Race: a huge blunder of science

IF you accept Darwinism you think we evolved from apes and that civilisations are a recent development. Even then, the Bible, which accepts creationism instead of evolution, narrates that humans have only inhabitated the planet for no more than 4, 5 or 6 thousand years. Either way due to geographical separation we have a scenario where many species were isolated on continents in some penultimate period.

Modern events have seen all of that change, where migration and domination of introduced species has led to loss of diversification, a supposed 'sin of mankind', the result of European colonisation and globalisation. Sadly most if not all of this has happened under the banner of religion, either Christianity or to a lesser extent Islam.

Yet there is another train of thought, that of the Vedas - where Ice Ages have periodically interrupted millions of years of humanity by forcing retreat and dieback on a massive scale. The last period of maximum glaciation ended roughly ten thousand years ago, and since then the melting ice caps and glaciers have changed the topography of the planet vastly. The Vedic thought is that their culture has survived through all of this for millions of years by retreating to areas protected by the Himalayas.

The problem with science, the substitute "Almighty" of atheists, is that it is relative and imperfect (unlike the Absolute, Divine Creator, Supreme Being, Big Dude In The Sky or whatever you identify with) and can make monumental mistakes.

Take classifying humanity into different races, for example; a huge blunder in science. [Quaintly put, the original conceptual division of anthropology was simple - Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, Australoid. This ran into problems when other "races" were identified, such as the indigenous Ainu of Japan for example, or lumping Polynesian, Melanesian and other Pacific Ocean islanders all together]. Simply put, races don't exist - in reality they are an artificial academic construct, a result of geographical separation over long periods of time. Eventually there will be so much "interbreeding" that it will be impossible to distinguish one "race" from another. The 'modern scientific' assumption of apparent racial distinction is simply a result of the geographical separation of civilisations. One day there'll be kangaroos in Europe just like our colonial rabbits here in Oz. Maybe even Polar bears in Antarctica and penguins at the North Pole. We've already got feral camels and buffalo in the outback and California loves its Eucalyptus gum trees. I say diversity is a good thing and in the future there will be no such thing as an 'introduced species'. It's all just a matter of time.

Sure, there are genetic differences in the DNA of so-called "races". But that occurs even within families. The fact that humans can mate and produce viable offspring proves that we are all one species and that race is a nonsense concept.

So how did all this come about? Even if you accept Darwin's proposition (which I don't) that we evolved from apes (well I'll be a monkey's uncle!), that doesn't explain the sudden recent emergence of civilisation. That evolving ape thing is supposed to be millions of years ago (emphasis on supposed) yet suddenly society springs up 5,000 years ago?

This geographical separation phenomenon has given us a skewed vision of history. Before the technological advancement of sailing boats, continents like Australia and the Americas remained largely inaccessible to the outside world apart from from migration on foot which is what happened. Without genetic diversity, species became "indigenous" purely because they were isolated, no migration. In the future all of this will change. Trying to preserve an outmoded paradigm defies common sense, is useless sentimentality, and flies in the face of progress and evolution.

What happened in the past is what people erroneously call an Ice Age. The fact is we are still in one, as evidenced by the polar caps. There have been at least five ice ages in Earth's billions of years history, and between each one the frozen caps disappear (Galcial/Interglacial Periods). What people really mean by "the last Ice Age" is the last stadial within the Glacial Period, which peaked about 20,000 years ago. Between each Glacial Maximum is an interstadial period of warmness. What alarmists label as global warming is actually a periodic cyclic event, the interstadial we are currently experiencing, somewhat like seasons but happening on a much longer time period of tens of thousands of years.

So picture the Earth before the last glacial period, which lasted about 130,000 years (interstadials vary from 10 to 50 thousand years; stadials, or glacial periods are much longer - generally 100 to 500 thousand years) and ended 20,000 years ago. When everything froze over, all life had to retreat to the few remaining areas of warmth that could sustain them. And where was that?

Time for a quick lesson in geography. Nearly all of the Earth's major mountain chains run North-South. The Rocky Mountains of USA, the Scandinavias, the Andes of South America, the Great Dividing Range of Australia, the Atlas Mountains of Africa - all offer little to no protection in halting the advancing Ice Age as it crept towards the Equator from both polar regions.

The exception to this are the East-West Himalayas of India, the Swiss Alps of Europe and the Caucasus and Zagras of Turkey and the Middle East. These are the only places of refuge between the North Pole and the Equator (there is no Southern Hemisphere equivalent) and it is no accident that this is where the world's oldest civilisations come from. South of these ranges, on the Plains between the mountain peaks and the Equator there were no glaciers. They stopped at the mountains. This is why all the Earth's oldest civilisations come from Equatorial regions.

Modern historians mark recorded history from the time humans started writing stuff down. That doesn't mean there was no history before then - again, about 5,000 years ago - just that it wasn't recorded, passed instead by oral tradition, as people had better memories before Kali Yuga started in 3012 BC.

Consider the possibility that many civilisations died out during the Glacial Period (approx. 130,000 - 10,000 BC), or became isolated, lived in caves or underground, eventually dumbed-down through separation and lost their knowledge. Perhaps this is why we are 'taught' (given pictures) of stupid Neanderthal Man groping with clumsy tools as being our ancestors. Yet there are cultures that claim to go so far back in time that their origin is impossible to pinpoint.

Vedic civilisation is one such culture and claims to be millions of years old. Some other surviving cultures are the Chinese, the Australian Aborigines, and of course the African Negroid - a term now not encouraged because it is racist.

Which brings us back to the original context of this whole story. The idea of dividing humanity up into separate races is in itself inherently racist and an invented, artificial construct. It is purely geographical separation over time (as a result of the "Ice Age") that caused the lack of genetic diversity contributing to a limited range of physical features - hence, a supposedly distinct "race".

It is the nature of survival that if a culture's needs are met there is no reason for peoples to migrate, let alone travel long distances seeking adventure. In previous Ages society was more  cultivated and concentrated on spiritual and religious endeavour. All this changed 5,000 years ago with the coming of Kali Yuga, the lowest of all ages culture wise (there are four and they rotate in succession). Losing their spirituality, civilisations became enamoured with lust for sense gratification resulting in capitalism, colonisation and conquering of foreign lands. That's where the ships come in - really high tech stuff in those days.

We tend to look back and judge everything as being really primitive in the old days but it's all relative. We take books for granted but before the invention of the Gutenberg press everything was copied via handwriting. Sometimes books were limited to a few dozen issues. Mass publication was such a boon that it even changed Christianity! No longer were citizens dependent on the Church for scripture; each home could have a Holy Bible and practice worship without having to be dependent on priests and cow-tow to the Roman Catholic Church. They no longer had a monopoly. This is how all the different denominations took hold and the origin of the "Bible Society" began.

Nowadays we look upon books as old-fashioned, outdated technology. Yet like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Vedas, Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Tibetan Book of the Dead and so many other scriptures, books do not require electricity and are available for use all the time regardless of circumstances unless you don't have a candle!

With no recorded history academics have a hard time proving anything before the invention of writing. Academics discard oral history as mere anecdotal 'mythology'. History starts at the point stuff was written down. Before that it's prehistoric ha ha. Not that long ago, forget about dinosaurs!

Take for instance the Guru-Disciple relationship, formally known as shishya. Say you want to learn how to play the mridanga, an Indian hand-drum. You approach a teacher and promise to serve them, and in return they impart their knowledge verbally and with demonstration and instruction.

It is an oral tradition. Each way of tapping or hitting the drum has a name (bol), and one recites the bol name as each stroke is played. The first lesson is te-re-ke-ta. This simultaneous speaking and playing sets up a dynamic that will enable the student to later sing and play the rhythm once learnt. Sure, it can be written down but it is not necessary. I learnt to play mridanga  primarily from written down stuff (the internet) but it was absolutely vital to hear actual playing (YouTube) to confirm that I'd got it down right. It's like learning a poem or a riddle or a funny joke. Once learnt properly the student then becomes master and can faithfully teach the same knowledge to a new student.

Historians have no interest in any of this because there is no evidence, no "written account of history". That doesn't mean knowledge wasn't imparted or exchanged or that nothing happened, just that it isn't recorded.

So effectively all history amounts to the stuff that was recorded (in those days written down) as if people were too dumb to recall and recite it later! Historians date the Vedas as being no older than a few thousand years. But the fact is that's just the time they were written down. Before that they were passed down for millions of years by oral tradition just like all cultural traditions are these days. There is no telling how old any of them are.

There is debate about when Australian Aborigines migrated. Some say there were two or more waves, 40, 60, maybe 120 thousand years ago. Chinese dynasties can only be dated from the time they wrote shit down. Same thing with the Egyptians and papyrus. Funny enough it all traces back to 5,000 years ago... the start of Kali Yuga (again!) when memories deteriorated and they had to start writing everything down.

'Cos that's when history "began".

Back then everyone was a joke teller.