Reconciling Humani Generis with the human genetic data showing that there never were just two first parents

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You do not strike me as a serious poster. All you do is paint with a broad brush and ignore the basic facts of biology without providing a good reason to do so.
 
Allyson said:
It is very clear that the smallest human bottle neck was probably in the 1000s of people. There is too much genetic diversity for there having only been two.
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The teachings of the Catholic Church are not that “there were two first hominins”; it’s “there were two first truly human persons.” Those who want to hold to a literalistic reading will reject this assertion, since they really do want there to be only two first hominins. Yet, since the Church is talking about ensouled humans, their reading tends to go a bit too far afield. Nevertheless, the Church doesn’t require one particular reading of Genesis’ creation accounts.
rossum said:
Man’s science has proved that there are many couples from whom all living humans are descended. M-Eve’s parents, for example.
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Hang on a second, though: the very notion of Mitochondrial ‘Eve’ is that she – and not her progenitors – is the one from whom all living humans are descended. Her siblings’ children or her cousins’ children don’t come into play, inasmuch as she is the one said to have been the matriarch of all currently living humans. That’s the whole point of “M-Eve”, no?
EndTimes said:
So you say. Show…
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OK, so… M-Eve and Y-Adam are very literally constructs developed from genetic evidence! What do you want to be “shown”?
rossum said:
Show which of M-Eve’s ancestors had souls? No, science cannot do that.
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Precisely! And that’s why “M-Eve” isn’t the ‘Eve’ of the Bible.
 
Gorgias said:
the very notion of Mitochondrial ‘Eve’ is that she – and not her progenitors – is the one from whom all living humans are descended.
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M-Eve is the most recent source of our Mitochondrial DNA. All her female ancestors are also a source, but they are not the most recent source. The “most recent” part can change as lineages die out.

The Biblical Adam and Eve do not have to be “most recent”, so any of M-eve’s ancestors would be suitable.
 
The simple fact that all human beings are related to each other, and have been related to each other for hundreds of thousands of years, is enough for original sin to make sense. Specifically reconciling all the genetic and paleoanthropological data with the doctrine of a first “true man” in history is trickier, not because it can’t be done — it can be in a vast number of ways — but because insisting that the doctrine must fit the data, without seeming contrived, or it doesn’t work, indicates an underlying doubt about the doctrine. That doubt will persist regardless of the data, especially because there is always new data and faith contingent on scientific discovery will be in perpetual crisis.
 
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Gorgias said:
The teachings of the Catholic Church are not that “there were two first hominins”; it’s “there were two first truly human persons.” Those who want to hold to a literalistic reading will reject this assertion, since they really do want there to be only two first hominins. Yet, since the Church is talking about ensouled humans, their reading tends to go a bit too far afield. Nevertheless, the Church doesn’t require one particular reading of Genesis’ creation accounts.
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I do not disagree. My comment was intended as a response to @EndTimes who appears to believe in a literal two parents scenario. He or she has not given any specifics about how that works and I am not sure that he or she considers themselves as Catholic, since they have themselves listed as Christian on their profile, if I recall correctly.
 
EndTimes said:
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Gorgias:
OK, so… M-Eve and Y-Adam are very literally constructs developed from genetic evidence! What do you want to be “shown”?
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Show the actual science
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It doesn’t require science. Just common sense.

As you go back in time you will find common ancestors for groups of people. Take the female ancestor and go back a few thousand years. You may find a few hundred women who were the ancestors of everyone alive today. Go back a few more thousand and those few hundred women would share common ancestory with a few dozen women. Keep going back and you must reach a point where there is one woman from whom all are descended.

You need the science to determine exactly how far back this goes. But that there was such a woman is common sense.
 
Freddy said:
You need the science to determine exactly how far back this goes. But that there was such a woman is common sense.
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Right. It’s really just a definition. It’s unfortunate that some scientists thought it would be cute to include “Adam” and “Eve” in the description of the concepts…
 
I do not think you are actually interested in being show the evidence. I linked to two talks by two well-known and respected scientists in my OP, which you seem to have skipped over.

I do not think you are actually interested in discussing the issue I raised, which was how to avoid the heterodoxies that were of concern to Pius given that the genetic evidence we have now (that he did not) is at odds with what he wrote regarding two first parents [when read very closely].

The mechanic of genetics that lead to us has been around for ~3.5 billion years. Humani Generis is a creating of the human mind that was written in 1950, and has been left untouched because it would be hard for any subsequent Pope to just scratch it.

Also, the Scriptures, regardless of whether you think they were inspired, are still seen as products of a human mind by the Church too. Taking them as irrefutable truth on their face is like looking in a mirror that has been smeared with Vaseline and insisting that is what you really look like.
 
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Allyson said:
Also, the Scriptures, regardless of whether you think they were inspired, are still seen as products of a human mind by the Church too.
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Glad you posted that opinion

Too…

The Church deems Scriptures as not only Inspired by God - but as being solid as a Rock…
 
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