Adam, Eve and Evolution

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There is a tract about this subject on this site, here:
catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

The tract basically positions what Catholics can and cannot believe with regard to Adam and Eeve in an authoritarian way. It meddles in natural science. And it’s wrong. It’s basically setting up the Catholic faith for another embarassing fall.
One would have thought the Church would have learned from history in announcing this or that teaching that bears on the natural world and is subsequently shown by scientists to be wrong. The tract is riddled with such language:

‘the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing’

‘The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age’

'It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2-3) as a fiction. The human race really did descend from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) rather than a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

It is this last absurd statement that I would like to focus on, because it is one where the Church (yet again) is setting itself up for a prat-fall. In fact all the molecular and fossil evidence indicates that the human species is not descended from an original pair of of two human beings. The evidence overwhelmingly points to a pool of early humans. There is no evidence for a population bottleneck of a single couple within the time that humans can be called fully human. The tightest population bottlenecks occur between 75,000 and 60,000 years ago when the early human population might have been as small as a few thousand. It is also the case that Y-chromosome Adam (the Most Recent Common ancestor in the strictly male line of descent) dates to about 75,000 years ago. Mitochondrial Eve, the Most Recent Common Ancestor in the strictly female line dates to 175,000 years ago.

Whoever wrote this article might like to visit my website where this is explained:

evolutionpages.com/Mitochondrial%20Eve.htm

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
Ah ha, another evolution thread. I was gonna add to my previous thread on Adam/Eve, so I’ll just add it here instead

Hugh Ross on Adam

requires free registration so I’ll post exerpts (from June 2003)

CHROMOSOME STUDY STUNS EVOLUTIONISTS By Hugh Ross, Ph.D.

…Several years ago, I reported on a parallel investigation of women’s genetic variation. Because the differences found were so slight, theorists concluded that women can trace their lineage only a couple hundred thousand years at the most to a common ancestor, whom the scientists called “Eve” (I won’t argue the name, but I would lean toward a more recent date of origin than 200,000 years). To their great surprise, Dorit and his associates found no nucleotide differences at all in the non-recombinant part of the Y chromosomes of the 38 men. This non-variation suggests no evolution has occurred in male ancestry. The researchers, apparently committed to Darwinism, back-pedaled by doing statistical analysis on the evolutionary possibilities if the 38 men sampled somehow inaccurately represented the population at large. Based on this analysis, they concluded that men’s forefather – a single individual, not a group – lived no more than 270,000 years ago.

…As for macro-evolution, the results of both studies rule out homo erectus (0.5 to 1.5 million years ago) as a possible progenitor of modern humans.

…What response do Darwinian biologists make to these findings? Those who have commented point out that the Y chromosome and mitochodrial DNA comprise but a fraction of the total genetic material in primates. They express hope that future studies of the genetic code will bridge the credibility gap by finding less variation among species and greater variation within species. I have a different hope and expectation. It seems more likely that future research will continue to confirm only slight variations in the genetic material of humans. If this is the case, we should see biologists’ date for “Adam and Eve” drop from a maximum of about 200,000 years ago to a date within the biblical range of about 10,000 to 60,000 years ago.

SEARCHING FOR ADAM UPDATE By Hugh Ross, Ph.D.

As Y chromosome studies continue, researchers give a new perspective to the word “modern” in modern man. The Y chromosome research on which I reported a few months ago fixed the date of the first male Homo sapiens at 270,000 years ago or less. More recent studies have shrunk that number significantly and are revealing how much less it may be.

…The divergence they observed was so small as to shrink that date projection to somewhere between 37,000 and 49,000 years ago. This newest date for man’s progenitor has come within the range of biblically determined dates for Adam. If the Genesis geneologies are anywhere from 10 to 80 percent complete, as most conservative scholars suggest, the Adam of Eden lived between 7,500 and 60,000 years ago.

I need to read more Hugh Ross, doesn’t clear up all my difficulties but at least he and Glenn Morton deal with this directly.

Phil P
 
hecd citing Catholic Answers << ‘the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing’ >>

hecd << ‘The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age’ >>

I really don’t see the problem here, since science seems to agree with the Church. At least at present, modern cosmology postulates the Big Bang was the beginning of the universe – the beginning of time, space, and matter (everything in nature that exists). I.e. The universe was created a finite time ago (10 to 20 billion years ago) out of “nothing” (ex nihilo). That’s what fallible science says and the Church (infallibly) agrees with that. 😃 Actually, there are restrictions on doctrinal infallibility and it’s best to check some of the official statements on that. But Catholic Answers is great for a resource on the Church’s teaching. Infallibility does not extend to science as such, but to faith (or Catholic doctrine) and morals only. The official teaching on papal infallibility was defined in 1870 at Vatican Council I.

I’d have to look into your Adam/Eve claims more closely, thanks for the links. It’s an issue I’ve been thinking about for a couple years.

Phil P
 
On Hugh Ross as an authority on human evolution, No. But at least he tries to deal with the Genesis vs. paleoanthropology and evolution discrepancies. I realize his Ph.D. is in astronomy, not in biology or anthropology. I agree he is off base in some of his evolution claims, since he is an old-earth creationist and I am more a theistic evolutionist.

For example, I specifically remember Hugh Ross claiming on his Reasons radio show that Ambulocetus Natans (the walking-whale) was “just a different kind of whale that God created” or some such. I think that’s far-fetched. That is making God “mimic evolution” as Kenneth Miller (author Finding Darwin’s God) has said.

Phil P
 
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PhilVaz:
hecd citing Catholic Answers << ‘the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing’ >>

SNIP

I really don’t see the problem here, since science seems to agree with the Church.

SNIP

Phil P
Click to expand...
Not really - science does not necessarily agree that the universe was specially created out of nothing (although it does agree that it is of finite age in real time).

If infallibility does not apply to science, why is the word used here and why is an authoritarian view of Adam and Eve presented - '‘It is equally [referring back to the infallible claims above] impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2-3) as a fiction. The human race really did descend from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) rather than a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).’

It’s polygenism according to the evidence. So my original point stands - why is the Church (or at least this little pocket of it) setting itself up for another prat-fall. Doesn’t the Church ever learn?

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
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PhilVaz:
On Hugh Ross as an authority on human evolution, No. But at least he tries to deal with the Genesis vs. paleoanthropology and evolution discrepancies. I realize his Ph.D. is in astronomy, not in biology or anthropology. I agree he is off base in some of his evolution claims, since he is an old-earth creationist and I am more a theistic evolutionist.

For example, I specifically remember Hugh Ross claiming on his Reasons radio show that Ambulocetus Natans (the walking-whale) was “just a different kind of whale that God created” or some such. I think that’s far-fetched. That is making God “mimic evolution” as Kenneth Miller (author Finding Darwin’s God) has said.

Phil P
Click to expand...
Agreed. He’s off base in his astronomy as well sometimes.

Alec
 
hecd << It’s polygenism according to the evidence. So my original point stands - why is the Church (or at least this little pocket of it) setting itself up for another prat-fall. Doesn’t the Church ever learn? >>

Good questions, good objections. I raised some of these in a thread a few days ago called “Did Adam/Eve exist?” Many theologians, including 3 out of the 4 that PBS chose to discuss this issue for their 2001 “Evolution” series, interpret Genesis figuratively saying a belief in a literal, historical Adam/Eve is naive. The Catholic Church does seem to define Adam/Eve as historical and literal (see the online CCC Catechism paragraphs 385-421).

Also I’ll agree the Mitochondrial “Eve” and Y-Chromosome “Adam” (common ancestors for the female and male human lines respectively, if I understand it right) don’t mean the “Biblical” Adam/Eve since there are certainly discrepancies in the dates (“Eve” arriving on the scene about 75,000 to 100,000 years before “Adam” according to DNA and anthropology studies).

The teaching that God “created” though is Catholic doctrine, so that can be defined infallibly. It is Catholic doctrine that God is the ultimate author of all of life. HOW he authored it is another question (whether evolution or some kind of special or direct creation).

So you are suggesting that sometime in the future, astronomy and cosmology will discover precisely how the universe was created by natural means, so the Catholic Church should hold off on their doctrine on creation until then? Will we ever learn? 😃

At least Hugh Ross has an earned Ph.D. in astronomy, what is your Ph.D. in?

Phil P
 
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PhilVaz:
SNIP

Also I’ll agree the Mitochondrial “Eve” and Y-Chromosome “Adam” (common ancestors for the female and male human lines respectively, if I understand it right) don’t mean the “Biblical” Adam/Eve since there are certainly discrepancies in the dates (“Eve” arriving on the scene about 75,000 to 100,000 years before “Adam” according to DNA and anthropology studies).

SNIP

Phil P
Click to expand...
Yes & note that common ancestor doesn’t mean the only ancestor. In other words there are other women who were alive contemporaneously with Mitochondrial Eve (more correctly Most Recent Common Matrilineal Ancestor) who are also ancestors of the human population - Mitochondrial Eve is however the last common ancestor of all of us in the strict maternal line. Look at it this way - we each have two grandmothers, but only our maternal grandmother is in the maternal line. We have four great grandmothers but only one is in the maternal line (the mother of outr maternal grandmother). Go back 175,000 years. We have many great grandmothers thousands of times removed, but only one is in the strict maternal line and she is in the strict maternal line of the entire human population. But we have many other maternal ancestors alive at the same time. At no stage does the ancestry of the human population drop to one man and one woman - the narrowest bottleneck of humanity is at least a few thousand individuals.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

PS - comparing PhDs is to engage in the fallacy of the argument from authority - although I do have a good one if pushed 🙂
 
hecd << PS - comparing PhDs is to engage in the fallacy of the argument from authority - although I do have a good one if pushed 🙂 >>

Well, you’re probably not gonna find a lot of people in here competent enough to debate you on the science then. I have a mere B.S. in Computer Science, so there. 😛

Your evolution pages are very well done. Nice job. I mainly rip off TalkOrigins material and Dalrymple such as here

Phil P
 
I’m suprised that no one mentioned that the Most Recent Common Ancestor does not mean ONLY common ancestor. If we all came from one couple, say 200,000 years ago, our most recent Male common ancestor could be 85,000 years ago, or whatever. Our genetics only apply to the most recent divergent lines.
 
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hecd2:
There is a tract about this subject on this site, here:
catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

The tract basically positions what Catholics can and cannot believe with regard to Adam and Eeve in an authoritarian way.*** It meddles in natural science. And it’s wrong.***
Click to expand...
Evidence my man, EVIDENCE!
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hecd2:
‘the Church has infallibly defined that the universe was specially created out of nothing’

‘The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age’
Click to expand...
Do you disagree with this? If you do, where is your evidence?
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hecd2:
'It is equally impermissible to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve and the fall (Gen. 2-3) as a fiction. The human race really did descend from an original pair of two human beings (a teaching known as monogenism) rather than a pool of early human couples (a teaching known as polygenism).

It is this last absurd statement that I would like to focus on, because it is one where the Church (yet again) is setting itself up for a prat-fall.
Click to expand...
Enough of the accusations already, where is YOUR evidence?
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hecd2:
In fact all the molecular and fossil evidence indicates that the human species is not descended from an original pair of of two human beings.
Click to expand...
Baloney! The fossil record has so many holes in it, it shows nothing of the kind, other than it has become a faith of its own by those who try and put too much on what is there…
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hecd2:
The evidence overwhelmingly points to a pool of early humans.

Nonesense. That’s not proven, it’s hypothecized.
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hecd2:
There is no evidence for a population bottleneck of a single couple within the time that humans can be called fully human.

And when is a human FULLY human?
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hecd2:
The tightest population bottlenecks occur between 75,000 and 60,000 years ago when the early human population might have been as small as a few thousand. It is also the case that Y-chromosome Adam (the Most Recent Common ancestor in the strictly male line of descent) dates to about 75,000 years ago. Mitochondrial Eve, the Most Recent Common Ancestor in the strictly female line dates to 175,000 years ago.
Click to expand...
And how did even these get here, by spontaneous combustion? Science can’t even begin to fill in the holes in this theory.
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hecd2:
Whoever wrote this article might like to visit my website where this is explained:
Click to expand...
Science begins with the first article of belief. That matter was always there. That unprovable assumption, is not science, it’s faith.
Click to expand...
 
PhilVaz

I sympathize with your dilemma as you have stated it. I will restate it here and correct me if I am misunderstanding your point.
  1. I believe evolution as commonly taught in schools and universities and the majority of scientists is true.
  2. I believe that the Catholic teachings are true.
  3. Humans have at least a thousand ancestors genetically.
  4. The Catholic Church teaches that mankind has two ancestors, Adam and Eve.
  5. These two truth claims are in conflict.
  6. I am searching for an answer.
A century ago most scientists claimed an infinitely old universe. It wasn’t until Einstein’s theory of relativity that a beginning to the universe became what most scientists now state as fact. Almost all reputable scientists accept the big bang cosmology model now. If these same sincere scientists lived 150 years ago, they would have believed the prevailing thought of the day, namely an infinitely old universe.

The Church and Bible both teach back then and now that the universe had a beginning. A Christian in your position would have had a similar dilemma about how the universe came to be.

What’s my point? Wait and see; this will inevitably be cleared up since nature and the bible can never conflict.

The theory of evolution isn’t a closed book. It is an ongoing ever-changing theory that is refined as new discoveries are made. We don’t know everything about evolution yet, and no scientist will claim he or she does. Even in my own lifetime I have seen the evolutionary charts change some, and our ancestors in the chart be revised as new discoveries are made.

Right now the prevailing thought is that humans had thousands of ancestors genetically, but these things change, as we understand more. Just look at the lo-carb craze! Ten years ago medical science condemned fats, now carbs are the enemy (well maybe, some doctors still suggest low fat diets)

Remember the whole bible, and the Catholic Church are not one shovel full of dirt away from being destroyed.

As a Lutheran I have a two general questions I will pose here:
  1. Is the catechism infallible?
  2. Is what the pope said about Adam and Eve infallible in this instance or was it his opinion? (in the chair of Peter)
 
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PhilVaz:
hecd << PS - comparing PhDs is to engage in the fallacy of the argument from authority - although I do have a good one if pushed 🙂 >>

Well, you’re probably not gonna find a lot of people in here competent enough to debate you on the science then. I have a mere B.S. in Computer Science, so there. 😛

Your evolution pages are very well done. Nice job. I mainly rip off TalkOrigins material and Dalrymple such as here

Phil P
Click to expand...
Interesting site.

I went for something along the lines of definitions and summary statements from a scientist/doctor. catholiceducation.org/articles/science/sc0042.html
 
steve b:
Evidence my man, EVIDENCE!

Do you disagree with this? If you do, where is your evidence?
Click to expand...
Enough of the accusations already, where is YOUR evidence?

Baloney! The fossil record has so many holes in it, it shows nothing of the kind, other than it has become a faith of its own by those who try and put too much on what is there…

And when is a human FULLY human?

Anatomically modern humans appear in the fossil record at around 125,000 years. Going further back in the record to about 200,000 years ago we find fossils that are intermediate between anatomically modern humans and more arcaic forms.

Wu, 'A well-preserved cranium of an archaic type of early Homo sapiens from Dali, China, Scientia Sinica 241, 530 - 539 (Dali)

Tim White et al, ‘Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia’, Nature 423, 742 -747, June 2003

Leakey, Butzer and Day, 'Early Homo sapiens remains from the Omo River region of Southwest Ethiopia, Nature 222, 1132 - 1138 (Omo I and Omo II)

McCown and Keith, 'The fossil reamins from the Levalloiso-Mousterian, The Stone Age of Mount Carmel, The Clarendon Press , Oxford, 1939 (Skhul V)

Between 200,000 and 60,000 years ago tools associated with these and many other early H sapiens fossils are of the Mousterian type, do not change over 150,000 years and are relatively unsophisticated. Also, there is little evidence of complex culture, religion or art until 60,000 years ago. Without these things, hominins can hardly be called fully human.

As for population bottlenecks, we find the evidence for that in molecular not fossil data. Mitochrondrial data gives a date for the Most Recent Common Matriarchal Ancestor (Mitochondrial Eve) of 175,000 and the Most Recent Common Ancestor in male line Y-chromosome Adam) at about 75,000 years.
evolutionpages.com/Mitochondrial%20Eve.htm

Linkage disequilibrium blocks around common single nucleotide polymorphisms in the human genome reveal recent selective sweeps and population bottlenecks:

Reich et al, ‘Linkage disequilibrium in the human genome’, Nature 411, 199 - 204

Reich and Goldstein, ‘Genetic evidence for a Palaeolithic human population expansion in Africa’, Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 95, 8119 - 8123

Ambrose, ‘Late pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans’, Journal of Human Evolution 34.6, 623 - 651

This shows that the smallest bottleneck for humans in the last 100,000 years was around 10,000 individuals. Studies of polymorphisms in the major histocompatibility complex indicate that the human population arose from a founder population of at least 1000 individuals:

Klein & Takahata, ‘Where do we come from: The molecular Evidence for Human Descent’, Springer, 2002

Finally this is a good review article that presents a summary of much of the recent genomic data on human origins:
Rebecca Cann, ‘Genetic clues to dispersal in human populations: retracing the past from the present’, Science 291, 1742 - 1748.

Now then, what were you saying about evidence?

Teaching monogenism will lead to further avoidable embarassment for the church.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
Here’s my method of resolving the monogenism/polygenism problem. Perhaps someone can clue me in to as whether I’ve created a fun new heresy. 😃

As noted, evolutionary biology would seem to point to a pool of common ancestors, not a specific couple. This is because populations, not individuals, evolve. The Church teaches, and the integrity of our understanding of the Fall requires, all of humanity to have descended from an original couple. So what do we do.

The root of the problem, imho, is how we define human being. Are we defining it religiously or scientifically? I think we’re applying a scientific definition of human being to both scenarios, when we shouldn’t. That is to say is a human being a living organism with a genetic blueprint identical (more or less) to our own (scientific definition.) Or is a human a living being endowed with a soul (religious definition.)

I believe we can be polygenists on a scientific level, and monogenists on a religious level. Like this. Populations, not individuals, evolve. So genetically speaking, the first humans came in a large group, not a pair. But in religious terms, a human is only a human when endowed by God with a soul. So God took a pair of suitable genetic humans out of the pool of soulless homo sapei that he had evolved, and gave them souls. They are the first humans in the truly religious sense. Only their descendents were given souls. All of humanity descends from them.

Ta da! Whaddya think?
 
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hecd2:
Anatomically modern humans appear in the fossil record at around 125,000 years. Going further back in the record to about 200,000 years ago we find fossils that are intermediate between anatomically modern humans and more arcaic forms.

Wu, 'A well-preserved cranium of an archaic type of early Homo sapiens from Dali, China, Scientia Sinica 241, 530 - 539 (Dali)

Tim White et al, ‘Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia’, Nature 423, 742 -747, June 2003

Leakey, Butzer and Day, 'Early Homo sapiens remains from the Omo River region of Southwest Ethiopia, Nature 222, 1132 - 1138 (Omo I and Omo II)

McCown and Keith, 'The fossil reamins from the Levalloiso-Mousterian, The Stone Age of Mount Carmel, The Clarendon Press , Oxford, 1939 (Skhul V)

Between 200,000 and 60,000 years ago tools associated with these and many other early H sapiens fossils are of the Mousterian type, do not change over 150,000 years and are relatively unsophisticated. Also, there is little evidence of complex culture, religion or art until 60,000 years ago. Without these things, hominins can hardly be called fully human.

As for population bottlenecks, we find the evidence for that in molecular not fossil data. Mitochrondrial data gives a date for the Most Recent Common Matriarchal Ancestor (Mitochondrial Eve) of 175,000 and the Most Recent Common Ancestor in male line Y-chromosome Adam) at about 75,000 years.
evolutionpages.com/Mitochondrial%20Eve.htm

Linkage disequilibrium blocks around common single nucleotide polymorphisms in the human genome reveal recent selective sweeps and population bottlenecks:

Reich et al, ‘Linkage disequilibrium in the human genome’, Nature 411, 199 - 204

Reich and Goldstein, ‘Genetic evidence for a Palaeolithic human population expansion in Africa’, Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 95, 8119 - 8123

Ambrose, ‘Late pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans’, Journal of Human Evolution 34.6, 623 - 651

This shows that the smallest bottleneck for humans in the last 100,000 years was around 10,000 individuals. Studies of polymorphisms in the major histocompatibility complex indicate that the human population arose from a founder population of at least 1000 individuals:

Klein & Takahata, ‘Where do we come from: The molecular Evidence for Human Descent’, Springer, 2002

Finally this is a good review article that presents a summary of much of the recent genomic data on human origins:
Rebecca Cann, ‘Genetic clues to dispersal in human populations: retracing the past from the present’, Science 291, 1742 - 1748.

Now then, what were you saying about evidence?

Teaching monogenism will lead to further avoidable embarassment for the church.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
Click to expand...
"There are no humanoid skeletons older than Neanderthal man.

There are a lot of bone fragments which people argue about; you may have read about the supposed humanoids from 3 or 4 million years ago, found by the Leakey family in Africa. If I recall correctly, they actually won a Nobel Prize for their work. But Sir Solly Zuckerman, who is a giant in this area and a Fellow of the British Royal Society, says that what the Leakeys have found are early ape skulls. And lots of other paleontologists agree with Zuckerman. As for the charts you may have seen showing descent from one Leakey humanoid to the next and on to modern humans, even Mary Leakey — who has done a great deal to publicize her family’s humanoid fossils — admits that they are not in sequence at all — their bones overlap in time. They are not ancestors and descendants at all, just various apelike creatures…"

For context:

catholiceducation.org/ar…nce/sc0042.html
 
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hecd2:
Anatomically modern humans appear in the fossil record at around 125,000 years. Going further back in the record to about 200,000 years ago we find fossils that are intermediate between anatomically modern humans and more arcaic forms.

Wu, 'A well-preserved cranium of an archaic type of early Homo sapiens from Dali, China, Scientia Sinica 241, 530 - 539 (Dali)

Tim White et al, ‘Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia’, Nature 423, 742 -747, June 2003

Leakey, Butzer and Day, 'Early Homo sapiens remains from the Omo River region of Southwest Ethiopia, Nature 222, 1132 - 1138 (Omo I and Omo II)

McCown and Keith, 'The fossil reamins from the Levalloiso-Mousterian, The Stone Age of Mount Carmel, The Clarendon Press , Oxford, 1939 (Skhul V)

Between 200,000 and 60,000 years ago tools associated with these and many other early H sapiens fossils are of the Mousterian type, do not change over 150,000 years and are relatively unsophisticated. Also, there is little evidence of complex culture, religion or art until 60,000 years ago. Without these things, hominins can hardly be called fully human.

As for population bottlenecks, we find the evidence for that in molecular not fossil data. Mitochrondrial data gives a date for the Most Recent Common Matriarchal Ancestor (Mitochondrial Eve) of 175,000 and the Most Recent Common Ancestor in male line Y-chromosome Adam) at about 75,000 years.
evolutionpages.com/Mitochondrial%20Eve.htm

Linkage disequilibrium blocks around common single nucleotide polymorphisms in the human genome reveal recent selective sweeps and population bottlenecks:

Reich et al, ‘Linkage disequilibrium in the human genome’, Nature 411, 199 - 204

Reich and Goldstein, ‘Genetic evidence for a Palaeolithic human population expansion in Africa’, Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 95, 8119 - 8123

Ambrose, ‘Late pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans’, Journal of Human Evolution 34.6, 623 - 651

This shows that the smallest bottleneck for humans in the last 100,000 years was around 10,000 individuals. Studies of polymorphisms in the major histocompatibility complex indicate that the human population arose from a founder population of at least 1000 individuals:

Klein & Takahata, ‘Where do we come from: The molecular Evidence for Human Descent’, Springer, 2002

Finally this is a good review article that presents a summary of much of the recent genomic data on human origins:
Rebecca Cann, ‘Genetic clues to dispersal in human populations: retracing the past from the present’, Science 291, 1742 - 1748.

Now then, what were you saying about evidence?

Teaching monogenism will lead to further avoidable embarassment for the church.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
Click to expand...
As a followup, to my previous post, because chimpanzees and apes, have 24 pairs of chromosomes and humans have 23 pairs, we can look very similar, 98% similar, but that isn’t 100% similar. Skeleton similarities, make for interesting comparisons, but that’s it. Determining our ancestry to the apes, has been one giant leap of faith for evolutionists. It’s not science. Sometimes they make these assumptions on a few bones, or fragments of bones. Yet huge leaps are made from inferences.

Humans are unique not because of the structure of our skeleton but because of intangibles such as language, culture, and thought, which are very difficult to infer from the fossil record. But the most important difference is the soul. And THAT is the unique property to humans which the Church insists on, as being what made the first Adam and Eve human.
 
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Arcanum:
Here’s my method of resolving the monogenism/polygenism problem. Perhaps someone can clue me in to as whether I’ve created a fun new heresy. 😃

As noted, evolutionary biology would seem to point to a pool of common ancestors, not a specific couple. This is because populations, not individuals, evolve. The Church teaches, and the integrity of our understanding of the Fall requires, all of humanity to have descended from an original couple. So what do we do.

The root of the problem, imho, is how we define human being. Are we defining it religiously or scientifically? I think we’re applying a scientific definition of human being to both scenarios, when we shouldn’t. That is to say is a human being a living organism with a genetic blueprint identical (more or less) to our own (scientific definition.) Or is a human a living being endowed with a soul (religious definition.)

I believe we can be polygenists on a scientific level, and monogenists on a religious level. Like this. Populations, not individuals, evolve. So genetically speaking, the first humans came in a large group, not a pair. But in religious terms, a human is only a human when endowed by God with a soul. So God took a pair of suitable genetic humans out of the pool of soulless homo sapei that he had evolved, and gave them souls. They are the first humans in the truly religious sense. Only their descendents were given souls. All of humanity descends from them.

Ta da! Whaddya think?
Click to expand...
I have heard this hypothesis before and I think it’s interesting and inventive.

However it leads to some difficult genetic, spiritual and ethical problems. The problems relate to how we get from the original two people with souls, embedded in a population without souls, to the human race of 7 billion people today, all of whom have souls.

One possibility is that the offspring of the two with souls withdrew from the rest of their genetic kind and interbred incestuously to form the basis for modern humans. There are two problems with this. First the molecular evidence does not support a bottleneck of two people and secondly, we need to explain what happened to the descendants of all the anatomically identical people who weren’t given souls.

Another possibility is that those with souls remained within their society and that their offspring (with souls) interbred with those without souls. Their offspring in turn would have souls - eventually souls would fix in the human population, rather like a beneficial mutation. This is fine except for the rather extreme miscagenation during the transition when families would be comprised of members with and without human souls.

There is also the rather difficult cognitive situation for the putative Adam and Eve to face - that their beloved parents and siblings lacked humanity.

My view is that the easiest solution to the problem is to abandon the doctrine of monogenism (and in fact this has been done in practice by almost every practising Catholic biologist). If the Church accepts (as she does) that creation in six days is an allegory, I fail to see the difficulty in accepting that the story of Adam and Eve is an allegory about the emergence of humanity.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
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