Breaking: Adam and Eve are scientifically possible

_{Denyse O'Leary

June 19, 2012

Human evolution}

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A new book, Science and Human Origins, by Ann Gauger, Doug Axe, and Casey Luskin, has hit the street, and we’ll be having a fair bit more to say about it.

For now, just this: Developmental biologist Ann Gauger, who wasn’t sure whether the human race could have come from one original couple, as opposed to Templeton winner Francisco Ayala’s claim of thousands of people, concludes in Chapter 5 that Ayala was vastly overstating his case, and that it is quite possible that there was one Adam and one Eve.*

(See also: Adam and Eve possible?: Ayala’s contrary claim built in favourable assumptions)

Naturally, we hope that Chapter 5, where Gauger explains why Adam and Eve are quite possible, will be free on Kindle.

More later. Soon, actually.

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Comments

Not, of course, that ID is religiously motivated or anything.paulmc_{June 20, 2012
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JLAFan2001 writes, "I’m just trying to find out what’s true and what’s not." This is where critical thinking skills come in handy. "Science is always telling us that they have mountains of overwhelming evidence so I question how can they be wrong." What if it's not the evidence itself, but the interpretation of the evidence that is the problem? Just something to consider. "I guess my first gut instinct when I hear stuff like this headline is it seems very convenient that science can “prove” our religious beliefs." I don't see it as proving religious beliefs, but rather confirming them as being truthful. "On the other hand, I am tired of hearing how evolution explains EVERYTHING good or bad. Science has deified this theory for sure." Everybody worships something, even atheists.Barb_{June 20, 2012
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JLAfan, I think that the guys at reasons.org try very hard to get their science correct and be honest. Everyone has a bias, otherwise no one would make any claim whatsoever. They don't pretend to be unbiased but they know that if they deceive, then it ultimately hurts their cause.Collin_{June 20, 2012
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"It will take me awhile to get through all that but some of the stuff you quoted is from creationist websites." Although I certainly don't agree with everything from 'creationist' websites, I can assure you that I respect them more than Darwinists websites, and that you will find far more nuggets of truth in many of those dreaded creationists websites, and far less deception, than you will ever find in mainstream Darwinian literature. You may disagree, but that simply is the way that I've found it to be after searching these matters out for myself.bornagain77_{June 20, 2012
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tjguy you asked
"Anyway, any answers for any of these?"
Perhaps I can help with a few of them,,, The example I gave for the inability to fixate a unambiguously beneficial mutation in the fruit fly is, or course, an example for a metazoan (multicellular creature). Thanks for the opportunity to clear that difference up tjguy; As to unicellular creatures, let's focus in on Lenski's Long Term Evolution Experiment (LTEE), since that is our best example. It is found that all the mutations in Lenski's LTEE, after 50,000 generations, which is roughly approximate to a million years of hypothetical human evolution, lose functionality in order to confer a benefit.
Michael Behe's Quarterly Review of Biology Paper Critiques Richard Lenski's E. Coli Evolution Experiments - December 2010 Excerpt: After reviewing the results of Lenski's research, Behe concludes that the observed adaptive mutations all entail either loss or modification--but not gain--of Functional Coding ElemenTs (FCTs) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/michael_behes_quarterly_review041221.html
Moreover, when Lenski and team combined what they considered to be their best beneficial mutations in the LTEE, they found this nasty little surprise,,
Mutations : when benefits level off - June 2011 - (Lenski's e-coli after 50,000 generations) Excerpt: After having identified the first five beneficial mutations combined successively and spontaneously in the bacterial population, the scientists generated, from the ancestral bacterial strain, 32 mutant strains exhibiting all of the possible combinations of each of these five mutations. They then noted that the benefit linked to the simultaneous presence of five mutations was less than the sum of the individual benefits conferred by each mutation individually. http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1867.htm?theme1=7 New Research on Epistatic Interactions Shows "Overwhelmingly Negative" Fitness Costs and Limits to Evolution - Casey Luskin June 8, 2011 Excerpt: In essence, these studies found that there is a fitness cost to becoming more fit. As mutations increase, bacteria faced barriers to the amount they could continue to evolve. If this kind of evidence doesn't run counter to claims that neo-Darwinian evolution can evolve fundamentally new types of organisms and produce the astonishing diversity we observe in life, what does? http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/new_research_on_epistatic_inte047151.html
Of course, considering the severe level of polyfunctional complexity in genomes and life, this really should have not been a surprise at all to Lenski,
Poly-Functional Complexity equals Poly-Constrained Complexity Excerpt: Excerpt: A network of research groups,, approached the bacterium at three different levels. One team of scientists described M. pneumoniae's transcriptome, identifying all the RNA molecules, or transcripts, produced from its DNA, under various environmental conditions. Another defined all the metabolic reactions that occurred in it, collectively known as its metabolome, under the same conditions. A third team identified every multi-protein complex the bacterium produced, thus characterising its proteome organisation. "At all three levels, we found M. pneumoniae was more complex than we expected," http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMjdoZmd2emZncQ
Yet Lenski is an dedicated apostle to Darwin, thus he will forever be being surprised by his results. Dr. Behe went through the past four decades of lab work here and found that there has never been an observed violation of genetic entropy (compensatory mutations included):
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.(that is a net 'fitness gain' within a 'stressed' environment i.e. remove the stress from the environment and the parent strain is always more 'fit') http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/
Michael Behe talks about the preceding paper on this podcast:
Michael Behe: Challenging Darwin, One Peer-Reviewed Paper at a Time - December 2010 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-23T11_53_46-08_00
And regardless of what neo-Darwinists have adamantly claimed for years, the fact of the matter is that there is not even one example that can be pointed to as an unambiguous example of neo-Darwinian evolution generating any functional complexity/information greater than what was already present:
Where's the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q-PBeQELzT4pkgxB2ZOxGxwv6ynOixfzqzsFlCJ9jrw/edit
Further notes: Gene Duplication; Although neo-Darwinists are notorious for extrapolating solely from sequence similarity, with no empirical support, to propose that gene duplication knows no bounds in its ability to generate new functional information from duplicated genes, reality is not nearly so kind to this presupposition of theirs as they imagine it to be:
Gene Duplication Quotes, Papers and videos https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u-mn_eUVxx5aSv_iz6xkRXbqJri_ZxJLY2Q9Hx02-X4/edit?hl=en_US
As to Shannon information, Darwinists prefer Shannon information since it is a 'loose' definition of information, but when researchers specifically define functional information, we can easily see why Darwinists prefer the 'loose' definition of Shannon information:
Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information - Abel, Trevors Excerpt: Three qualitative kinds of sequence complexity exist: random (RSC), ordered (OSC), and functional (FSC).,,, Shannon information theory measures the relative degrees of RSC and OSC. Shannon information theory cannot measure FSC. FSC is invariably associated with all forms of complex biofunction, including biochemical pathways, cycles, positive and negative feedback regulation, and homeostatic metabolism. The algorithmic programming of FSC, not merely its aperiodicity, accounts for biological organization. No empirical evidence exists of either RSC of OSC ever having produced a single instance of sophisticated biological organization. Organization invariably manifests FSC rather than successive random events (RSC) or low-informational self-ordering phenomena (OSC).,,, Testable hypotheses about FSC What testable empirical hypotheses can we make about FSC that might allow us to identify when FSC exists? In any of the following null hypotheses [137], demonstrating a single exception would allow falsification. We invite assistance in the falsification of any of the following null hypotheses: Null hypothesis #1 Stochastic ensembles of physical units cannot program algorithmic/cybernetic function. Null hypothesis #2 Dynamically-ordered sequences of individual physical units (physicality patterned by natural law causation) cannot program algorithmic/cybernetic function. Null hypothesis #3 Statistically weighted means (e.g., increased availability of certain units in the polymerization environment) giving rise to patterned (compressible) sequences of units cannot program algorithmic/cybernetic function. Null hypothesis #4 Computationally successful configurable switches cannot be set by chance, necessity, or any combination of the two, even over large periods of time. We repeat that a single incident of nontrivial algorithmic programming success achieved without selection for fitness at the decision-node programming level would falsify any of these null hypotheses. This renders each of these hypotheses scientifically testable. We offer the prediction that none of these four hypotheses will be falsified. http://www.tbiomed.com/content/2/1/29
bornagain77_{June 20, 2012
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Wow, BA. It will take me awhile to get through all that but some of the stuff you quoted is from creationist websites. I tend to stay away from them because I’m not sure how much of it is true science and how much is bias. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to attack the existence of God or religion. I believe in God. I’m just trying to find out what’s true and what’s not. Science is always telling us that they have mountains of overwhelming evidence so I question how can they be wrong. I guess my first gut instinct when I hear stuff like this headline is it seems very convenient that science can “prove” our religious beliefs. On the other hand, I am tired of hearing how evolution explains EVERYTHING good or bad. Science has deified this theory for sure. It has expanded far beyond what it was meant for. I find it funny how this immaterial, non-living theory is responsible for everything from the big bang right down to the present but an omnipotent God is just magic. Anyway, all I want to know is the truth and it seems like us goobers are just stuck in the middle of this worldview war.JLAfan2001_{June 20, 2012
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BA77, "But perhaps a more crushing thing that argues against the neo-Darwinian model for human origins, is that, for one thing, neo-Darwinists have not demonstrated the fixation of even a single unambiguous beneficial allele." On talkorigins, they have an article claiming to give 4 examples of beneficial mutations. I don't have access to the articles to check, but what do you think about the examples they give? They only give 4 and they should be literally coming out of our ears and a dime a dozen if evolution is true, but they are not. Here are the 4 they give. Perhaps it is all in the definition of information. "It is hard to understand how anyone could make this claim, since anything mutations can do, mutations can undo. Some mutations add information to a genome; some subtract it. Creationists get by with this claim only by leaving the term "information" undefined, impossibly vague, or constantly shifting. By any reasonable definition, increases in information have been observed to evolve. We have observed the evolution of increased genetic variety in a population (Lenski 1995; Lenski et al. 1991) increased genetic material (Alves et al. 2001; Brown et al. 1998; Hughes and Friedman 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000; Ohta 2003) novel genetic material (Knox et al. 1996; Park et al. 1996) novel genetically-regulated abilities (Prijambada et al. 1995) If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place. A mechanism that is likely to be particularly common for adding information is gene duplication, in which a long stretch of DNA is copied, followed by point mutations that change one or both of the copies. Genetic sequencing has revealed several instances in which this is likely the origin of some proteins. For example: Two enzymes in the histidine biosynthesis pathway that are barrel-shaped, structural and sequence evidence suggests, were formed via gene duplication and fusion of two half-barrel ancestors (Lang et al. 2000). RNASE1, a gene for a pancreatic enzyme, was duplicated, and in langur monkeys one of the copies mutated into RNASE1B, which works better in the more acidic small intestine of the langur. (Zhang et al. 2002) Yeast was put in a medium with very little sugar. After 450 generations, hexose transport genes had duplicated several times, and some of the duplicated versions had mutated further. (Brown et al. 1998) The biological literature is full of additional examples. A PubMed search (at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) on "gene duplication" gives more than 3000 references." I see they seem to use the Shannon-Weaver definition of information which most creationists do not accept. Anyway, any answers for any of these?tjguy_{June 20, 2012
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When I first heard about this book, I was excited. Now I'm, no doubt happy, but a bit disappointed. I wish “Human Uniqueness and the Genetics of Primates” by Richard Sternberg was also included in the book. The talk he gave at "Science, Human Origins, & Human Dignity" conference. Anyway, all the best for the book.T. lise_{June 20, 2012
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Why would God lie about this? Is it settled the bible is not the word of God? Who settled this? The same crowd who settled evolution is true? Why in the world would it be impossible for a original couple? In fact if one keeps going bach kids to parents it must be that there was a original two parents? How else?Robert Byers_{June 19, 2012
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Well, I know what I'm getting for Christmas. ;-)Blue_Savannah_{June 19, 2012
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This following video clearly and simply shows why such a high detrimental mutation rate makes the neo-Darwinian model for human origins impossible:
Human evolution or extinction - discussion on acceptable mutation rate per generation (with clips from Dr. John Sanford) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC_NyFZG7pM
Here is a very good video with Dr. John Sanford;
Genetic Entropy - Dr. John Sanford - Evolution vs. Reality - video https://vimeo.com/35088933
Here is the computer program Dr. John Sanford talked about in the preceding video:
Using Computer Simulation to Understand Mutation Accumulation Dynamics and Genetic Load: Excerpt: We apply a biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program to study human mutation accumulation under a wide-range of circumstances.,, Our numerical simulations consistently show that deleterious mutations accumulate linearly across a large portion of the relevant parameter space. http://bioinformatics.cau.edu.cn/lecture/chinaproof.pdf MENDEL’S ACCOUNTANT: J. SANFORD†, J. BAUMGARDNER‡, W. BREWER§, P. GIBSON¶, AND W. REMINE http://mendelsaccount.sourceforge.net
Further notes:
Kangaroo genes close to humans Excerpt: Australia's kangaroos are genetically similar to humans,,, "There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order," ,,,"We thought they'd be completely scrambled, but they're not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome," http://www.reuters.com/article/science%20News/idUSTRE4AH1P020081118 When we consider the remote past, before the origin of the actual species Homo sapiens, we are faced with a fragmentary and disconnected fossil record. Despite the excited and optimistic claims that have been made by some paleontologists, no fossil hominid species can be established as our direct ancestor. Richard Lewontin - Harvard Zoologist Evolution of the Genus Homo - Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences - Tattersall, Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: "Definition of the genus Homo is almost as fraught as the definition of Homo sapiens. We look at the evidence for “early Homo,” finding little morphological basis for extending our genus to any of the 2.5–1.6-myr-old fossil forms assigned to “early Homo” or Homo habilis/rudolfensis." http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers. Evolutionist Ernst Mayr “Something extraordinary, if totally fortuitous, happened with the birth of our species….Homo sapiens is as distinctive an entity as exists on the face of the Earth, and should be dignified as such instead of being adulterated with every reasonably large-brained hominid fossil that happened to come along.” Anthropologist Ian Tattersall "Fossil evidence of human evolutionary history is fragmentary and open to various interpretations. Fossil evidence of chimpanzee evolution is absent altogether". Evolutionist Henry Gee, Nature 2001 Icon Of Evolution - Ape To Man - The Ultimate Deception - Jonathan Wells - video http://vimeo.com/19080087 Hominid Hype and the Election Cycle - Casey Luskin - September 2011 Excerpt: Ignoring fraudulent fossils like Piltdown man, the last 50 years have seen a slew of so-called human ancestors which initially produced hype, and were later disproven. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/hominid_hype_and_the_election_050801.html “We have all seen the canonical parade of apes, each one becoming more human. We know that, as a depiction of evolution, this line-up is tosh (i.e. nonsense). Yet we cling to it. Ideas of what human evolution ought to have been like still colour our debates.” Henry Gee, editor of Nature (478, 6 October 2011, page 34, doi:10.1038/478034a), Paleoanthropology Excerpt: In regards to the pictures of the supposed ancestors of man featured in science journals and the news media Boyce Rensberger wrote in the journal Science the following regarding their highly speculative nature: "Unfortunately, the vast majority of artist's conceptions are based more on imagination than on evidence. But a handful of expert natural-history artists begin with the fossil bones of a hominid and work from there…. Much of the reconstruction, however, is guesswork. Bones say nothing about the fleshy parts of the nose, lips, or ears. Artists must create something between an ape and a human being; the older the specimen is said to be, the more apelike they make it.... Hairiness is a matter of pure conjecture."
bornagain77_{June 19, 2012
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Moreover:
The Real Barrier to Unguided Human Evolution - Ann Gauger - April 25, 2012 Excerpt: Their results? They calculated it would take six million years for a single base change to match the target and spread throughout the population, and 216 million years to get both base changes necessary to complete the eight base binding site. Note that the entire time span for our evolution from the last common ancestor with chimps is estimated to be about six million years. Time enough for one mutation to occur and be fixed, by their account. To be sure, they did say that since there are some 20,000 genes that could be evolving simultaneously, the problem is not impossible. But they overlooked this point. Mutations occur at random and most of the time independently, but their effects are not independent. Mutations that benefit one trait inhibit another (as shown by Negative Epistasis; Lenski e-coli after 50,000 generations). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/the_real_barrie058951.html
Moreover on top of the fact that the fixation of a unconditionally beneficial mutation is both mathematically unfeasible and empirically unsupported, is the fact that the genetic differences between chimps and humans, which were thought to be 'merely' 98.8% merely a few decades ago, have grown far worse for Darwinists since then:
Study Reports a Whopping "23% of Our Genome" Contradicts Standard Human-Ape Evolutionary Phylogeny - Casey Luskin - June 2011 Excerpt: For about 23% of our genome, we share no immediate genetic ancestry with our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. This encompasses genes and exons to the same extent as intergenic regions. We conclude that about 1/3 of our genes started to evolve as human-specific lineages before the differentiation of human, chimps, and gorillas took place. (of note; 1/3 of our genes is equal to about 7000 genes that we do not share with chimpanzees) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/study_reports_a_whopping_23_of047041.html The Gorilla Who Broke the Tree - Doug Axe PhD. - March 2012 Excerpt: Well, the recent publication of the gorilla genome sequence shows that the expected pattern just isn’t there. Instead of a nested hierarchy of similarities, we see something more like a mosaic. According to a recent report [1], “In 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other…” That’s sufficiently difficult to square with Darwin’s tree that it ought to bring the whole theory into question. And in an ideal world where Darwinism is examined the way scientific theories ought to be examined, I think it would. But in the real world things aren’t always so simple. http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/19703401390/the-gorilla-who-broke-the-tree Chimp chromosome creates puzzles - 2004 Excerpt: However, the researchers were in for a surprise. Because chimps and humans appear broadly similar, some have assumed that most of the differences would occur in the large regions of DNA that do not appear to have any obvious function. But that was not the case. The researchers report in 'Nature' that many of the differences were within genes, the regions of DNA that code for proteins. 83% of the 231 genes compared had differences that affected the amino acid sequence of the protein they encoded. And 20% showed "significant structural changes". In addition, there were nearly 68,000 regions that were either extra or missing between the two sequences, accounting for around 5% of the chromosome.,,, "we have seen a much higher percentage of change than people speculated." The researchers also carried out some experiments to look at when and how strongly the genes are switched on. 20% of the genes showed significant differences in their pattern of activity. http://www.nature.com/news/1998/040524/full/news040524-8.html Eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees; Gene; Volume 346, 14 February 2005: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15716009
Perhaps some may think a 80% difference in proteins is not that big of a deal. I beg to differ, changing Just One protein is a very big deal:
The Evolutionary Accessibility of New Enzyme Functions: A Case Study from the Biotin Pathway - Ann K. Gauger and Douglas D. Axe - April 2011 Excerpt: We infer from the mutants examined that successful functional conversion would in this case require seven or more nucleotide substitutions. But evolutionary innovations requiring that many changes would be extraordinarily rare, becoming probable only on timescales much longer than the age of life on earth. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2011.1/BIO-C.2011.1
And if all of the preceding was not bad enough for the neo-Darwinian model of human origins, the fact is that Genetic Entropy goes even further in falsifying neo-Darwinism: Although there are a few beneficial mutations to humans, mutations which are all known to lose genetic information (Sickle cell, Lactase Persistence, Tibetan High Red Blood Cell Count), the evidence for the detrimental nature of mutations in humans is overwhelming for scientists have already cited over 100,000 mutational disorders.
Inside the Human Genome: A Case for Non-Intelligent Design - Pg. 57 By John C. Avise Excerpt: "Another compilation of gene lesions responsible for inherited diseases is the web-based Human Gene Mutation Database (HGMD). Recent versions of HGMD describe more than 75,000 different disease causing mutations identified to date in Homo-sapiens."
I went to the mutation database website cited by John Avise and found:
HGMD®: Now celebrating our 100,000 mutation milestone! http://www.hgmd.org/
In fact,
We Are All Mutants: First Direct Whole-Genome Measure of Human Mutation Predicts 60 New Mutations in Each of Us - June 2011 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110613012758.htm *3 new mutations every time a cell divides in your body * Average cell of 15 year old has up to 6000 mutations *Average cell of 60 year old has 40,000 mutations Reproductive cells are 'designed' so that, early on in development, they are 'set aside' and thus they do not accumulate mutations as the rest of the cells of our bodies do. Regardless of this protective barrier against the accumulation of slightly detrimental mutations still we find that,,, *60-175 mutations are passed on to each new generation. - Dr. John Sanford
Interestingly, this ‘slightly detrimental’ mutation rate of 100 to 200, or even 60, per generation is far greater than what even evolutionists agree is an acceptable mutation rate since detrimental mutations will accumulate far faster than ‘selection’ can eliminate them in any given genome:
Beyond A 'Speed Limit' On Mutations, Species Risk Extinction Excerpt: Shakhnovich's group found that for most organisms, including viruses and bacteria, an organism's rate of genome mutation must stay below 6 mutations per genome per generation to prevent the accumulation of too many potentially lethal changes in genetic material. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071001172753.htm
bornagain77_{June 19, 2012
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Contra JLAfan2001, I don't see this as trying to justify religious beliefs; I see it as confirmation of religious beliefs. Interestingly, belief in an original paradise that was lost because of sin was widespread among the ancient Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, and others. Common to many accounts was a tree of life the fruit of which would confer eternal life on those partaking of it.Barb_{June 19, 2012
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JLAfan2001 you asked;
'Hasn’t science pretty much determined that it is genetically impossible for there to be an historical Adam and Eve?'
Certainly not! Although I haven't read Dr. Gauger's chapter, the evidence that I have seen thus far shows that it is impossible, yes I used the word impossible, for the neo-Darwinian model to be true for the origination of humans. Here is a paper which, though technical, shows that the modern genetic evidence we now have actually supports Adam and Eve. Moreover, the evidence it presents from the latest genetic research is completely inexplicable to neo-Darwinism. (and although I don’t agree with the extreme 6000 year Young Earth model that they used as a starting presumption in the paper, none-the-less, the principles, derived straight from population genetics, become extremely more acute for neo-Darwinism the longer the time allowed becomes)
The Non-Mythical Adam and Eve! - Refuting errors by Francis Collins and BioLogos http://creation.com/historical-adam-biologos
CMI has a excellent video of the preceding paper by Dr. Carter, that makes the technical aspects of the paper much easier to understand;
The Non Mythical Adam and Eve (Dr Robert Carter) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ftwf0owpzQ
Here is a paper by Dr. John Sanford, a retired professor of Genetics, who had helped Dr. Carter put his presentation together:
The "Eve" Mitochondrial Consensus Sequence - John Sanford Excerpt: Given the high mutation rate within mitochondria and the large geographic separation among the individuals within our dataset, we did not expect to find the original human mitochondrial sequence to be so well preserved within modern populations. With the exception of a very few ambiguous nucleotides, the consensus sequence clearly represents Eve's mitochondrial DNA sequence. http://www.icr.org/article/mitochondrial-eve-consensus-sequence/
Moreover this genetic evidence for 'Adam and Eve', elucidated by Dr. Carter, is corroborated by other lines of genetic evidence:
Human Evolution? - The Compelling Genetic Evidence For Adam and Eve - Dr. Fazale Rana - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4284482
Dr. Fazale Rana (an old Earther) defends the integrity of the genetic evidence for Adam and Eve, on page 4 of the following site, from some pretty high level criticism:
Were They Real? The Scientific Case for Adam and Eve by Fazale Rana - November 2010 http://www.reasons.org/files/ezine/ezine-2010-04.pdf
The following video and article speaks a little on the 'Noah bottleneck':
Does human genetic evidence support Noah's flood? - Fazale Rana - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4116168 Book Review; Who Was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man: Excerpt: The Bible claims that there was a genetic bottleneck at the Genesis flood. Whereas all females can trace their ancestry back to Eve (through the three wives of Noah's sons), all males trace their Y-chromosomes through Noah (through his three sons). This predicted discrepancy for molecular dates of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome data is actually seen in the scientific literature. http://www.godandscience.org/newsletters/2005-09.html
But perhaps a more crushing thing that argues against the neo-Darwinian model for human origins, is that, for one thing, neo-Darwinists have not demonstrated the fixation of even a single unambiguous beneficial allele:
Experimental Evolution in Fruit Flies (35 years of trying to force fruit flies to evolve in the laboratory fails, spectacularly) - October 2010 Excerpt: "Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did not lead to the fixation of newly arising unconditionally advantageous alleles.,,, "This research really upends the dominant paradigm about how species evolve," said ecology and evolutionary biology professor Anthony Long, the primary investigator. http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2010/10/07/experimental_evolution_in_fruit_flies Waiting Longer for Two Mutations - Michael J. Behe Excerpt: Citing malaria literature sources (White 2004) I had noted that the de novo appearance of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was an event of probability of 1 in 10^20. I then wrote that 'for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years' (1 quadrillion years)(Behe 2007) (because that is the extrapolated time that it would take to produce 10^20 humans). Durrett and Schmidt (2008, p. 1507) retort that my number ‘is 5 million times larger than the calculation we have just given’ using their model (which nonetheless "using their model" gives a prohibitively long waiting time of 216 million years). Their criticism compares apples to oranges. My figure of 10^20 is an empirical statistic from the literature; it is not, as their calculation is, a theoretical estimate from a population genetics model. http://www.discovery.org/a/9461
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It's available now if you order the book.News_{June 19, 2012
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The notion of the matrilineal most recent common ancestor of humans, mitochondrial Eve, has been around for a long time. Likewise an 'Adam' on the male side. I'm guessing Dr Gauger is saying something different from that. I'll be looking forward to more info when it becomes available.Jerad_{June 19, 2012
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Have you considered reading the chapter first?News_{June 19, 2012
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Although I would like nothing more for this to be true, I can’t help but feel that this may be an attempt to try to come up with something in our order to justify our religious beliefs. Hasn’t science pretty much determined that it is genetically impossible for there to be an historical Adam and Eve? Denis Alexander at the Faraday Institute pretty much thinks so.JLAfan2001_{June 19, 2012
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