Avodah Mailing List

Volume 30: Number 131

Sat, 22 Sep 2012

• 1. Re: Mitochondrial DNA and the Mabul (Micha Berger)
• 2. honoring the deceased's wish (saul newman)
• 3. Re: Mitochondrial DNA and the Mabul (Zev Sero)
• 4. Re: honoring the deceased's wish (Micha Berger)
• 5. Re: Mitochondrial DNA and the Mabul (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: honoring the deceased's wish (Zev Sero)
• 7. Re: Mitochondrial DNA and the Mabul (Lisa Liel)
• 8. Re: Mitochondrial DNA and the Mabul (Lisa Liel)
• 9. Re: Mitochondrial DNA and the Mabul (Ben Waxman)
• 10. The Elegant Answer to all Theological Questions (Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer)
• 11. Re: Mitochondrial DNA and the Mabul (Zev Sero)
• 12. Metz is fine but not on Shabbos (Meir Rabi)
• 13. Metz is required via Divine Revelation (Meir Rabi)
• 14. Re: Metz on Shabbos for hypospadias, but not otherwise (Arie Folger)

On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 06:31:16PM +0200, Arie Folger wrote:
: Over time, some women have no kids, or only sons, and thus their
: mitochondrial DNA line becomes extinct. Over hundreds of generations,
: that extinguishes an awful lot of lines, and with his analysis, [Sykes]
: finds "seven mothers" of Europeans, hence the title of his book, the
: Seven Daughters of Eve. The differences between those individuals are
: fairly large, and hence it is useful to consider those women genetic
: foremothers.

Sykes' is one theory among many. And he makes his income off offering
mtDNA tests that will tell you which haplogroup and which of these
daughters you descend from. So I'm not sure his is the most accepted.

I think it's worth checking out the dating of mtEve
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve#Impli
cations_of_dating_and_placement_of_Eve>
and of Y Chromosomal Adam
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam#Time_frame>.
We're talking 142,000 yrs since Y-Adam, and 150-200,000 yrs since mtEve.

All of which assumes things about mutation rates etc... that need not
have been true before the mabul.

BUT, there is one more person to identify... the MRCA (most recent common
ancestor) of all living humans. One person we all come from, even if he
isn't the father's father's father's father... or she isn't the mother's
mother's mother's mother... IOW, someone who was your mother's father's
father's mother's... and their father's mother's mother's mother's...

That person lived from 2,000 to 5,000 years ago. IOW, even without
questioning the science, we all could come from Noach, if there were
mountain top people, or residents of the future EY who survived the flood
whose DNA diverged from the Torah's Adam's genetic sources 142yrs ago.

One last note... The whole notion of DNA tracking is used to support
various theories about cultural evolution and human migration. They
aren't separable topics.

GCT and :-)@@ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A person lives with himself for seventy years,
mi...@aishdas.org        and after it is all over, he still does not
http://www.aishdas.org   know himself.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter

http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2012/09/interesting-psak
-saying-kaddish-against.html
on saying kaddish etc  when the non-frum decedent  specifically  instructed
 not to
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20120921/90fb6ace/attachment-0001.htm>

This is a problem not just for the mabul but also for creation.  And
it's not just mitochondrial DNA, but all DNA.  If we assume a steady
rate of mutation, then it's impossible to for the diversity we observe
in humanity -- and the diversity that Chazal observed 2000 years ago,
e.g. the story of the man who tried Hillel's patience -- to have arisen
from a single pair of ancestors in a mere 6000 years (creation to us),
let alone a mere 2500 years (Noach to Hillel).

The only answer I can think of is that the rate of mutation has not
been steady, and the generations from Noach to Avraham experienced a
high rate of mutation, perhaps due to cosmic ray bombardment during
the mabul.


-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon

On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 10:26:06AM -0700, saul newman wrote:
: http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2012/09/interesting-
: psak-saying-kaddish-against.html
: on saying kaddish etc  when the non-frum decedent  specifically  instructed
:  not to

Quoting:
    [Rav Barukh] Efrati referred to a psak of the Chasam Sofer
    who said that kaddish must be said even for someone who is not
    God-fearing... and especially for someone like Hefer who was a good
    person, who loved Eretz Yisrael and the Jewish people...

I seem to recall someone posting here years ago the notion that we ignore
requests that violate minhagim of aveilus on the grounds that we can
assume that the niftar's wishes have changed now that they are niftar.

Maybe it was during our discussion of the survivor who wanted to be
buried in their striped uniform. He wanted to defend himself before the
beis din shel maalah by being able to point to his garment and declare
that he already served his time in gehenom, and thus there was only
one place to send him. (In that case, RMF pasqened that that particular
request should be met, despite the practice since Rabban Gamliel's day
of burying in white linen.)

GCT and :-)@@ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Here is the test to find whether your mission
mi...@aishdas.org        on Earth is finished:
http://www.aishdas.org   if you're alive, it isn't.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Richard Bach

On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 2:16:54PM EDT, I wrote:
: All of which assumes things about mutation rates etc... that need not
: have been true before the mabul.

The pasuq seems to imply that the spin and the tilt of the earth was
involved in the mabul, as it invokes the [six] seasons, day and night
in 8:22 -- od kol yemei haaretz ... lo yishbosu." (See Rashi ad loc.)
The tilt causes the seasons, so a shevisah of the seasons implies that
the mabul changed the earth's tilt.

According the Seforno, they didn't just halt during the mabul, the seasons
didn't exist until after the mabul. And before the mabul, the sun was
over the equator, and the whole world was in perpetual spring. Rabbi
Yitzchaq in Bereishis Rabba 34:11 also says that all weather was like
that between Pesach and Shavu'os. The Seforno adds that earth's orbit
was also different. Crops grew better, and the resulting better nutrition
explains the multi-century life spans.

This in turn would do who-knows-what to the van allen belt a torus (bagel
shaped) field of electrically charged particles held by the earth's
magnetic field -- and thus the poles, the spinning core of the earth,
etc... are involved in its maintenance.

Less van allen belt means more cosmic rays reach the earth. Higher
mutation rates. Assumptions of age given number of mutations would be
well overexagerated.

BUT... this doesn't really help align the Torah with scientific
observation for a totally different reason. More cosmic rays and mutations
also means more cancer. Rather than longer lifespans than today, we
should expect far shorter ones. Despite any differences in nutrition.

(Personally, I think observation is a product of the categories of
our minds being imposed on an incomprehensible reality. And our minds
don't have the same categories at those of people who merit nissim. I've
discussed this in the past, and wouldn't be raising it now if I didn't
feel a need to let the reader know my own position isn't the train of
thought I'm trying to help RAF speculate on.)

GCT and :-)@@ii!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "Fortunate indeed, is the man who takes
mi...@aishdas.org        exactly the right measure of himself,  and
http://www.aishdas.org   holds a just balance between what he can
Fax: (270) 514-1507      acquire and what he can use." - Peter Latham

On 21/09/2012 1:26 PM, saul newman wrote:
> http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2012/09/intere
> sting-psak-saying-kaddish-against.html
> on saying kaddish etc  when the non-frum decedent  specifically  instructed  not to

Not so interesting; this is well-established halacha. The decedent is
now in the Olam haEmet, and knows that his previous wishes were foolish.
There is no mitzvah to follow them, and there is a mitzvah of kibbud av
for his sons if he has any to say kaddish for him.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon

On 9/21/2012 11:31 AM, Arie Folger wrote:
> However, there is another kind of evidence that would very much
> question the human discontinuity except for family Noach. Brian Sykes,
> the geneticists who reportedly developed this kind of genetic
> analysis, has studied the mitochondrial DNA of contemporary people. By
> correlating know rates of mutations to the differences between
> populations, one can make a fairly solid educated guess as to how
> related different people are.
I'm not sure I buy that.  It assumes that the known rate of mutations 
has remained constant.  That's a premise that needs to be established in 
order for any conclusions drawn from it to be sound.  And it can't be.  
The uniformitarian assumption has given rise to a number of scientific 
"truths" that are both unproven and *unprovable*.  Short of time travel, 
we have no way to determine whether atmospheric carbon was the same 3000 
years ago as it is today, which makes carbon dating unsound.  Short of 
time travel, we have no way to determine whether rates of mutations were 
different in the past, which makes mitochondrial dating unsound.

That's frustrating for scientists.  A man named John Dayton once threw 
out this scientific heresy: " It's better to be roughly right than 
precisely wrong."  It was a heresy because the culture of science (as 
opposed to science itself) demands precision.  It demands that we be 
able to answer questions.  And "we don't know and can't know" is not an 
acceptable answer.  So assumptions are made.  But sometimes those 
assumptions are untestable.  As in our case.

> As mitochondrial DNA is inherited from
> the mother only (similar analyses with Y chromosome sequencing
> confirms his findings on the paternal side), it implies that one can
> guess when people had their last common great great n^x grandmother.

Assuming a constant rate of mutation.  Which is not a reasonable 
assumption.  It's more of a WAG.

> The number of genetic foremothers is irrelevant here for our purposes,
> but it is relevant that this analysis argues, using hard scientific
> facts, that there is human genetic continuity for much more than since
> the Mabul, and too much diversity for it to have developed only since
> then.

Our DNA has a tremendous amount of information that we understand to be 
"junk DNA".  We don't know what it does.  We don't know if it once did 
something and no longer does.  We don't know if it's done multiple 
things throughout history.  It's a gaping hole in our knowledge.  To 
draw conclusions of this sort about our DNA when we still know so little 
about so much of it is irresponsible.  Junk science to match the junk DNA.


On 9/21/2012 1:16 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> I think it's worth checking out the dating of mtEve
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial
> _Eve#Implications_of_dating_and_placement_of_Eve>
> and of Y Chromosomal Adam
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam#Time_frame>.
> We're talking 142,000 yrs since Y-Adam, and 150-200,000 yrs since mtEve.

> All of which assumes things about mutation rates etc... that need not
> have been true before the mabul.

Or after it, for that matter.

Lisa

On 9/21/2012 3:00 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 2:16:54PM EDT, I wrote:
> : All of which assumes things about mutation rates etc... that need not
> : have been true before the mabul.
>
> The pasuq seems to imply that the spin and the tilt of the earth was
> involved in the mabul, as it invokes the [six] seasons, day and night
> in 8:22 -- od kol yemei haaretz ... lo yishbosu." (See Rashi ad loc.)
> The tilt causes the seasons, so a shevisah of the seasons implies that
> the mabul changed the earth's tilt.
>    

There's also an interesting fact from comparative linguistics. Akkadian 
is the language of Assyria and Babylonia. It's a semitic language, with 
many, many cognates in Hebrew. The word qu??u (if the 3rd and 4th 
letters don't display for you, they're the letter s with an inverted 
caret (^) above it, which is how the sound of our tzadi is 
transliterated in Akkadian) in Akkadian means "cold". It also means 
"winter". And yet the obvious Hebrew cognate kayitz means "summer". 
While it's true that there seems to be a connection to the Hebrew keitz, 
so that the opposite meanings might be based on starting the year at 
different times, most evidence supports the fact that the Assyrian and 
Babylonian years began in the spring. So the words seem to imply that 
seasons changed at some point.

> According the Seforno, they didn't just halt during the mabul, the seasons
> didn't exist until after the mabul. And before the mabul, the sun was
> over the equator, and the whole world was in perpetual spring. Rabbi
> Yitzchaq in Bereishis Rabba 34:11 also says that all weather was like
> that between Pesach and Shavu'os. The Seforno adds that earth's orbit
> was also different. Crops grew better, and the resulting better nutrition
> explains the multi-century life spans.
>
> This in turn would do who-knows-what to the van allen belt a torus (bagel
> shaped) field of electrically charged particles held by the earth's
> magnetic field -- and thus the poles, the spinning core of the earth,
> etc... are involved in its maintenance.
>    
We know for a fact that the Earth's magnetic field has switched 
directions more than once, and the Van Allen Belt survived that.

But there are other possibilities as well. The Saturnian Configuration 
(http://www.sis-group.org.uk/silver/cardona.htm) is considered a 
crackpot theory, generally, but that's because it's equally unprovable, 
and goes against the uniformitarian hypothesis in a big way. I'm not at 
all convinced by it, but there's nothing about it that's impossible.

Numerous scientists have hypothesized that gravity was weaker when 
dinosaurs walked the Earth, because some of the dinosaurs were, due to 
the cube-square law, too big to move or keep their heads up. What would 
be involved for that to be the case? What other things that we consider 
"laws" would have had to have been variable? Again, it's hard to say.

And then there's Neal Adams' Expanding Earth theory 
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kL7qDeI05U), which suggests that the 
Earth was about half its current size initially, and that the upper 
techtonic plates fit together perfectly, covering the entire sphere of 
the earth.

Lisa

The below is one of the current ideas floating around in the world of 
genetics, that there are periods when the mutation rate sky-rockets and 
long periods where it remains steady.   IIRC this hypothesis tries to 
explain the lack of transitional fossils, ie fossils which show the 
transition between the different  animal groups.

Ben

On 9/21/2012 9:36 PM, Zev Sero wrote:
>
>
> The only answer I can think of is that the rate of mutation has not
> been steady, and the generations from Noach to Avraham experienced a
> high rate of mutation, perhaps due to cosmic ray bombardment during
> the mabul.
>
>

In a Friday morning learning group, we were sitting this morning and 
learning over the ma'aseh of Nakdimon ben Gurion in Ta'anis 19b. The 
members of the group were struggling with the issues the episode raises 
- viz., was Nakdimon relying on a miracle, why did he have to daven, why 
did Hashem answer so late, etc. - issues of bitachon, hashgacha and 
tefilla. Weighty stuff.

In responding to one of the questions as to why things couldn't just go 
right from the onset, one of the erudite members of the group, Reb David 
Bockman, said, simply:

"But then there is no story."

I was blown away. Those simple six words answer all the questions. When 
I expressed that response at first the other members thought I was being 
facetious. But I was, and am, not.

Think about it...

On 21/09/2012 4:00 PM, Micha Berger wrote:
> BUT... this doesn't really help align the Torah with scientific
> observation for a totally different reason. More cosmic rays and mutations
> also means more cancer. Rather than longer lifespans than today, we
> should expect far shorter ones. Despite any differences in nutrition.

We don't know what the *average* lifespan was.  More mutations ought
to mean a lot of unsuccessful mutations that cause miscarriage or a
short life, but also a lot of successful mutations that lead, in the
presence of better nutrition and climate, to a longer life.

But if that doesn't seem plausible to you, consider my suggestion that
the cosmic ray bombardment occurred during the mabul itself, when the
van allen belts were probably completely inoperative (along the lines
of "hotzi chama minarteka").

However we look at it, though, the 8 individuals who survived the mabul
only had 16 versions of each chromosome between them, so even if each set
was as different as 1500 years of rapid mutation could make them (while
maintaining interfertility) the genetic diversity of their children is
still limited.  What we really need is a high mutation rate in the
centuries *after* the mabul; this might be explained by the van allen
belts taking time to reform (or to form in the first place) after a
polar realignment.

-- 
Zev Sero        "Natural resources are not finite in any meaningful
z...@sero.name    economic sense, mind-boggling though this assertion
                  may be. The stocks of them are not fixed but rather
                 are expanding through human ingenuity."
                                            - Julian Simon

*Let me firstly say, I am making no observations at all about the medical
risks that may be transmitted from the Mohel to the baby.*

*
*

*My question is quite simple: performing Metz is Chillul Shabbos. It is
permitted by the Mishnah and Gemara, only because it is medically valuable
for the baby. According to all modern mainstream medical experts, Metz
offers no medical benefit to the baby. So I ask, what Halachic device
permits the Mohel to perform Metz on Shabbos? *

*
*

*Reb Micha has responded to my earlier posting:  -  Please reread
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol30/v30n124.shtml#11 and the subsequent
post for my list of sources ?. My reply was intended as being in addition
to what was already said.*

*
*

*  MR ? there is not a single proof in Reb Micha?s link to indicate that
Metz is a Torah obligation for any reason other than MEDICAL concerns. That
being the case, since today our medical knowledge indicates that it is of
no medical value; I ask ? by what device are we Mechallel Shabbos in order
to perform Metz? *

*I suspect the true answer is, that if we do not perform Metz on Shabbos
then it will be abandoned by everyone other than the hard core
traditionalists. And I believe that although the logic to permit Chillul
Shabbos is flawed the understanding of community tendencies is correct. To
this end I suggest that COSMETIC Metz be performed on Shabbos; i.e. do
everything but actually create the vacuum.

*

*Reb Micha suggests that I don't actually answer the questions:
(1) Why does metzitzah qualify as minhag if people were doing it solely
because of Aristotilian medical theory?
(1b) And why didn't bloodletting in other contexts qualify as minhag?

*

*  MR ? These questions are of no consequence to my discussion of Chillul
Shabbos for Metz.*

* *

*(2) Why would RSRH, RYESpektor, etc... require MBP if Aristotle didn't
give reasons for such a preference?

*

*  MR -  Why is this relevant to my discussion of performing Metz on
Shabbos?*

* *

*Reb Micha suggests he has proof that medicine was not the only reason for
Metz.*

* *

*  MR  - Please furnish whatever proofs you have. So far I have seen none.

Reb Micha concedes: ?The gemara is clear that without Metzitzah one is
still a Mahul, circumcised. The Gemara is also clear that a mohel who does
not perform Metzitzah should be dismissed for risking the welfare of the
baby.?*

*Yet somehow Reb Micha still feels that  -  ?That's not the same as saying
the only reason for metzitzah are those medical reasons, and there is no
qiyum asei involved.?*

*
*

*  MR  -   What Asei is fulfilled by performing Metz, other than the
Mitzvah of looking after the health of the baby?

*

*
Reb Micha cites, in
http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/vol30/v30n123.shtml#09the Avnei Neizer
who explains the gemara as being readable either way.
*

* *

*  MR  - fine, let?s have a look at the AN*

* *

*Reb Micha also suggests that the Meishiv Nefesh does similarly with the
Rambam. *

* *

*  MR -  There is noting in the RaMBaM to support even a suggestion that
Metz has anything to do with Beris. There is no honest dialogue if we are
presented with conclusions rather than with an argument. ?Reb Chaim says?
is not an argument, it is a conclusion. Let Reb Chaim?s argument stand on
its own two feet.*

*
*





Best,

Meir G. Rabi
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20120922/367a365c/attachment-0001.htm>

Regarding the suggestion that, Chazal's belief in the need for metzitzah
came not via any sort of scientific or empirical research or observation,
but via revelation or ruach hakodesh.


I dont understand what is to be gained by this assertion and I dont see how
it can be justified.

Please provide some more information to support this remarkable contention.

Best,

Meir G. Rabi
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avod
ah-aishdas.org/attachments/20120922/44ef628c/attachment-0001.htm>

On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Meir Rabi <meir...@gmail.com> wrote:
> But that is almost a concession that in all other cases, where there is no
> medical benefit, Metz is not to be performed on Shabbos.

R' Dr. Halperin's argument is that since minor hypospadias is not
necessarily diagnosed well, tradition made this a blanket procedure.
Think about it, they didn't have evidence based medecine yet, but were
essentially practiciing it. The took note, when a certain procedure
ended up saving more infants, even though they might not have known
why.

Now you can argue that nowadays we could instead require proper
diagnosis, and all mohalim should be able to diagnose not just severe
hypospadias (which is very obvious to a mildly trained eye, but all
hypospadias. I hear. But you surely hear the opposite view, too, as
this might save an occasional infant from lifelong sexual disfunction
or worse.

Consider it a medical chumra, which is important enough to allow it to
be done on Shabbat, too.
-- 
Arie Folger,
Recent blog posts on http://ariefolger.wordpress.com/
* RCA Decries German Threats on Brit Milah
* Unterschriften-sammlung f?r einen offenen Brief zum Schutz des
Rechtes auf Beschneidung
* Plumbing the Depths of Aggaddic Exegesis
* Did the Talmud Suggest G?d Has a Head? Learning to Interpret Rabbinic Legend
* Photos From Interfaith Meeting


------------------------------


Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org


End of Avodah Digest, Vol 30, Issue 131
***************************************

Send Avodah mailing list submissions to
	avodah@lists.aishdas.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	avodah-request@lists.aishdas.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
	avodah-owner@lists.aishdas.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..."