Adam and Eve possible?

[Palerider]

Found this article today. I try to keep an open mind about this stuff. Decided to see if any of you had any thoughts.

https://www.christianheadlines.com/colu ... apple.html

[alas]

That would not account for the Neanderthal, Denisovian, and “unknown humanoid ancestor” DNA in humans various DNA.

On the other hand, at some point, there is a human ancestor with such an advantageous mutation that their descendants survive to pass on DNA, while all those without that mutation do not. Say, wider hips in females so they survive childbirth to the big headed intelligent humans we became. Or, resistance to a disease that wipes everyone without that mutation out, as experts say happened in Europe with measles. (It went through Europe killing millions, and only those with a natural immunity survived, so now it is a relatively harmless childhood disease.) Scientists even calculated that and found sure enough, all humans descend from one female, and all humans descend from one male....but the male and female were about a million years apart, hardly one breeding pair.

No, scientists know enough to say cheetahs had a bottle neck where they all descend from one or maybe two related breeding pairs, but humans never had such a bottle neck, and even though there is one common female ancestor and one common male ancestor, humans never went through the kind of genetic bottle neck where they were down to one breeding pair.

Once again, people are so desperate to prove theBible correct, that they ignore, twist, or misunderstand science.

[RubinHighlander]

However, given two people who share no genetic markers—in other words, two people who weren’t born but were created with four unique sets of chromosomes—that time frame drops to a few hundred thousand, not millions, of years.

In addition to what Alas points out, a few hundred thousand years instead of millions still requires lots of mental gymnastics and leaves Genesis to a lot of interpretation. I used to do lots of gymnastics around this, making part of Genesis metaphorical and part of it literal, meaning that at some point God took to humans and made them accountable. Also the creation into a story early humans could understand, leaving out all the evolutionary dino parts. It never really calmed the cogdis, it just remained in the areas of "I don't know." Thank Jebus I don't have to jump through those mental hoops anymore!

[dogbite]

Scientists even calculated that and found sure enough, all humans descend from one female, and all humans descend from one male....but the male and female were about a million years apart, hardly one breeding pair.

There is a second Adam for a small cluster of Cameroon heritage

https://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.c ... older.html

[Jeffret]

Gauger and Hössjer published this paper at BIO-Complexity, which is described at RationalWiki as, "an open access journal published by the weirdly named Biologic Institute, a lame front for creation science." They work at the Discovery Institute, which is known for attempts to mangle science in favor of Intelligent Design. None of these are known for any degree of scientific integrity. Despite years of attempts at demonstrating that ID is possible (forget about showing that it transpired), there have been no scientific successes.

Dennis Venema, who was quoted in the Christian Headlines, etc., articles, has a rebutal of sorts.

It's possible to put faith in the Gauger and Hössjer article, but there's not much in the way of science there.

[2bizE]

Either way, I believe the 6000 BC Adam and Eve in the Bible is simply a story passed down from generations to explain how Homo sapiens came to be. Same with the Flood of Noah, Jonah and the fish, etc. All oral stories, eventually written down and taught as faith promoting. In 3000 years, perhaps the story of Jeff Holland and the Hells Angels bike gang will be told as a true story.
Of course, I’m preferential to the stories of my people including my dealings with Hobbits, Dwarfs, Elves, Giants, Orcs, and Man.

[Hagoth]

This is interesting. Two things stand out for me:

"given two people who share no genetic markers—in other words, two people who weren’t born but were created with four unique sets of chromosomes—that time frame drops to a few hundred thousand, not millions, of years."

In other words, the simulation was specifically programmed with a huge bias toward getting the results they were looking for, but it still doesn't even remotely match the biblical timeline. All archaeological indications are that people hundreds of thousands of years ago still needed some evolution to get to modern man, unless God created them almost modern and then let evolution finish the job.

"In fact, many researchers failed to use standard methods for modeling population genetics because of their baked-in evolutionary assumptions. For instance, one popular tool relies on comparisons between human and chimpanzee DNA to track mutations—something Gauger points out is useless if we don’t share a common ancestor with chimps."

The big problem here is that the overwhelming genetic evidence that we do share DNA a common ancestor with chimpanzees. For this to be "pointless" would require that the designer of the DNA intentionally designed Adam and Eve's chromosomes to have a 98% overlap with chimps, including specific deleterious mutations (like the shared inability to synthesize vitamin C) and the inclusion of endogenous retroviruses that we share with the great apes.

As interesting as this is it isn't really evidence of anything, just a simulation of a might-have-been situation. What if pigs had wings? Set up a simulation where pigs have the perfect genetic propensities to sprout wings and viola! Even if these genetic conditions happened, how could you be certain it wasn't a passing alien scientists who designed the genes? There is no direct connection to the Bible here.

[Jeffret]

Either way, I believe the 6000 BC Adam and Eve in the Bible is simply a story passed down from generations to explain how Homo sapiens came to be. Same with the Flood of Noah, Jonah and the fish, etc. All oral stories, eventually written down and taught as faith promoting. In 3000 years, perhaps the story of Jeff Holland and the Hells Angels bike gang will be told as a true story.
Of course, I’m preferential to the stories of my people including my dealings with Hobbits, Dwarfs, Elves, Giants, Orcs, and Man.

That's really the only approach that makes sense. Biblical inerrancy just doesn't work. There are so many problems with it. Everyone ends up picking and choosing which parts they will try to follow or consider important. As mentioned in a different, current thread, the most vocal Christians of the day have gotten to the point where they pretty much ignore all of their holy book.

Anything else ignores everything we know about how the Bible came to us and what it contains.

[Spicy McHaggis]

According to 23 & Me I have Neanderthal DNA. I'm walking proof that A&E did not literally exist.

That story makes absolutely no sense. Why should anyone take the A&E myth over the creation myth of Native Americans or the Aboriginals of Australia? Just about every culture has come up with a creation story that was passed down for thousands of years, why is A&E so accepted?

[deacon blues]

Adam and Eve seem more possible to me than Noah and his eight people, the animals, and the ark. I lean toward metaphorical rather than literal Genesis interpretations in either case, but nothing is impossible. It's possible all you folks could just be actors in my own personal "Truman Show." Possible but not very likely.

[Exiled]

I agree that it is a very remote possibility. Just look at the garden story, for example, where the devil was the only one who told the truth and the story looks more like a coming of age tale where adam and eve become adults through getting to "know" each other (forbidden fruit) and are then kicked out of the childhood environs so that they can join the adult world. That should raise a red flag that we are dealing with a myth and not reality.