are in form, thought, and behavior.
Ridley is a personal guide through the thickets of complex biologic systems. He addresses you directly (“Are you still with me?” punctuates a story about the role of serotonin in anxiety and depression). He is enthusiastic (“Mock my zeal if you wish”), and he challenges (“Once you start thinking in selfish-gene terms, some truly devious ideas pop into your head”). Above all, he speculates — sometimes soberly, sometimes wildly, but never boringly. Ridley’s musings can reach ethereal heights, only to be caught in a downdraft of fact. There is little or no jargon, which is fine, but also none of the equivocation that glues us to reality — readers will not often encounter “perhaps,” “might,” and “maybe.” A typical pronouncement: “Freudian theory fell the moment lithium first cured a manic depressive, where twenty years of psychoanalysis had failed.” Perhaps. Or “products of the chemical industry, may be responsible for… the falling sperm counts of modern men.” The evidence of “falling sperm counts” is tenuous, at best. And this: “Natural selection is the process by which genes change their sequences.” Surely Ridley means “mutation” and not “natural selection.” And Ridley’s speculation about why some of us are milk drinkers and others cheese eaters veers dangerously toward the ideas of Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, who ruined Russian agriculture with his cockamamie theory that acquired characteristics can be inherited.
Even so, Genome is instructive, challenging, and fun to read. I envy Ridley’s talent for presenting, without condescension, complex sets of facts and ideas in terms comprehensible to outsiders. His chapter on Huntington’s chorea is a masterly plain-English exposition that any writer of scientific papers could take as a model. Ridley’s enthusiasm is so high that it is best to keep the book on your night table. Read a chapter a night.
Robert S. Schwartz, M.D.
Copyright © 2000 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
A rare event: a scientific paradigm shift going on in our own time, lucidly explained. Since the discovery of DNA’s symmetrical structure by Watson and Crick in 1953, life scientists have decoded much of the human genome, the digitally sequenced software of life consisting of thousands of genes, which in turn consist in total of a billion “words” of three-letter combinations, housed in 23 pairs of chromosomes. Molecular biologists anticipate that the first rough draft of the genome will be complete in 2000 and that a more detailed copy will be ready a few years later. Ridley (The Origins of Virtue, 1997, etc.), a former editor of The Economist, deftly takes up the story of the genome in 23 chapters. In clear, entertaining prose, but without dumbing down the subject for nonscientists, he uses each chapter to explore one effect of distinct genes, and the information they carry, on an important aspect of human lifethe origins and history of our species, aging, intelligence, personality, sexual behavior, disease, memory, and death. It is startling to learn that some of our genes date from a time when our ancestors were fish or primates, that we are genetically almost identical to chimpanzees, that genes are engaged in combat with one another, that behavior and genes may shape each other, and that genetic combinations may predispose an individual to homosexuality, Alzheimer’s disease, or criminality. But even more amazing are the applications of this knowledge for any discipline that takes mankind as its subject. Ridley notes that molecular biology has already revolutionized cancer research, helped to trace the migrations of peoples, and raised resonant questions for philosophers and policymakers alike. Eminently readable, compelling, and important. (Print satellite tour) — Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
?Remarkable. . . . Hops from one human chromosome to the next in search of the most delightful stories.?
–“New York Times Book Review
?A fascinating tour of the human genome. . . . If you want to catch a glimpse of the biotech century that is now dawning, and how it will make life better for us all, Genome is an excellent place to start.?
–“Wall Street Journal
?A superb writer whose exquisite, often moving descriptions of life’s designs remind me of the best work of the late Lewis Thomas. . . . He crafts some of the clearest explanations of complex biological processes that I have encountered. What’s more, he captures their slippery beauty.?
— Susan Okie, “Washington Post Book World
?Ridley is a lucid, engaging and enthusiastic guide to the double-helical DNA that comprises our inheritable human essence.?
— “Los Angeles Times Book Review
?Ridley can explain with equal verve difficult moral issues, philosophical quandaries and technical biochemistry; he distinguishes facts from opinions well, and he’s not shy about offering either. Among many recent books on genes, behavior and evolution, Ridley’s is one of the most informative. It’s also the most fun to read.?
–“Publishers Weekly (starredreview)
?Superb popular science writing and cogent public affairs argumentation.?
–“Booklist (starred review)
?An engrossing account of the genetic history of our species. . . . This book will be particularly relevant to lay readers, providing insight into how far we have come and where we are heading in the understanding of our genetic heritage.?
–“Library Journal
?Ridley . . . deftly takes up the story of the genome in 23 chapters in clear entertaining prose. Eminently readable, compelling and important.?
–“Kirkus Reviews
?A lucid and exhilarating romp through our 23 human chromosomes that lets us see how nature and nature combine to make us human.?
–James Watson
?With riveting anecdotes, clever analogies and compelling writing, Matt Ridley makes the human genome come alive for us. I was left in awe at the wonder of the human body, and the scientists who unravel its mysteries.?
–Abraham Verghese, author of ” The Tennis Partner
?Clever, up-to-the-minute informative, and an altogether spellbinding read. Ridley does just what a first-rate journalist should do: get it right, make in interesting, then wisely put it all in perspective.?
–SarahHardy, author of ” Mother Nature
?”Genome is a tour de force: clear, witty, timely and informed by an intelligence that sees new knowledge as a blessing and not a curse. . . . A cracking read.?
–“Times (of London)
?Matt Ridley’s brilliant new book is eloquent and up-to-date. . . . A much needed breath of fresh air.?
–“Daily Telegraph
?Compelling. . . . Spectacular. . . . This is one of those rare books in which the intellectual excitement continues to rise from what already seems an almost impossibly high plateau. . . . Not even the scientifically purblind will fail to perceive the momentous nature of the issues he raises.?
–“Spectator
? A dazzling work of popular science, offering clarity and inspiration. . . . Witty erudition.?
–“Guardian
?Erudition, intriguing sequences of anecdotes and . . . stylish prose. The combination has resulted in the best popular science book I have read this year, a worthy autobiography of mankind.?
–“Observer
?An exciting voyage . . . very much up-to-date . . . Ridley includes just the right amount of history and personal anecdote to spice up science. He’s a good storyteller.?
— “ScientificAmerican
?An extraordinarily nimble synthesist, Ridley leaps from chromosome to chromosome in a handy summation of our ever increasing understanding of the roles that genes play in disease, behavior, sexual differences, and even intelligence. More important, though, he addresses not only the ethical quandaries faced by contemporary scientists but the reductionist danger in equating inheritability with inevitability.?
— “The New Yorker
?Matt Ridley [writes] with a combination of biblical awe, scientific curiosity and wit about what many consider the greatest scientific breakthrough of the 20th century and the greatest technological challenge of the 21st: the discovery of the molecular basis of life and its many applications in medicine, law, and commerce.?
— “Dallas Morning News
?Thoroughly fascinating. . . . A sophisticated blending of science and public policy certain to educate, entertain, challenge and stimulate even the least technologically inclined reader.?
–“Philadephia Inquirer
?Lively phrasing and vivid analogies . . . I gained an appreciation for the incredible complexity of human beings.?
–“Minneapolis Star-Tribune
?With skillful writing and masterful knowledge of his subject matter, Ridley conveys a wealth of information about what we currentlyknow, or think we know, about the human genome?No well-educated person can afford to remain ignorant of this advancing science. GENOME provides a sound and engaging introduction.?
–Austin American-Statesman
About the Author
Matt Ridley is the award-winning, bestselling author of several books, including The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves; Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters; and The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature. His books have sold more than one million copies in thirty languages worldwide. He writes regularly for The Times (London) and The Wall Street Journal, and is a member of the House of Lords. He lives in England.
From The Washington Post
A superb writer whose exquisite, often moving descriptions of life’s designs remind me of the best work of the late Lewis Thomas. . . . He crafts some of the clearest explanations of complex biological processes that I have encountered. What’s more, he captures their slippery beauty. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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December 8, 2014 at 4:52pm

We all know the Darwin fish, the car-bumper send-up of the Christian “ichthys” symbol, or Jesus fish.
Unlike the Christian symbol, the Darwin fish has, you know, legs. Har har.

But the Darwin fish isn’t merely a clever joke; in effect, it contains a testable scientific prediction. If evolution is true, and if life on Earth originated in water, then there must have once been fish species possessing primitive limbs, which enabled them to spend some part of their lives on land.

And these species, in turn, must be the ancestors of four-limbed, land-living vertebrates like us.
SURE ENOUGH, IN 2004, SCIENTISTS FOUND ONE OF THOSE TRANSITIONAL SPECIES: TIKTAALIK ROSEAE, A 375 MILLION-YEAR-OLD DEVONIAN PERIOD SPECIMEN DISCOVERED IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC BY PALEONTOLOGIST NEIL SHUBIN AND HIS COLLEAGUES.

TIKTAALIK, EXPLAINS SHUBIN ON THE LATEST EPISODE OF THE INQUIRING MINDS PODCAST, IS AN “ANATOMICAL MIX BETWEEN FISH AND A LAND-LIVING ANIMAL.” –

This fish crawled out of the water… AND INTO CREATIONISTS’ NIGHTMARES

Some 375 million years ago, Tiktaalik emerged onto land.
TODAY, EXPLAINS PALEONTOLOGIST NEIL SHUBIN, WE’RE ALL WALKING AROUND IN MODIFIED FISH BODIES.

NOTE: When a member of this website posted this … I considered it a kind of mockery of evolution and written by someone with a limited knowledge of evolution. Since then I have discovered it is an authentic archaeological discovery … you can go to the Museum where it is kept and look at it with your own eyes and touch it if they would let you!

Neil Shubin has written a very comprehensive book detailing his life as a palaeontologist and some of the very significant discoveries made in his classes in which he taught first year medical students in the dissembling of not animal but donated human bodies and his and their experiences in doing so with regard to what they discovered by the original functioning in what form at what time and the gradual evolution into human hands, forearms, upper arms, chest organs, stomach organs, and of course vertebrae, the neural system of the head and the human body’s intricate nervous system that allows movements of the head, eyes, arms and hands.
It is available in Amazon.com Kindle book and believe me when I say it is the most understandable, written for the public, in terms that the general public can understand, and with many examples, drawings, photograps and other graphic illustrations to help explain the details given by Dr Neil Shubin.
It’s better than the “twilight zone,” “science-fiction,” and “watching the little girl and or Michael Jackson skipping down the yellow brick road” ! … Check it out for yourself! It is a fascinating experience for for those who haven’t been accustomed to reading and trying to understand the scientific origins of life, the universe. and the world around us!

SCIENCE AND RELIGION – CHRISTIANITY – NEIL SHUBIN THE FISH IN US – FROM THE SEA TO THE LAND TO HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS -ANIMAL CULTURE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR – HUMAN CULTURE HUMAN BEHAVIOR – NEAREST HUMAN DNA RELATIVE – CHIMPANZEES – TERRITORY -RECENT TERRITORIAL ISIS ATTACKS

HUMAN CULTURE HUMAN BEHAVIOR – NEAREST HUMAN DNA RELATIVE – CHIMPANZEES – TERRITORY -RECENT TERRITORIAL ISIS ATTACKS

Creation of the Universe and Humanity – Neil Shubin – The Fish in Us – From the Sea to the Land to Homo sapiens sapiens!
Neil Shubin stated: “We all know the Darwin fish, the car-bumper send-up of the Christian “ichthys” symbol, or Jesus fish.
Unlike the Christian symbol, the Darwin fish has, you know, legs. Har har.

But the Darwin fish isn’t merely a clever joke; in effect, it contains a testable scientific prediction. If evolution is true, and if life on Earth originated in water, then there must have once been fish species possessing primitive limbs, which enabled them to spend some part of their lives on land.

And these species, in turn, must be the ancestors of four-limbed, land-living vertebrates like us.
SURE ENOUGH, IN 2004, SCIENTISTS FOUND ONE OF THOSE TRANSITIONAL SPECIES: TIKTAALIK ROSEAE, A 375 MILLION-YEAR-OLD DEVONIAN PERIOD SPECIMEN DISCOVERED IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC BY PALEONTOLOGIST NEIL SHUBIN AND HIS COLLEAGUES.

TIKTAALIK, EXPLAINS SHUBIN ON THE LATEST EPISODE OF THE INQUIRING MINDS PODCAST, IS AN “ANATOMICAL MIX BETWEEN FISH AND A LAND-LIVING ANIMAL.” –

This fish crawled out of the water… AND INTO CREATIONISTS’ NIGHTMARES

Some 375 million years ago, Tiktaalik emerged onto land.
TODAY, EXPLAINS PALEONTOLOGIST NEIL SHUBIN, WE’RE ALL WALKING AROUND IN MODIFIED FISH BODIES.

SUMMARY: When a member of this website posted this … I considered it a kind of mockery of evolution and written by someone with a limited knowledge of evolution. Since then I have discovered it is an authentic archaeological discovery … you can go to the Museum where it is kept and look at it with your own eyes and touch it if they would let you!

Neil Shubin has written a very comprehensive book detailing his life as a palaeontologist and some of the very significant discoveries made in his classes in which he taught first year medical students in the dissembling of not animal but donated human bodies and his and their experiences in doing so with regard to what they discovered by the original functioning in what form at what time and the gradual evolution into human hands, forearms, upper arms, chest organs, stomach organs, and of course vertebrae, the neural system of the head and the human body’s intricate nervous system that allows movements of the head, eyes, arms and hands.
It is available in Amazon.com Kindle book and believe me when I say it is the most understandable, written for the public, in terms that the general public can understand, and with many examples, drawings, photograps and other graphic illustrations to help explain the details given by Dr Neil Shubin.
It’s better than the “twilight zone,” “science-fiction,” and “watching the little girl and or Michael Jackson skipping down the yellow brick road” ! … Check it out for yourself! It is a fascinating experience for for those who haven’t been accustomed to reading and trying to understand the scientific origins of life and the universe. ”

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CHIMPANZEES – TERRITORY – “Lewis/Corbis
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Monday 21 June 2010 12.03 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 10 February 2016 10.39 EST
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Gangs of chimpanzees carry out violent attacks on individuals from rival groups in order to secure more resources or mates, a 10-year study in Uganda has found.

During that time scientists recorded 18 attacks and found signs of three others carried out by a large, male-dominated community of chimpanzees at Ngogo in Kibale National Park.

In summer last year, the aggressor chimpanzees finally began to occupy the area where two-thirds of their attacks had occurred, expanding their territory by more than a fifth.

According to the scientists, led by John Mitani, a primate behavioural ecologist at the University of Michigan, the chimps then travelled, socialised and ate in the new territory.

“When they started to move into this area, it didn’t take much time to realise that they had killed a lot of other chimpanzees there,” said Mitani. “Our observations help to resolve long-standing questions about the function of lethal intergroup aggression in chimpanzees.”

The findings are published today in the journal Current Biology.

Anthropologists have long suspected that chimpanzees, humans’ closest living relatives, kill neighbours for land, but they have lacked any hard evidence until now.

Sylvia Amsler, an anthropologist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a member of the research team, said that the attacks usually occured when the chimpanzees were on routine boundary patrols in neighbouring teritory. In one attack that she witnessed, 27 adult and adolescent males and one adult female had been on patrol outside their territory for more than two hours when they surprised a small group of females from a nearby community.

“Almost immediately upon making contact, the adult males in the patrol party began attacking the unknown females, two of whom were carrying dependent infants,” she said.

The Ngogo party quickly killed one of the infants and fought for 30 minutes to wrest the other from its mother, but were unsuccessful. After an hour-long break, during which time they held the female and her infant captive, they carried on with their attack. “Though they were never successful in grabbing the infant from its mother, the infant was obviously very badly injured, and we don’t believe it could have survived,” said Amsler.

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Despite their decade of observations, the researchers said they were still not sure if the objective of the attacks had been more resources or more mates.

Mitani warns against using the research to draw conclusions about warfare among humans, instead arguing that his study provides insights into primate teamwork. “Warfare in the human sense occurs for lots of different reasons. I’m just not convinced we’re talking about the same thing.”

He added: “What we’ve done at the end of our paper is to turn the issue on its head by suggesting our results might provide some insight into why we as a species are so unusually cooperative. The lethal intergroup aggression that we have witnessed is cooperative in nature, insofar as it involves coalitions of males attacking others. In the process, our chimpanzees have acquired more land and resources that are then redistributed to others in the group.”

FRANCE – ISLAMIC JIHADIST ISSIS IS GETTING SMARTER AND SMARTER … don’t need educated, intelligent, military trained and dedicated ISIS military to carry out its mission! Beware of slow ilfiltration and use of supporters already living in the U.S. whatever their mental state , you idealistic democratic European descendant liberals and progressives … if you want America and democracy versus theological government to endure and survive

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/07/15/is-the-u-s-vulnerable-to-a-nice-style-attack-were-on-alert-every-day/?utm_term=.7ffcf89e0e22

BERNIE SANDERS – FIRST JEWISH PRESIDENT – FIRST JEWISH VICE PRESIDENT -HIS JEWISH /JUDAIC FAITH – BERNIE SANDERS ASSOCIATED WITH REFORM JUDAISM

REFORM JUDAISM –
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interior of Congregation Emanu-El of New York, the largest Reform synagogue in the world.
Part of a series on
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Category: Jews and Judaism

Reform Judaism (also known as Liberal Judaism or Progressive Judaism) is a major denomination within Judaism, which emphasizes the evolving nature of the religion, the superiority of its ethical aspects compared to the ceremonial ones, and a belief in a continuous revelation not centered on the theophany at Mount Sinai. It is characterized by a lesser stress on ritual and personal observance, regarding Jewish Law as of basically non-binding nature, and great openness to external influences and progressive values. The origins of Reform Judaism lay in 19th-century Germany, where its early principles were formulated by Rabbi Abraham Geiger … – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – NATHAN AUSBEL – The Book of Jewish Knowledge: an Encyclopedia of Judaism and the Jewish People, Covering All Elements of Jewish Life from Biblical Times to the Present by Nathan Ausubel (Crown Publishers, Inc: New York), 1964

NATHAN AUSBEL on the dedication page paid homage to his “elders” – his parents:

“To the Memory of my father and mother … Gentile People who in a world of dross and tumult
walked beside the still waters. The Example of their own devout lives taught me the urgency of
finding a motivation for my own. The ethical and spiritual truths i learned from them I have
entered in this, their book. May these truths drawn from the accumulated wisdom and humanity
of the Jewish People find their continuity in the lives of others! Selah.

In the Foreward he stated:

The learned Jews of ancient times showed no less dedication in their pursuit of knowledge THAN THE SCHOLAR PRIENTS OF EGYPT, the Magi of Persia, the Pundits of India, and the Philosophers of Greece. NONETHELESS, THEY GAVE IT A MARKEDLY DIFFERENT EMPHASIS. IN THAT EMPHASIS, NO DOUBT, LAY THE INDIVIDUALITY OF TRADITIONAL JEWISH CULTURE. EACH PEOPLE IN THE FAMILY OF MANKIND PLAYS, AS IT WERE, A DIFFERENT INSTRUMENT IN THE ORCHESTRA OF CIVILIZATION, CONTRIBUTING WITH ITS SYSTEM OF CULTURAL VALUES ITS OWN CHARACTERISTIC TONE, TIMBRE, AND COLOR TO THE TOTAL ENSEMBLE.
…

The great masses of the people, even in republican Athens, during the memorable days of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Euripides, were kept suppressed and illiterate, IN LINE WITH THE ANTISOCIAL PHILOSOPHY OF SLAVOCRACIES IN WHICH THE COMMON PEOPLE WERE LOOKED DOWN UPON AS MERE CHATTELS OR BEASTS OF BURDEN. It was different with the Jews. The pursuit of learningBespecially Torah LearningBwas highly revered among the Jews during the Second Temple Period; it has been elevated to an exalted form of religious worship by Ezra the Scribe about the Year 444 B.C.E. The obligation to study perpetually the precepts, laws, and teachings contained in the scriptures had evolved in time into a religious-national dedication. The internal conditions and social organization of Jewish community life made it possible for even the poorest and the humblest to acquire at least some learning; Many of the most illustrious of RABBINIC SAGES, LIKE HILLEL AND AKIBA , sprang from the common people. It is, therefore, not to be wondered at that, in the democratric and ethical climate of Jewish community life (in which all men, at least theoretically, stood equal), illiteracy and ignorance were scorned because they prevented the individual from acquiring an adequate knowledge of the religious-cultural heritage of Israel. – – – – – – – – – – – – – — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
[NOTE; Despite his liberal and progressive perspective Nathan Ausubel believed in the “genuius of Moses” …. stating:
“But it remained for the genius Moses the liberator and of those inspired tormentors of Israel=s conscience, the defenders of the poor and weak against their oppressors the Prophets Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Micah, and JerimiahBto evolve a new conception of the one god: one that was moral and just and girt with holiness. From this Hitherto Unprecedented Idea Developed a New Ethos in Which Ideas and Sentiments of Humanity, Brotherly Love, Mutual Aid, and Social Responsibility Predominated. It Was a New Light Intended to Lead Mankind out of the Pathless Jungle of Animism, Cruelty, Greed, and War. (Emphsis Added)
AIndeed, it Was an Awesome Design of Man’ s Untapped Potential for Food and for Self-perfection, His Optimism Remained, Despite the Fact That During Several Cultural Periods in Jewish Life THE PURE VISION OF MOSES, THE PROPHETS, AND THE RABBINIC SAGES SUDDENLY DARKENED THE AND WAS DISTORTED BY A GENERAL SLIDING BACK INTO – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – SUPERSTITUTION AND FANATICISM . – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – The Fundamentalists Wished the People to Exchange the Rational for the Irrational, the Spiritual and Ethical Content of Religion FOR THE MERELY TRIVIAL AND THE FORMALISTIC. The Gentle Philosopher of Amsterdam, SPINOZA HIMSELF DRIVEN OUT OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY BY THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS FANATICS FOR THE UNFORGIVEABLE CRIME OF THINKING HONESTLY AND FOR NOT CONFORMING, Mused Bitterly in His Essay “On Superstition” over the Ironic Condition of Man: “The Multitude, Ever Prone to Superstition and Caring More for the Shreds of Antiquity than for Eternal Truths,” Pays Homage to the Books of the Bible, Rather than to the Word of God The Generality of Men, the Philosopher Seemed to Suggest, Do the Very Opposite of That Which Would Serve Their Best Interets: THEY THROW AWAY THE KERNEL AND KEEP THE CHAFF.
… The Late Edward Sapir, THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST WHO HIMSELF SEEMS NOT TO HAVE HAD ANY FORMAL AFFILIATIONS WITH THE JEWISH RELIGION AND WHO DEMONSTRATED ONLY THE SCIENTIFIC HUMANIST’S IMPARTIAL INTERESTIN JEWISH CULTURE, AND WHO APPEARS NOT TO HAVE PARTICIPATED IN ANY ORGANIZED ASPECT OF JEWISH COMMUNITY LIFE, Still Became Intrigued by the Irony of this Psychological Phenomenon:
“EVEN THE MOST SOPHISTICATED JEW IS PROUD OF AT LEAST TWO THINGS. While He May Have No Personal Use for a Savior, it Pleases Him to Think That His Ancestors Gave One to Christendom; and Though Comfort and Enlightenment May Long Have Disabused Him of the Necessity of a God, He Takes Satisfaction in the Thought That His Remoter Ancestors Invented the Purest Kind of a God That We Have Record Of: the God of Monotheism. Such a Jew Has One of the Keenest of Known Pleasures Which May Be Defined as the Art of Endowing Others with a Priceless Boon That One Finds Is More Convenient to Dispense with for One=s Own Part.=

While it Is Patently True That, in the Past, the Principles and Practices of the Jewish Religion Were Primarily Keyed to the Traditional Theocratic ;Hilosophy of Jewish Life, in More Modern Times an Ever Increasing Number of Jews, Both Knowledgeable and Cultured, No Matter What the Extent of Their Affiliation with Judaism Might Be, Have Been Actively Pursuing Non-jewish InteretsBinterests Based on Scientific and Purely Secularistic Premises and Goals. Such, after All, Do Represent the Major Cultural Characteristic of Twentieth-century Civilization in Which Jews Are Playing an Undeniably Important Role.@
The Author=s (Nathan Ausubel=s) Note to the Reader:
A … Wherever Possible, I Have Sought to Present Different Points of View and Evaluations So That the Open-minded Reader Would Be Able the Better to Draw from Them His Own Conclusions. … In All Conscience, as a Serious Popularizer of Jewish Knowledge, I Could Not Bypass the Necessity of Probing for Insights, Both for the Reader=s Enlightenment and for My Own, into the Dynamics of Judaism, Jewish Life, and Culture. …
Section: The Bible – The Wisdom Books:
A More earthy kind of poetry than the hortatory verse of the prophets or the threnodies to God of the Psalmists is found in the Biblical Writings called “Wisdom Books”: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. They are composed in pithy verse, and at least the first two works are marked by much sophistication, worldliness, and a skepticism that is in equal measure mellow and ironic. For their time, these writings were considered intellectually challenging. Read in the light of our day, they appear to be steeped in a kind of aristocratic weltschmerzBa twilight mood of world-weariness and disenchantment with life.
The writers of Proverbs and EcclesiastesBpresumably upper-class Jews belonging to the Sadducean religious -political party of the Second Temple PeriodButter with aplomb the most astonishing heresies. Among these is the Sadducean disbelief in the immortality of the soul and in the world-to-come two subjects of bitter controversy that engaged in rebuttal all the passions and dialectical skill of the rival Pharisees. – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Ecclesiastes, for example, IS COLORED BY THE HEDONISTIC VIEWS OF THE GREEK EPICUREAN PHILOSOPY, It preaches a resignation to life and a quietism in all of its affairs. It also advances a raisonné for the full enjoyment of the life of the senses since the grave is man=s cold destination. This is a point of view hardly consonant with the puritanism that is traditional in Jewish life and with the moral significance it endows human strivings.
… All the advanced near eastern and middle eastern neighbors of Israel, Such as the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians, created >wisdom literatures of their own. (Emphasis Added) … Already, at the end of the third millennium B.C.E.., the Babylonians boasted a Book of ProverbsB>A Wise Book=Bto teach right and profitable conduct. … Other Babylonian compositions of this type, perhaps also more ancient in origin than the Jewish, Were: the Pessimistic Dialogue Between a Master and a Slave, and the Complaint of a Wise Man on the Injustice of the World.
AThe Egyptian Priest-scibes, too, were wholeheartedly dedicated to the pursuit of wisdom. They produced books of proverbs and epigrams almost four thousand years ago. The best-known, believed to have been written sometimes during the tenth to seventh centuries B.C.E. was the Teaching of Amenemope. This celebrated work shows striking similarities to the Hebrew Book of Proverbs. [Nathan Ausubel, The Book of Jewish Knowledge: 1964]
========================================
Robert Graves & Raphael Patai, in Hebrew Myths: Stories of Cosmic Forces, Deities, Angels, Demons, Monsters, Giants and Heroes – Interpreted in the Light of Modern Anthropology and Mythology (Anchor Books: Doubleday: New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Auckland, Australia), 1963, 1964, pp. 226-227, indicated:
The Book of Deuteronomy, published under Josiah, bans numerous Canaanite rites, among them ritual Prostitution, ritual sodomy, and all forms of idolatry.- – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – GENESIS, WHICH IS FAR MORE CLOSELLLY LINKED WITH GREEK, PHOENICIAN, HITTITE,UGARITIC, SUMERIAN, AND OTHER BOEIES OF MYTH THAN MOST PIOUS JEWS AND CHRISTIANS CARE TO ADMIT, WAS EDITED AND RE-EDITED FROM PERHAPS THE 6TH CENTURY B.C. ONWARDS, FOR MORALISTIC ENDS. (i.e
Isaac Asimov, Asimov;s Guide to the Bible: the Old and New Testaments (Avenel Books: New York), 1981 – – – – – – – — – — – – – – – – – – — – – – – – – –
REFORM JUDAISM: Its greatest center today is in North America. … – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – ” – WHAT TYPE OF JEWISH BELIEF IS SENATOR SANDERS ASSOCIATED WITH? – SENATOR SANDERS WITH A DIVORCED ROMAN CATHOLIC WIFE … “Is America ready for a Jewish president?
Bernie Sanders does not play up his Jewish faith the way Hillary Clinton plays up her gender. Associated Press

WHEN BERNIE Sanders won the New Hampshire primary, he became the first Jew to win a major party presidential primary – the first to even win delegates.

But how Jewish is he? Who even knows he’s Jewish? Will it matter that he’s Jewish?

In the recent Milwaukee debate, when asked how he felt about possibly “thwarting history” by blocking the path of the first woman president, Sanders replied enigmatically that, “from a historical point of view, somebody with my background, somebody with my views” would also be a first. Not exactly playing the Hebrew National card.

Hillary Clinton makes frequent mention of gender in her candidacy. Sanders never volunteers anything about his religion, and reluctantly replies to those questions. Is it personal, tactical, or practical?

Two of the three previous Jewish candidates for president – Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter in 1995 and Pennsylvania Gov. Milton Shapp in 1976 – were early flameouts, probably more because of policy and personality than religion. The same for Joe Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew who ran briefly in 2004. (Shapp, however, told friends he doubted he would have been elected governor under his obviously Jewish birth name, Shapiro, which he changed while in business to avoid prejudice.)

One person of Jewish ancestry was nominated: In 1964, Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater got the Republican nod. Goldwater’s father was Jewish, but the conservative senator was raised Christian. At the time, Jewish journalist Harry Golden quipped, “I always knew the first Jewish president would be an Episcopalian.”

In the ’90s, as a rising-star big-city mayor, Ed Rendell brushed off questions about presidential ambitions, saying he wasn’t interested. He added, “Besides, I’m Jewish.”

“Ed always said, ‘I’m a Jew from Pennsylvania. It didn’t work out for Shapp and Specter,’ ” political strategist Neil Oxman told me.

As chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2000, Rendell said Al Gore’s selection of Lieberman as a vice presidential candidate was “bold and courageous,” but also risky.

“I don’t think anyone can calculate the effect of having a Jew on the ticket,” Rendell said. “If Joe Lieberman were Episcopalian, it would be a slam-dunk.”

Have things changed since then?

Rendell said they have. “If I were 15 years younger, and Hillary wasn’t in the race, I think I would run and I wouldn’t feel any compunction about it,” said Rendell, who is not religious.

It was a little different with Lieberman, a religious Jew who didn’t work on Saturdays. “Bernie is much more like me,” Rendell said. “Lapsed.”

I doubt that most Americans know that Sanders, 74, is Jewish. If he manages to win the nomination, or gets really close, someone will tell them. And not in a helpful way.

I’m not even sure most Jews know that Sanders is Jewish. Local political consultant Larry Ceisler, who is Jewish, told me, laughing: “I never thought of him as one, but I do know he’s from Brooklyn.” Ceisler doubts that most Americans know Sanders is Jewish.

I’m not sure even Sanders knows he is Jewish.

Let me explain.

When talking about his upbringing, he always says that his father, Eli, was an immigrant from Poland, but rarely mentions that most of Eli’s family perished in the Holocaust.

Some candidates brag on their bio, but Sanders is usually clam-tight about his personal life. We know he attended Hebrew school as a youth and became a bar mitzvah in 1954. On the campaign trail, he avoids talking about religion.

Often wrongly described as cranky, which is ageist and inaccurate, Sanders wants to be an “issues” guy and can be gruff when someone tries to inject what he regards as frivolities. (Personal disclosure: My daughter is a volunteer field organizer for Sanders in Massachusetts.)

When pressed, Sanders says he is Jewish, secular, not particularly religious. His second wife, Jane, is a divorced Catholic and, yes, they did honeymoon in the Soviet Union. (He was working on setting up a Sister City in Russia for Burlington, where he was the mayor.)

Richard Sugarman, an Orthodox Jew who teaches religious studies at the University of Vermont, was quoted in the New Yorker as saying that Sanders’ connection to Judaism is “more ethnic and cultural than religious.”

With his first wife, Sanders volunteered on Kibbutz Sha’ar HaAmakim, a collective farm in northern Israel. He doesn’t talk about that, either. It was in the ’60s and was a good fit because Israel was then largely socialist. He has not visited Israel since. It would be less comfortable now because Israel has developed a vibrant free-market economy. Sanders might not like that, nor the current conservative government.

I suspect that socialism is more his religion than Judaism, as was the case for my Jewish, socialist, Brooklyn-born father.

Tikkun olam, which means “repair the world” in Hebrew, is a concept that has come to mean that Jews are responsible not just for their own moral, material and spiritual welfare, but for the welfare of society at large. “Repairing the world” seems to be what animates Sanders.

His oratory has been likened to that of a biblical prophet, pointing at the sky and pounding the table when thundering about unequal wealth distribution, criminal justice, health care and education, campaign financing, climate change – his unruly white hair exploding above a face red with indignation. Remove the wire-frame glasses, add a beard and a staff, and you have Moses. Can this Moses reach the promised land of the White House?

I mean, can we have a Jewish president?

The open bias against Jews that existed in the United States through most of the 20th century – keeping them out of some communities, clubs, careers, colleges – has vanished from public view, although some lingering, low-level anti-Semitism exists and probably always will.

However LAST SUMMER A GALLUP POLL REPORTED THAT 91 PERCENT OF AMERICANS SAID THEY WOULD VOTE FOR A JEWISH PRESIDENT That’s higher than those who said they would vote for a Mormon (81 percent), an evangelical Christian (73 percent), a Muslim (60 percent) or an atheist (58 percent). That sounds good, but I suspect the numbers are biased to the positive because most people won’t admit to their biases.

As to the Jewish vote in the general election, either Sanders or Clinton can count on – to borrow a word from Donald Trump – a huuuuge majority of the Jewish vote. The bulk of American Jewry is a subsidiary of the Democratic Party, with John F. Kennedy winning 82 percent of them in 1960. Only Jimmy Carter received less than half, 45 percent, in his 1980 reelection bid – but that was still more than the 41 percent of the total vote Carter received.

The Jewish love affair with the Democratic Party began with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who appointed so many Jews to government posts that his New Deal was called the “Jew Deal” by bigots (some of whom insisted that FDR was Jewish. He was not.).

A Democratic candidate, Jew or gentile, can count on the bulk of the Jewish vote, but Jews are only 2 percent of the population.

Does being Jewish prevent Sanders from being elected?

My Jew crew doesn’t think so.

Strategist Oxman, a secular Jew, said, “if Sanders does not win the nomination, less than 1 percent of it would be that he’s a Jew.”

Oxman, a Hillary supporter, said Clinton will win the nomination because she has the establishment on her side and because Sanders is a socialist, a term that most Americans find creepy.

Forget Jewish, “he’s out of the mainstream,” said Ceisler, another Clinton supporter. “It doesn’t matter what the question is, the answer is always blame the millionaires and the rigged system.”

The socialist label, Rendell said, is “a 50 times bigger problem” than his faith.

The days of Jews being barred from the White House are gone, Oxman said.

“Some people from the South, they might vote against him more because he’s from New York than that he’s Jewish,” Oxman said.

Sanders is from New York. That may matter.

He’s a socialist. That will matter.

He’s Jewish. That may not matter – even after Americans find out.- “Sanders did say that two aspects of his upbringing had exerted a lasting influence. One was coming from a family that never had much money. And the other was growing up Jewish — less for the religious content than for the sense it imbued in him that politics mattered. Sanders’ father was a Polish Jew who, at the age of 17, came to America shortly after his brother, and struggled through the Depression in Brooklyn …
“Sid Ganis, a Hollywood producer who grew up in the same building as Sanders, described their neighborhood as an enclave of ‘ordinary secular Jews,’ adding, ‘Some of us went to Hebrew school, but mainly it was an identity in that it got us out of school on Jewish holidays.’ Sanders told me that, in the aftermath of the Second World War, his family ‘got a call in the middle of the night about some relative of my father’s, who was in a displaced-persons camp in Europe someplace.’ Sanders learned that many of his father’s other relatives had perished. Sanders’ parents had been fundamentally apolitical, but he took away a lesson: ‘An election in 1932 ended up killing 50 million people around the world.’
“Sanders’ close friend Richard Sugarman, an Orthodox Jew who teaches religious studies at the University of Vermont, said, ‘He’s not what you would call rule-observant.’ But, Sugarman added, ‘if you talk about his Jewish identity, it’s strong. It’s certainly more ethnic and cultural than religious — except for his devotion to the ethical part of public life in Judaism, the moral part. He does have a prophetic sensibility.’ Sugarman and Sanders were housemates for a while in the ’70s, and Sugarman says that his friend would often greet him in the morning by saying, ‘We’re not crazy, you know,’ referring to the anger they felt about social injustices. Sugarman would respond, ‘Could you say good morning first?’”
Yet for all the protestations that Sanders’ identity is not about religion, this is Talbot’s kicker, quoting Sanders addressing Liberty University, an Evangelical Christian school in Virginia, and quoting from Amos:

“The occasion also played to the prophetic side of Sanders — the register in which he can sound like an Old Testament preacher. Unlike his slicker rivals, Sanders is most at ease talking about the moral and ethical dimensions of politics. ‘We are living in a nation and in a world — the Bible speaks to this issue — in a nation and in a world which worships not love of brothers and sisters, not love of the poor and the sick, but worships the acquisition of money and great wealth.’ – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – -His voice broke — all those stump speeches had been leaving deep scratches on the record. But his outrage was unmuffled. STARING AT THE CROWD, HE QUOTED THE HEBREW BIBLE, HIS FIRST PUNCTUATING NEARLY EVERY WORD: ‘LET JUSTICE ROLL ON LIKE A RIVER, RIGHTEOUSNESS LIKE A NEVER-FAILING STREAM.’ – Bernie Sanders
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bernie Sanders

United States Senator
from Vermont
Incumbent
Assumed office
January 3, 2007
Serving with Patrick Leahy
Preceded by Jim Jeffords
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
In office
January 3, 2013 – January 3, 2015
Preceded by Patty Murray
Succeeded by Johnny Isakson
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Vermont’s At-large district
In office
January 3, 1991 – January 3, 2007
Preceded by Peter Smith
Succeeded by Peter Welch
37th Mayor of Burlington
In office
April 6, 1981 – April 4, 1989
Preceded by Gordon Paquette
Succeeded by Peter Clavelle
Personal details
Born Bernard Sanders
September 8, 1941 (age 74)
Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
Nationality American
Political party Democratic (2015–present)
Other political
affiliations Independent (1979–2015)
Liberty Union (1971–1979)(affiliated)[1][2]
Spouse(s) Deborah Shiling
(1964–1966; divorced),
Jane O’Meara
(1988–present)
Domestic partner Susan Mott (1969)
Relations Larry Sanders (brother)
Children With Mott:
Levi Sanders,
With O’Meara:
Three step-children
Alma mater Brooklyn College
University of Chicago
Religion Jewish[3]
Signature
Website Senate website
Presidential campaign website – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Bernard “Bernie” Sanders (born September 8, 1941) is an American politician. He is the United States senator from Vermont. Sanders is a member of the Democratic Party.[4] Before he became a member of the Democratic Party he was an independent politician.[4] He became senator on January 3, 2007.[5]
Sanders was born in Brooklyn, New York City. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1964. While a student, he was active in organizing protests for civil rights.[6] In 1963, he took part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.[6]
Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981.[7] He was re-elected three times. In 1991, he became a United States representative for Vermont’s at-large congressional district.[8] He was a congressman for 16 years. In 2006, he was elected to the U.S. Senate after he won 64.5% of the vote. In 2012, he was re-elected by winning almost 71% of the vote.
Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist.[8][9] He thinks that a social democratic government for the United States is a good idea.[10][11] During his time as senator, Sanders has been against income inequality and supports universal health care, parental leave and LGBT rights.[8] He has been against racial inequality and mass surveillance.[12] In January 2015, Sanders became a member of the Senate Budget Committee.[13][14]
On April 30, 2015, Sanders became a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President in the 2016 United States presidential election. He made the announcement in a speech on the Capitol lawn.[12][15] His campaign started on May 26 in Burlington.[16] Unlike some of the other presidential candidates, Sanders did not want Super PACS to give him money. People give him money on his website.[17][18][19]
Contents
1 Early life
2 Early career
2.1 Liberty Union campaigns, 1971–79
2.2 Mayor of Burlington, 1981–89
3 United States representative, 1991–2007
4 United States senator, 2007–present
5 2016 presidential campaign
5.1 Presidential primaries and caucuses
6 Personal life
7 Political views
8 References
9 More reading
10 Other websites
Early life[change
Sanders was born in Brooklyn, New York to Eli Sanders and to Dorothy Glassberg.[20] His father was a Jewish immigrant born in Słopnice, Poland in 1904.[21][22][23] His mother was born to Jewish parents in New York City in 1912.[24] He has an older brother, Larry.[25] His grandparents were murdered in the Holocaust.[23][26] His mother died in 1960 and his father died in 1962.[27]
Sanders studied at Brooklyn College. After he graduated from college, Sanders went to the University of Chicago.[22] When he studied in Chicago, Sanders led the University of Chicago sit-ins in 1962 because of segregation at the university.[28] He graduated from the university in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.[22]
He was one of thousands of students who traveled by bus to Washington, D.C., to be part of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.[29] Later that summer, he was found guilty of resisting arrest during a protest against segregation in Chicago’s public schools and was fined $25.[30]