Population Bottleneck

[buffalo]

Would you consider the marbled crayfish (which we have discussed before) to have a “significant difference” from its ancestors. That is an example of macro-evolution caused by a single mutation. Is forming a new species a “significant difference” in your terms?

It’s one thing compare a crayfish to a crayfish who lost an ability once had. It is still a crayfish and will go extinct over time.

Now to go from ape to man in a single mutation as the poster claimed is nonsense and you and i both know it.

 

[Hope1960]

Personally, I believe Adam and Eve were not the only humans on the planet, but rather were the ones responsible for original sin and therefore Genesis focuses on them.

Humani Generis says Catholics are forbidden to believe in polygenism.

 

[Hope1960]

I believe in the soul. I believe in the theory of evolution. No conflict.

Are you Catholic?

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Are you Catholic?

Since birth. Practicing all my life. Jesuit college. Has your original question been answered to your satisfaction? If not, why not?

And to go back to your comment before that, there is no reason not to believe that there were 10,000 or so anatomically identical humans (physically like us today) wandering around, let’s say for the sake of argument, 60,000 years ago. One of these humans had a mutation (as happens every day with all of us) that triggered a major change (mainly in creativity), which may have taken thousands of years to play out completely and spread to the rest of the population. But if, from a religious point of view, you want to call this person “Adam,” and believe that at that point God gave this person a soul, there’s no scientific reason stopping you.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Read “How Life Began” by Alexandre Meinzesz. At one point bacteria were many feet deep (on average) all over the planet. Given the size of bacteria, how many quadrillions of bacteria were there? Far more than enough to “beat the odds.”

I looked it up. Meinzesz quotes a scientist named Gold, who estimated that chemobacteria (that live under the surface) at one point (when only bacteria existed on earth) would have formed a mass 1.5 meters deep on all the land on earth if you spread them out this way. And bacteria arose 3.85 billion years ago. A truly astronomical number. The point is that people who say “The odds of two bacteria combining to produce X are astronomical…” are right. But given enough bacteria and enough time it’s not only probable, but certain.

 

[edwest]

False comparison. The conflict, as demonstrated on numerous threads like this, is quite real.

 

[edwest]

Science has nothing to do with this.
1 Corinthians 15:45

New International Version
So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

New Living Translation
The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” But the last Adam–that is, Christ–is a life-giving Spirit.

English Standard Version
Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

 

[edwest]

Speculative. Unknown. To develop further would require astronomical odds at each step.

 

[Hope1960]

And to go back to your comment before that, there is no reason not to believe that there were 10,000 or so anatomically identical humans (physically like us today) wandering around, let’s say for the sake of argument, 60,000 years ago. One of these humans had a mutation (as happens every day with all of us) that triggered a major change (mainly in creativity), which may have taken thousands of years to play out completely and spread to the rest of the population. But if, from a religious point of view, you want to call this person “Adam,” and believe that at that point God gave this person a soul, there’s no scientific reason stopping you.

Doesn’t that go against belief in polygenism, which we’re forbidden to believe?

 

[Techno2000]

Speculative. Unknown. To develop further would require astronomical odds at each step.

Back in the olden days evolution was spitting out so many good mutations it would make your head spin.

 

[Cruciferi]

Those were the hallowed days of “Miraculous Evolution”. Now, it’s so much harder to prove and that’s why we must have Faith

 

[Techno2000]

Happy Birthday

 

[Hope1960]

Happy Cake Day Cruciferi!

 

[Techno2000]

Those were the hallowed days of “Miraculous Evolution”. Now, it’s so much harder to prove and that’s why we must have Faith

Yeah…back in those days if you accidently cut off your hand, beneficial mutations would come along and grow you a new one.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

(or other deeply held convictions such as homeopathy),

Even science is sceptical of many of the claims of homeopathy. The wondrous new ingredient that will do x y or z sells many things in a commercial society. That doesn’t make it right.
Take for instance shark cartilage.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

In summary, just like the evolutionary arguments for human-ape common ancestry, the evolutionary arguments for mankind’s origin from a large population (rather than an original pair) are nothing more than type-3 experiments, which are useless in adjudicating between creation and evolution. There is no scientific evidence that we arose from a group of individuals rather than from Adam and Eve. If evolutionists wish to continue making their claims and be taken seriously, they need to propose a type-1 experiment.

From the below link the summary above says evolutionists need to propose a type-1 experiment. Has that happened yet? If not, what if they do? The Creation side crumbles?

I’m going backwards a bit here since you posted this (post #66?) 10 days ago. However, I just finished reading the article–which is really a chapter in a book called “Searching for Adam.” As with ANY book, I always see who the publisher is and who the authors are. In this case, The Discovery Institute is the mother company behind the book. From Wikipedia: “The Discovery Institute is a politically conservative think tank based in Seattle that advocates the pseudoscientific concept of intelligent design. Its Teach the Controversy campaign aims to permit teaching of anti-evolution, intelligent-design beliefs in United States public high school science courses in place of accepted scientific theories positing that a scientific controversy exists over these subjects.” One author, Nathaniel Jeanson, has a PhD from Harvard in cell and development biology. So far so good. Where does he work? “Answers in Genesis” and “Institute for Creation Research.” Not so good. Author #2, Jeffrey P. Tomkins, has an MA from Idaho in plant science and a PhD from Clemson in genetics. His work at Clemson seems to have been mainly about soybeans. He now works (no surprise here!) at the “Institute for Creation Research.” So neither one has expertise in anthropology, archaeology, or evolutionary biology.

Let’s move on to content. This, frankly, is garbage. I looked in vain for any reviews of the book or chapter outside the creationist world. They approach the project from an anti-scientific point of view: “We’re going to prove that Adam was created 6,000 years ago (Archbishop Ussher would be proud–but he was 300 years ago) and that the flood happened 4,500 years ago.” Science doesn’t work this way. It collects evidence, looks at the evidence, and creates a theory that explains the evidence. It does NOT begin by saying “I have a firm belief!!!” and then searches around for evidence to support that belief–in other words, the opposite of real science.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

part 2–

So. A few details. They have a problem right out of the box because a 6,000 year old Adam has a lot a mutations. No problem! They magic that away by saying God must have created Adam with the mutations built in! Evidence? We don’t need no stinking evidence! (To quote the Treasure of Sierra Madre.) The issue of the closeness of chimpanzee DNA to human DNA–less than 2%? That’s not good for their theory, so they make it 12%. How? Well, they take the total number of genes in each species and say, “Look! They haven’t compared ALL the genes! Just some! So POTENTIALLY there COULD BE a 12% difference!” And, potentially, I could be an alien. A tactic they use over and over is to assume that one (1) study = the accepted scientific position. So if they find one study that provides them with the evidence they need, they pretend that is the consensus scientific view. That’s not how it works. Studies are reviewed, discussed at conferences, and eventually, if they are found solid in their evidence and theory, accepted.

The business that seems to form the core of their argument, that they want head-to-head experiments, creationists vs. scientists, is an illusion. To my knowledge, that’s not how evolutionary scientists work–there are not “experiments” as you might have in chemistry. It’s a process of finding evidence and creating a theory to fit the evidence. New evidence? Correct the theory as necessary. Scientists ignore creationists the same way astronomers and geologists ignore flat-earth proponents. The authors admit in the article that only other creationists are the peer-reviewers for their work–they defend this on the grounds that only scientists, not creationists, peer-review scientific articles!

 

[Erikaspirit16]

Doesn’t that go against belief in polygenism, which we’re forbidden to believe?

Not at all. The fact that a mutation takes place in one man (“Adam” if you like) and is passed down to his descendants fulfills the requirement that “Adam” is the sole father of the human race. The fact that anatomically similar people also exist, and that Adam and his descendants breed with them, doesn’t mean polygenism. You can easily hold–religiously–that souls are only given to Adam and his descendants, not the other people around him.

By the way, I’ve picked 60-40,000 BC simply because before this period mankind was relatively static in terms of cultural and technological development. But in that 20,000 year period, there were a lot of changes, including language. Something happened.

 

[edwest]

And a ton of bad ones. But that is not observed in the fossil record. All we get are fully formed, fully functional life forms.

 

[edwest]

Highly speculative. Unproven.