Were Adam and Eve the First Humans?

[John Bauer]

In the thread "Genetics and Adam and Eve," DrNoGods claimed that the creation narrative in Genesis describes Adam and Eve as the first humans. He said that

• Adam and Eve have an "explicit role in the biblical creation myth as being the first humans."
• "Their explicit role as the first humans [is] described in Genesis."
• "According to the biblical creation myth there was (...) only two" people originally.
• "Genesis very clearly does describe Adam and Eve as the first humans that this God created."

I would appreciate DrNoGods substantiating this claim of his, for I don't agree that Genesis says this. I would like to see this explored further.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to jimtatertayte in post #58]

As stated in your book..he was a devil.

Is that enough support for you?

I am more than able to prove anything I so desire at anytime I so desire
and do it with the greatest of ease.

The "support" you provided were bible quotes, and you can't use the bible as a source to support a claim ... from the bible (see the guidelines for the Science and Religion section). So you'll need to find some other source to support your claim. Also, what do you mean by "your book"? The bible is a collection of writings from many people, and is a publically available book. It is not "your" book, whatever that means. It is a book considered holy by Christians and other organized religious groups. But again, you cannot use this as a source to support your claims.

Now the next question is how do I know
that devils were roaming around on earth at the same time or even before Adam and Eve?

Your science has dated human bones found on earth far back beyond the time frame
given in the book of Genesis of the age of Adam and Eve.

That is because the roughly 6000 year old creation event described in the bible is fiction. None of that happened. Homo sapiens have been dated back as far as 300,000 years, and earlier members of the genus Homo to far longer than that (2-3 million years). There is no reason to believe these fossils (eg. Homo erectus) had anything to do with "devils", or that any such thing as a devil actually exists (or angels for that matter). And again, what do you mean by "your science"? Science is available to everyone, and is how we understand and explain nature. It doesn't belong to anyone, so it cannot be "your" science. And finally, the idea that devils are fallen angels has no support other than some bible verses, and you can't use the bible as a source to support something it says.

So you haven't yet provided any support for your claim that devils were roaming the earth at the time of the mythical Adam and Eve. Ball is back in your court.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #60]

There is ample evidence from the Bible that the world was created in six days and if the world was created in six days there would have had to have been an Adam and Eve singular. There is no reason why a Christian should back down from this truth that the Bible states there is ample evidence from science to support both of these claims that the world was created in 6 days 6-10 thousand years ago and that the human race started off with just 2 humans.

Since the bible can't be used as a source to support its own claims, the evidence is not "ample" ... it is nonexistent (at least in this quote). In the second sentence you claim that there is ample evidence from science to support a 6-10K old earth, and that the human race started out with just 2 humans. Care to share that with us?

What science actually does show is that the earth formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago when our solar system formed, and that humans evolved from a great ape ancestor (a common ancestor we share with chimpanzees and bonobos). It very definitively proves that the earth is far older than 6-10K years (that is out some six orders of magnitude), and the idea that Adam and Eve were real people and the first humans created as fully formed modern Homo sapiens 6000 years ago is as ridiculous as the idea that a global flood some 4.4K years ago killed all but 8 humans, and that the entire human population of today descended from just those 8 people. Science, again, disproves this mythical flood story so definitively that it is surprising anyone would even attempt to support the story.

Young earth creationism is at odds with science, completely. The gross misinterpretations of science that you have to go through to support it should tell you that it has to be wrong.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #0]

Wow, I even gave you a "thank you" and this thread old friend. But I guess we will get right to business.

Since the bible can't be used as a source to support its own claims, the evidence is not "ample" ... it is nonexistent (at least in this quote). In the second sentence, you claim that there is ample evidence from science to support 6-10K old earth and that the human race started out with just 2 humans. Care to share that with us?

Evolutionism has trouble with getting rid of the genetic load of that organisms accumulate over time. It also has problems with mutations which are random events occurring in succession. This problem is only exacerbated by the idea of punctuated equilibrium.

Actually, evolutionism and creationism are in agreement. There was one human woman that we all come from according to mtDNA data. In fact, this mtDNA data has shown that the human race can only be around 6000 years old. For evolutionism to be true then split between human and ape would have had to occur over one whole order of magnitude back in time than previously thought when the difference between ape DNA and Human DNA was found to be 12% difference, not 1-2%.

What science actually does show is that the earth formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago when our solar system formed,

What time clock are you using?
Because if you look at the magnetic field data of the planets they tell a different story.

Because of the planet's small size, at one time many scientists thought the interior should have cooled to the point that the core would be solid. However, subtle dynamical motions measured from Earth-based radar, combined with MESSENGER's newly measured parameters of the gravity field and the characteristics of Mercury's internal magnetic field that signify an active core dynamo, indicate that the planet's core is at least partially liquid.

For years, planetary evolutionism hypothesized that Mercury had to be completely solid because of its size. The reason they believed this was because Venus and Mars did not have a magnetic field and they are much larger than Mercury. Notice evolutionary evolutionism did not predict this in fact planetary evolutionism predicted the exact opposite. But do you know what did predict that Mercury could have a and the decrease in the magnetic field what was observed also? Good old fashion Young Earth Creationism.

Comets at best can only last 10,000 years and yet we observe all kinds of comets. Again planetary evolutionism would predict that all the comets would have long ago dissipated. But that is not what we observe we observe so an Oort cloud was invented as a housing place for those comets. The Oort cloud has never been observed and it will never be observed because it does not exist it is the hope of planetary evolutionism.

and that humans evolved from a great ape ancestor (a common ancestor we share with chimpanzees and bonobos). It very definitively proves that the earth is far older than 6-10K years (that is out some six orders of magnitude),

This could only be true if the human-ape split happened some 60,000,000 years ago which about 5 million years before the first primate fossil according to evolutionism. Just as a note 6E3 to 6E6 is only 3 orders of magnitude unless you are trying to say that the split was 6E9 years ago but that would have been before the Earth was here according to planetary evolutionism.

and the idea that Adam and Eve were real people and the first humans created as fully formed modern Homo sapiens 6000 years ago is as ridiculous

As stated above according to mtDNA data we all really do come from one woman. And if observed mutations rates are used not those calculated by using computer-generated phylogenetic analyses. The mother of all humans lived 6000 years ago.

Nature Genetics vol. 15, April 1997, pp. 363-367. The summary follows:

"The rate and pattern of sequence substitutions in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region (CR) is of central importance to studies of human evolution and to forensic identity testing. Here, we report a direct measurement of the intergenerational substitution rate in the human CR. We compared DNA sequences of two CR hypervariable segments from close maternal relatives, from 134 independent mtDNA lineages spanning 327 generational events. Ten substitutions were observed, resulting in an empirical rate of 1/33 generations, or 2.5/site/Myr. This is roughly twenty-fold higher than estimates derived from phylogenetic analyses. This disparity cannot be accounted for simply by substitutions at mutational hot spots, suggesting additional factors that produce the discrepancy between very near-term and long-term apparent rates of sequence divergence. The data also indicate that extremely rapid segregation of CR sequence variants between generations is common in humans, with a very small mtDNA bottleneck. These results have implications for forensic applications and studies of human evolution." (op. cit. p. 363).

The article also contains this section:

"The observed substitution rate reported here is very high compared to rates inferred from evolutionary studies. A wide range of CR substitution rates has been derived from phylogenetic studies, spanning roughly 0.025-0.26/site/Myr, including confidence intervals. A study yielding one of the faster estimates gave the substitution rate of the CR hypervariable regions as 0.118 +- 0.031/site/Myr. Assuming a generation time of 20 years, this corresponds to ~1/600 generations and an age for the mtDNA MRCA of 133,000 y.a. Thus, our observation of the substitution rate, 2.5/site/Myr, is roughly 20-fold higher than would be predicted from phylogenetic analyses. Using our empirical rate to calibrate the mtDNA molecular clock would result in an age of the mtDNA MRCA of only ~6,500 y.a., clearly incompatible with the known age of modern humans. Even acknowledging that the MRCA of mtDNA may be younger than the MRCA of modern humans, it remains implausible to explain the known geographic distribution of mtDNA sequence variation by human migration that occurred only in the last ~6,500 years.

as the idea that a global flood some 4.4K years ago killed all but 8 humans, and that the entire human population of today descended from just those 8 people.

Six Evidences for the Genesis Flood

Evidence #1Fossils of sea creatures high above sea level due to the ocean waters having flooded over the continents.
We find fossils of sea creatures in rock layers that cover all the continents. For example, most of the rock layers in the walls of Grand Canyon (more than a mile above sea level) contain marine fossils. Fossilized shellfish are even found in the Himalayas.

Evidence #2Rapid burial of plants and animals.
We find extensive fossil "graveyards" and exquisitely preserved fossils. For example, billions of nautiloid fossils are found in a layer within the Redwall Limestone of Grand Canyon. This layer was deposited catastrophically by a massive flow of sediment (mostly lime sand). The chalk and coal beds of Europe and the United States, and the fish, ichthyosaurs, insects, and other fossils all around the world, testify of catastrophic destruction and burial.

Evidence #3Rapidly deposited sediment layers spread across vast areas.
We find rock layers that can be traced all the way across continentseven between continentsand physical features in those strata indicate they were deposited rapidly. For example, the Tapeats Sandstone and Redwall Limestone of Grand Canyon can be traced across the entire United States, up into Canada, and even across the Atlantic Ocean to England. The chalk beds of England (the white cliffs of Dover) can be traced across Europe into the Middle East and are also found in the Midwest of the United States and in Western Australia. Inclined (sloping) layers within the Coconino Sandstone of Grand Canyon are testimony to 10,000 cubic miles of sand being deposited by huge water currents within days.

Evidence #4Sediment transported long distances.
We find that the sediments in those widespread, rapidly deposited rock layers had to be eroded from distant sources and carried long distances by fast-moving water. For example, the sand for the Coconino Sandstone of Grand Canyon (Arizona) had to be eroded and transported from the northern portion of what is now the United States and Canada. Furthermore, water current indicators (such as ripple marks) preserved in rock layers show that for "300 million years" water currents were consistently flowing from northeast to southwest across all of North and South America, which, of course, is only possible over weeks during a global flood.

Evidence #5Rapid or no erosion between strata.
We find evidence of rapid erosion, or even of no erosion, between rock layers. Flat, knife-edge boundaries between rock layers indicate continuous deposition of one layer after another, with no time for erosion. For example, there is no evidence of any "missing" millions of years (of erosion) in the flat boundary between two well-known layers of Grand Canyonthe Coconino Sandstone and the Hermit Formation. Another impressive example of flat boundaries at Grand Canyon is the Redwall Limestone and the strata beneath it.

Evidence #6Many strata laid down in rapid succession.
Rocks do not normally bend; they break because they are hard and brittle. But in many places we find whole sequences of strata that were bent without fracturing, indicating that all the rock layers were rapidly deposited and folded while still wet and pliable before final hardening. For example, the Tapeats Sandstone in Grand Canyon is folded at a right angle (90) without evidence of breaking. Yet this folding could only have occurred after the rest of the layers had been deposited, supposedly over "480 million years," while the Tapeats Sandstone remained wet and pliable. https://answersingenesis.org/the-flood/ ... sis-flood/

Now you may think this list is not that impressive but as one examines the evidence this list becomes a very insurmountable problem for those that believe that there was no flood.

[Difflugia]

As stated above according to mtDNA data we all really do come from one woman. And if observed mutations rates are used not those calculated by using computer-generated phylogenetic analyses. The mother of all humans lived 6000 years ago.

Nature Genetics vol. 15, April 1997, pp. 363-367. The summary follows:

As opposed to the creationist interpretation that the directly measured mutation rate exposes some sort of error or bias in the phylogenetic estimation, the effect was experimentally confirmed a few years later.

The 2000 study "High Direct Estimate of the Mutation Rate in the Mitochondrial Genome of Caenorhabditis elegans" directly measured the effect by conducting the same measurements on evolutionary lines of C. elegans (a nematode commonly used in genomic studies) raised entirely in the lab from a single culture. That means that there was no question of how long the populations had been diverging. In short, direct measurements of mutation frequency were much higher than estimates based on measurements performed as part of phylogenetic analysis:

This observed rate is two orders of magnitude higher than the phylogenetic estimates discussed above and exceeds rates derived from pedigree analyses.

The effect is real, but has nothing to do with a special creation 6000 years ago. The same discrepancy appears in the same measurements of lineages with known ages created by the scientists themselves. The only bombshell is that the long term genomic differences used to calibrate molecular clocks can't be meaningfully compared to short term mutation rates; they're apples and oranges.

The study can be downloaded as a full-text PDF from the journal Science with a free account.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #63]

Actually, evolutionism and creationism are in agreement. There was one human woman that we all come from according to mtDNA data. In fact, this mtDNA data has shown that the human race can only be around 6000 years old.

You're misunderstanding what "Mitochondrial Eve" means, and mtDNA certainly does not suggest that the human race is only around 6000 years old. Here is an article (there are many of course) that better explains the concept of Mito-Eve"

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science- ... 180959593/

Some comments from it:

"The use of the term was a misinterpretation, given that the research was about the most recent common mitochondrial ancestor of all living humans not about the first human woman ever."

"In reality, a mitochondrial Eve is not the first female of a species, but merely the most recent female historically from which all living animals of a species can trace their ancestry. Think of her like the peak of a genealogical pyramid, in which all ancestors of a species meet. While everyone below is descended from her, that doesnt mean that there is no other female above her, or that lived at the same time as her. Perhaps some of her contemporaries had no surviving children. Or they only had sons, which wouldnt have passed on their mitochondrial DNA."

The biblical Eve is an entirely different animal. She is described there is the first ever woman and there were no other women around when this imaginary Eve was "created." There were likely thousands of other women around when Mito-Eve lived, and many before her as well. Homo sapien fossils have been found that are 200K - 300K years old (Omo remains, and the recent find in Morocco):

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

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06 ... nd-morocco

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h ... on_fossils

Wikipedia, of course, also have an article on Mito-Eve and she is in no way analogous to the biblical Eve:

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

Mito-Eve lived much farther back than 6000 years, more like 100,000 years or longer. The physical evidence against a 6000 year old "creation" are just too overwhelming to even consider such a ridiculous date, without any need to even consider human evolution.

What time clock are you using?
Because if you look at the magnetic field data of the planets they tell a different story.

You're not going to dredge up the planetary magnetic field nonsense again are you? As for a time clock, radiometric dating is the standard using a wide range of isotopes. But that is just one method of finding old dates. Even your own favorite source for creationist's attempts to force agreement between science and the literal bible (AIG) has a good summary of meteorite dating showing a 4.6 billion year old solar system (this is just one article of 4-5 they wrote on this subject):

https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/ ... hondrites/

Of course they try to explain away the incredible consistency in the dates and fail miserably with some crazy "primordial material" idea, but they do have a pretty comprehensive summary of the measurements across the articles. As far as the "Six Evidences for the Genesis Flood", they have all been thoroughly debunked and there are many times that number of "evidences" against this mythical event. Just a small sample:

https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/flood357903

https://ncse.ngo/six-flood-arguments-cr ... ant-answer

http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Nr38Reasons.pdf

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #64]

As opposed to the creationist interpretation that the directly measured mutation rate exposes some sort of error or bias in the phylogenetic estimation, the effect was experimentally confirmed a few years later.

The 2000 study "High Direct Estimate of the Mutation Rate in the Mitochondrial Genome of Caenorhabditis elegans" directly measured the effect by conducting the same measurements on evolutionary lines of C. elegans (a nematode commonly used in genomic studies) raised entirely in the lab from a single culture. That means that there was no question of how long the populations had been diverging. In short, direct measurements of mutation frequency were much higher than estimates based on measurements performed as part of phylogenetic analysis:
This observed rate is two orders of magnitude higher than the phylogenetic estimates discussed above and exceeds rates derived from pedigree analyses.

Well, good I am glad to see that we agree that phylogenetic analysis is worthless.

So it is impossible for humans to evolve from apes because if that were true the split would have had to occur over 60 million years ago which according to evolutionism was before apes evolve. PROBLEM FOR EVOLUTIONSIM

[Clownboat]

Well, good I am glad to see that we agree that phylogenetic analysis is worthless.

So it is impossible for humans to evolve from apes because if that were true the split would have had to occur over 60 million years ago which according to evolutionism was before apes evolve. PROBLEM FOR EVOLUTIONSIM

It seems that you are literally incapable of defending your position. Attacking another position is not a defence of your own.

Your entire Mitochondrial Eve argument has been shot dead. Do you concede the point and will you amend your thinking, or will you just find something else about evolution to complain about instead and proceed making false claims about Mito Eve?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #0]

The use of the term was a misinterpretation, given that the research was about the most recent common mitochondrial ancestor of all living humans not about the first human woman ever."

"In reality, a mitochondrial Eve is not the first female of a species, but merely the most recent female historically from which all living animals of a species can trace their ancestry. Think of her like the peak of a genealogical pyramid, in which all ancestors of a species meet. While everyone below is descended from her, that doesnt mean that there is no other female above her, or that lived at the same time as her. Perhaps some of her contemporaries had no surviving children. Or they only had sons, which wouldnt have passed on their mitochondrial DNA."

The biblical Eve is an entirely different animal. She is described there is the first ever woman and there were no other women around when this imaginary Eve was "created." There were likely thousands of other women around when Mito-Eve lived, and many before her as well. Homo sapien fossils have been found that are 200K - 300K years old (Omo remains, and the recent find in Morocco):

Oh my goodness READ THE ARTICLE. "merely the most recent female historically from which all living animals of a species can trace their ancestry." This article is saying the exact same thing that I said. All humans can trace their mtDNA to one female. That is the observation made. Now this writer's hypothesis is "she was the peak of some genealogical pyramid in which all ancestors of a species meet." The writer is entitled to his opinion but his opinion does not change the FACT that "All humans can trace their mtDNA to one female."

Mito-Eve lived much farther back than 6000 years, more like 100,000 years or longer. The physical evidence against a 6000 year old "creation" are just too overwhelming to even consider such a ridiculous date, without any need to even consider human evolution.

Now for the above writer's hypothesis to be true humans would have had to evolve from apes about 6 million years ago. Apes and humans have about the same mutation rate of 60 mutations per generation. Now a 1-2 percent difference in the ape to human genome gives you that 6 million years. But that is not what the difference is. The difference is one whole magnitude higher 12-15 percent. That means that the split between humans and apes had to start before apes evolved according to evolutionism.

What time clock are you using?
Because if you look at the magnetic field data of the planets they tell a different story.
You're not going to dredge up the planetary magnetic field nonsense again are you?

An oldy but a goody.

As for a time clock, radiometric dating is the standard using a wide range of isotopes. But that is just one method of finding old dates. Even your own favorite source for creationist's attempts to force agreement between science and the literal bible (AIG) has a good summary of meteorite dating showing a 4.6 billion year old solar system (this is just one article of 4-5 they wrote on this subject):

https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/ ... hondrites/

Yes, I am aware of AIG's position on radiometric dating. In fact, a book that I was just reading had their theory of radioactivity in it. Their position is not that the world is 4.6 billion years old but that God accelerated the decay rate of the radioactive elements during creation week. I could certainly support that if creation theories do not pan out. All of the creation week was a series of miracles (God creating energy and then transforming it into matter) one after the other. So yes God could have accelerated the decay rate to produce the radioactive elements and all of the daughter elements that we observe on the Earth and out in space.

But what makes me lean in a direction different than AIG's position is the location of the pockets of radioactive elements. Most if not all of the pockets of radioactive elements that we find are in the continental crust (granite). Why would that be? Uranium in the crust has always been a problem for planetary evolutionism. Uranium has a density of 19 and granite has a density of around 2 g/cm3. So uranium would have to had to come to the surface of the earth through volcanoes. But then the question becomes why would the ocean floor not have much more uranium since it is constantly being made at the mid-ocean ridges magma from the mantle. Or why is the uranium that we find on the earth more uniform than it is?

We know that electricity can produce nuclear fusion. In nuclear fusion happens when lightning strikes. https://www.siliconrepublic.com/innovat ... 0reaction.
We know that granite has quartz that when compressed creates an electric spark when compressed. So it does not take much imagination to predict if the crust of the earth was put under compressional forces electric current in the crust could produce fusion.

Of course they try to explain away the incredible consistency in the dates and fail miserably with some crazy "primordial material" idea, but they do have a pretty comprehensive summary of the measurements across the articles. As far as the "Six Evidences for the Genesis Flood", they have all been thoroughly debunked and there are many times that number of "evidences" against this mythical event. Just a small sample:

https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/flood357903

https://ncse.ngo/six-flood-arguments-cr ... ant-answer

http://www.csun.edu/~vcgeo005/Nr38Reasons.pdf

The first article is irrelevant to the conversation because creationists do not believe in the canopy theory any longer.
The second article does not come up when I search for it.
And the third has 21 points. I prefer not to go through all 21 points so could you pick a few of your favorite.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to Clownboat in post #67]

It seems that you are literally incapable of defending your position. Attacking another position is not a defense of your own.

Your entire Mitochondrial Eve argument has been shot dead. Do you concede the point and will you amend your thinking, or will you just find something else about evolution to complain about instead and proceed to make false claims about Mito Eve?

What are you talking about? Would you mind explaining why your perceive my argument has been shot dead?

Evolutionism does believe that there is a mitochondrial Eve. So if you do not believe in Mitochondrial Eve you are free to do that but you are doing that in the face of all the science both evolutionism and creationism. Keep reading DrNoGod supports the position of a mitochondrial Eve or at least he quoted an article that states there is one female that we all came from. The only point we are discussing is when the mitochondrial Eve lived.

[Difflugia]

Evolutionism does believe that there is a mitochondrial Eve.

Yes, but you seem to misunderstand what that means.

Keep reading DrNoGod supports the position of a mitochondrial Eve or at least he quoted an article that states there is one female that we all came from.

The part I bolded is false. Mitochondrial Eve is the earliest woman with an unbroken chain of female descendants, which is not the same as the earliest woman with any descendants.

The reason that there's a mitochondrial Eve is that mitochondrial DNA is inherited differently than nuclear DNA. With very few exceptions, all of an individual's mitochondrial DNA is inherited from one's mother. That means that any given woman's opportunity to pass on mitochondrial genes is absolutely dependent on having a daughter. I am male and have four grandparents. My nuclear DNA is a roughly even mix of the genes from those four individuals, but my mitochondrial DNA was inherited only from my maternal grandmother.

Comparing my nuclear DNA with someone else's would offer a detailed view into how our ancestries relate. Comparing mitochondrial DNA, on the other hand, will only tell us how recently we share one particular female ancestor with no information about any of the other genetic contributors, male or female. Individual mitochondrial lines can be easily removed by random drift (two sisters that have only sons will completely eliminate their mother's mtDNA contribution, for example) and population bottlenecks will amplify this.