How does the story of Adam and Eve compatible with science?

[Subduction Zone]

Is that so? I'd never heard of this guy but, having looked him up, it seems he is an OEC, who presumably must therefore see some of these OT stories as allegorical rather than literal. Has he expressed a view about Noah's Ark, do you know?

I have responded directly to him on his Facebook account. That is assuming that someone has not pirated his name. But his posts indicate someone with at least a a halfway decent understanding of physics that was still an OEC.

As an OEC he still takes the Adam and Eve myth literally. I think that one has to have a strong mental disconnect to do so. He knows that his beliefs are very problematic, but the simple won't argue those points.

 

[exchemist]

I have responded directly to him on his Facebook account. That is assuming that someone has not pirated his name. But his posts indicate someone with at least a a halfway decent understanding of physics that was still an OEC.

As an OEC he still takes the Adam and Eve myth literally. I think that one has to have a strong mental disconnect to do so. He knows that his beliefs are very problematic, but the simple won't argue those points.

Hmm, I'd have thought a physicist would have a far easier time taking the Adam and Eve myth literally than a global flood in the recent past with no geological evidence.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Hmm, I'd have thought a physicist would have a far easier time taking the Adam and Eve myth literally than a global flood in the recent past with no geological evidence.

A quick search and I found this article by him. As he told me, he does not believe in a global flood, but the does believe that only Noah and family survived:

Does the Bible Say Noah’s Flood Was Global or Universal?

I believe the flood of Noah was universal but not global. By universal, I mean that the entire human race and all of the nephesh (soulish) animals associated with humans were wiped out by the flood except for those humans and animals that were on board Noah’s ark.

reasons.org

I tried to discuss the problems of genetics, but he simply did not respond to that.

 

[exchemist]

A quick search and I found this article by him. As he told me, he does not believe in a global flood, but the does believe that only Noah and family survived:

Does the Bible Say Noah’s Flood Was Global or Universal?

I believe the flood of Noah was universal but not global. By universal, I mean that the entire human race and all of the nephesh (soulish) animals associated with humans were wiped out by the flood except for those humans and animals that were on board Noah’s ark.

reasons.org

I tried to discuss the problems of genetics, but he simply did not respond to that.

Blimey! He's really into the contortions then. From the sound of it played the creationist card of relying on carefully curated ignorance when you asked him about genetic bottlenecks etc. Ah well, it just goes to show that scientists can have personal hangups and areas of cognitive dissonance, just like anyone else. Just as well that science does not rely on the utterances of any single individual, then.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Blimey! He's really into the contortions then. From the sound of it played the creationist card of relying on carefully curated ignorance when you asked him about genetic bottlenecks etc. Ah well, it just goes to show that scientists can have personal hangups and areas of cognitive dissonance, just like anyone else. Just as well that science does not rely on the utterances of any single individual, then.

I just scanned my Facebook feed and saw a new post by him. I do not know why Facebook thought that I would be interested in him, maybe because I have been arguing against the posts by the Disco Toot. At any rate here is a quote of his post:

"Just several days ago, a supernova exploded in one of the outer spiral arms of the galaxy, M101. M101 (the Pinwheel Galaxy) is 21 million light years away. For the next several weeks, the supernova in 101 will be visible through telescopes with objective lenses or mirrors larger than 4 inches"

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

How does the story of Adam and Eve compatible with science?

Why would a myth be compatible with science.
Those that first told the story on a dark night around a fire, had no concept of science. The were probably still in the stone age. It has no more reality than a "Just So" story

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

He is talking about Y-chromsome Adam and mitochondrial Eve. Two individuals that never knew each other.

In fact he just refuted himself. One does not get to pick and choose just part of a scientific fact. Y chromosome Adam lived about 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. Mitochondrial Eve lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

It might be possible that most of us are distantly related to those two unrelated individuals. However it would be very difficult to prove that we all are. However it would be reasonable to suppose that everyone has at least one common ancestor.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It might be possible that most of us are distantly related to those two unrelated individuals. However it would be very difficult to prove that we all are. However it would be reasonable to suppose that everyone has at least one common ancestor.

I do believe that they are able to trace the Y-chromosome and that all males have. There are mutations of it, those mutations like everything else in evolution fit into a nested hierarchy. The same can be said about the mitochondria that we all share. So it can be demonstrated that all males ultimately are the direct descendants of one specific male and mitochondrial DNA (which comes from the female side) show that we are all the descendants of one particular woman.

 

[Muffled]

It probably has been. At best you did not understand it.

I believe I understood what I was taught.

 

[Muffled]

It's demonstrable to everyone. It's set up that way. But scientists can't force you to seek out the information they have published. You have to do that for yourself. You seem to have no problem accepting most other findings of science like say, gravity and germ theory, which are demonstrated in the exact same way that evolution is. You sit on a computer typing information across the internet, which is another achievement of science that you don't seem to have any problem accepting and is demonstrated scientifically in the exact same way. So what's your problem with evolution?

I have seen gravity demonstrated and I have seen microbes under a microscope but I have never seen an evolution. Can evolution be senn falling to the ground ? can it be seen with a microscope? I think not.

I believe I have never seen anything evolve on my computer. There is a theory behind the computer. The concept is that information can be stored as zeros and ones and programs can be written to handle that information. As a computer programmer I learned the theory and saw it in practice. I can't say that about evolution.

 

[Muffled]

You do not even know what counts as evidence and are probably too afraid to learn what is and what is not evidence. If you can get over your fears. If you can be honest with yourself, then you can learn too. Fear is a big part of what keeps creationists creationists.

I believe I have no fear. I just won't waste my time on nonsense. You would think a proponent could post something succinct but I have never seen anything on RF.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I believe I understood what I was taught.

Many that do not understand complex concepts have that belief. Here is a simple test:

Is there scientific evidence for evolution?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I have seen gravity demonstrated and I have seen microbes under a microscope but I have never seen an evolution. Can evolution be senn falling to the ground ? can it be seen with a microscope? I think not.

I believe I have never seen anything evolve on my computer. There is a theory behind the computer. The concept is that information can be stored as zeros and ones and programs can be written to handle that information. As a computer programmer I learned the theory and saw it in practice. I can't say that about evolution.

Never mind the test. You just demonstrated that you do not understand evolution. Are you exactly like your mother or father? That is the same sort of evolution that you can observe as dropping an object.

Does dropping an object "prove" General Relativity? That is the theory of gravity in case you did not know. It corrected the errors in Newtons Law of Universal Gravitation. But dropping an object does not even "prove" Newton's Laws.

Newton's Laws explain planetary motions. How will you get that from simply dropping something?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I believe I have no fear. I just won't waste my time on nonsense. You would think a proponent could post something succinct but I have never seen anything on RF.

What you are avoiding is not "nonsense". That would describe your mythical beliefs. You have a lot of learning to do. This is not something that you can learn in just ten easy lessons. And yes, refusing to learn the best evidenced concept in all of science is an example of fear. You can deny it, but when you run away from reality that is fear whether you admit it or not.

 

[exchemist]

I do believe that they are able to trace the Y-chromosome and that all males have. There are mutations of it, those mutations like everything else in evolution fit into a nested hierarchy. The same can be said about the mitochondria that we all share. So it can be demonstrated that all males ultimately are the direct descendants of one specific male and mitochondrial DNA (which comes from the female side) show that we are all the descendants of one particular woman.

But it's important to realise these are not individuals. They are just where the family tree converges to at a given moment of history. As the various branches and twigs die off, due to having no descendants of the right sex, these "Adam" and "Eve" points on the family tree move forward in time, to later generations.

So as analogues of a literal biblical Adam and Eve they don't make a lot of sense. You can't keep on rewriting history so that different individuals are responsible for the Fall, for instance.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I have seen gravity demonstrated and I have seen microbes under a microscope but I have never seen an evolution. Can evolution be senn falling to the ground ? can it be seen with a microscope? I think not.

I believe I have never seen anything evolve on my computer. There is a theory behind the computer. The concept is that information can be stored as zeros and ones and programs can be written to handle that information. As a computer programmer I learned the theory and saw it in practice. I can't say that about evolution.

You can definitely say that about evolution. You can see it in the fossil record. You can see it in the genetic record. You can see it in the geologic record. You can see it in the biogeographic record. You can see it in virology. The reason it's the most well accepted and well evidenced scientific theory in existence is because all evidence from practically every field of science all converges on the same conclusion - that evolution is a fact of life.

Your computer isn't going to evolve because it's not a biological organism capable of reproducing. I'm talking about the scientific principles and methodology here. It's all the same. Whether it be gravity, evolution or anything else, the same principles and methodology are applied. And they actually produce results.

 

[Subduction Zone]

But it's important to realise these are not individuals. They are just where the family tree converges to at a given moment of history. As the various branches and twigs die off, due to having no descendants of the right sex, these "Adam" and "Eve" points on the family tree move forward in time, to later generations.

So as analogues of a literal biblical Adam and Eve they don't make a lot of sense. You can't keep on rewriting history so that different individuals are responsible for the Fall, for instance.

It does go to a theoretical single line of descent. Something that is mathematically predicted too. Though there is no reason at all to think that mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam existed at the same time, much less knew each other in either a biblical or a conventional sense. And discoveries of new haplogroups have pushed the dates of both back more than once.

 

[exchemist]

It does go to a theoretical single line of descent. Something that is mathematically predicted too. Though there is no reason at all to think that mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam existed at the same time, much less knew each other in either a biblical or a conventional sense. And discoveries of new haplogroups have pushed the dates of both back more than once.

But they are not fixed individuals. To quote from the Wiki article:

The name "Mitochondrial Eve" alludes to the biblical Eve, which has led to repeated misrepresentations or misconceptions in journalistic accounts on the topic. Popular science presentations of the topic usually point out such possible misconceptions by emphasizing the fact that the position of mt-MRCA is neither fixed in time (as the position of mt-MRCA moves forward in time as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages become extinct), nor does it refer to a "first woman", nor the only living female of her time, nor the first member of a "new species".[note 4]

 

[Subduction Zone]

But they are not fixed individuals. To quote from the Wiki article:

The name "Mitochondrial Eve" alludes to the biblical Eve, which has led to repeated misrepresentations or misconceptions in journalistic accounts on the topic. Popular science presentations of the topic usually point out such possible misconceptions by emphasizing the fact that the position of mt-MRCA is neither fixed in time (as the position of mt-MRCA moves forward in time as mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) lineages become extinct), nor does it refer to a "first woman", nor the only living female of her time, nor the first member of a "new species".[note 4]

Okay, I like the clarification. One could say that it points to an individual "now". But that individual was always part of a population. And I knew that it moved backwards but did not realize how the date could move forward. At the time of the current mitochondrial Eve there would of course have been totally different ones.

 

[exchemist]

I believe I have no fear. I just won't waste my time on nonsense. You would think a proponent could post something succinct but I have never seen anything on RF.

But do you imagine that succinctness is a good way to gauge validity?

One of the features of science is that newer theories are generally built on the understanding of nature that comes from already established principles. One challenge for the educator, then, is to judge how much he or she can assume is already understood. The less it is, the longer - less succinct - the explanation will have to be.

This is especially challenging when one deals with people that don’t discuss in good faith. Such people can have a tendency to hide behind whatever is assumed to be already understood, demanding more and more backward steps to cover things that the speaker had thought would be uncontroversial. I’m not saying you do this, but it is something many of us have experienced when dealing with creationists. (There has been a case in the few days on this forum, involving radiometric dating and the age of fossils.)

But I’m up for the challenge of giving you a succinct description of something, if you can tell me what it is you want to see. Over to you.