Human Imperfection, Teboho Kibe [read a book .txt] 📗

four (on a statistical average). The genotype of a blonde person is blonde-blonde (two blonde genes in his body cells). A dark-haired person’s genotype can be either dark-dark or dark-blonde (or blonde-dark), having either two “dark” genes or a “dark” and a “blonde” gene. The dark-haired person would not know for sure what his genotype is unless one of his parents was blonde, or if he had a blonde child.

Mendel also experimented with garden peas in which there are genes in one parent plant for producing smooth-round yellow peas and in the other parent genes for producing green wrinkled peas. The colour yellow dominates over green and the smooth-round shape dominates over wrinkled. He found that the offspring were all smooth-round and yellow. But in mating these with one another Mendel got various results. His experiments revealed that the different gene factors combined to produce four varieties.

It was formerly supposed by some persons that, among humans, the heredity was in the blood. The thought was that by a “blending” process the child was intermediate between the two parents as to his appearance and other traits. In other words, the blood of one parent was “diluted,” as it were, by that of the other parent. The child, then, would have an appearance “halfway” between that of his parents. But this is not true. The inheritance is in the reproductive cells and not in the blood, so that, in a group of offspring, there are not only “in-between” types, but also types definitely having the same trait as one of the originals. Also, some types will resemble grandparents or great-grandparents more in certain respects than they resemble their parents. A child might, for example, display a characteristic or a talent that had been possessed by his grandfather but that did not show up in his father or mother at all.

Now, all this heredity with its variations comes from the DNA in the reproductive cells. A gene is a small section of the DNA—in itself very complex. Each gene is made up of a string of chemicals arranged in a certain sequence, forming a “code” or “message” that directs the formation of a specific trait, just as words are arranged in various sentences to form phrases. There are thousands of genes—no one knows how many thousands—in the human cell. But let us assume, to be conservative, that there are only 1,000 genes (far fewer than the actual number) and that each gene has only two variants (producing different eye colours, and so forth). Then the number of different gene combinations possible in humans would be 21000. This number—two to the one-thousandth power—is beyond comprehension. It is far greater than the estimated number of electrons and protons in the known universe!

Contributing to the almost limitless variety is the following process: Each of the living cells in the human body contains 46 chromosomes. The reproductive or sex cells are formed by certain of the 46-chromosome cells splitting to form half-cells (called “haploid” cells), each containing 23 chromosomes. During the splitting or dividing process, the 23 chromosomes received from one’s father and the 23 from one’s mother pair up, or mate up. Each of the 23 chromosomes from one parent, bearing along its length genes that direct the building of the many specific characteristics in the offspring, lies alongside the corresponding chromosome from the other parent. Then, when the cell divides, one chromosome goes into one newly formed reproductive cell (actually, a half-cell) and its mate goes into the other half-cell. But in the process, they not only separate but often cross over and exchange parts. This makes the possible number of different combinations practically infinite. These processes account for the fact that a person may have a “double”—one who greatly resembles him in appearance—although major differences will be found in many respects. Only in identical twins can the same genetic makeup be found.

Understanding the genetic principle, knowing how millions of variations occur, we can see why these variations exist, and that all, nevertheless, comprise one human race, one family. There are great differences in some respects, minor differences in most respects. But there is a sameness in human nature everywhere, and all can intermarry and have children. They are all of one kind.

Many of the more marked differences and combinations of distinctive traits are due to isolation of groups for long periods of time. This has come about because of barriers or segregation of certain groups due to geographical isolation or to artificial boundaries created by religious, social, national or linguistic differences. This isolation has caused certain characteristics or traits to be paired with others—for example, the dark skin and hair with the heavy facial features of many blacks, and the “yellow” skin and almond-shaped eyes of the Orientals. But these traits do not necessarily go together. For example, many blacks have small, delicate facial features. Occasionally one sees the above-mentioned features in other persons, but not so often paired together as among those who have kept within certain boundaries in their marriages for a long period of time, intermarrying with persons of their own area, tribe, and so forth.

Some people even distort the Bible, and try to show that it teaches “that the Negro, the lower apes and the quadrupeds, all belong to ‘one kind of flesh,’ the ‘flesh of beasts.”’ Professor Charles Carroll made this assertion in his book “The Negro a Beast” or “in the Image of God,” which received wide distribution in the early twentieth century. On the other hand, some evolutionists say that blacks are ‘a lower race of the human species.’

But some blacks argue in an altogether different way. The book Black Nationalism—A Search for an Identity in America says: “The Caucasians were not the original inhabitants of this earth, but were ‘grafted’ from the black people. . . . Contrasted with the Original Man (the so-called Negroes), the white is inferior physically and mentally. He is also weak because he was grafted from the black. He is the real ‘coloured’ man, i.e., the deviant from the black color norm.”

What do the facts show? Are we really one human family? Is there any truth to the claims that we are not?

Consider the flesh and blood. Some argue that it is different in blacks and whites. Yet The World Book Encyclopedia says: “Scientists state that cells which make up the human body are the same for all people. . . In the same way, a biologist can tell human blood from that of lower animals. But all the many types of human blood can be found among all the stocks and races of mankind.”

Much has been written about the differences in body structure of blacks and whites. But what are the facts? Anthropologist Ashley Montagu writes: “A close anatomical study seems to show that the physical differences are confined to quite superficial characters. I may best emphasize this by saying that if the body of a Negro were to be deprived of all superficial features such as skin, hair, nose and lips, I do not think that any anatomist could say for certain, in an isolated case, whether he was dealing with the body of a Negro or a European.”

Brain size is also pointed to as evidence of a basic difference between whites and blacks. It is claimed that, on the average, the brains of blacks are slightly smaller than those of whites. Yet, even if this were true, normal variations in brain size evidently do not affect intelligence. If they did, whites would be less intelligent than Eskimos and American Indians who, on the average, have larger brains.

To emphasize that the races are fundamentally alike, Professor Bentley Glass, in his book Genes and the Man, writes: “In all, it is unlikely that there are many more than six pairs of genes in which the white race differs characteristically, in the lay sense, from the black. Whites or blacks, however, unquestionably often differ among themselves by a larger number than this, a fact which reveals our racial prejudices as biologically absurd. . . . The chasm between human races and peoples, where it exists, is psychological and sociological; it is not genetic!”

Noteworthily, the recent book Heredity and Humans, by science writer Amram Scheinfeld, says: “Science now corroborates what most great religions have long been preaching: Human beings of all races are . . . descended from the same first man.”

Since this is true, then what accounts for observable racial differences, such as skin color and texture of hair?

The first human pair had within their genetic makeup the multiple factors for all the racial differences that we see today. Possibly they themselves were neither white nor black, but mulattoes, or a combination of the colors now found in the various races. An early historical report about humankind says: “They are all a single people with a single language!” (Gen. 11:6, in The Jerusalem Bible) But this abruptly changed.

A large segment of the human family, at that early time in history, desired to remain in one location for religio-political purposes. To thwart this, the Creator suddenly caused these men to speak different languages so that they could not understand one another. Picture what must have taken place.

Unable to communicate as one people, little groups, now isolated by the barrier of language, moved off on their own. As they spread farther afield, distance added another barrier to communication. Isolated by location and by language, the descendants of each group multiplied, and further developed over a period of time the distinct features of their “race?” But these physical features that were passed along from parent to child did not, in any way, make one race superior or inferior to another.—Gen. 11:7-10.

The fact is, these racial differences are actually not very great, as Hampton L. Carson writes in Heredity and Human Life: “The paradox which faces us is that each group of humans appears to be externally different yet underneath these differences there is fundamental similarity.

Understanding the process of heredity, we can see why we all are imperfect—why all of us sin and die. How so? Adam, the father of all humankind, turned away from God, sinning and damaging himself. In Bible terminology, Adam “missed the mark,” fell short of the mark or standard of perfection he originally had. (Rom. 3:23) Having lost perfection, he could not pass it on to his children. The heritage he transmitted was not complete, but was weakened, damaged, an inheritance, not of life, but of death. The result is that “through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12) Knowing that we all sprang from one father, inheriting imperfection through no fault of our own, should make humans more considerate and kind toward one another. However, this is not the general attitude.

A more important fact connected with this knowledge is that, since we all inherited sin and death from one common father, we can be delivered by the substitutionary sacrifice of one man. This one is Jesus Christ. God was his Father, with whom he had lived in heaven before coming to earth. He became a man by being born of a woman, miraculously.—Gal. 4:4.

About this, the apostle Paul writes: “Although [Jesus Christ] was existing in God’s form, [he] gave no consideration to a seizure, namely, that he should be equal to God. No, but he emptied himself and took a slave’s form and came to be in the likeness of men. More than that, when he found himself in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient as far as death.”—Phil. 2:5-8.

By undergoing these things, Jesus could give up his perfect human life as an atonement sacrifice for humankind. In this way, God, who loves his creation that he has made so intricately and elaborately, made provision to rescue mankind. The apostle also stated: “God recommends his own love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom.