According to the bible we are all either descendants of Adam or Noah. If this theory is to hold water it must account for the various human local and regional diversities such skin tone (and other subtle differences such as sickle cell anaemia, enzyme difficencies etc). One of the prevailing biblical accounts for the descent of African is that Africans are offsprings of Ham, one of the children of Noah.

This is what one Christian apologist on this forum (4HIM) had to say about it;

4Him:

The children of Ham are the forebears of the Africans.

Apparent, this theory hold that Noah had children of various racial hues and that Ham was the African looking child. On this theory, how would one account for the following;

The Native Australians
The Japanese
The Chinese
The Europeans
The Arabs
The Indians
The Native Americans


Useful resources:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Genes-Show-it-We-Have-All-Come-From-Africa-79306.shtml
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Genes-Show-it-We-Have-All-Come-From-Africa-79306.shtml
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977284953&grpId=3659174697249927&nav=Groupspace
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/health_science/daily/20080222_Genome_studies_show_humans_are_all_mixed_up.html

tpaine, there was nothing like sickle cell in the days of Noah, it evolved as a genetic adaptation to malaria which is why it is endemic to subsaharan Africa and whites, asians, arabs do not carry the defective genes.

Taht shld explain your question.

4Him:

tpaine, there was nothing like sickle cell in the days of Noah, it evolved as a genetic adaptation to malaria which is why it is endemic to subsaharan Africa and whites, asians, arabs do not carry the defective genes.

Taht shld explain your question.

Did you really used those worlds it evolved as a genetic adaptation ? woooow. What an epiphany?

How would you explain the Native Australians? Are they descedant of Ham?

lol adaptation is a very important aspect of science. We see it in our environment everyday . . . bacteria rapidly develop resistance to antibiotics by positive selection.
Our bodies are a perfect example of adaptation, the dark pigmentation of the African most obviously developed as a means to avoid skin problems due to excessive sunlight.

The long hair for caucasians is most probably an evolutionary adaptation to the cold weather.

the native Australians, chinese, europeans e.t.c. All products of adaptation to their environment over time.

4Him:

lol adaptation is a very important aspect of science. We see it in our environment everyday . . . bacteria rapidly develop resistance to antibiotics by positive selection.
Our bodies are a perfect example of adaptation, the dark pigmentation of the African most obviously developed as a means to avoid skin problems due to excessive sunlight.

The long hair for caucasians is most probably an evolutionary adaptation to the cold weather.

the native Australians, chinese, europeans e.t.c. All products of adaptation to their environment over time.

For your information, the same genetic evidence that you just used here has been used to show that humans originated from African and migrated northward and eastwards, ending up in Australia but leaving their descendant along the east Asian coastline all the way to Australia. This first wave, because they stayed mainly in the tropic did not lose their melanin pigment on their skins. Hence, the Australians and Indian generally have darker skins.

A second wave of migration again from Africa had the migrant go northward and then Westward, ending up in western Europe. Then North - eastward. This secod wave of migration saw the migrants ending up in colder climes, causing them to lose the melanin pigment, hence the lighter skin tones amongst the northerners.

It was these lighter skinned northerners who later travelled across the landbridge linking Asian and North America, thus migrating into North America and then into South America. Hence South American native, being a relatively recent arrival in the tropics have a lighter skin tone than Africans.

@TPaine,
Whilst your assertions may be true, how does that refute the claim that Africans came from Ham? Quite possibly, the Aborigines and Indians also came from Ham.

Also, this does not prove that Ham himself was white or black. It just means that whatever colour pigmentation they possesed was gradually gained or lost as a result of environmental factors.

I believe that your question is aimed at proving who existed first: White or Black?
Am I correct?

Grouppoint:

@TPaine,
Whilst your assertions may be true, how does that refute the claim that Africans came from Ham? Quite possibly, the Aborigines and Indians also came from Ham.

Also, this does not prove that Ham himself was white or black. It just means that whatever colour pigmentation they possesed was gradually gained or lost as a result of environmental factors.

I believe that your question is aimed at proving who existed first: White or Black?
Am I correct?

Yes, you are correct in saying that it does not refute the existence of a Ham. That was not my point. My point is the original location of Ham. There is no evidence suggesting Africans descended from a "being" in the Middle East. On the contrary, the inhabitants of the Middle East descended from Africans.

Further, I am NOT making a socio-political point here at all. I don't care for the "black or white" issue. I care about the facts and am not discomforted by factual evidence.

The following might be useful. Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Genes-Show-it-We-Have-All-Come-From-Africa-79306.shtml


This study is the most impressive research so far tracking our evolutionary journey. The new research published in the Nature journal confirms that modern humans emerged in Africa and then spread into Asia to reach Europe, the Pacific and Americas. The team focused on 650,000 genetic markers
in about 1,000 subjects from 51 populations worldwide, the largest study of this type so far.

"You get less and less variation the further you go from Africa," said co-author Marcus Feldman, an evolutionary biologist at Stanford University in California.

This confirms the idea that Homo sapiens left Africa about 100,000 years ago. Each small group of individuals founded a new population in each new colonized region, using a smaller sample of the originally African gene pool, in a phenomenon called genetic bottleneck. Diversity clearly decreased during the migrations.

"If you keep sampling like that, then mathematically you must lose variation," said Feldman.

Other researchers looked at a maximum of 1,000 genetic markers, comparing just 3-4 populations.

"It's sort of like looking at Mars with the naked eye versus with a big, very powerful telescope," said co-author Richard Myers, a geneticist from Stanford University.

The detailed analysis revealed a shared portion of genes between the Yakut, indigenous of northeastern Siberia, and Native Americans, matching the archaeological findings of migration across the Bering area. The research also showed a clear racial distinction between the northern and southern Chinese populations and between different European populations.

"But perhaps even more striking is how similar humans are to each other. Some 90 % of the genetic variation occurs within populations, not among them. That turns out to be very profound, because it's not like we've got these 51 populations that are different species. We're really, really close to each other," said Myers.

The team found that racial types were characterized by thousands of genetic markers.

"Those genes which we classically use like skin color and eye color and hair structure to differentiate what we commonly call races is a tiny fraction of all the variation there is," said Feldman.

"In particular, the pattern of variation shows that the route of migration out of Africa was into the Middle East and then to the rest of Eurasia, the Americas, and Oceania. That tends to agree with what we're seeing on the Y-chromosome side," said Spencer Wells, a population geneticist and director of the Genographic Project, which is charting the migratory history of humans around the globe.

The study strengthened the idea of Africans spreading into the Middle East, followed by Europe and Asia, the Pacific Islands and, finally, the Americas.

"Populations in the Middle East have a unique signature of African, European, and Asian characteristics. It looks like a gateway. You see a lot more mixture there , that's one of the types of findings you get by looking at this level of detail," said Myers.

The research also showed that sometimes a person's roots can be traced to a small group specific to a geographic area.