The Neanderthals

An evolutionary chart from the National Geographic magazine (from the same article below) shows ancestral modern human and Neanderthal populations beginning to significantly diverge in 700,000 BC. Before that, the common ancestor of both modern humans and Neanderthals may have been Homo Heidelbergensis - though some anthropologists consider it a European species ancestral to the Neanderthals alone. Over the next 330,000 years interbreeding continues to lessen between the two diverging species and ceases altogether around 370,000 BC where the genetic trunklines by now greatly diverged in lineage from one another.  Dating to 195,000 BC the earliest known anatomically modern human fossil is discovered in Africa and then in Europe at 40,000 BC, thus giving evidence of the migration north by homo sapiens into the frozen ice lands of the Neanderthal. By 28,000 BC the last remaining Neanderthals have died out (or have been killed by homo sapiens) as is later explained.

Importantly, I thought to recite such an article as we continue examining the Evolutionary Theory of human development from both an archaeological-scientific viewpoint, as well as that of a biblical- theological viewpoint. And in so doing show just how far "modern Evangelical Creationism" differs from that of the earthen fossil and geological records uncovered in archaeological digs and genome projects during this past decade. Importantly, these discoveries bear directly upon the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, whether they are specific homo sapiens as named, or as collective representative populational figures for our race of men (as earlier discussed in several of RJS's opening articles - cf. "Faith and Science" categories in this blog).

To that end, I wish to recite the proposed scientific view of the homo sapien story through the eyes of the Neanderthal's gradual extinction (or extermination) as shown by fossil records, geographic digs and genome studies. In so doing, it is meant to better enlighten Christians to the necessity of expanding their understanding of the early biblical texts through a greater refinement of theologic examinations, suppositions, and theories. For if the Genesis story is untrue, than essentially human sin, comparisons of Christ to the figure of Adam, the groaning of creation until the time of eschatological redemption, and other important theological / biblical doctrines would make no sense and would have to be regulated to that of myth and fiction. Which I cannot argue.

And so, it is my suspicion that God enlighten ancient mankind found within the biblical records (specifically Genesis 1-11) to the degree that ancient man's "technology" and "worldview" was capable of understanding and explaining it (that is, God spoke to the ancients in such a way as to not confound their comprehension of His revelation). Thus, God utilized the ancient comprehension of that revelatory time without apologizing for stooping to ancient man's then current mythical understandings and worldviews. Thus, as seen within Genesis, it's ancient creation stories and creation metaphors are used to describe what neither the ancients (nor I suspect even modern man today) could clearly comprehend in describing the creation of the heavens and earth, day and night, light and dark, oceans and land, fishes and animals, man and woman, and the Sabbath Day of Rest.

Pointedly, God's revelation of creation in its theological implications still remains the same, but the "how" of explanation has become more refined as mankind has progress over the millenias. So then, rather than thinking of the ancient Genesis stories as "inaccurate" I would rather think of them as "incomprehensible" in their mythic retelling. But if described through today's modern physics and sciences I would suspect that it would be an even more difficult task to narrate unless science is abandoned and poetry is again used like it was in the ancient creation story of Genesis telling us of a loving God who created the worlds and mankind before sin destroyed its orders.

For if scientific explanation is sought we will loose the simplicity inherent in the mythic recounts of Genesis so espoused replacing its creation story with an even more "inscrutable" retelling through today's scientific languages and mathematical, linguistic paradoxes. Too, a thousand years from now, that scientific retelling will be dated and inaccurate. And thus we should not purport today's "evolutionary quests" across cosmological, geological, and anthropological studies as "anti-biblical" but rather read them as expanded testimonies to previously understood biblical records (by us moderns as well as by the ancients).

I suppose this then would put me in the "theistic-evolutionary" camp as an "evolutionary creationist," - although I still think of myself as a "creationist" but one who has necessarily refined and expanded his biblical understanding from a "paleo-creatinism" to a "(post)modern-creationism"; marking my theological understanding as different from that of earlier theologians who were less informed by their societies and civilization in previous decades and centuries before me. A good motto may then be, "As man grows in his sciences so must our theology grow."

And yet, as one exploring the theistic/evolutionary side of Christianity, I still must hold to the historical figures of Adam and Eve in a theologic sense, both as individuals and as representatives of mankind in the creation story of Genesis. For this bears upon the doctrine of original sin and its transmission to all mankind through the historical fall of two individuals. And not merely the Fall by a representative tribe or a representative species of mankind; for those communal/corporate examples are readily seen in the Tower of Babel, in Noah's story, in the Patriarchal covenants, and in Israel's Exodus, to mention a few within the biblical record as communal/corporate historical instances rather than as individual instances. Now perhaps we may have to relent to the re-examined Genesis records and allow for an historical representation rather than for  personal, individual transgression of sin in the Garden of Eden by two individuals, as many are now proposing. But for me, my bias is towards two individuals rather than to a corporate representatives from a group of people who have fallen and committed the human race to sin.

With that said, given the earth's fossil records, man's long genomic heritage, our current scientific studies in earth, rock, sky and sea - all have lent evidence to an ancient earth and an even more ancient cosmology. These are not "apparent-age" manifestations by God so as to mislead us, but mediated processes that have historically occurred according to what we're discovering in science through these past 100 years and more of inquiry and examination.

And so, "Yes," God uses evolution to bring the worlds and life into being. But "No," evolution is not a Christian's replacement of God for a God-less society. "Yes," evolution may tell us of our origins, but it also may speak to us of an ever present God mediating creation's continual birth as He gives life to man, and restores order redemptively to all.

Consequently, I intend to explore all areas around both the scientific and hermeneutical/theological nuances of these facts as they are currently understood. It will be an exploratory study that will be held in academic/scholastic tension - but one that I do not mind unwinding slowly while holding both sides up in equal parts to investigation. Thus, any and all pertinent discussions on evolutionary creationism must be examined whether we have answers or not. The questions in-and-of themselves are just as valuable to us. And so we will proceed, beginning here with a species antecedent to homo sapiens we call the Neanderthals. And in later documents we will discuss "Adam and Eve," "sin and redemption," "The Fall," "New Heavens and New Earth." These remain theological truths based upon past and future historical precedences and promise.

R.E. Slater
July 4, 2011

ps - forgive me for this extremely long blog article... but rather than split it up I wish to leave it wholly intact. If you must, please bookmark this article and read it in "sputters and spurts" and "parts and pieces." Thanks.

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Last of the Neanderthals

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/10/neanderthals/hall-text.html

Eurasia was theirs alone for 200,000 years.

Then the newcomers arrived.

By Stephen S. Hall

Published: October 2008

Reconstruction by Kennis & Kennis/Photograph by Joe McNally

For the first time, a Neanderthal female peers from the past in a reconstruction

informed by both fossil anatomy and ancient DNA. At least some of her kind

carried a gene for red hair and pale skin.

Neanderthals, an intelligent and resilient human species, lived in Eurasia for some 200,000 years. Then about 28,000 years ago the last of them died. No one knows exactly what led to their extinction, but it was probably a combination of factors, including climate change and the arrival of modern humans in the region, around 45,000 years ago.

Since Neanderthals and modern humans overlapped for some 15,000 years, many wonder if they ever interbred. It's possible. But DNA studies show that Neanderthals were indeed a separate species, and no trace of Neanderthal DNA has been found in humans today. Yet Neanderthals had some genes that are similar to those in humans but evolved separately. Studying DNA MC1R, indicating that some Neanderthals would have had red hair, pale skin, and possibly freckles, though the gene is unlike the one in red-haired people today. Scientists also found that Neanderthals had a gene that's necessary for speech and language, FOXP2, though this one is identical to the gene in modern humans. No one knows if they could speak like us, but they at least had the genetic capacity for speech.

Rothberg, one of the scientists involved in the mapping. "Neanderthal [genome] is going to open the box. It's not going to answer the question, but it's going to tell where to look to understand all of those higher cognitive functions."

Bibliography

National Geographic (October 2008), 34-59.

Green, Richard, and others. "Analysis of One Million Base Pairs of Neanderthal DNA." Nature (November 16, 2006).

Lalueza-Fox, Carles, and others. "Neandertal Evolutionary Genetics; Mitochondrial DNA Data From the Iberian Peninsula." Molecular Biology and Evolution (February 2, 2005).

Moulson, Gier. "Neanderthal Genome Project Launches." MSNBC, July 20, 2006.

Noonan, James, and others. "Sequencing and Analysis of Neanderthal Genomic DNA." Science (November 17, 2006).

Featured Article

In March of 1994 some spelunkers exploring an extensive cave system in northern Spain poked their lights into a small side gallery and noticed two human mandibles jutting out of the sandy soil. The cave, called El Sidrón, lay in the midst of a remote upland forest of chestnut and oak trees in the province of Asturias, just south of the Bay of Biscay. Suspecting that the jawbones might date back as far as the Spanish Civil War, when Republican partisans used El Sidrón to hide from Franco's soldiers, the cavers immediately notified the local Guardia Civil.

But when police investigators inspected the gallery, they discovered the remains of a much larger—and, it would turn out, much older—tragedy.

Within days, law enforcement officials had shoveled out some 140 bones, and a local judge ordered the remains sent to the national forensic pathology institute in Madrid. By the time scientists finished their analysis (it took the better part of six years), Spain had its earliest cold case. The bones from El Sidrón were not Republican soldiers, but the fossilized remains of a group of Neanderthals who lived, and perhaps died violently, approximately 43,000 years ago. The locale places them at one of the most important geographical intersections of prehistory, and the date puts them squarely at the center of one of the most enduring mysteries in all of human evolution.

With their large brains and enormous strength, Neanderthals seemed equipped

to face any obstacle. But as the climate changed and a new kind of human

appeared on the landscape, their dwindling numbers sought refuge in the

highlands. The heights of northern Spain suggest the demanding environment

that confronted many Neanderthals late in their reign. The model grips a spear

to signify that females may have hunted with males.

The Neanderthals, our closest prehistoric relatives, dominated Eurasia for the better part of 200,000 years. During that time, they poked their famously large and protruding noses into every corner of Europe, and beyond—south along the Mediterranean from the Strait of Gibraltar to Greece and Iraq, north to Russia, as far west as Britain, and almost to Mongolia in the east. Scientists estimate that even at the height of the Neanderthal occupation of western Europe, their total number probably never exceeded 15,000. Yet they managed to endure, even when a cooling climate turned much of their territory into something like northern Scandi-navia today—a frigid, barren tundra, its bleak horizon broken by a few scraggly trees and just enough lichen to keep the reindeer happy.

By the time of the tragedy at El Sidrón, however, the Neanderthals were on the run, seemingly pinned down in Iberia, pockets of central Europe, and along the southern Mediterranean by a deteriorating climate, and further squeezed by the westward spread of anatomically modern humans as they emerged from Africa into the Middle East and beyond. Within another 15,000 years or so, the Neanderthals were gone forever, leaving behind a few bones and a lot of questions. Were they a clever and perseverant breed of survivors, much like us, or a cognitively challenged dead end? What happened during that period, roughly 45,000 to 30,000 years ago, when the Neanderthals shared some parts of the Eurasian landscape with those modern human migrants from Africa? Why did one kind of human being survive, and the other disappear?

On a damp, fog-shrouded morning in September 2007, I stood before the entrance to El Sidrón with Antonio Rosas of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, who heads the paleoanthropological investigation. One of his colleagues handed me a flashlight, and I gingerly lowered myself into the black hole. As my eyes adjusted to the interior, I began to make out the fantastic contours of a karstic cave. An underground river had hollowed out a deep vein of sandstone, leaving behind a limestone cavern extending hundreds of yards, with side galleries spidering out to at least 12 entrances. Ten minutes into the cave, I arrived at the Galería del Osario—the "tunnel of bones." Since 2000, some 1,500 bone fragments have been unearthed from this side gallery, representing the remains of at least nine Neanderthals—five young adults, two adolescents, a child of about eight, and a three-year-old toddler. All showed signs of nutritional stress in their teeth—not unusual in young Neanderthals late in their time on Earth. But a deeper desperation is etched in their bones. Rosas picked up a recently unearthed fragment of a skull and another of a long bone of an arm, both with jagged edges.

"These fractures were—clop—made by humans," Rosas said, imitating the blow of a stone tool. "It means these fellows went after the brains and into long bones for the marrow."

Suited up to avoid contaminating her find, researcher Araceli Soto Flórez

bags a Neanderthal bone from El Sidrón cave in Spain. Fossils uncovered

here have yielded faint traces of ancient DNA. Genetic analysis provides

evidence for red hair, and perhaps a capacity for speech.

In addition to the fractures, cut marks left on the bones by stone tools clearly indicate that the individuals were cannibalized. Whoever ate their flesh, and for whatever reason—starvation? ritual?—the subsequent fate of their remains bestowed upon them a distinct and marvelous kind of immortality. Shortly after the nine individuals died—possibly within days—the ground below them suddenly collapsed, leaving little time for hyenas and other scavengers to scatter the remains. A slurry of bones, sediment, and rocks tumbled 60 feet into a hollow limestone chamber below, much as mud fills the inside walls of a house during a flood.

There, buffered by sand and clay, preserved by the cave's constant temperature, and sequestered in their jewel cases of mineralized bone, a few precious molecules of the Neanderthals' genetic code survived, awaiting a time in the distant future when they could be plucked out, pieced together, and examined for clues to how these people lived, and why they vanished.

The first clue that our kind of human was not the first to inhabit Europe turned up a century and a half ago, about eight miles east of Düsseldorf, Germany. In August 1856 laborers quarrying limestone from a cave in the Neander Valley dug out a beetle-browed skullcap and some thick limb bones. Right from the start, the Neanderthals were saddled with an enduring cultural stereotype as dim-witted, brutish cavemen. The size and shape of the fossils does suggest a short, stout fireplug of a physique (males averaged about five feet, five inches tall and about 185 pounds), with massive muscles and a flaring rib cage presumably encasing capacious lungs. Steven E. Churchill, a paleoanthropologist at Duke University, has calculated that to support his body mass in a cold climate, a typical Neanderthal male would have needed up to 5,000 calories daily, or approaching what a bicyclist burns each day in the Tour de France. Yet behind its bulging browridges, a Neanderthal's low-domed skull housed a brain with a volume slightly larger on average than our own today. And while their tools and weapons were more primitive than those of the modern humans who supplanted them in Europe, they were no less sophisticated than the implements made by their modern human contemporaries living in Africa and the Middle East.

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One of the longest and most heated controversies in human evolution rages around the genetic relationship between Neanderthals and their European successors. Did the modern humans sweeping out of Africa beginning some 60,000 years ago completely replace the Neanderthals, or did they interbreed with them? In 1997 the latter hypothesis was dealt a powerful blow by geneticist Svante Pääbo—then at the University of Munich—who used an arm bone from the original Neanderthal man to deliver it. Pääbo and his colleagues were able to extract a tiny 378-letter snippet of mitochondrial DNA (a kind of short genetic appendix to the main text in each cell) from the 40,000-year-old specimen. When they read out the letters of the code, they found that the specimen's DNA differed from living humans to a degree suggesting that the Neanderthal and modern human lineages had begun to diverge long before the modern human migration out of Africa. Thus the two represent separate geographic and evolutionary branches splitting from a common ancestor. "North of the Mediterranean, this lineage became Neanderthals," said Chris Stringer, research leader on human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, "and south of the Mediterranean, it became us." If there was any interbreeding when they encountered each other later, it was too rare to leave a trace of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in the cells of living people.

Taking DNA from a 38,000-year-old leg bone fragment found in
Croatia, scientists are spelling out the complete Neanderthal genetic code.

Results from the DNA sample suggest that Neanderthals and modern
humans are separate species, but do not rule out some interbreeding.

Pääbo's genetic bombshell seemed to confirm that Neanderthals were a separate species—but it does nothing to solve the mystery of why they vanished, and our species survived.

One obvious possibility is that modern humans were simply more clever, more sophisticated, more "human." Until recently, archaeologists pointed to a "great leap forward" around 40,000 years ago in Europe, when the Neanderthals' relatively humdrum stone tool industry—called Mousterian, after the site of Le Moustier in southwestern France—gave way to the more varied stone and bone tool kits, body ornaments, and other signs of symbolic expression associated with the appearance of modern humans. Some scientists, such as Stanford University anthropologist Richard Klein, still argue for some dramatic genetic change in the brain—possibly associated with a development in language—that propelled early modern humans to cultural dominance at the expense of their beetle-browed forebears.

But the evidence in the ground is not so cut and dried. In 1979 archaeologists discovered a late Neanderthal skeleton at Saint-Césaire in southwestern France surrounded not with typical Mousterian implements, but with a surprisingly modern repertoire of tools. In 1996 Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig and Fred Spoor of University College London identified a Neanderthal bone in another French cave, near Arcy-sur-Cure, in a layer of sediment also containing ornamental objects previously associated only with modern humans, such as pierced animal teeth and ivory rings. Some scientists, such as British paleoanthropologist Paul Mellars, dismiss such modern "accessorizing" of a fundamentally archaic lifestyle as an "improbable coincidence"—a last gasp of imitative behavior by Neanderthals before the inventive newcomers out of Africa replaced them. But more recently, Francesco d'Errico of the University of Bordeaux and Marie Soressi, also at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, analyzed hundreds of crayon-like blocks of manganese dioxide from a French cave called Pech de l'Azé, where Neanderthals lived well before modern humans arrived in Europe. D'Errico and Soressi argue that the Neanderthals used the black pigment for body decoration, demonstrating that they were fully capable of achieving "behavioral modernity" all on their own.

"At the time of the biological transition," says Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, "the basic behavior [of the two groups] is pretty much the same, and any differences are likely to have been subtle." Trinkaus believes they indeed may have mated occasionally. He sees evidence of admixture between Neanderthals and modern humans in certain fossils, such as a 24,500-year-old skeleton of a young child discovered at the Portuguese site of Lagar Velho, and a 32,000-year-old skull from a cave called Muierii in Romania. "There were very few people on the landscape, and you need to find a mate and reproduce," says Trinkaus. "Why not? Humans are not known to be choosy. Sex happens."

It may have happened, other researchers say, but not often, and not in a way that left behind any evidence. Katerina Harvati, another researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, has used detailed 3-D measurements of Neanderthal and early modern human fossils to predict exactly what hybrids between the two would have looked like. None of the fossils examined so far matches her predictions.

The disagreement between Trinkaus and Harvati is hardly the first time that two respected paleoanthropologists have looked at the same set of bones and come up with mutually contradictory interpretations. Pondering—and debating—the meaning of fossil anatomy will always play a role in understanding Neanderthals. But now there are other ways to bring them back to life.

Two days after my first descent into El Sidrón cave, Araceli Soto Flórez, a graduate student at the University of Oviedo, came across a fresh Neanderthal bone, probably a fragment of a femur. All digging immediately ceased, and most of the crew evacuated the chamber. Soto Flórez then squeezed herself into a sterile jumpsuit, gloves, booties, and plastic face mask. Under the watchful eyes of Antonio Rosas and molecular biologist Carles Lalueza-Fox, she delicately extracted the bone from the soil, placed it in a sterile plastic bag, and deposited the bag in a chest of ice. After a brief stop in a hotel freezer in nearby Villamayo, the leg bone eventually arrived at Lalueza-Fox's laboratory at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona. His interest was not in the anatomy of the leg or anything it might reveal about Neanderthal locomotion. All he wanted from it was its DNA.

Prehistoric cannibalism has been very good for modern-day molecular biology. Scraping flesh from a bone also removes the DNA of microorganisms that might otherwise contaminate the sample. The bones of El Sidrón have not yielded the most DNA of any Neanderthal fossil—that honor belongs to a specimen from Croatia, also cannibalized—but so far they have revealed the most compelling insights into Neanderthal appearance and behavior. In October 2007 Lalueza-Fox, Holger Römpler of the University of Leipzig, and their colleagues announced that they had isolated a pigmentation gene from the DNA of an individual at El Sidrón (as well as another Neanderthal fossil from Italy). The particular form of the gene, called MC1R, indicated that at least some Neanderthals would have had red hair, pale skin, and, possibly, freckles. The gene is unlike that of red-haired people today, however—suggesting that Neanderthals and modern humans developed the trait independently, perhaps under similar pressures in northern latitudes to evolve fair skin to let in more sunlight for the manufacture of vitamin D. Just a few weeks earlier, Svante Pääbo, who now heads the genetics laboratory at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Lalueza-Fox, and their colleagues had announced an even more astonishing find: Two El Sidrón individuals appeared to share, with modern humans, a version of a gene called FOXP2 that contributes to speech and language ability, acting not only in the brain but also on the nerves that control facial muscles. Whether Neanderthals were capable of sophisticated language abilities or a more primitive form of vocal communication (singing, for example) still remains unclear, but the new genetic findings suggest they possessed some of the same vocalizing hardware as modern humans.

All this from a group of ill-fated Neanderthals buried in a cave collapse, soon after they were consumed by their own kind.

"So maybe it's a good thing to eat your conspecifics," says Pääbo.

A tall, cheerful Swede, Pääbo is the main engine behind a breathtaking scientific tour de force: the attempt, expected to be completed next month, to read out not just single Neanderthal genes, but the entire three-billion-letter sequence of the Neanderthal genome. Traces of DNA in fossils are vanishingly faint, and because Neanderthal DNA is ever so close to that of living people, one of the biggest hurdles in sequencing it is the ever present threat of contamination by modern human DNA—especially by the scientists handling the specimens. The precautions taken in excavating at El Sidrón are now becoming standard practice at other Neanderthal sites. Most of the DNA for Pääbo's genome project, however, has come from the Croatian specimen, a 38,000-year-old fragment of leg bone found almost 30 years ago in the Vindija cave. Originally deemed unimportant, it sat in a drawer in Zagreb, largely untouched and thus uncontaminated, for most of its museum life.

Now it is the equivalent of a gold mine for prehistoric human DNA, albeit an extremely difficult mine to work. After the DNA is extracted in a sterile laboratory in the basement of the Max Planck Institute, it is shipped overnight to Branford, Connecticut, where collaborators at 454 Life Sciences have invented machines that can rapidly decipher the sequence of DNA's chemical letters. The vast majority of those letters spell out bacterial contaminants or other non-Neanderthal genetic information. But in the fall of 2006, Pääbo and his colleagues announced they had deciphered approximately one million letters of Neanderthal DNA. (At the same time, a second group, headed by Edward Rubin at the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California, used DNA provided by Pääbo to read out snippets of genetic code using a different approach.) By last year, dogged by claims that their work had serious contamination problems, the Leipzig group claimed to have improved accuracy and identified about 70 million letters of DNA—roughly 2 percent of the total.

"We know that the human and chimpanzee sequences are 98.7 percent the same, and Neanderthals are much closer to us than chimps," said Ed Green, head of biomathematics in Pääbo's group in Leipzig, "so the reality is that for most of the sequence, there's no difference between Neanderthals and [modern] humans." But the differences—less than a half percent of the sequence—are enough to confirm that the two lineages had begun to diverge around 700,000 years ago. The Leipzig group also managed to extract mitochondrial DNA from two fossils of uncertain origin that had been excavated in Uzbekistan and southern Siberia; both had a uniquely Neanderthal genetic signature. While the Uzbekistan specimen, a young boy, had long been considered a Neanderthal, the Siberian specimen was a huge surprise, extending the known Neanderthal range some 1,200 miles east of their European stronghold.

So, while the new genetic evidence appears to confirm that Neanderthals were a separate species from us, it also suggests that they may have possessed human language and were successful over a far larger sweep of Eurasia than previously thought. Which brings us back to the same hauntingly persistent question that has shadowed them from the beginning: Why did they disappear?

To coax a Neanderthal fossil to reveal its secrets, you can measure it with calipers, probe it with a CT scan, or try to capture the ghost of its genetic code. Or if you happen to have at your disposal a type of particle accelerator called a synchrotron, you can put it in a lead-lined room and blast it with a 50,000-volt x-ray beam, without disturbing so much as a single molecule.

Over a sleep-deprived week in October 2007, a team of scientists gathered at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, for an unprecedented "convention of jawbones." The goal was to explore a crucial question in the life history of the Neanderthals: Did they reach maturity at an earlier age than their modern human counterparts? If so, it might have implications for their brain development, which in turn might help explain why they disappeared. The place to look for answers was deep inside the structure of Neanderthal teeth.

"When I was young, I thought that teeth were not so useful in assessing recent human evolution, but now I think they are the most important thing," said Jean-Jacques Hublin, who had accompanied his Max Planck Institute colleague Tanya Smith to Grenoble.

Along with Paul Tafforeau of the ESRF, Hublin and Smith were squeezed into a computer-filled hutch at the facility—one of the three largest synchrotrons in the world, with a storage ring for energized electrons half a mile in circumference—watching on a video monitor as the x-ray beam zipped through the right upper canine of an adolescent Neanderthal from the site of Le Moustier in southwestern France, creating arguably the most detailed dental x-ray in human history. Meanwhile, a dream team of other fossils sat on a shelf nearby, awaiting their turn in the synchrotron's spotlight: two jawbones of Neanderthal juveniles recovered in Krapina, Croatia, dating back 130,000 to 120,000 years; the so-called La Quina skull from a Neanderthal youth, discovered in France and dating from between 75,000 to 40,000 years ago; and two striking 90,000-year-old modern human specimens, teeth intact, found in a rock shelter called Qafzeh in Israel.

When teeth are imaged at high resolution, they reveal a complex, three-dimensional hatch of daily and longer periodic growth lines, like tree rings, along with stress lines that encode key moments in an individual's life history. The trauma of birth etches a sharp neonatal stress line on the enamel; the time of weaning and episodes of nutritional deprivation or other environmental stresses similarly leave distinct marks on developing teeth. "Teeth preserve a continuous, permanent record of growth, from before birth until they finish growing at the end of adolescence," Smith explained. Human beings take longer to reach puberty than chimpanzees, our nearest living relatives—which means more time spent learning and developing within the context of the social group. Early hominin species that lived on the savanna in Africa millions of years ago matured fast, more like chimps. So when in evolution did the longer modern pattern begin?

To address this question, Smith, Tafforeau, and colleagues had previously used the synchrotron to demonstrate that an early modern human child from a site called Jebel Irhoud in Morocco (dated to around 160,000 years ago) showed the modern human life history pattern. In contrast, the "growth rings" in the 100,000-year-old tooth of a young Neanderthal discovered in the Scladina cave in Belgium indicated that the child was eight years old when it died and appeared to be on track to reach puberty several years sooner than the average for modern humans. Another research team, using a single Neanderthal tooth, had found no such difference between its growth pattern and that of living humans. But while a full analysis from the "jawbone convention" would take time, preliminary results, Smith said, were "consistent with what we see in Scladina."

"This would certainly affect Neanderthal social organization, mating strategy, and parenting behavior," says Hublin. "Imagine a society where individuals start to reproduce four years earlier than in modern humans. It's a very different society. It could also mean the Neanderthals' cognitive abilities may have been different from modern humans'."

Neanderthal society may have differed in another way crucial to group survival: what archaeologists call cultural buffering. A buffer is something in a group's behavior—a technology, a form of social organization, a cultural tradition—that hedges its bets in the high-stakes game of natural selection. It's like having a small cache of extra chips at your elbow in a poker game, so you don't have to fold your hand quite as soon. For example, Mary Stiner and Steven Kuhn of the University of Arizona argue that early modern humans emerged from Africa with the buffer of an economically efficient approach to hunting and gathering that resulted in a more diverse diet. While men chased after large animals, women and children foraged for small game and plant foods. Stiner and Kuhn maintain that Neanderthals did not enjoy the benefits of such a marked division of labor. From southern Israel to northern Germany, the archaeological record shows that Neanderthals instead relied almost entirely on hunting big and medium-size mammals like horses, deer, bison, and wild cattle. No doubt they were eating some vegetable material and even shellfish near the Mediterranean, but the lack of milling stones or other evidence for processing plant foods suggests to Stiner and Kuhn that to a Neanderthal vegetables were supplementary foods, "more like salads, snacks, and desserts than energy-rich staple foods."

Their bodies' relentless demand for calories, especially in higher latitudes and during colder interludes, probably forced Neanderthal women and children to join in the hunt—a "rough and dangerous business," write Stiner and Kuhn, judging by the many healed fractures evident on Neanderthal upper limbs and skulls. The modern human bands that arrived on the landscape toward the end of the Neanderthals' time had other options.

"By diversifying diet and having personnel who [did different tasks], you have a formula for spreading risk, and that is ultimately good news for pregnant women and for kids," Stiner told me. "So if one thing falls through, there's something else." A Neanderthal woman would have been powerful and resilient. But without such cultural buffering, she and her young would have been at a disadvantage.

Of all possible cultural buffers, perhaps the most important was the cushion of society itself. According to Erik Trinkaus, a Neanderthal social unit would have been about the size of an extended family. But in early modern human sites in Europe, Trinkaus said, "we start getting sites that represent larger populations." Simply living in a larger group has biological as well as social repercussions. Larger groups inevitably demand more social interactions, which goads the brain into greater activity during childhood and adolescence, creates pressure to increase the sophistication of language, and indirectly increases the average life span of group members. Longevity, in turn, increases intergenerational transmission of knowledge and creates what Chris Stringer calls a "culture of innovation"—the passage of practical survival skills and toolmaking technology from one generation to the next, and later between one group and another.

Whatever the suite of cultural buffers, they may well have provided an extra, albeit thin, layer of insulation against the harsh climatic stresses that Stringer argues peaked right around the time the Neanderthals vanished. Ice core data suggest that from about 30,000 years ago until the last glacial maximum about 18,000 years ago, the Earth's climate fluctuated wildly, sometimes within the space of decades. A few more people in the social unit, with a few more skills, might have given modern humans an edge when conditions turned harsh. "Not a vast edge," Stringer said. "Neanderthals were obviously well adapted to a colder climate. But with the superimposition of these extreme changes in climate on the competition with modern humans, I think that made the difference."

Which leaves the final, delicate—and, as Jean-Jacques Hublin likes to say, politically incorrect—question that has bedeviled Neanderthal studies since the Out of Africa theory became generally accepted: Was the replacement by modern humans attenuated and peaceful, the Pleistocene version of kissing cousins, or was it relatively swift and hostile?

"Most Neanderthals and modern humans probably lived most of their lives without seeing each other," he said, carefully choosing his words. "The way I imagine it is that occasionally in these border areas, some of these guys would see each other at a distance…but I think the most likely thing is that they excluded each other from the landscape. Not just avoided, but excluded. We know from recent research on hunter-gatherers that they are much less peaceful than generally believed."

"Sometimes I just turn out the lights in here and think what it must have been like for them."

Evolutionary biologist Clive Finlayson, of the Gibraltar Museum, was standing in the vestibule of Gorham's Cave, a magnificent tabernacle of limestone opening to the sea on the Rock of Gibraltar. Inside, fantastic excretions of flowstone drooled from the ceiling of the massive nave. The stratigraphy in the cave is pocked with evidence of Neanderthal occupation going back 125,000 years, including stone spearpoints and scrapers, charred pine nuts, and the remains of ancient hearths. Two years ago, Finlayson and his colleagues used radiocarbon dating to determine that the embers in some of those fireplaces died out only 28,000 years ago—the last known trace of Neanderthals on Earth. (Other hearths in the cave may be as young as 24,000 years old, but their dating is controversial.)

From pollen and animal remains, Finlayson has reconstructed what the environment was like from 50,000 to 30,000 years ago. Back then, a narrow coastal shelf surrounded Gibraltar, the Mediterranean two or three miles distant. The landscape was scrub savanna scented with rosemary and thyme, its rolling sand dunes interrupted by the occasional cork oak and stone pine, with wild asparagus growing in the coastal flats. Prehistoric vultures, some with nine-foot wingspans, nested high up in the cliff face, scanning the dunes for meals. Finlayson imagines the Neanderthals watching the birds circle and descend, then racing them for food. Their diet was certainly more varied than the typical Neanderthal dependence on terrestrial game. His research team has found rabbit bones, tortoise shells, and mussels in the cave, along with dolphin bones and a seal skeleton with cut marks. "Except for rice, you've almost got a Mousterian paella!" Finlayson joked.

But then things changed. When the coldest fingers of the Ice Age finally reached southern Iberia in a series of abrupt fluctuations between 30,000 and 23,000 years ago, the landscape was transformed into a semiarid steppe. On this more open playing field, perhaps the tall, gracile modern humans moving into the region with projectile spears gained the advantage over the stumpy, muscle-bound Neanderthals. But Finlayson argues that it was not so much the arrival of modern humans as the dramatic shifts in climate that pushed the Iberian Neanderthals to the brink. "A three-year period of intense cold, or a landslide, when you're down to ten people, could be enough," he said. "Once you reach a certain level, you're the living dead."

The larger point may be that the demise of the Neanderthals is not a sprawling yet coherent paleoanthropological novel; rather, it is a collection of related, but unique, short stories of extinction. "Why did the Neanderthals disappear in Mongolia?" Stringer asked. "Why did they disappear in Israel? Why did they disappear in Italy, in Gibraltar, in Britain? Well, the answer could be different in different places, because it probably happened at different times. So we're talking about a large range, and a disappearance and retreat at different times, with pockets of Neanderthals no doubt surviving in different places at different times. Gibraltar is certainly one of their last outposts. It could be the last, but we don't know for sure."

Whatever happened, the denouement of all these stories had a signatory in Gorham's Cave. In a deep recess of the cavern, not far from that last Neanderthal hearth, Finlayson's team recently discovered several red handprints on the wall, a sign that modern humans had arrived in Gibraltar. Preliminary analysis of the pigments dates the handprints between 20,300 and 19,500 years ago. "It's like they were saying, Hey, it's a new world now," said Finlayson.

**********

All Non-Africans Part Neanderthal,

Genetics Confirm

http://news.discovery.com/human/genetics-neanderthal-110718.html

A museum reconstruction of a Neanderthal/credit: iStockPhoto

Analysis by Jennifer Viegas
Mon Jul 18, 2011 10:25 AM ET

If your heritage is non-African, you are part Neanderthal, according to a new study in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution. Discovery News has been reporting on human/Neanderthal interbreeding for some time now, so this latest research confirms earlier findings.

Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal's Department of Pediatrics and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center conducted the study with his colleagues. They determined some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals, but only in people of non-African heritage.

"This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred," Labuda was quoted as saying in a press release. His team believes most, if not all, of the interbreeding took place in the Middle East, while modern humans were migrating out of Africa and spreading to other regions.

The ancestors of Neanderthals left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago. They evolved over the millennia mostly in what are now France, Spain, Germany and Russia. They went extinct, or were simply absorbed into the modern human population, about 30,000 years ago.

Neanderthals possessed the gene for language and had sophisticated music, art and tool craftsmanship skills, so they must have not been all that unattractive to modern humans at the time.

"In addition, because our methods were totally independent of Neanderthal material, we can also conclude that previous results were not influenced by contaminating artifacts," Labuda said.

This work goes back to nearly a decade ago, when Labuda and his colleagues identified a piece of DNA, called a haplotype, in the human X chromosome that seemed different. They questioned its origins.

Fast forward to 2010, when the Neanderthal genome was sequenced. The researchers could then compare the haplotype to the Neanderthal genome as well as to the DNA of existing humans. The scientists found that the sequence was present in people across all continents, except for sub-Saharan Africa, and including Australia.

"There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating with our ancestors and Neanderthals," said Nick Patterson of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University. Patterson did not participate in the latest research. He added, "This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details."

David Reich, a Harvard Medical School geneticist, added, "Dr. Labuda and his colleagues were the first to identify a genetic variation in non-Africans that was likely to have come from an archaic population. This was done entirely without the Neanderthal genome sequence, but in light of the Neanderthal sequence, it is now clear that they were absolutely right!"

The modern human/Neanderthal combo likely benefitted our species, enabling it to survive in harsh, cold regions that Neanderthals previously had adapted to.

"Variability is very important for long-term survival of a species," Labuda concluded. "Every addition to the genome can be enriching."

Devising a Meaning for Coldplay's "Every Tear A Waterfall"

Maybe the troubadour poet inside me hears more to the music and lyrics of Coldplay's latest song than was intended, but vignettes of heaven's world seem to play again and again within this upside-down world of ours to wash across the turbulent landscapes of heaven's earthbound-faithful when hearing Every Tear a Waterfall. And yet, isn't this ofttimes the case as followers of Jesus hear in their heads beats to a different rhythm than the world can hear? Beats that come across as graffiti to outsiders, but are beautiful, strong, vibrant, like that of a mighty, rushing waterfall over the rocks of our broken hearts thundering God's love and majesty against the turmoils of this life? Who hear God's whispered assurances of "Peace, be still" proclaimed in a rebel song of heaven's rushing music through the bursted heart of the Spirit? Whose troubling voice fills with the breath of rushing waters racing darkly across the broken landscapes of our frail being vibrating with an intensity of conflict that would crush our burning tears into the heart of God's assuring spirit speaking love. Speaking peace. Speaking hope into the accumulated teardrops of humanity's broken hearts even as our own hearts burst within like a mighty, rushing waterfall. Carrying us over our own edge of nothingness till hearing the Spirit's song underneath. Flowing from the many streams of God's broken heart into the gathering streams of God's atoning abyss lost forever upon the rocks of God's mercy, grace, and peace. Falling away and purified into cleaner, clearer waters mending all time and eternity into surer worlds remembering a time that was and is no longer. Cathedrals to humanity's templed trove of redeeming waters remaking all new till Monday morning's dazzling sun comes true as "we dance all night with heaven in sight."

And all the kids they dance,

All the kids all night,

Until Monday morning

Feels another life,

I turn the music up,

I'm on a roll this time,

And heaven is in sight...

skinhead

July 2, 2011

**********

Background & Lyrics

http://www.directlyrics.com/coldplay-every-teardrop-is-a-waterfall-lyrics.html

Coldplay's first offering in 2011 is this new song entitled "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall" which the British band premiered/released online on June 3rd - Coldplay's amazing new tune samples Argentinian band The Sacados' 90's hit "Ritmo de la noche" - It's soo good! Uplifting, catchy and summery. "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall" will appear on Coldplay's upcoming fifth album which will hit stores in the Fall of 2011.

"Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall" by Coldplay is currently (week 26, 2011) in the HOT100 Billboard charts at position 52. The Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall lyrics by Coldplay are displayed below.

 

  Send "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall" Ringtone to your Cell

I TURN THE MUSIC UP, I GOT MY RECORDS ON

I SHUT THE WORLD OUTSIDE UNTIL THE LIGHTS COME ON
MAYBE THE STREETS ALIGHT, MAYBE THE TREES ARE GONE
I FEEL MY HEART START BEATING TO MY FAVOURITE SONG

AND ALL THE KIDS THEY DANCE, ALL THE KIDS ALL NIGHT
UNTIL MONDAY MORNING FEELS ANOTHER LIFE
I TURN THE MUSIC UP
I'M ON A ROLL THIS TIME
AND HEAVEN IS IN SIGHT

I TURN THE MUSIC UP, I GOT MY RECORDS ON
FROM UNDERNEATH THE RUBBLE SING A REBEL SONG
DON'T WANT TO SEE ANOTHER GENERATION DROP
I'D RATHER BE A COMMA THAN A FULL STOP

MAYBE I'M IN THE BLACK, MAYBE I'M ON MY KNEES
MAYBE I'M IN THE GAP BETWEEN THE TWO TRAPEZES
BUT MY HEART IS BEATING AND MY PULSES START
CATHEDRALS IN MY HEART













AND WE SAW OH THIS LIGHT I SWEAR YOU,
EMERGE BLINKING INTO TO TELL ME
IT'S ALRIGHT AS WE SOAR WALLS,
EVERY SIREN IS A SYMPHONY
AND EVERY TEAR'S A WATERFALL
IS A WATERFALL
OH
IS A WATERFALL
OH OH OH
IS A IS A WATERFALL
EVERY TEAR
IS A WATERFALL
OH OH OH

SO YOU CAN HURT, HURT ME BAD
BUT STILL I'LL RAISE THE FLAG

OH
IT WAS A WA WA WA WA WA-ATERFALL
A WA WA WA WA WA-ATERFALL

EVERY TEAR
EVERY TEAR
EVERY TEARDROP IS A WATERFALL

EVERY TEAR
EVERY TEAR
EVERY TEARDROP IS A WATERFALL

Send "Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall" Ringtone to your Cell

Wiki Reviews - http://www.wikicoldplay.com/Every_Teardrop_Is_A_Waterfall

Coldplay, 'Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall' - Song Review

http://popcrush.com/coldplay-every-teardrop-is-a-waterfall/

by Amy Sciarretto

June 2011

EMI/Capitol

Coldplay‘s brand new single ‘Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall’ is as big as its title suggests. It is not a ballad, but an uplifting, room-filling Brit pop song laced with the band’s rock ‘n’ roll edge.

While Coldplay have endured plenty of Radiohead comparisons throughout their career, they’ve turned the corner here, going for stadium-sized hooks a la U2 with this bold, bright, guitar-driven new song that is steered by Martin’s inimitable voice. Thanks to its massive size and scope, the four-minute monster more than makes up for all the time fans had to wait for new music from the band.

At about the three-minute mark, ‘Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall’ balloons with layered harmonies and faster guitar work. It’s as though vocalist (and Gwyneth Paltrow baby daddy) Chris Martin wrote the song with the express intent of performing in a stadium or at the Olympics. (Ahem — the 2012 Olympics will be held in London, so…)

When Martin sings, “I turn the music / I got my records on / I shut the world outside until the lights come on / Maybe the streets alright / Maybe the trees are gone / I feel my heart start beating to my favorite song,” he pulls us into his world, where everything around you fades into the background while you focus on what you hear in your headphones. Speaking of which, you will pick up all the nuances of sound via a pair of earbuds.

The song doesn’t fade out, either. It ends on a percussive note. You’ll want to listen to it over and over again. It’s a gorgeous mix of Coldplay’s knack for pretty melodies mixed with some escalating guitar work, despite not being nearly as polished as the band’s previous pop songs.

The song comes in like a lion and goes out like one, too!

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldplay

Background

Coldplay are an English alternative rock band formed in 1996 by lead vocalist Chris Martin and lead guitarist Jonny Buckland at University College London.^[1] After forming Pectoralz, Guy Berryman joined the group as a bassist and they changed their name to Starfish.^[2] Will Champion joined as a drummer, backing vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, completing the lineup. Manager Phil Harvey is often considered an unofficial fifth member.^[3] The band renamed themselves "Coldplay" in 1998,^[4] before recording and releasing three EPs; Safety in 1998, Brothers & Sisters as a single in 1999 and The Blue Room in the same year. The latter was their first release on a major label, after signing to Parlophone.^[5]

They achieved worldwide fame with the release of the single "Yellow" in 2000, followed by their debut album released in the same year, Parachutes, which was nominated for the Mercury Prize. The band's second album, A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002), was released to favourable reviews and won multiple awards, including NME's Album of the Year, and has been widely considered the best of the Nelson-produced Coldplay albums. Their next release, X&Y, was initially met with mixed reviews upon its release in 2005. However, the band's fourth studio album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008), was produced by Brian Eno and released again to largely favourable reviews, earning several Grammy nominations and wins.^[6]

Coldplay have been an active supporter of various social and political causes, such as Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign and Amnesty International. The group have also performed at various charity projects such as Band Aid 20, Live 8, Sound Relief, Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief, and the Teenage Cancer Trust.^[7]


Activism and Commercial Endorsements

Make Trade Fair, abbreviated as MTF,

shown on Chris Martin's piano during

a concert

Despite their worldwide popularity, the band has remained protective of how their music is used in the media, refusing its use for product endorsements. In the past, Coldplay turned down multi-million dollar contracts from Gatorade, Diet Coke, and Gap, who wanted to use the songs "Yellow", "Trouble", and "Don't Panic" respectively.^[112] According to frontman, Chris Martin, "We wouldn't be able to live with ourselves if we sold the songs' meanings like that."^[112]iTunes Store, advertising its exclusive availability of the single as a digital download on iTunes.^[113] Additionally, Chris Martin appeared at an Apple Inc. Special Event on 1 September 2010, playing a number of songs, and also thanked Apple for their assistance in marketing "Viva la Vida".^[114] Coldplay supports Amnesty International.^[115] Martin is regarded as one of the most visible celebrity advocates for fair trade, supporting Oxfam's ongoing Make Trade Fair campaign.^[116] He has been on trips with Oxfam to assess conditions, has appeared in its advertising campaign, and is known for wearing a "Make Trade Fair" wristband during public appearances (including at Coldplay concerts).^[117] The band were also filmed for Make Poverty History, clicking their fingers.

During the early years, Coldplay became widely known in the media for giving 10 percent of the band's profits to charity,^[118] which they continue to do.^[119] Bassist Guy Berryman said, "You can make people aware of issues. It isn't very much effort for us at all, but if it can help people, then we want to do it."^[115] The band also asks that any gifts intended for them are donated to charity, according to a response on the FAQ section of Coldplay's website. Martin spoke out against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and endorsed the United States Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry^[120] and Barack Obama in 2004 and 2008 respectively.^[121]

In June 2009, Coldplay began supporting Meat Free Monday, a food campaign started by Paul McCartney which attempts to help slow climate change by having at least one meat free day a week.^[122]

From 17 and 31 December 2009, Coldplay auctioned a quantity of significant band memorabilia, including their first guitars. Proceeds went to Kids Company, a charity which helps vulnerable children and young people in London.^[123] A month later in January 2010, Coldplay performed a slightly modified version of "A Message", entitled "A Message 2010", at the Hope For Haiti Now telethon special, raising money for the victims of the Haitian Earthquake.^[124]

In 2011 Coldplay endorsed the song "Freedom for Palestine" by posting a link to the video. In less than a day 12,000 comments were made on that post. Some threatened to boycott the band, and a Facebook group was created that demanded an apology to Israel.^[125] Coldplay eventually removed the link to the song from their Facebook wall.

for Wiki citations see - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coldplay

Ayn Rand Led Me to Christ

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/june/aynrandled.html

How the anti-Christian philosopher prepared me to hear the gospel.

by Bishop Edward S. Little II

posted 6/29/2011 09:40AM

Ayn Rand changed my life. When I embraced her philosophy, Objectivism, the conversion was far more dramatic than my decision, several years later, to follow Jesus Christ—more dramatic, but in the end transitory. Yet Rand, the novelist, philosopher, and uncompromising atheist, inadvertently opened a door for the gospel. I don't believe dead people spin in their graves, but if they did and she could read these words, I imagine Rand would be twirling violently.

As many have noted, Rand's ethic of rational self-interest is incompatible with the gospel, and leads to social as well as spiritual disaster. "Most observers see Rand as a political and economic philosopher," wrote Gary Moore last year in Christianity Today. "I believe that she was first and foremost an anti-Christian philosopher." A six-foot dollar sign wreath towered over her casket, Moore pointed out, an icon of the false gospel she labored to proclaim. I agree entirely that Christianity and Objectivism are utterly incompatible. But my gratitude to Rand remains profound.

My First Conversion

In the spring of 1962, an awkward and philosophically oriented 15-year-old raised in an utterly secular home, I read The Fountainhead and then Atlas Shrugged. Those books triggered a philosophical (and, unknowingly, spiritual) revolution. One evening, immersed in Rand's writings, I listened on the radio to a re-broadcast of a lecture she had delivered a year earlier at the University of Wisconsin, during a symposium called "Ethics in Our Time." Even at a distance of 48 years, I can still hear her heavily accented voice as she quoted from John Galt's speech, the long and detailed summary of Objectivism that appears near the end of Atlas Shrugged: "Yes, this is an age of moral crisis. Yes, you are bearing punishment for your evil …. Your moral code has reached its climax, the blind alley at the end of its course. And if you wish to go on living, what you now need is not to return to morality … but to discover it."

For three years I followed Rand, read every word she published, studied Objectivism and its moral, political, and economic implications, and even tried to imitate the heroes in Rand's novels. Several times, the central character in The Fountainhead, Howard Roark, is accused of staring at people, his piercing eyes making the novel's villains feel judged and found wanting. And so I practiced widening my eyes and keeping them open for extended periods. No one, however, seemed daunted by my gaze.

Because my family lived in New York City, I was able to enroll in a 20-session "Basics of Objectivism" course at the Nathaniel Branden Institute. (Branden, an early Rand associate and a psychologist by training, spent many years teaching Objectivism in partnership with Rand.) The course included sessions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and political and economic theory, with a heavy emphasis on laissez-faire capitalism. When Branden finished his lecture, Rand herself would often answer questions. Among the memorabilia from that period of my life is a scrap of paper with Rand's autograph, the letters sharp and angular. I also enrolled in "Objectivist Economics," taught by a very young Alan Greenspan.

My commitment to Rand and her philosophy, however, did not survive my early years in college. Two figures intervened.

The Unscrupulous God

The first was Plato. In Rand's teaching, Aristotle served as a kind of philosophical hero. Plato, with his tendency toward mysticism, represented philosophical depravity for Rand. So I entered college predisposed to reject Plato, and came armed with Objectivist and Aristotelian weapons for the battle. Then I actually read Plato in a philosophy class. I was shocked to find much to commend his vision of a Reality that is more than the reality we can see. "A young man who wishes to remain an Atheist," C. S. Lewis wrote in Surprised by Joy, "cannot be too careful of his reading. There are traps everywhere—'Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,' as Herbert says, 'fine nets and stratagems.' God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous."

The Phaedo was particularly disturbing, as Plato's Socrates prepares to die and in the process comforts his friends with an admittedly non-Christian notion of the afterlife. What troubled me most was that it made sense, that the one-dimensional universe of Objectivism did not do justice to the facts. Could Rand be wrong? My certainty began to crumble. Much later I stumbled onto a hymn that points to Plato and Socrates as unwitting precursors of the gospel:

For Socrates who, phrase by phrase,
Talked men to truth, unshrinking,
And left for Plato's mighty grace
To mold our ways of thinking;
For all who wrestled, sane and free,
To win the unseen reality,
To God be thanks and glory.

I still remember my breathlessness as I read the Phaedo for the first time. But Plato merely set the stage for something, Someone, more profound.

The second figure was Jesus. In my sophomore year, I enrolled in a two-semester "Bible as Literature" course. I was majoring in ancient history, and biblical history figured into the wider picture. But the ground softened by Plato presented itself to the plow of the gospel, and I was changed forever.

The process, however, has its own bizarre twists and turns. These courses were taught by a former pastor turned agnostic, a delightful and humorous man who enjoyed introducing conservative Christians to historical-critical methods and shaking their faith. Students often emerged from Bible as Literature predictably unbiblical in their perspective. For reasons known only to the Holy Spirit, the system didn't work in my case. Reading the Bible for the first time, encountering the text and laying aside the professor's debunking attitude, I met a God who laid claim to my life, a Savior who invited (or, more precisely, demanded) my allegiance.

Over the course of two semesters, something happened. I can't precisely date it. But friends tell me that they noticed a change. By the time I was halfway through the New Testament course, I was referring to Jesus in the present rather than the past tense. Later, under the guidance of those same friends, I learned the vocabulary—about committing my life to Jesus, receiving him as Savior, following him as Lord. Paul describes the experience of his Corinthian converts, and my own experience, with overwhelming and almost inarticulate joy: "You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11, RSV). But the deed was first done surreptitiously, as I read the Bible and met the One who is King of kings and Lord of lords. Lewis was right: God is indeed very unscrupulous.

The Truth of Ayn Rand

And what of Rand? I quickly relegated her to my intellectual and spiritual past. Friends from my Objectivist period drifted out of my life. As a new Christian, I immersed myself in the Bible, Christian literature, and the Christian community. Only occasionally, in the intervening decades, did Rand enter my consciousness—once again with the recent release of the movie Atlas Shrugged. In reflecting on how she inadvertently influenced me, I've seen God's hand work through her in a number of ways.

I - Ayn Rand taught me how to think. "Man cannot survive except through his mind," says Howard Roark in The Fountainhead." He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind." And so Rand challenged me to reject sloppy thinking, to apply reason meticulously, not least when dealing with culturally mandated assumptions. But that very commitment to reason gave me tools that led, much to my surprise, to a critique of Objectivism itself. The unseen Reality to which Plato pointed made sense not simply as an alternative way of seeing the world, but also under the test of reason.

Indeed, that very test points to God himself. The order and complexity of creation, the fact, as C.S. Lewis notes in Mere Christianity, that there seems to be a moral law with a claim upon human beings ("right and wrong as a clue to the meaning of the universe," he calls it), all stand upon the foundation of the firm application of reason. Rigorous thought can set the stage for faith and demonstrate the reasonableness of the Christian claim that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. While reason cannot, unaided, present the fullness of Christian truth, it can support and undergird it.

II - Ayn Rand taught me that there is such a thing as objective reality. Three Aristotelian axioms—Non-Contradiction, Either-Or, and A is A—mark the three sections of Atlas Shrugged. "Contradictions do not exist," Francisco tells Dagny. "Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." In other words, a thing is true (or false) regardless of what we think about it. This flies in the face of modernism (which tends to dismiss out of hand the supernatural and the miraculous, with no evidence beyond skepticism) and postmodernism (which doesn't so much reject the supernatural as completely relativize it). When a postmodernist says, "All truth is relative; you have your truth and I have mine," Rand, and I, might answer: Your very statement contains an inherent inner contradiction. You claim as objective truth an assertion that would, in effect, negate itself.

All of this, in the end, led me to the non-sentimental and objective claims of the gospel. The gospel is no mere preference. It is true, or it isn't. Jesus is who he says he is, or he is (again, Lewis) [either] a madman or a fraud. Christian doctrine—Creation, Fall, Incarnation, Redemption, Consummation, and our ultimate and beatific vision of the Trinity—is true, or false. It can't be both. Rand's view of objective reality is admittedly limited. She relies on the senses and goes no further. She dismisses faith as mysticism and its practitioners as witch doctors. But she is right in this: If something is true, it is so because it aligns with reality. Our desires neither confirm nor deny its validity. Our only choice is to say "Yes" to truth, or not. As a Christian, that "Yes" is to Truth incarnate, Jesus Christ.

III - Ayn Rand taught me to believe in moral absolutes. Gary Moore reserved his strongest criticism precisely for this aspect of her thought. Rational self-interest, taken to its logical conclusion, is ultimately destructive: "I am done with the monster of the 'We,' " the hero of Anthem says, "the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: 'I.' " The golden calf of Exodus 32 hardly receives the adulation that Rand pours upon the individual and his or her moral autonomy.

John Galt's oath in Atlas Shrugged puts it more sharply: "I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another to live for mine." Rand places each human being at the center of his or her own universe, and makes that human being absolute. This is, from a biblical perspective, monstrous, the very articulation of Adam and Eve's disastrous rebellion.

As destructive as her moral vision may be, however, it is a moral vision—and that is precisely the point. I came to believe, in my Objectivist years, that I would flourish if I lived my life in accordance with a set of clear and unmistakable moral precepts. Later, I realized that those precepts were wrong; they work precisely against the flourishing of human beings as God has designed us and are ultimately self-destructive.

But in rejecting Objectivist ethics, I discovered that the New Testament offers us a "more excellent way" (1 Cor. 12:31, RSV). The New Testament vision of discipleship involves the attempt (aided, empowered) to bring our lives in accord with God's revealed will and purpose. There are moral absolutes with which we must grapple, which we must obey, and about which (when we fail to obey) we must seek absolution. Just as there is objective reality, there is also right and wrong. The twisted moral vision of Rand prepared me, perhaps simply by contrast, for the values of the kingdom of God.

IV - Ayn Rand taught me about humanity's heroic destiny. Her four novels are dominated by great heroes: Kira Argounova, Howard Roark, Hank Reardon, Dagny Taggart, John Galt, and the unnamed narrator of Anthem who finally calls himself Prometheus. Critics dismiss these heroes as plastic, one-dimensional, unbelievable. They are probably right. Gary Cooper's version of Howard Roark in the movie rendition of The Fountainhead demonstrates how difficult it is to portray a hero with no flaws, no inner conflicts. Cooper simply couldn't pull it off, and the role is stilted. But as a young Objectivist, I had people to imitate, an ideal to live up to: "I want to be like that." Rand incarnated her moral precepts, defective as they are, in her heroes.

So, of course, do the Bible and Christian tradition. Unlike the heroes of Rand, the Bible rarely portrays its chief characters as relentlessly good. Abraham tried to pass off Sarah as his sister. David committed adultery and murdered his rival. Peter is [both] a coward and a rock, a thoughtful evangelist and an impulsive motor mouth. Paul's teaching provides for all time the essential infrastructure of our Christology, but his temper (to take one example) bursts out of his writings with disturbing power. Yet in all of these characters, flawed as they are, we see God at work, correcting them, calling them, drawing them to himself, transforming them. "I want to be like that."

Only and finally in Jesus do we see humanity as the Father intends it. And only and finally in Jesus can our humanity ultimately be transfigured. "It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2, RSV). Our heroic destiny is fulfilled in Christ, whom we shall gaze upon eternally. Even now, while our transformation is still incomplete, we have "put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Col. 3:10, RSV).

There is little in Ayn Rand's philosophy or worldview that a Christian can endorse, even in small ways. Moore is right; Rand is "first and foremost an anti-Christian philosopher," and Objectivism stands in painfully stark contrast to the gospel. Yet I wonder if I am alone in offering thanks for Rand and her role, inadvertent as it was, in Christian conversion. God can use a donkey to chastise a prophet. Can he also use Rand as a kind of waystation on the road to Christ?

In my more hopeful moments, I find myself wondering if Rand, in her last moments, perceived her error and turned to the One she had rejected all her life. Or, as she slipped into eternity, if Jesus made a final, undeserved, and awe-full offer of grace. But that is speculation, and well beyond what God intends us to know. It is sufficient for my own purposes simply to say: Thank you, Ayn Rand.

Edward S. Little II is bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana, and author of Joy in Disguise: Meeting Jesus in the Dark Times (Morehouse, 2009).

 

Related Elsewhere

Gary Moore wrote earlier about why Christians should be wary of Ayn Rand and her disciples.

Previous articles on conversion or testimony include:

Testify! | In nightclubs, coffeehouses, and iPods, true first-person storytelling is becoming a cultural force as it borrows from Christian tradition. (January 7, 2011)

Bearing True Witness | Why we are tempted to embellish conversion stories. (June 28, 2010)

What Conversion Is and Is Not | Hint: It's not just about getting people 'saved.

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http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=indexWikipedia Introduction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand

Ayn Rand ( /ˈaɪn ˈrænd/;^[1] born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, February 2 [O.S. January 20] 1905 – March 6, 1982), was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher,^[2] playwright and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism.

Born and educated in Russia, Rand moved to the United States in 1926. She worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and had a play produced on Broadway in 1935–1936. After two initially unsuccessful early novels, she achieved fame with her 1943 novel The Fountainhead. In 1957, she published her best-known work, the philosophical novel Atlas Shrugged. Afterward she turned to nonfiction to promote her philosophy, publishing her own magazines and releasing several collections of essays until her death in 1982.

In her philosophy of Objectivism, Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She supported rational egoism and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights. She promoted romantic realism in art. She was sharply critical of most other philosophers and philosophical traditions.

The reception for Rand's fiction from literary critics was largely negative, and most academics have ignored or rejected her philosophy. Nonetheless she continues to have a popular following, and her political ideas have been influential among libertarians and some conservatives. The Objectivist movement attempts to spread her ideas, both to the public and in academic settings.