Bill Basener (a participant here) co-authored a paper with John Sanford. He was given the honor of delivering a KEYNOTE ADDRESS at an international SECULAR biology conference. A video of his presentation is available in a link inside my write up of his presentation below. He alluded to some of the helpful input from his critics at TheSkepticalZone in his talk:
http://crev.info/2018/07/keynote-speech-falsifies-darwinism/
John Sanford is sort of the “Papa John” of creationist genetics. It is customary for the leader of a research group to be listed as the last author in a publication. That convention is seen in a variety of papers and books such as Rupe & Sanford; Basener & Sanford; Carter, Lee & Sanford; Montanyez, Fernandez, Marks & Sanford; and let’s not forget the Legendary High Velocity Team of Klein, Wolf, Wu & Sanford that permanently ensured the infusion of intelligently designed genes into a sizable fraction of Genetically Modified Organisms on planet Earth.
And perhaps one day in the distant future there will be a paper, “Cordova & Sanford”! 🙂
Below is a link of a paper from Papa John’s team about Adam and Eve which will be presented this week, July 29,2018 – August 1, 2018 at the 8th International Conference on Creationism
http://www.creationicc.org/2018_papers/15%20carter%20Y%20chromosome%20final.pdf
The existence of a literal Adam and Eve is hotly debated, even within the Christian body. Now that many full-length human Y (chrY) and mitochondrial (chrM) chromosome sequences have been sequenced and made publicly available, it may be possible to bring clarity to this question. We have used these data to comprehensively analyze the historical changes in these two chromosomes, starting with the sequences of people alive today, and working backwards to the ancestral sequence of the family groups to which they belong. The analyses of the chrY and chrM histories were done separately and in parallel. Remarkably, both analyses gave very similar results. First, the pattern displayed in both datasets supports a massive expansion of the human lineage, with multiple new branches forming from closely related individuals. Second, for both chromosomes, the mutation rate along each branch has not been the same through time. Third, both phylogenetic trees display a starburst pattern that centers around specific historical individuals, nearly all of whom lived in the Middle East. Fourth, we can know with a very high degree of confidence the actual sequences of the historical individuals that gave rise to each branch in both family trees. Fifth, within a reasonable margin of error we can approximate the sequence of Y chromosome Adam/Noah and Mitochondrial Eve. Sixth, given a few reasonable assumptions, we can estimate the time to Y Chromosome Adam/Noah and Mitochondrial Eve. Both individuals lived less than 10,000 years ago, which is most consistent with a biblical timeframe. Lastly, recurrent mutations are extremely common, and many of them are associated with epigenetic CpG sites, meaning mutation accumulation is not free of environmental influence and many mutations may have accumulated in different lineages in parallel. The genetic evidence strongly suggests that Y Chromosome Adam/Noah and Mitochondrial Eve were not just real people, they were the progenitors of us all. In this light, there is every reason to believe that they were the Adam/Noah and Eve of the Bible.
NOTE: Paul Nelson’s family was instrumental in the founding of the International Conference on Creationism which meets every 5 years. Paul is one of the few ID proponents openly associated with YEC. Nelson gave the 2013 ICC Keynote Address on Orphan Genes.
Bingo. That’s what we were talking about here, right?
That’s what is known as a tautology. Now, why should that particular locus be more similar than is typically the case, and in particular why would particular human alleles be more similar to particular chimp alleles than to other human and chimp alleles? The explanation is that the allelic structure was inherited from the common ancestor.
That’s because you don’t understand the case. If there were a bottleneck of 2, there would be at most 4 alleles inherited through the bottleneck, right? If there are more than 4 alleles shared between humans and chimps, there can’t have been a bottleneck of 2.
It’s an assumption that has no relevance to the subject of this thread, and you are the only person to have mentioned it here.
OK, Why is that relevant to the question of whether their was a bottleneck?
For the sake of argument I’m happy to grant that Adam and Eve’s parents were Chimpanzees. What does that have to do with the argument here?
Why is this so?
Off the top of my head It seems to me that the number of alleles in common between two species could very high indeed if there was a lot of HGT or convergent evolution between the two species after the bottle neck.
In a less controversial example I can imagine modern populations of wolfs and coyotes having multiple shared alleles from inbreeding that happened long after the those two species separated.
what am I missing?
peace
Nothing. Nobody is claiming anything of the sort. Why do you end your comments with “peace” when you’re so intentionally insulting before that?
Sorry, but HGT is inconsistent with the claim that Adam and Eve are our sole ancestors. If there were HGT, we would have other ancestors too, thus no bottleneck of two. And convergent evolution isn’t credible unless you want to invoke divinely guides convergence, and even that is senseless.
That example would contradict the idea of a bottleneck of two.
The Claim of the Bible is that Adam is the ancestor of all of us it does not claim that we have no other ancestors.
Adam and Eve are not my only ancestors I have lots of other ancestors. That is not controversial AFAICT.
As far as HGT goes we know that according to the Bible interbreeding between species has always been seen as a possibility (Leviticus 19:19)
Given some literal interpretations The Bible even hints at some inter-species interbreeding associated with the descendants of Adam.
quote:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
(Gen 6:4)
end quote;
Regardless, no one I know of would argue that the fallen depraved descendants of Adam and Eve were all above stooping to bestiality.
I honestly have no idea what you are talking about. I assure you that there is no intention to insult on my part
peace
Why? It seems like a bottleneck of two individuals followed by various later instances of interbreeding is a distinct possibility in that case. What am I missing?
peace
So does Sal, which is why I had to smile when he accused systematists of pushing a pre-determined narrative when they root a phylogenetic tree.
Look, I can see where this is going, but I reject your equation of a standard procedure in phylogenetics backed up by decades of dedicated research with the gratuit speculations of some YECs, that even Sal rejects for crying out loud. I don’t care what your presuppositions are, but that doesn’t make sense at all.
I didn’t realise you were that old , Fifth.
One of the most intriguing examples of this sort of sharing of genetic information is found in the jaguar (Panthera onca).
Apparently jaguars owe their large jaws and biting power from an influx of genes from old world felines like the African lion that occurred long after these species diverged from each other
check it out
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-genome-clues-history-big-cats.html
peace
LOL
“I reject your reality and substitute my own”
Of course you do.
We all reject the idea that the presuppositions of other worldviews are just as valid as our own.
We all think we have the epistemic high ground and that our opponents worldviews are based on unwarranted assumptions.
That is the point after all.
The YEC would gladly take what he sincerely believes is eyewitness testimony from God himself as having more weight than the supposed research of fallen finite humans.
peace
Just because we can get together and laugh at what looks to us to be the silly assumptions of others does not mean that we are right and they are wrong. It only means that we agree on this one thing against them.
By the same token I’m quite sure that Sal and I and the YECs we are talking about could get together and laugh at you for some the assumptions you bring to the table.
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
In order to clarify for your discussion with John. A while ago, in a discussion thread far far way you didn’t seem to be so hung up on the absence of a genetic bottleneck. You argued that A&E sprang forth from some population of non-human “Others”, and that Adam acted as the the covenant representative of the entire comtemporary human race. Did you change your mind about that?
Depend’s on what you mean by genetic bottle neck.
I definitely affirm that Adam and Eve are the ancestors of all humanity. So that if you traced the ancestry of any human person back far enough you would arrive at that couple. In that sense there is a definite genetic bottle neck.
That does not mean that there can’t have been the introduction of DNA from interbreeding with non-humans after that event.
peace
I order to act as out covenant representative Adam had to be our ancestor.
The exact nature of Adam’s origin is a different topic.
peace
So the fact that several people reach consensus on a topic carries no weight at all, and does nothing to further the plausibility of a proposed scenario? Either we reach completely certainty, or our position is as uncertain as that of the next person?
That is plain silly, Fifth. Why do you insist on thinking in wrong-or-right absolutes? Of course neither of us will ever reach complete certainty on anything, but that doesn’t mean your pet presuppositions suddenly equal the consensus position of a large body of experts.
Yeah, I thought so. In that case your discussion with John is pointless, because he is arguing against the position that A&E are our sole ancestors.
Consensus is not any sort of guarantee of the truth of our assumptions it only means we agree on them.
Who said anything about certainty?
We can be completely certain about our assumptions and they still be dead wrong or we can be very tentative about them and they be correct.
I don’t insist on any such thing.
I only advocate that we understand that our conclusions are only as good as our presuppositions.
When I come across someone who has different presuppositions I don’t think they are foolish or stupid or ignorant. I just realize they are coming from a different place than me.
The only way to discover that such a person is wrong in their presuppositions is when we can see that they hold to assumptions that contradict one another.
When talking about human origins the YEC would say that it’s your pet presuppositions that are different than the consensus of a large body of experts that they trust.
peace
Then he is attacking a straw man. AFAICT
if someone holds as dogma that there was no introduction of DNA into any persons genome after Adam he certainly did not get that idea from the Bible.
peace
I didn’t say it was a guarantee, I said it ought to carry some weight. You appear to be denying this.
Look at your previous sentence, Fifth:
How can you type these two sentences right next to each other, and be completely oblivious of what you are doing?
Were you born with your presuppositions? Did your children inherit them? Presuppositions should be changed when there is need for that.
And how did the experts arrive at these “presuppositions” (if you can call it that)? Could they possibly have adopted them because previous research showed them to be correct? And how did YECs arrive at their presuppositions? Are these positions equal?
Lots of YECs seem to be getting very upset about attacks on that straw man. I suggest you take it up with them.
ETA: Not just YECs, come to think of it.
carry some weight for who?
Of course we feel more comfortable in our assumptions if we know that others we trust share them.
That goes for YEC as well
I’m not sure what you are asking?
Do you think that I’m saying that we need a guarantee that our assumptions are correct in order to feel comfortable holding them?
I most certainly don’t think that.
I’m only pointing out that just because someone has different assumptions than we do does not make us right and them wrong.
I whole hardheartedly agree.
That is why I advocate examining them closely and not just accepting their validity because people you trust hold them as well.
When it comes to the question of human origins Both the YEC and the “experts” you trust arrived at their presuppositions in the same they started with them.
No the positions are not equal.
I would say that both are flawed but in different ways
😉
peace
I think the problem is in the way the problem is laid out.
The Christian advocates for a literal Adam and Eve and the Atheist claims that population genetics makes this impossible.
That is simply and obviously incorrect. It’s based on flawed outdated notions on what defines the boundaries of a species .
We are talking past each other.
peace
I reject your attempts to create symmetry. You might be talking past us, but we are better described as trying to nail jello to a wall. You characterize this discussion as atheists vs. Christians, but in fact it’s those who respect science vs. fundamentalist Christians. There are Christians on both sides, though perhaps you will characterize some as No True Christians.
Our assumptions are not presuppositions but are supported by lots of empirical data. Your presuppositions are supported by nothing and are internally inconsistent. Your assumption that Adam and Eve existed is supported by Genesis, and Genesis is supported by your belief that it’s the word of God. But what supports that belief? Further, you have already agreed that Adam and Eve had ancestors, which contradicts Genesis. You are now in the position of picking and choosing among bits of the story, some of which are apparently not the word of God, or if they are then God wasn’t reporting actual events. So if Adam was not formed from the dust of the ground and Eve wasn’t formed from his rib, why should we believe the rest of their story? It seems that the only thing left is that you need it to be true in order to justify other bits of your religion, original sin perhaps. Can we agree that “I need it to be true” is not a valid argument?
Now, as for the HGT theory, you have to realize that introgression eliminates the bottleneck of 2: it means that at the time of Adam and Eve, there also existed other individuals ancestral to the current population. Hence, no bottleneck. Whether you consider them members of a different species (on whatever basis is unclear) is not relevant.
That’s me. The sole Christian here on the side of the atheists. But I’m No True Christian.
Why are you (and other atheists here) so freaking literal minded?
Oh, and we are formed from dirt, and we return to dirt. It’s amazing that someone that long ago understood that. Their science was probably more advanced than ours. That’s why I believe them. We are actually devolved humans with an inferior science.
It’s difficult to take anything you say seriously. Was that what you were shooting for?
1) Individual personal experience
2) The empty tomb
3) 2000 years of history
4) The positive impact of the Gospel on people I know and society in general
5) the impossibility of the contrary
Etc etc etc
What sort of empirical data supports your presupposition that miracles are unlikely (or prohibited) as explanations for the genomic data we see??
You need to support that claim. I endeavor to make sure that I don’t reject anything that God has revealed. To do otherwise would be very foolish
Who said Adam was not formed from the dust of the Ground and Eve formed from his side? Certainly not me. I’m perfectly willing to accept these things as literal if a good exegetical case was made to that effect.
Care to give it a go??
If it was not the case that Adam was literally formed from the dust of the Ground and Eve literally formed from his side could science ever demonstrate that the story was false??
peace
Ain’t a one of those looks like a valid argument for the bible being the word of God. But perhaps you could turn one of them into an argument if you tried. Care to have a go?
You have me there. It’s not empirical data but a rule of convenience, Occam’s Razor. “I had no need of that hypothesis.” Still, if we abandoned that rule, all reasoning from data would be impossible, so I suggest we keep it.
That wasn’t my claim. It was my inference from the incompatibility of your claim with the story in Genesis. And I offered you a choice: either it wasn’t God’s word or God’s word was not intended to describe real events. Why ignore the second alternative?
No, it was certainly you. You said that you would agree that Adam and Eve had parents. People with parents are not formed from dust or ribs. See what I mean about nailing jello to the wall? Can you reconcile your claim that Adam and Eve had parents with your claim that Genesis is the word of God?
Well, of course science can’t prove anything, not being in the business of proof. What we can do is support or fail to support hypotheses to various degrees, though at some point of support we generally accept a claim as true beyond reasonable doubt. But you’re right that given enough miracles anything can look like anything else, and so any knowledge about anything becomes impossible. If it’s nihilism you want, you’re making a good start. Me, I’ll go with the idea that what looks like a duck is best explained as a duck, even though a miracle might make a goat look like a duck to me.
I would never presume to do such a thing.
I would ask any christian who denies Adam’s existence how they handle the message of Romans chapter 5.
peace
OK, if you insist here is the syllogism for the first bullet point.
premise 1; God tells me personally that the Bible is the Word of God through the testimony of the Holy Spirit
Premise 2; by definition God does not lie
Conclusion; The Bible is the word of God
My syllogisms for the other bullet points would be similar
peace
In we are talking about the existence of Adam. If Adam did not literally serve as our covenant head before the fall in the covenant of works then Christ can not literally serve as our Covenant head now in the covenant of Grace.
It’s pretty simple no Adam no Gospel
peace
Right that “point” depends on our prior commitments and presuppositions.
I will require a different amount of evidence than you because I have different presuppositions.
The problem is that sometimes what looks like a duck is actually a rabbit
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/duck-or-rabbit-the-100-year-old-optical-illusion-that-tells-you-how-creative-you-are-a6873106.html
It all depends on our presuppositions
peace
hoo boy
When you say “the testimony of the holy spirt”, what do you mean? To me, this just seems like more jello. Premise 2 also seems dubious. How do you know God doesn’t lie? How do you know the definition is correct?
That your other arguments would be similar doesn’t impress me.
In other words, it must be true because you need it to be true. Why, that’s just what I said already. That really is not a valid argument.
You are also ignoring the question of what allows you to pick one bit of Genesis (literal A&E) and reject another (dust, rib).
Not much of an argument, that.
I reject that claim and your nihilism with it. And that old drawing doesn’t even look much like a duck or a rabbit.
I think it means that he just ate some chocolate, and it tasted good.
Do you even know who said “I have no need of that hypothesis”?
And you, like so many others here, have no idea of what Ockham’s Razor is or how to properly apply it.
Mung accusing atheists of reading the bible too literally? I’ll bet it was 🙂
I don’t expect you to be impressed by arguments that would undermine your worldview so I’m not suprised
If you are interested do some research It’s a pretty well understood concept that has been developed for a couple of millennia.
I’m not going to spoon feed you or do elementary tutelage on the Christian faith here. There are Bible studies that meet each week I’m sure you can find one near where you live.
Because I know that if God lied then all knowledge would be impossible. That one is a no brainer.
For one thing, any being who would lie would be unworthy of worship.
Before we get even further down a theological rabbit trail I want to point out that subject of this tread is the existence of Adam and Eve not my faith.
So to get back on topic………
The evidence is pretty conclusive that all humanity is decedend from a single man Y-chromosomal Adam and a single woman Mitochondrial Eve. Either one of those individuals would have two parents who we could all claim as ancestors. So right away we have at least two candidates for a first couple.
Seems to me the onerous is on those who would deny the possibility of the existence a single pair of ancestors for humanity.
peace
Yes, I do know. Please provide some kind of argument and/or explanation.
1) My belief is a literal Adam is not based only Genesis it’s also based on Jesus’s words in Mark and Mathew and also Romans 5 and other places
2) I don’t reject any of Genesis. I accept all of it. I just don’t take every word woodenly literally.
For instance I don’t think that God literally walked in the Garden in the heat of the day because he does not have literal feet and I don’t think that when God said “Where are you?” it meant that he was not omniscient
In other words I give God the same prerogative to use figurative language in his communication as I would give anyone else.
peace
Do you even know what nihilism is???
peace
Jello.
It’s a no brainer in the sense that if you apply your brain to it, it falls apart. It’s only certainty that would be impossible, but certainty is in fact not possible except in your imagination. Nor is “That would be bad if true, therefore it isn’t true” a valid argument.
Not a valid argument either. Perhaps God isn’t worthy of worship. Perhaps your assertion that a God who would lie is unworthy of worship is not correct. And of course there are a number of places in the bible in which God either lies or says that he can or does lie.
Ah, but you have used your faith as support for claims of knowledge about that subject, so it’s entirely relevant.
No, the evidence is not conclusive. You have mistaken the inevitable coalescence of any single linkage group with a statement about both the ancestry of other linkage groups and the population size at the time of coalescence. Those are both indeed mistakes. Nor are those coalescents, which we unfortunately have named mt-Eve and Y-Adam, contemporaries.
Further, you are consistently dodging the point that Genesis is clear on the claim that neither Adam nor Eve had ancestors but was created directly by God.
I think we have established that many things that seem to you are not true. Note that your argument regarding MHC alleles itself disposes of a single pair of ancestors in favor of multiple ancestors, though you don’t seem to realize it.
In other words, you pick and choose what parts you want to interpret literally based on the idea of what you need to be true in order to support your other beliefs. You believe God has no feet and is omniscient, so you interpret his walking and asking questions figuratively. You believe that Adam and Eve had ancestors, so you interpret great swaths of their origin story as…what, exactly? But you can’t interpret their existence and fall as figurative, because that’s a necessary part of your beliefs. Once again, “I need that to be true” is not a valid argument.
You’ve just shattered my entire theology.
🙂
No all knowledge requires justification.
If God lies what possible justification do you have for believing anything??
If he is not worthy of worship he is not God.
Think man
What are you talking about. I have done no such thing.
I used revelation as support for claims of knowledge about the subject of Adam and Eve. My faith is not revelation.
no I have not,
I make no claims about genetic isolation whatsoever. The literal existence of Adam and Eve are perfectly compatible with no genetic isolation at all.
IOW there could have been thousands of genetically compatible animals that were alive at the same time as Adam and Eve. It does not matter as long as we can say that all humans are descended from Adam and Eve.
You are still hung up on the idea that species are somehow defined by genetic isolation, that idea is well past it’s scientific shelf life. Not just when it comes to humans
peace
How do you think communication works?
If you tell me that the sun rises in the east I don’t assume that you don’t understand that the sun is stationary and the earth moves.
Communication from God is no different.
I don’t believe that Adam existed because I need him to have existed I would say I believe he existed because God says he existed. The fact that I need him to have existed is a reason to not be too quick to reject what God said
by the same token
I would say that the reason you and I trust induction is because any understanding of the universe requires that the past is a guide to what will happen in the future.
That fact does not make induction suspect in anyway.
peace
once again
the following statements are not equivalent
1) Adam and Eve are our ancestors
2) Adam and Eve are our only ancestors
you are still confusing my affirmation of (1) as an affirmation of (2)
This is despite my repeatedly pointing out to your error.
Why is it so difficult for you to get this??
peace
Because it’s wrong. If Adam and Eve are not our only ancestors, there is no bottleneck of 2. I will accept that you have no idea of the entailments of what you say.
there is a bottleneck of two if our other ancestors were not part of our species.
Just because polar bears can interbreed with grizzly bears does not mean that there does not exist a bottleneck of less than 25,000 polar bears right now.
Why can’t you understand this??
peace
Hey john
check this out
it might help you to understand what I’m saying
peace