Dominianism and the Christian Right

Dominianism and the Christian Right

We've all have heard that the greatest sin is that of pride. I would like to add a corollary to this thought... that underneath pride one will always find man's legalistic and self-righteous sinful nature. According to the philosopher "Man is impaired" but that impairment is undergirded by man's legalism. Which is another way of saying that man refuses a Savior in preference to becoming his own savior. This is what legalism is. It refuses to admit any sense of impairment, always seeking to justify itself, and never falls down on its knees in penitence and repentance to the only Savior God of the universe who is truest Redeemer, Lord, and King.

Secondly, building from the legalism of man to the Christian positional theologies of Dominianism, Christian Reconstruction, and Kingdom Theocracy mandated in Secular Societies, it can be seen how personal implacableness may quickly drive across group-based legalisms of religious activity. Although good intentions abound with the line of thought of obeying God in all things it quickly breaks down from grace-based ministries and speech to conditional actions and policies.

How? I find these to be driven by popularly accepted group/religious judgments based upon subjective judgments gleaned from selective biblical text appropriation and enforcement resulting in harsh, unforgiving, uncompassionate Christian mindsets. Christian missiology then becomes conflicted and made incongruous with Divine actions of grace and mercy as exampled by God's-Self through the personage of Jesus to be supplanted by ecclesiastical actions of forced contrition, superficial religious displays of worship, and adherence to culturally perceived rules of devoutness.

When politicized, as it most often does, and integrated with state laws, it creates social policies which lean towards statuary exactness, social injustice, and group blindness to those in deepest need of help and mercy. Ultimately, God is reverenced as Judge and Ruler rather than as Gracious Savior and Merciful Lord. It leads out with judgment over grace confusing the grace of God with the holiness of God believing grace is always secondary to God's nature. However the bible teaches again and again - and especially through Jesus - that God is first-and-foremost graceful in all His thoughts and actions meted out across creation - including that of the kingdoms of man in all their confusion and misrepresentation of His nature of Grace and Mercy.

It is a paradox then to state that all nations are godless without God when finding nations "submitted" to God to be in the same state of godlessness but in a different sense, a religious sense. Here, between both worlds there can be no "balancing of secular godlessness with legalistic godlessness". Both are the same but from different directions. Both are in need of a deep submission of the human spirit to apprehend the Spirit of God through contrition and repentance at all times. Of preferencing others over oneself. Of being personally committed to neighborly love and compassion, diplomacy, and social justice undergirded by grance and mercy. This must also be said of all secular institutions, church organizations, governments, clans, tribes, families, and even our ourselves, not withstanding. There can be no "theocracy" without god-ful grace and love, god-ful mercy and forgiveness. No "dominion" worthy of His Divine Self, no "reconstruction" without a foundation built upon grace, no "kingdom" of God without the removal of the unworthy legalistic kingdom of man. To lead the way God has given the responsibility to His church, the Bride of Christ, to first-and-foremost example the way of Jesus ahead of all others. Amen.

R.E. Slater

January 3, 2019

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Dominion theology

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Dominion theology (also known as dominionism) is a group of Christian political ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians based on their personal understandings of biblical law. Extents of rule and ways of achieving governing authority are varied. For example, dominion theology can include theonomy, but does not necessarily involve advocating Mosaic law as the basis of government. The label is applied primarily toward groups of Christians in the United States.

Prominent adherents of these ideologies are otherwise theologically diverse, including Calvinist Christian reconstructionism, Roman Catholic Integralism, Charismatic/Pentecostal Kingdom Now theology, New Apostolic Reformation, and others. Most of the contemporary movements labeled dominion theology arose in the 1970s from religious movements asserting aspects of Christian nationalism.

Some have applied the term dominionist more broadly to the whole Christian right. This usage is controversial. There are concerns from members of these communities that this is a label being used to marginalize Christians from public discourse. Others^[who?] argue this allegation can be difficult to sympathize with considering the political power already held by these groups and on account of the often verbally blatant intention of these groups to influence the political, social, financial, and cultural spectrums of society for a specific religion, often at the expense of other marginalized groups.

Etymology

Dominion theology is a reference to the King James Bible's rendering of Genesis 1:28, the passage in which God grants humanity "dominion" over the Earth.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

In the late 1980s, several prominent evangelical authors^[1][2][3][4] used the phrase dominion theology (and other terms such as dominionism) to label a loose grouping of theological movements that made direct appeals to this passage in Genesis.^[5] Christians typically interpret this passage as meaning that God gave mankind responsibility over the Earth, but one of the distinctive aspects of Dominion Theology is that it is interpreted as a mandate for Christian stewardship in civil affairs, no less than in other human matters.^[6]

Types

Christian reconstructionism

Main article: Christian reconstructionism

An example of dominionism in reformed theology is Christian reconstructionism, which originated with the teachings of R. J. Rushdoony in the 1960s and 1970s.^[7] Rushdoony's theology focuses on theonomy(the rule of the Law of God), a belief that all of society should be ordered according to the laws that governed the Israelites in the Old Testament. His system is strongly Calvinistic, emphasizing the sovereignty of God over human freedom and action, and denying the operation of charismatic gifts in the present day (cessationism); both of these aspects are in direct opposition to Kingdom Now Theology.

Full adherents to reconstructionism are few and marginalized among most Christians.^[8][9][10] Dave Hunt,^[1] Albert James Dager ^[2] Hal Lindsey,^[3] and Thomas Ice^[4] specifically criticize Christian reconstructionism from a Christian viewpoint, disagreeing on theological grounds with its theocratic elements as well as its Calvinism and postmillennialism. J. Ligon Duncan,^[11] Sherman Isbell,^[12] Vern Poythress,^[13] Robert Godfrey,^[14] and Sinclair Ferguson^[15] analyze reconstructionism as conservative Calvinists, primarily giving a theological critique of its theocratic elements. Michael J. McVicar has noted that many leading Christian reconstructionists are also leading writers in paleolibertarian circles.^[16]

Some social scientists have used the word dominionism to refer to adherence to Christian reconstructionism.^[17][18][19]

Integralism

Catholic Integralism has been characterized as a form of dominionist theology.^[20] Antonio Spadaro and Marcelo Figueroa have stated that Catholic Integralists have entered into a non-traditional ecumenicalalliance with Protestant reconstructionists who share "the same desire for religious influence in the political sphere".^[21][22] Likewise, in the National Catholic Reporter, Joshua J. McElwee stated that Catholic Integralists, along with their Protestant counterparts, wish to achieve the goal of establishing a "theocratic type of state".^[23]

Kingdom Now theology

Kingdom Now theology is a branch of Dominion Theology which has had a following within Pentecostalism. It attracted attention in the late 1980s.^[24][25]

Kingdom Now theology states that although Satan has been in control of the world since the Fall, God is looking for people who will help him take back dominion. Those who yield themselves to the authority of God's apostles and prophets will take control of the kingdoms of this world, being defined as all social institutions, the "kingdom" of education, the "kingdom" of science, the "kingdom" of the arts, etc.^[26] C. Peter Wagner, the founder of the New Apostolic Reformation, writes: "The practical theology that best builds a foundation under social transformation is dominion theology, sometimes called 'Kingdom Now'. Its history can be traced back through R. J. Rushdoony and Abraham Kuyper to John Calvin."^[27]

Kingdom Now theology is influenced by the Latter Rain movement,^[28] and critics have connected it to the New Apostolic Reformation,^[29] "Spiritual Warfare Christianity,"^[28] and Fivefold ministry thinking.^[30]

Kingdom Now theology should not be confused with Kingdom theology, which is related to inaugurated eschatology.

Dominionism and the Christian right

In the late 1980s sociologist Sara Diamond^[31][32] began writing about the intersection of dominion theology with the political activists of the Christian right. Diamond argued that "the primary importance of the [Christian reconstructionist] ideology is its role as a catalyst for what is loosely called 'dominion theology'". According to Diamond, "Largely through the impact of Rushdoony's and North's writings, the concept that Christians are Biblically mandated to 'occupy' all secular institutions has become the central unifying ideology for the Christian Right"^[31]:138 (emphasis in original) in the United States.

While acknowledging the small number of actual adherents, authors such as Diamond and Frederick Clarkson have argued that postmillennial Christian reconstructionism played a major role in pushing the primarily premillennial Christian right to adopt a more aggressive dominionist stance.^[33]

Misztal and Shupe concur that "Reconstructionists have many more sympathizers who fall somewhere within the dominionist framework, but who are not card-carrying members".^[34] According to Diamond, "Reconstructionism is the most intellectually grounded, though esoteric, brand of dominion theology".^[33]

Journalist Frederick Clarkson^[35][36] defined dominionism as a movement that, while including dominion theology and reconstructionism as subsets, is much broader in scope, extending to much of the Christian right in the United States.

In his 1992 study of dominion theology and its influence on the Christian right, Bruce Barron writes,

In the context of American evangelical efforts to penetrate and transform public life, the distinguishing mark of a dominionist is a commitment to defining and carrying out an approach to building society that is self-consciously defined as exclusively Christian, and dependent specifically on the work of Christians, rather than based on a broader consensus.^[37]

In 1995, Diamond called the influence of dominion theology "prevalent on the Christian Right".^[38]

Journalist Chip Berlet added in 1998 that, although they represent different theological and political ideas, dominionists assert a Christian duty to take "control of a sinful secular society".^[39]

In 2005, Clarkson enumerated the following characteristics shared by all forms of dominionism:^[40]

1. Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in that they believe that the United States once was, and should once again be, a Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenmentroots of American democracy.
2. Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity.
3. Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, insofar as they believe that the Ten Commandments, or "biblical law," should be the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles.^[40]

Essayist Katherine Yurica began using the term dominionism in her articles in 2004, beginning with "The Despoiling of America" (February 11, 2004),^[41][42][43] Authors who also use the term dominionism in the broader sense include journalist Chris Hedges ^[44][45][46] Marion Maddox,^[47] James Rudin,^[48] Michelle Goldberg,^[49][50] Kevin Phillips,^[51] Sam Harris,^[52] Ryan Lizza,^[53] Frank Schaeffer,^[54] and the group TheocracyWatch.^[55] Some authors have applied the term to a broader spectrum of people than have Diamond, Clarkson, and Berlet.

Sarah Posner in Salon argues that there are various "iterations of dominionism that call on Christians to enter ... government, law, media and so forth ... so that they are controlled by Christians". According to Posner, "Christian right figures promoted dominionism ... and the GOP courted ... religious leaders for the votes of their followers". She added: "If people really understood dominionism, they’d worry about it between election cycles."^[56]

Michelle Goldberg notes^[57] that George Grant wrote in his 1987 book The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ—to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. ... But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. ... Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land—of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ.

A spectrum of dominionism

Writers including Chip Berlet^[58] and Frederick Clarkson^[40] distinguish between what they term "hard" and "soft" dominionism. Such commentators define "soft" dominionism as the belief that "America is a Christian nation" and opposition to separation of church and state, while "hard" dominionism refers to dominion theology and Christian reconstructionism.

Michelle Goldberg uses the terms Christian nationalism and dominionism for the former view.^[49] According to Goldberg:

In many ways, Dominionism is more a political phenomenon than a theological one. It cuts across Christian denominations, from stern, austere sects to the signs-and-wonders culture of modern megachurches. Think of it like political Islamism, which shapes the activism of a number of antagonistic fundamentalist movements, from Sunni Wahabis in the Arab world to Shiite fundamentalists in Iran.^[59]

Berlet and Clarkson have agreed that "[s]oft Dominionists are Christian nationalists".^[58] Unlike "dominionism", the phrase "Christian nation" occurs commonly in the writings of leaders of the Christian right. Proponents of this idea (such as David Barton and D. James Kennedy) argue that the Founding Fathers of the United States were overwhelmingly Christian, that founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are based on Christian principles, and that a Christian character is fundamental to American culture.^[60][61][62] They cite, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court's comment in 1892 that "this [the United States] is a Christian nation",^[63] after citing numerous historical and legal arguments in support of that statement.^[64][65]

Kennedy characterized his perspective on Christian political involvement as more akin to participatory democracy than to dominionism. In an interview with NPR's Terry Gross, Kennedy was asked whether he wanted all public office holders to be Christians. Kennedy answered, "We have people who are secular and humanist and unbelievers who are constantly supporting in every way possible other people who share those views. And I don't object to that. That's their privilege. And I think that Christians should be allowed the same privilege to vote for people whom they believe share their views about life and government. And that's all I'm talking about."^[66]

Criticism of the usage of the term dominionism

Those labelled dominionists rarely use the terms dominionist and dominionism for self-description, and some people have attacked the use of such words.^[5] Journalist and conservative comentator Anthony Williams, writing for Frontpage Magazine, charged that such usage aims "to smear the Republican Party as the party of domestic Theocracy, facts be damned".^[67] Journalist and conservative commentator Stanley Kurtz, writing for the National Review, labeled it "conspiratorial nonsense", "political paranoia", and "guilt by association",^[68] and decried Hedges' "vague characterizations" that allow him to "paint a highly questionable picture of a virtually faceless and nameless 'Dominionist' Christian mass".^[69] Kurtz also complained about a perceived link between average Christian evangelicals and extremism such as Christian reconstructionism:

The notion that conservative Christians want to reinstitute slavery and rule by genocide is not just crazy, it's downright dangerous. The most disturbing part of the Harper's cover story (the one by Chris Hedges) was the attempt to link Christian conservatives with Hitler and fascism. Once we acknowledge the similarity between conservative Christians and fascists, Hedges appears to suggest, we can confront Christian evil by setting aside 'the old polite rules of democracy.' So wild conspiracy theories and visions of genocide are really excuses for the Left to disregard the rules of democracy and defeat conservative Christians—by any means necessary.^[68]

Joe Carter of First Things writes:

[T]here is no "school of thought" known as "dominionism." The term was coined in the 1980s by Diamond and is never used outside liberal blogs and websites. No reputable scholars use the term for it is a meaningless neologism that Diamond concocted for her dissertation.^[70]

Diamond has denied that she coined the broader sense of the term dominionism,^[71] which appears in her dissertation and in Roads to Dominion solely to describe Dominion Theology. Nevertheless, Diamond did originate the idea that Dominion Theology is the "central unifying ideology for the Christian Right".^[31]:138

Jeremy Pierce of First Things coined the word dominionismist to describe those who promote the idea that there is a dominionist conspiracy, writing:

It strikes me as irresponsible to lump [Rushdoony] together with Francis Schaeffer and those influenced by him, especially given Schaeffer's many recorded instances of resisting exactly the kinds of views Rushdoony developed. Indeed, it strikes me as an error of the magnitude of some of Rushdoony's own historical nonsense to consider there to be such a view called Dominionism [sic] that Rushdoony, Schaeffer, James Dobson, and all the other people in the list somehow share and that it seeks to get Christians and only Christians into all the influential positions in secular society.^[72]

Lisa Miller of Newsweek writes that "'dominionism' is the paranoid mot du jour" and that "certain journalists use 'dominionist' the way some folks on Fox News use the word sharia. Its strangeness scares people. Without history or context, the word creates a siege mentality in which 'we' need to guard against 'them'."^[73] Ross Douthat of The New York Times noted that "many of the people that writers like Diamond and others describe as 'dominionists' would disavow the label, many definitions of dominionism conflate several very different Christian political theologies, and there's a lively debate about whether the term is even useful at all."^[74]

Other criticism has focused on the proper use of the term. Berlet wrote that "just because some critics of the Christian Right have stretched the term dominionism past its breaking point does not mean we should abandon the term",^[75] and argued that, rather than labeling conservatives as extremists, it would be better to "talk to these people" and "engage them".^[76] Sara Diamond wrote that "[l]iberals' writing about the Christian Right's take-over plans has generally taken the form of conspiracy theory", and argued that instead one should "analyze the subtle ways" that ideas like Dominionism "take hold within movements and why".^[38] Authors Robert Gagnon and Edith Humphrey argued strongly against the use of the term in reference to US presidential candidate Ted Cruz in a 2016 op-ed for Christianity Today.^[77]

FROM THE MARCH 2009 ISSUE

They Don't Make Homo Sapiens Like They Used To

article link

By Kathleen McAuliffe|Monday, February 09, 2009

Our species—and individual races—have recently made

big evolutionary changes to adjust to new pressures.

For decades the consensus view—among the public as well as the world’s preeminent biologists—has been that human evolution is over. Since modern Homo sapiensemerged 50,000 years ago, “natural selection has almost become irrelevant” to us, the influential Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould proclaimed. “There have been no biological changes. Everything we’ve called culture and civilization we’ve built with the same body and brain.” This view has become so entrenched that it is practically doctrine. Even the founders of evolutionary psychology, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, signed on to the notion that our brains were mostly sculpted during the long period when we were hunter-gatherers and have changed little since. “Our modern skulls house a Stone Age mind,” they wrote in a background piece on the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

So to suggest that humans have undergone an evolutionary makeover from Stone Age times to the present is nothing short of blasphemous. Yet a team of researchers has done just that. They find an abundance of recent adaptive mutations etched in the human genome; even more shocking, these mutations seem to be piling up faster and ever faster, like an avalanche. Over the past 10,000 years, their data show, human evolution has occurred a hundred times more quickly than in any other period in our species’ history.

The new genetic adaptations, some 2,000 in total, are not limited to the well-recognized differences among ethnic groups in superficial traits such as skin and eye color. The mutations relate to the brain, the digestive system, life span, immunity to pathogens, sperm production, and bones—in short, virtually every aspect of our functioning.

Many of these DNA variants are unique to their continent of origin, with provocative implications. “It is likely that human races are evolving away from each other,” says University of Utah anthropologist Henry Harpending, who coauthored a major paper on recent human evolution. “We are getting less alike, not merging into a single mixed humanity.”

Harpending theorizes that the attitudes and customs that distinguish today’s humans from those of the past may be more than just cultural, as historians have widely assumed. “We aren’t the same as people even a thousand or two thousand years ago,” he says. “Almost every trait you look at is under strong genetic influence.”

Not surprisingly, the new findings have raised hackles. Some scientists are alarmed by claims of ethnic differences in temperament and intelligence, fearing that they will inflame racial sensitivities. Other researchers point to limitations in the data. Yet even skeptics now admit that some human traits, at least, are evolving rapidly, challenging yesterday’s hallowed beliefs.

A BONE TO PICK

Bones don’t lie. John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin at Madison likes evidence he can put his hands on, so he takes me on a tour of the university’s bone laboratory. There, the energetic 36-year-old anthropologist unlocks a glass case and begins arranging human skulls and other skeletal artifacts—some genuine fossils, others high-quality reproductions—on a counter according to their age. Gesturing toward these relics, which span the past 35,000 years, Hawks says, “You don’t have to look hard to see that teeth are getting smaller, skull size is shrinking, stature is getting smaller.”

These overriding trends are similar in many parts of the world, but other changes, especially over the past 10,000 years, are distinct to specific ethnic groups. “These variations are well known to forensic anthropologists,” Hawks says as he points them out: In Europeans, the cheekbones slant backward, the eye sockets are shaped like aviator glasses, and the nose bridge is high. Asians have cheekbones facing more forward, very round orbits, and a very low nose bridge. Australians have thicker skulls and the biggest teeth, on average, of any population today. “It beats me how leading biologists could look at the fossil record and conclude that human evolution came to a standstill 50,000 years ago,” Hawks says.

By his account, Hawks’s theory of accelerated human evolution owes its genesis to what he could see with his own eyes. But his radical view was also influenced by newly emerging genetic data. Thanks to stunning advances in sequencing and deciphering DNA in recent years, scientists had begun uncovering, one by one, genes that boost evolutionary fitness. These variants, which emerged after the Stone Age, seemed to help populations better combat infectious organisms, survive frigid temperatures, or otherwise adapt to local conditions. And they were popping up with surprising frequency.

Taken together, the skeletal and genetic evidence convinced Hawks that the ruling “static” view of recent human evolution was not only wrong but also quite possibly the opposite of the truth. He discussed his ideas with Harpending, his former postdoc adviser at the University of Utah, and Gregory Cochran, a physicist and adjunct professor of anthropology there. They both agreed with Hawks’s interpretation. But why, they wondered, might evolution be picking up speed? What could be fueling the trend?

Then one day, as Hawks and Cochran mulled over the matter in a phone conversation, inspiration struck. “At exactly the same moment, both of us realized, gee, there’s a lot more people on the planet in recent times,” Hawks recalls. “In a large population you don’t have to wait so long for the rare mutation that boosts brain function or does something else desirable.”

The three scientists reviewed the demographic data. Ten thousand years ago, there were fewer than 10 million people on earth. That figure soared to 200 million by the time of the Roman Empire. Since around 1500 the global population has been rising exponentially, with the total now surpassing 6.7 billion. Since mutations are the fodder on which natural selection acts, it stands to reason that evolution might happen more quickly as our numbers surge. “What we were proposing was nothing new to animal breeders of the 19th century,” Cochran notes. “Darwin himself emphasized the importance of maintaining a large herd for selecting favorable traits.”

The logic behind the notion was undeniably simple, but at first glance it seemed counterintuitive. The genomes of any two individuals on the planet are more than 99.5 percent the same. Put another way, less than 0.5 percent of our DNA varies across the globe. That is often taken to mean that we have not evolved much recently, Cochran says, “but keep in mind that the human and chimp genomes differ by only about 1 to 2 percent—and nobody would call that a minor difference. None of this conflicts with the idea that human evolution might be accelerating.”

CULTURE SHOCK

If their hunch was correct, the scientists wondered a few years back, how could they prove it? As it turned out, it was an opportune time to pose that question.

For decades theories about human evolution had proliferated despite the absence of much, if any, hard evidence. But now there were finally human genetic data banks large enough to allow the scientists to put their assumptions to the test. One of these, the International Haplotype Map, cataloged differences in DNA collected from 270 people of Japanese, Han Chinese, Nigerian, and northern European descent. Moreover, Harpending knew two geneticists—Robert Moyzis of the University of California at Irvine, and Eric Wang of Veracyte Inc. in South San Francisco—who were at the forefront of developing new computational methods for mining this data to estimate the rate of evolution. Harpending contacted them to see if they would be willing to collaborate on a study.

Human races are evolving away from each other. We are

getting less alike, not merging into a single mixed humanity.

The West Coast scientists were intrigued. On the basis of their own preliminary data, they, too, suspected that the pace of human evolution was accelerating. But they had arrived at the same crossroads by a different route. “We were focused on cultural shifts as a prime driving force of our evolution,” Moyzis says. As he explains it, an exceptional period in the history of our species occurred about 50,000 years ago. Humans were pouring forth from Africa and fanning out across the globe, eventually taking up residence in niches as diverse as the Arctic Circle, the rain forests of the Amazon, the foothills of the Himalayas, and the Australian outback. Improvements in clothing, shelter, and hunting techniques paved the way for this expansion.

Experts agree on that much but then part ways. These innovations, prominent evolutionary theorists insist, insulated us from the relentless winnowing of natural selection, thereby freeing us from the Darwinian rat race. But Moyzis and Wang looked at the same developments and came to the opposite conclusion. In our far-flung domains, they point out, humans presumably encountered starkly different selective forces as they adjusted to novel foods, predators, climates, and terrains. And as we became more innovative, the pressure to change only intensified. “If you’re a human, what is your environment but culture?” Moyzis asks. “The faster our ingenuity alters our habitat, the quicker we have to adapt in response.”

As for the role of population size in spurring our evolution, he and Wang had not given it much thought, but they saw the idea as complementary to their own view, since cultural innovations allowed more people to survive. So when Harpending’s group came calling, Moyzis says, “we were happy to combine ideas and work together.”

To study natural selection, the team combed the International Haplotype Map for long stretches of DNA flanked by a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, or “snip”)—that is, an altered base, or “letter,” in the genetic alphabet. When the exact same genetic block is present in at least 20 percent of a population, according to the scientists, it indicates that something about that block has conferred a survival advantage; otherwise, it would not have become so prevalent. Because genes are reshuffled with each generation, Moyzis adds, the presence of large unchanged blocks of DNA means they were probably inherited recently. In the parlance of scientists, it is “a signature of natural selection.”

Scanning genomes in the haplotype map for these clues, the researchers discovered that 7 percent of human genes fit the profile of a recent adaptation, with most of the change happening from 40,000 years ago to the present. As predicted, these apparent adaptations occurred at a rate that jumped almost exponentially in prevalence as the human population exploded. To rule out the prevailing view—that our evolution has proceeded at a steady rate all along—the scientists ran an additional check. They performed a computer simulation to see what would have happened if humans had evolved at modern rates ever since we diverged from chimpanzees 6 million years ago. The steady-state test led to a nonsensical result: The difference between the two species today would be 160 times greater than it actually is. To Moyzis and the others, the results confirmed that human evolution had only recently hit the accelerator.

MORPHING AT HIGH SPEED

All of these findings mesh beautifully with the notion that cultural and demographic shifts sparked our transformation. Our exodus out of Africa, for example, paved the way for one of the most obvious markers of race, skin hue. As scientists widely recognize, paler complexions are a genetic adjustment to low light: People with dark skin have trouble manufacturing vitamin D from ultraviolet radiation in northern latitudes, which makes them more susceptible to serious bone deformities. Consequently, Europeans and Asians over the last 20,000 years evolved lighter skin through two dozen different mutations that decrease production of the skin pigment melanin.

Similarly, the gene for blue eyes codes for paler skin coloring in many vertebrates and hence might have piggybacked along with lighter skin. Clearly something made blue eyes evolutionarily advantageous in some environments. “No one on earth had blue eyes 10,000 years ago,” Hawks says.

The transition to an agrarian existence after hundreds of thousands of years of hunting and gathering was another key catalyst of evolution. Once people began keeping cattle herds, for example, it became an advantage to derive nutrient calories from milk throughout life rather than only as an infant or toddler suckling at its mother’s breast. A mutation that arose about 8,000 years ago in northern Europe, Hawks says, allowed adults to digest lactose (the main sugar in milk), and it propagated rapidly, allowing the rise of the modern dairy industry. Today the gene for lactose digestion is present in 80 percent of Europeans but in just 20 percent of Asians and Africans.

Agriculture may have opened up other pathways for evolution by supporting an ever-growing population that eventually began to congregate in the first cities. In crowded, filthy quarters, pathogens spread like wildfire. Suddenly there were epidemics of smallpox, cholera, typhus, and malaria, diseases unknown to hunter-gatherers, and so began an evolutionary arms race to fend off the assault through superior immunity.

“The clearest example of that is malaria,” Hawks says. “The disease is about 35,000 years old, with the most lethal form of it just 5,000 years old.” Yet in sub-Saharan Africa and other regions where it is endemic, “people have already developed 25 new genes that protect against malaria, including the Duffy blood type, an entirely new blood group,” he notes. More recently, HIV resistance has appeared due to a genetic mutation now found in 10 percent of Europeans. Scientists speculate that the variant may have originally evolved as a protection against smallpox.

Paralleling the constant war against pathogens, human sperm may also be evolving at high speed, driven by the race to get to the egg before another man’s sperm. “It could be that cities create more sexual partners, which means fiercer competition among males,” Hawks says. Because sperm can fertilize an egg up to 24 hours after being ejaculated in the vagina, a woman who copulates with two or more partners in close succession is setting up the very conditions that pit one man’s sperm against another’s. Hawks infers that “sperm today is very different from sperm even 5,000 years ago.” Newly selected mutations in genes controlling sperm production show up in every ethnic group he and his team have studied; those genes may affect characteristics including abundance, motility, and viability. The selection for “super sperm,” Hawks says, provides further corroboration that our species is not particularly monogamous—a view widely shared by other anthropologists.

At the other end of the human life span, “genes that help us live longer get selected,” Hawks reports. This may seem counterintuitive, since evolutionary biologists long assumed that the elderly do not contribute to the gene pool and hence are invisible to natural selection. But as studies of the Hadza people of Tanzania and other groups suggest, children doted on by their grandmothers—receiving extra provisions and care—are more likely to survive and pass on their grandmothers’ genes for longevity. (Grandfathers were less involved with their grandchildren in the cultures studied, so the phenomenon is known as the “grandmother effect.”) Old men can also pass on their genes by mating with younger women.

As agriculture became established and started creating a reliable food supply, Hawks says, more men and women would have begun living into their forties and beyond—jump-starting the selection pressure for increased life span. In support of that claim, Moyzis is currently performing a genetic analysis of men and women in their nineties who are of European ancestry. He has traced many early-onset forms of cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s to older human gene variants. “The idea is that people with more modern variants tend to have greater resistance to these chronic illnesses of old age and should be overrepresented in the age 90-plus population,” Moyzis says.

EVOLUTION AND THE BRAIN

Perhaps the most incendiary aspect of the fast-evolution research is evidence that the brain may be evolving just as quickly as the rest of the body. Some genes that appear to have been recently selected, Moyzis and his collaborators suggest, influence the function and development of the brain. Other fast-changing genes—roughly 100—are associated with neurotransmitters, including serotonin (a mood regulator), glutamate (involved in general arousal), and dopamine (which regulates attention). According to estimates, fully 40 percent of these neurotransmitter genes seem to have been selected in the past 50,000 years, with the majority emerging in just the past 10,000 years.

Addressing the hot-potato question—What might these changes signify?—Moyzis and Wang theorize that natural selection probably favored different abilities and dispositions as modern groups adapted to the increasingly complex social order ushered in by the first human settlements.

When people in hunter-gatherer communities have a conflict, Moyzis reports, usually one of them will just walk away. “There is a great deal of fluidity in these societies,” he says, “so it’s easy to join another group.” But with the establishment of the first farming communities, we put down roots figuratively as well as literally. “You can’t just walk away,” Moyzis notes, a fact that would have created selection pressure to revise the mechanisms regulating aggression, such as the glutamate pathways involved in arousal. “When you domesticate animals, you tend to change genes in that system,” he says.

For decades theories about human evolution proliferated 

in the absence of hard evidence, but now human genetic

data banks are large enough to put assumptions to the test.

The rise of settlements also promoted the breakdown of labor into specialized jobs. That, coupled with food surpluses from farming, led to systems of trade and the need to track the flow of resources, which in turn could have selected for individuals with specific cognitive strengths. “Mathematical ability is very important when it comes to keeping track of crops and bartering,” Wang says. “Certainly your working memory has to be better. You have to remember who owes you what.” The researchers point to China’s Mandarin system, a method of screening individuals for positions as tax collectors and other government administrators. For nearly 2,000 years, starting in A.D. 141, the sons of a broad cross section of Chinese society, including peasants and tradesmen, took the equivalent of standardized tests. “Those who did well on them would get a good job in the civil service and oftentimes had multiple wives, while the other sons remained in a rice field,” Moyzis says. “Probably for thousands of years in some cultures, certain kinds of intellectual ability may have been tied to reproductive success.”

Harpending and Cochran had previously—and controversially—marshaled similar evidence to explain why Ashkenazi Jews (those of northern European descent) are overrepresented among world chess masters, Nobel laureates, and those who score above 140 on IQ tests. In a 2005 article in the Journal of Biosocial Science, the scientists attributed Ashkenazis’ intellectual distinction to a religious and cultural environment that blocked them from working as farm laborers in central and northern Europe for almost a millennium, starting around A.D. 800. As a result, these Jews took jobs as moneylenders and financial administrators of estates. To make a profit, Harpending says, “they had to be good at evaluating properties and market risks, all the while dodging persecution.” Those who prospered in these mentally demanding and hostile environments, the researchers posit, would have left behind the most offspring. Critics note that the association between wealth and intelligence in this interpretation is circumstantial, however.

Stronger evidence that natural selection has continued to shape the brain in recent epochs comes from studies of DRD4, a mutation in a neurotransmitter receptor that Moyzis, Wang, and many others have linked to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Children diagnosed with ADHD are twice as likely to carry the variant gene as those without the diagnosis. DRD4 makes a receptor in the brain less effective in bonding to dopamine, which might explain why Ritalin, which increases the amount of dopamine in the space between neurons, is often helpful in treating the problem.

Sequencing studies suggest that the DRD4 mutation arose 50,000 years ago, just as humans were spreading out of Africa. Its prevalence tends to increase the farther a population is from Africa, leading some investigators to dub it “the migratory gene.” At least one allele (or copy of the gene) is carried by 80 percent of some South American populations. In contrast, the allele is present in 40 percent of indigenous populations living farther north in the Americas and in just 20 percent of Europeans and Africans. Children with the mutation tend to be more restless than other youngsters and to score higher on tests of novelty-seeking and risk-taking, all traits that might have pushed those with the variant to explore new frontiers.

In the context of a modern classroom, it may be hard to understand why kids who appear distractible and disruptive might have a survival advantage. But research shows people with DRD4 do not differ in intelligence from national norms; if anything, they may on average be smarter. Moreover, behavior that may seem like a drawback today may not have been so in ancient environments. When broaching foreign terrain filled with unknown predators, “having the trait of focusing on multiple directions might have been a good thing,” Wang says. “People focused in one direction might get eaten.”

Humans in far-flung domains encountered starkly different selective

forces, adjusting to novel foods, predators, climates, and terrains.

NOT SO FAST

Despite all these clues that human evolution has continued and accelerated into modern times, many evolutionary biologists remain deeply skeptical of the claims. Their resistance comes from several directions.

Some independent experts caution that the tools for studying the human genome remain in their infancy, and reliably detecting genomic regions that have been actively selected is a challenging problem. The hypothesis that human evolution is accelerating “all rests on being able to identify recent areas of the genome under natural selection fairly accurately,” says human geneticist Jonathan Pritchard of the University of Chicago. And that, he warns, is tricky, involving many different assumptions (about population sizes on different continents, for instance) in the poorly documented period before recorded history.

Given such uncertainties, researchers are more likely to be persuaded that a mutation has been recently selected if they understand its function and if its rise in prevalence meshes well with known human migratory routes. Genetic variants fitting that description include those coding for lighter skin coloring, resistance to diseases such as malaria, and metabolic changes related to the digestion of novel foods. There is broad consensus that these represent genuine examples of recent adaptations.

Question marks surround many other recent genetic changes. We know almost nothing about most regions of the genome that have been identified as potential targets of natural selection, observes Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Until scientists understand more of the landscape of the human genome, she says, she will have a hard time believing that adaptive genetic differences between ethnic groups have mushroomed over the past 20,000 years. She is particularly wary of claims that selective pressures recently played a role in shaping different cognitive abilities and temperaments among ethnic groups. “We have no strong evidence of that,” Tishkoff says.

Francis Collins, who until last year headed the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health, concurs. “This is not a place to idly speculate about possibilities,” he says. “When it comes to brain functioning, let’s be honest: That is a tinderbox of possible explosive reactions based upon a very unpretty history of discrimination and of demagogues using information that they claimed came from biology in order to put down some groups that they didn’t like.” Even when it comes to the ADHD connection, Collins is a skeptic. “I want to see DRD4 replicated by independent investigators on an independent sample of children,” he says.

In some circles, Moyzis says, to suggest that natural selection is acting on the human brain is tantamount to heresy—an incredible hypothesis that demands extraordinary proof. Harpending, Cochran, and their collaborators are mystified as to what it is that makes their theory so incredible. “I would turn that statement on its head,” Moyzis says. “The extraordinary claim is that evolution somehow stopped once we developed culture.” Coch­ran says, “You’re allowed to change, but only if it’s below the neck. Many people think the brain has to be immune to natural selection; if it isn’t, they don’t want to hear it.”

Harvard University evolutionary biologist Pardis Sebati defends that view. “The immune system and skin interact directly with the outside world,” she says. “They are our first line of defense.” Based on the current evidence, she concludes, sunlight and pathogens were among the strongest selective forces, and skin and the immune system underwent the most dramatic change; evolutionary pressures on the brain are not nearly as clear-cut. As Harvard geneticist David Altshuler wrote in response to one of Sebati’s articles, “It’s reassuring that differences between the races seem to be mostly skin deep.”

The “reassuring” quality of that belief makes those in the opposing camp wonder if some of the logic of skeptics is tinged with wishful thinking. Harvard’s Steven Pinker, the celebrated author of The Blank Slate and an expert on the evolution of language and the mind, addressed that point in an interview in New Scientistmagazine: “People, including me, would rather believe that significant human biological evolution stopped between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, before the races diverged, which would ensure that racial and ethnic groups are biologically equivalent.”

Many scientists apparently worry that proof of divergent brain evolution could be so racially polarizing that we, as a society, would almost be better off in the dark. Hawks responds that the best safeguard against bigotry is educating the public. He thinks we understand enough about human genetics to know that the notion of racial superiority is absurd. Intelligence, he argues, is not a single trait but a vast suite of abilities, and each ancestral environment may have favored a different set of talents. What is sorely needed, he says, is “an ecological framework” to interpret the results. “Groups are best adapted to their own environment, which eliminates the question of superiority.” Even he concedes, though, that communicating the nuances will be no easy task.

“Whatever we find,” Wang says, “it would never be justification for abandoning the egalitarian value that all individuals, regardless of their ethnicity, are deserving of the same rights and opportunities.” Moyzis expands on that line of reasoning, putting a sunny spin on the group’s findings. “It would be boring if all the races were fundamentally the same,” he argues. “It’s exciting to think that they bring different strengths and talents to the table. That is part of what makes melting-pot cultures like our own so invigorating and creative.”

Of course, in melting-pot cultures all kinds of ethnic groups intermingle freely, and the children who result literally meld our DNA together. Even if those groups were diverging, international travel is now causing the diversity to get lost in the genetic reshuffling. “That’s the ultimate irony,” Moyzis says. “By the time we finally settle this debate, we’ll all be such a mixture of genes that we won’t care.”

THE HUMAN JOURNEY

Y-DNA Human Journey