Adam and Eve

[iceman]

At the risk of possibly oversimplifying the subject, it seems to me that if all of us trace back our family lineages, noticing that generally the family trees narrow with almost every generation (present generations excepted since having children, or at least more than one or two, has become overwhelmingly unfashionable throughout most of the world), invariably all of the earth’s population of humans has to have originated from one couple (one man and one woman). There is an inherent reverse funnel affect (albeit with some variation at times) in population growth since the beginning. This seems blatantly self-evident to me, and overwhelming proof of an original Adam and Eve. Even the theory of the evolution of humans from some other species, with which I do not at all agree, does not refute that such an origin has to have occurred in light of the the pattern of human population growth on Earth.

Is this an oversimplification or complete misunderstanding of our origins?

 

[Verbum]

Hi Iceman,

Supposing that we originated from two couples, why would population growth be different?

As it turns out, I have read somewhere that genetically all humans living on earth at the present can only be descended from one woman. Here is a discussion of this theory, which you may find interesting. (Personally, I’m a bit lost in the reading of it.) :

geocities.com/krishna_kunchith/misc/eve.html

Verbum

 

[Ahimsa]

This seems blatantly self-evident to me, and overwhelming proof of an original Adam and Eve. Even the theory of the evolution of humans from some other species, with which I do not at all agree, does not refute that such an origin has to have occurred in light of the the pattern of human population growth on Earth.

Wouldn’t Adam and Eve need parents, if you accept the evolutionary model?

 

[NotWorthy]

I read this article not 20 minutes ago from CatholicCulture.com
:

Modern science is veering much away from polygenism today. Science News of August 13, 1983 reported that Allan C. Wilson of the University of California at Berkeley had studied mitochondrial DNA from all over the world. He concluded that all existing humans came from just one mother, living 350,000 years ago. His view met little acceptance at first. But now, Newsweek[20](javascript:OpenNote(243,8,20) that Wilson’s idea is widely accepted by scientists, except that they think she lived only 200,000 years ago. According to the same article, some scientists are now going to try to trace the father of all present humans, a much more difficult task. The mitochondrial DNA is transmitted only on the female line. Hence the conclusion covers only the mother. But we must add this: Even this theory does not rule out the possibility that even though all present humans came from one mother, there may have been other lines which died out.

 

[pablo_rafael]

Did anybody see the series on PBS a couple of years ago (There is also a book of the same name) that dealt with this very topic? Genetically all humans can be traced to one woman. (Not that there was more than one man, but it is just the female DNA that can be traced back this way.)

What was the name of it?
It was good to see science verifying what we as Christians already knew.

Tu Amigo, Pablo

 

[exoflare]

Wouldn’t Adam and Eve need parents, if you accept the evolutionary model?

Yes, they would have parents. The essential part of the teaching is that Adam and Eve were the first two humans to have a SPIRIT (or, to be created in the image of God). They would have been different from any other humanoid creature on the Earth at that point, finding only each other as suitable mates.

 

[iceman]

I have just finished reading Ann Coulter’s book “The Church of Liberalism: Godless” which effectively argues that there has been virtually no evidence for cross species evolution found in any fossil remains and that the theory of evolution has no substantial basis if fact at all, in spite of what is being taught in schools and reported by our very controlledmedia. I personally am not knowledgeable enough to argue scientifically one way or the other but I have to admit that if what she argue is true, teaching the theory of evolution of species as fact is at best junk science. Any thoughts on Ann Coulter’s book?

 

[ribozyme]

I have just finished reading Ann Coulter’s book “The Church of Liberalism: Godless” which effectively argues that there has been virtually no evidence for cross species evolution found in any fossil remains and that the theory of evolution has no substantial basis if fact at all, in spite of what is being taught in schools and reported by our very controlledmedia. I personally am not knowledgeable enough to argue scientifically one way or the other but I have to admit that if what she argue is true, teaching the theory of evolution of species as fact is at best junk science. Any thoughts on Ann Coulter’s book?

I read parts of that book, and it advocates the ideas of Linda Gottfredson, Arthur Jensen, Steve Sailer, and Charles Murray, which can lead to eugenics. Black people are not mentally inferior as promoted by those advocates of “scientific” racism.

 

[iceman]

I read parts of that book, and it advocates the ideas of Linda Gottfredson, Arthur Jensen, Steve Sailer, and Charles Murray, which can lead to eugenics. Black people are not mentally inferior as promoted by those advocates of “scientific” racism.

Where exactly in the book was racism promoted? I would like to reread the section you are referring to.

 

[ribozyme]

Where exactly in the book was racism promoted? I would like to reread the section you are referring to.

I remembered that before the part about evolution, it talked about the thesis of The Bell Curve. I only read her book at a Barnes and Noble.

 

[iceman]

I intend to reread the book as it is very content heavy and I could not absorb all of the content in one read. I will let you know. However, back to the point about evolution - does anyone else have an opinion about her low regard for the theory of evolution of species?

 

[Lady_Cygnus]

Wouldn’t Adam and Eve need parents, if you accept the evolutionary model?

There is nothing wrong with evolution from a scientific or theological standpoint. Evolution simply says that species change over time (which we’ve proved true) and that eventually they change so much as to make a new species (which is also proved true with bacteria).

Theologically it also doesn’t pose a problem since the bible only states that “God made man from the dust”. It doesn’t say how long he took to do this (since we know the day’s mentioned are not literal days) and it doesn’t say what forms the body took before it finished. All it says is that when the male body was done God “breathed life into him.” It is a very easy step to realize that God may have used evolution to make a human body then breathed an eternal spirit into that body.

 

[iceman]

There is nothing wrong with evolution from a scientific or theological standpoint. Evolution simply says that species change over time (which we’ve proved true) and that eventually they change so much as to make a new species (which is also proved true with bacteria).

Theologically it also doesn’t pose a problem since the bible only states that “God made man from the dust”. It doesn’t say how long he took to do this (since we know the day’s mentioned are not literal days) and it doesn’t say what forms the body took before it finished. All it says is that when the male body was done God “breathed life into him.” It is a very easy step to realize that God may have used evolution to make a human body then breathed an eternal spirit into that body.

A complete absence of fossil evidence to support cross species evolution is a huge problem for the theory of evolution from a scientific standpoint, if this is, in fact, true. Exactly what other species have bacteria changed into?

 

[Lady_Cygnus]

A complete absence of fossil evidence to support cross species evolution is a huge problem for the theory of evolution from a scientific standpoint, if this is, in fact, true. Exactly what other species have bacteria changed into?

The term “cross species evolution” makes it sound like we are looking for a “whale-elephant” to show the link between whales and elephants as if there were three distinct points elephant…whalephant…whale. Only if the whalephant fossil exists will we believe that evolution actually occurs. Fact is, we don’t know where each creature came from, perhaps the whale was never a land dwelling creature, or perhaps it was something like a walrus for a while.

What we do know is that we can observe changes in species, even to the point where the new species are no longer compatible with the old. We can observe physical evidence in different species to group them into genus, families, etc. We also see links between different creatures and evolution makes a reasonable explanation.

Species is the lowest classification of a group of creatures, when bacteria become resistant or change other characteristics they have in a sense, changed species. If they did not then we would not be worrying about finding new antibiotics to combat them.

As it stands evolution is the only valid scientific theory out there right now and until scientists come up with another idea that fits the data as well or even better, it’s the only one we have.

 

[Ammonius_Saccus]

I have just finished reading Ann Coulter’s book “The Church of Liberalism: Godless” which effectively argues that there has been virtually no evidence for cross species evolution found in any fossil remains and that the theory of evolution has no substantial basis if fact at all, in spite of what is being taught in schools and reported by our very controlledmedia. I personally am not knowledgeable enough to argue scientifically one way or the other but I have to admit that if what she argue is true, teaching the theory of evolution of species as fact is at best junk science. Any thoughts on Ann Coulter’s book?

Coulter’s arguments have no merit.

Here is a review of her book and and an article on intellegent design (Coulter supports ID) by Jerry Coyne from the University of Chicago. Coyne is kind of a jerk, but he is a first rate biologist.

tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060731&s=coyne073106
pondside.uchicago.edu/cluster/pdf/coyne/New_Republic_ID.pdf

Here is a book about about evolution and intellegent design (Coulter supports ID).

amazon.com/Intelligent-Thought-Science-versus-Movement/dp/0307277224/sr=8-1/qid=1169264337/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5371012-0595008?ie=UTF8&s=books

And for general information check out the Talk Origins FAQ. They are not perfect, but still pretty good.

talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html

 

[iceman]

What we do know is that we can observe changes in species, even to the point where the new species are no longer compatible with the old. We can observe physical evidence in different species to group them into genus, families, etc. We also see links between different creatures and evolution makes a reasonable explanation.

Adaptive changes within species is another matter and simply renaming the life form does not define a new species, nor does it justify the teaching of evolution in the manner it is often promoted: as a scientifically resolved truth.

Species is the lowest classification of a group of creatures, when bacteria become resistant or change other characteristics they have in a sense, changed species. If they did not then we would not be worrying about finding new antibiotics to combat them.

Bacteria becoming more resistant is hardly much of a basis for promoting Evolution of Species as science worth teaching, again at least in the overly-confident form so many seem to advocate.

As it stands evolution is the only valid scientific theory out there right now and until scientists come up with another idea that fits the data as well or even better, it’s the only one we have.

I don’t mean to be argumentative - I am simply curious as to the strength of the real science behind this theory of life which so many seem to follow almost religiously. I am not at all so certain that this theory is any more valid than an argument that life forms migrated from Neptune blown by inter-galactic storms. There seems to be very little evidence for either theory. Being the only one we have does little to support a theory’s validity. Perhaps educational institutions and scientists should admit that they, and we, have very little real scientific (observable and measurable) evidence for any current scientific theory of the origin of life. I do know that advocating this position of “scientific uncertainty” is not what is currently happening in our society and schools.

I appreciate your feedback.

 

[iceman]

Coulter’s arguments have no merit.

Here is a review of her book and and an article on intellegent design (Coulter supports ID) by Jerry Coyne from the University of Chicago. Coyne is kind of a jerk, but he is a first rate biologist.

tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w060731&s=coyne073106
pondside.uchicago.edu/cluster/pdf/coyne/New_Republic_ID.pdf

Here is a book about about evolution and intellegent design (Coulter supports ID).

amazon.com/Intelligent-Thought-Science-versus-Movement/dp/0307277224/sr=8-1/qid=1169264337/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5371012-0595008?ie=UTF8&s=books

And for general information check out the Talk Origins FAQ. They are not perfect, but still pretty good.

talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-evolution.html

Thanks for the links and references. I will check them out.

 

[ribozyme]

Coulter’s arguments have no merit.

Here is a review of her book and and an article on intellegent design (Coulter supports ID) by Jerry Coyne from the University of Chicago. Coyne is kind of a jerk, but he is a first rate biologist.

How is Professor Coyne a jerk?

 

[Lady_Cygnus]

What we do know is that we can observe changes in species, even to the point where the new species are no longer compatible with the old. We can observe physical evidence in different species to group them into genus, families, etc. We also see links between different creatures and evolution makes a reasonable explanation.

…

I don’t mean to be argumentative - I am simply curious as to the strength of the real science behind this theory of life which so many seem to follow almost religiously. I am not at all so certain that this theory is any more valid than an argument that life forms migrated from Neptune blown by inter-galactic storms. There seems to be very little evidence for either theory. Being the only one we have does little to support a theory’s validity. Perhaps educational institutions and scientists should admit that they, and we, have very little real scientific (observable and measurable) evidence for any current scientific theory of the origin of life. I do know that advocating this position of “scientific uncertainty” is not what is currently happening in our society and schools.

I appreciate your feedback.

There are many scientific theories that are taught as truths when they have yet to be “fully proven”. I’ll give two examples. Newton’s theory of gravity was the only theory of gravity for quite a while and it matched all the data. Einstein came up with a better way of calculating gravity’s effects and it replaced Newton’s for high velocity cases. Even now we can calculate what gravity will do, but we have little idea on how it works.

I also remember reading in my astronomy books that the moon was created by a collision between the earth and another object (spewing rock and lava into space), and it was stated as fact. Science now disagrees with this theory. There are two competing theories now, first that the moon formed after the earth from debris and the second that the earth caught the moon. (this may have changed in the past 6 years…) There are numerous theories where scientists state something as a fact then find out later it isn’t true.

In the case of evolution there is no competing theory and no evidence against it; as far as a scientist is concerned it’s fair game to teach it. Until someone stands up and says “this finding here contradicts evolution” it is the theory that will be taught. By the way, gaps in the evolutionary record don’t classify as evidence against it. Astronomers calculate complex orbital parameters from a few pieces of data, often with little else to follow (gaps in the orbit information). It’s not until data appears from another orbit that the first is disqualified.

 

[Ammonius_Saccus]

How is Professor Coyne a jerk?

I meant to say “kind of a jerk in the article.” That is not to say Coulter doesn’t deserve it.