Genetics and Adam and Eve

[amortalman]

I began to wonder about this after reading a post by rikuoamero wherein he made mention of it. It sounded like a worthy subject to explore.

So the question for debate is:

Does genetics disprove a literal Adam and Eve?

[rikuoamero]

Yes it does. Genetically speaking, the human race could not have started out with a literal single breeding pair. The next generation, their children, would have had to start practicing incest, and inbreeding is a well understood problem.
Other than that, there's also the fact that A & E are said by creationists to have lived somewhere between 6 and 10 thousand years ago, depending on how one calculates the ages of all those people in the list of A begat B, B begat C, C begat D and so on (no joke, that is how young earth creationists have calculated the age of the world). However, scientists have found plenty of samples of bones far older than that. Just last night, I was watching a TV programme about some scientists reconstructing the face of the oldest skeleton in Britain.

[Clownboat]

I began to wonder about this after reading a post by rikuoamero wherein he made mention of it. It sounded like a worthy subject to explore.

So the question for debate is:

Does genetics disprove a literal Adam and Eve?

I litterally cannot think of a reasonable reason as to why anyone would posit an original Adam/Eve scenario.
What observations would lead us to conclude such a starting point?

[amortalman]

[Replying to post 2 by rikuoamero]

Interesting. When I was a Christian I understood that incest, in the beginning, wasn't taboo and that God negated any medical problems in order to populate the earth. If one believes that God made man from dirt and woman from a rib bone it isn't hard to swallow the rest.

Thanks for your comments.

[amortalman]

I began to wonder about this after reading a post by rikuoamero wherein he made mention of it. It sounded like a worthy subject to explore.

So the question for debate is:

Does genetics disprove a literal Adam and Eve?

I litterally cannot think of a reasonable reason as to why anyone would posit an original Adam/Eve scenario.
What observations would lead us to conclude such a starting point?

Faith requires no observations. They play by a different rule book.

[ttruscott]

Yes it does. Genetically speaking, the human race could not have started out with a literal single breeding pair. .

Hmmm, was there not an announcement that someone had found just that, ie, a strong indication of the original pair, with some degree of certainty? I don't know more because I ignored it...science so pogo sticks along.

[Clownboat]

Yes it does. Genetically speaking, the human race could not have started out with a literal single breeding pair. .

Hmmm, was there not an announcement that someone had found just that, ie, a strong indication of the original pair, with some degree of certainty? I don't know more because I ignored it...science so pogo sticks along.

Not sure which announcement you are referring to for sure, but I can speculate.
If I'm right, then...

You keep using those words, but I don't think they mean what you think they mean.
(Princess Bride anyone)

[tam]

Peace to you,


I do not think what scientists know (to date) about genetics can be fully applied to Adam and Eve, or even their offspring. Inbreeding/incest is a problem because of how greatly it increases the likelihood of passing on similar traits, including recessive genes, defects and mutations (like color-blindness from the one study I read where eventually everyone on this small island was colorblind - and disease, etc).


Adam and Eve had no defects or mutations in their genes upon their creation; they were created without error (without sin). So there were no diseases or mutations for them to pass on to their offspring.


(Granted, upon eating from the tree of knowing good/life and bad/death, sin and death entered into them. And the 'long garment of skin' with sin and death in it is this body that we inherited from them. Hence we CAN get sick because of the sin/error in this flesh and blood... but even if we do not get sick, we die at some point.)



If someone wants to suggest that in order for mankind to have ANY defects or mutations in them at all, then those defects must also have been in Adam and Eve (except the ones stemming from environmental factors that we have caused or contributed to)... then it would follow that Adam and Eve also had all the diversity in them that we see in mankind as well.

And so mankind is as it is.


In any case, scientists must work with the evidence on hand. Knowledge is limited to the evidence on hand, as well as to an accurate understanding of that evidence. And without all the puzzle pieces, the picture is - at best - incomplete.




So, no, genetics do not disprove a literal Adam and Eve.



Peace again to you!

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to post 8 by tam]

So, no, genetics do not disprove a literal Adam and Eve.

But it does. I expect ttruscott is referring to this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

Where, unfortunately, someone decided to call these people "Adam" and "Eve" when they have no relationship whatsoever to the mythical Adam and Eve of the bible, and almost certainly could not have bred with each other as they most likely lived at different times and in different locations.

From the article:

The name "Mitochondrial Eve" alludes to biblical Eve. This led to repeated misrepresentations or misconceptions in journalistic accounts on the topic. Popular science presentations of the topic usually point out such possible misconceptions by emphasizing the fact that the position of mt-MRCA is neither fixed in time (as the position of mt-MRCA moves forward in time as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages become extinct), nor does it refer to a "first woman", nor the only living female of her time, nor the first member of a "new species".


But I would assume that anyone who believes that the biblical Adam and Eve actually existed as real people must also believe that they lived only about 6,000 years ago, or so, based on biblical chronology. That we know is not possibly true as the population of Homo sapiens on the earth at that time was several million, the neolithic revolution had already happened in most parts of the world, and many other specifics. And, of course, it is impossible for a human being at any time in history to have lived to 930 years, or anything even close to this, as the bible claims was Adam's age when he died. There are just too many things wrong with the whole story to take it as anything but allegory and myth, similar to Noah's flood and other biblical stories that could not possibly have happened at the times they supposedly did.

Genetics also disproves the literal Adam and Eve of the bible (and Noah's flood) due to the present distribution of humans on Earth and their genetic makeup. This could not possibly have developed from either two humans (Adam and Eve) "created" only ~6,000 years ago, or from eight people (Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives) starting only ~4,300 years ago.

[Still small]

‘ttruscott’ may have been referring this paper by Stoekle & Thaler. It speaks to the point that within species, there is only extremely small percentages of genetic variation as opposed to the gaps between species. For example, “(t)he typical difference within a species, including humans, is 0.1% or 1 in a 1000 of the "letters" that make up a DNA sequence.� (A summary of the paper). Whereas, between species there are vast gaps without intermediates, indicating a clear lack of a smooth transition between species, the lack of which Darwin’s theory cannot explain. ‘Adds Dr. Thaler: "If individuals are stars, then species are galaxies. They are compact clusters in the vastness of empty sequence space."

As to the point of this thread, you will see in the last section (page 22) “Contemporary sequence data cannot tell whether mitochondrial and Y. chromosomes clonality occurred at the same time, i.e., consistent with the extreme bottleneck of a founding pair, or via sorting within a founding population of thousands that was stable for tens of thousands of years.� (Emphasis added)
This is clearly stating that from genetic information alone, one cannot determine whether humans came from a founding pair, such as Adam & Eve, or population of thousands. Genetics does not rule out the possibility of Adam and Eve.
This was also pointed out by Brown in his paper â€�Polymorphism in mitochondrial DNA of humans as revealed by restriction endonuclease analysisâ€�, where he states “At this rate, the amount of sequence heterogeneity observed, 0.18%, could have been generated from a single mating pair that existed 180-360 x 10³ years ago, suggesting the possibility that present-day humans evolved from a small mitochondrially monomorphic population that existed at that time.â€�

So in answer to the question in the OP -“Does genetics disprove a literal Adam and Eve?� - the answer is clearly - “No�.

Have a good day!
Still small