Are Adam and Eve Incompatible with Evolution?

[Brian2]

No.
Instead, they would become part of the facts of reality.

If the supernatural is demonstrated to exist, it would become part of "the natural" and our understanding of reality.

The only reason why it is called "supernatural" today, is because it is indistinguishable from magic and imagination.



Mere anecdotes.
You might as well mention bigfoot spotters and alien abductees.

OBEs associated with NDEs are good evidence for consciousness outside the body but it is hard for this sort of evidence of 'spirit' to be taken seriously because of ignorance and prejudice.

Dishonest. You need to scratch the word "only".
No observation of life coming from life could ever result in the conclusion that it "only" happens that way.

No. What you ignore is intellectual honesty.
Life didn't exist at some point and then it did. Even creationists agree to that. Which is why they need a creation myth: to explain how life originated in the universe.

So we all agree that at one point in the past, there was no life. And at a later point in life, there was.
So, by definition, first life did NOT come from previous life, since there wasn't any.

Life from non-life is called abiogenesis.

Your abiogenesis "theory" is "god magicked it into existence".
Science's is "we don't know, let's roll up our sleeves, get to work and try to find out..."

Your opinion is incorrect.

The only thing that we know at the moment is that life comes from other life.
If you want to say that life magicked itself into existence from dead matter then that is your opinion and does not agree with what we know, that life comes from other life.
Maybe it did magic itself into existence, all science has to do is make up a definition of life that only includes chemistry and physics and it could have done that.
This sort of thing is the way imo we get the science of the gaps. The science that is presumed to be real even before research.
Atheists can say that all the evidence points to life coming from chemistry when the reality is that it is the chemistry that is the only thing that has been studied and other things like the OBEs in NDEs are poo haaed.

 

[Audie]

Science agrees with much of the creation story imo.

Opinion is not fact.
So dont act like it is.

 

[We Never Know]

Opinion is not fact.
So dont act like it is.

Neither are theories. They incorporate facts but are not facts themselves.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I don't know much about genetics

Really? I would have never guessed....

Since you know that you don't know much about it, perhaps it's best in that case to refrain from making statements about it....

but I know that Adam and Eve could be very different in their genomes and that their children would not all be the same genetically.

See? Statements like these, which is clearly rooted in ignorance.
It matters not how "different" their DNA was. A population of 2 is a genetic variation of virtually nil.

For a population to have a somewhat healthy and sustainable amount of variation, you need at least a few hundred individuals that aren't closely related.

A population of less then 200 is generally pretty much doomed to extinction due to the problems that will show up due to a lack of genetic variation.

And if there were no errors in the genomes there would be none to pass on.

Another statement rooted in ignorance.
Every newborn comes with a set of mutations. Mutations are copying "errors" - and they aren't necessarily bad.

But none of this is relevant to the point. The point being that the problem is the lack of genetic variation.
A population of a single breeding pair is not sustainable. Their children, grand children, grand grand children,... are doomed to extreme incest. And that will inevitably cause problems.

Extinction is the only possible outcome.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You would have to be more precise in what you are saying I don't understand.

How genetics works. As per your own admission, you know / understand very little about it.

This is also why don't see any issues with silly statements like "a perfect genome".


Consider this as an analogy: "perfect english".

What is that? Today it's english that, at best, corresponds to the arbitrary "rulebook" of grammar and vocabulary. And even then, how could you say that some random sentence is "perfect english"? Suppose you have a sentence claimed to be "perfect english". You then take a word and replace it by a perfectly fine synonym. Is it now "less perfect"? "more perfect"? Or just the same.

Now turn back time 100 years. The arbitrary rulebook was different then. Was that english "less perfect"? "more perfect"? Or just the same?

See? (I'm betting that you don't see....)

 

[Audie]

OBEs associated with NDEs are good evidence for consciousness outside the body but it is hard for this sort of evidence of 'spirit' to be taken seriously because of ignorance and prejudice.



The only thing that we know at the moment is that life comes from other life.
If you want to say that life magicked itself into existence from dead matter then that is your opinion and does not agree with what we know, that life comes from other life.
Maybe it did magic itself into existence, all science has to do is make up a definition of life that only includes chemistry and physics and it could have done that.
This sort of thing is the way imo we get the science of the gaps. The science that is presumed to be real even before research.
Atheists can say that all the evidence points to life coming from chemistry when the reality is that it is the chemistry that is the only thing that has been studied and other things like the OBEs in NDEs are poo haaed.

No, NDE is bad evidence, being of a nature that would not be accepted as
evidence in court, or science.
Pretending that your woo woo is not accepted because of ignorance and prejudice is ridiculous.
The world scientific / medical community, as well as any others are
actually not so stupid as you claim- a particularly invidious claim from someone
displaying the ignorance of science that you have in this thread.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

I would assume an initial human made without physical defects. Or more importantly I am saying that this possibility would help eliminate problems due to inbreeding for a while.

Once again.............

The problem with inbreeding is the lack of genetic variation.
It has nothing to do with any kind of "defects" - whatever it is that you mean by that.

 

[Audie]

Neither are theories. They incorporate facts but are not facts themselves.

I hardly need that explained.

 

[leroy]

So are you claiming there people on Earth BEFORE Adam, who were “without soul”?

If yes, then...how long have these soul-less people being around?

Well what do you mean with “Before Adam” (before 6000 years ago?)

At some point there had to be a “first soul” (or a first generation of Souls) , Neanderthals seemed to have had “human behavior” (symbolic language, awareness of the afterlife, rationality, free will and other attributes commonly attributed to a soul) so the first soul appeared during of before the Neatherdals.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Science agrees with much of the creation story imo.

No.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

OBEs associated with NDEs are good evidence for consciousness outside the body but it is hard for this sort of evidence of 'spirit' to be taken seriously because of ignorance and prejudice.

No. It is hard to take it seriously, because there are only claims and anecdotes and no proper studies under controlled conditions.

It is hard to take seriously for the same reason that tarrot card readings are hard to take seriously.

If you want to say that life magicked itself into existence from dead matter then that is your opinion

Stop projecting.
It's creationists that invoke magic as they claim a "supernatural miracle".

Scientific research into abiogenesis looks into chemical processes, which are the opposite of magic.
Chemistry isn't magic.

Maybe it did magic itself into existence, all science has to do is make up a definition of life that only includes chemistry and physics and it could have done that.

"make up"?

Life IS chemistry and physics.
As Tyson once said: "life is the extreme expression of carbon based complex chemistry"

This sort of thing is the way imo we get the science of the gaps. The science that is presumed to be real even before research.

If that were true, they wouldn't bother with research and coming up with hypothesis after hypothesis which is then tested to hell and back.

Instead, they would, much like creationists, simply be content with making something up instead.

What is it exactly that you think an abiogenesis researcher does all day?

Atheists can say that all the evidence points to life coming from chemistry when the reality is that it is the chemistry that is the only thing that has been studied and other things like the OBEs in NDEs are poo haaed.

Feel free to demonstrate OBEs and NDEs under controlled conditions without requiring anyone to "just believe" the anecdotes.

If you succeed, surely you'll receive a nobel.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

At some point there had to be a “first soul” (or a first generation of Souls)

Ow?

"had to" ha?

I love how you assumed that this is a given, as if it's commonly known fact that souls exist.

, Neanderthals seemed to have had “human behavior” (symbolic language, awareness of the afterlife, rationality, free will and other attributes commonly attributed to a soul) so the first soul appeared during of before the Neatherdals.

So which arbitrary properties do you attach at this "soul" thing which makes you conclude this?
How did you come up with these properties? When, where and how did you directly study one of these "soul" thingies to be able to conclude such?

 

[leroy]

Once again.............

The problem with inbreeding is the lack of genetic variation.
It has nothing to do with any kind of "defects" - whatever it is that you mean by that.

why is the lack of genetic variation a problem?

 

[leroy]

Ow?

"had to" ha?

I love how you assumed that this is a given, as if it's commonly known fact that souls exist.

You don’t understand the context of the conversation,

The claim is that “if” humas have a soul, there would be a “first soul”

So which arbitrary properties do you attach at this "soul" thing which makes you conclude this?
How did you come up with these properties? When, where and how did you directly study one of these "soul" thingies to be able to conclude such?

Things like free will, morality, love and all the stuff that makes us different from animals are commonly attributed to the soul.

I am not claiming to have evidence; this is just my view

 

[Aupmanyav]

Personally I think this sounds like a desperate attempt to salvage a literal reading of Genesis.

Tha is what it is. Some one must have posted it, but since I am coming to the topic for the first time:
1. Y-chromosomal most recent common ancestor (Y-MRCA) range around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago,
2. Mitochondrial most recent common ancestor (mt-MRCA) between 120,000 and 156,000 years ago.

But then, every man is an Adam an every woman is an Eve. Who knows whose progeny will survive in the next 100,000 or 200,000 years.

Is there anything wrong with God choosing a hominid specimen and changing a couple of things to get Adam ..

No. It is clearly written: "Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground ..". You respect your scriptures only that much?

There is no good reason to take the story of Adam and Eve literally. I see it as an allegorical story along with the many Jews and Christians who would also avoid taking an extreme literal interpretation of their sacred scriptures.

What else we can dismiss as allegorical and not historical. Once you accept that somethings are not true, there is no end to its expansion.

 

[Audie]

Science agrees with much of the creation story imo.

Like what

 

[exchemist]

I would assume an initial human made without physical defects. Or more importantly I am saying that this possibility would help eliminate problems due to inbreeding for a while.

No doubt. You can dream up mechanisms involving miracles for all sorts of phenomena. But none of these will help us understand nature. In fact they will do the opposite, because if the laws of nature can be overridden arbitrarily by supernatural intervention then there are no laws we can rely on to explain anything. So science becomes a waste of time.

And since, empirically, we know science is not a waste of time, we choose to reject miracles as part of the process by which nature came to be the way it is. That's what methodological naturalism is all about. It works, as a method for understanding nature. For this reason, no scientifically literate person will entertain the idea you have put forward.

 

[viole]

I think it needs to be remembered that science and philosophy ignore the evidences for a God. Science has no way to address them and philosophy is really seems to be just thinking and ignoring evidence.

There is no evidence of God.

Ciao

- viole

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

why is the lack of genetic variation a problem?

It's a problem in multiple ways - and not just in terms of inbreeding.
It's a hindrance for evolutionary processes in general and severely limits a species' ability to respond to a changing environment.

Incest is the extreme expression thereof.

 

[exchemist]

The God of the Gaps idea seems to be being replaced by the naturalistic science of the gaps. That seems to be an area where many people live, in a world where science will one day find an answer or if not it is OK to not know, as long as we don't believe in a God we have no scientific evidence for.

Correct. Filling in the gaps in our knowledge of how the natural world works is the job of science, not religion. I am confident that most Christian theologians from the main denominations would not disagree.

There are many questions however that science does not try to answer, to do with purpose or meaning in the world, and others which it cannot answer, such as why the order in nature (the "laws" of physics etc) is the way it is. These things just are, as far as science is concerned.

More importantly, to my mind, science does not try to provide us with a guide for living our lives. That is really what religions mostly do. Their job is not to explain the natural world, as a sort of rival to science. That is not what they are for.