Carter, Lee, Sanford’s ICC 2018 Adam and Eve paper, Congratulations Bill Basener

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.

277 thoughts on “Carter, Lee, Sanford’s ICC 2018 Adam and Eve paper, Congratulations Bill Basener

  1. fifthmonarchyman,

    John understood all right. It seems like it’s you who doesn’t understand. If there was any cross breeding, then there’s no bottleneck of two. That you’d give more importance to two individuals being of “one species,” to whatever many other individuals of “other species” is but your personal preference, but not a bottleneck. A bottleneck of two would mean that we’ve got our genes from those two alone. Anything else is no bottleneck.

  2. Mung: 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

    Certainly an omnipotent being could do either of those things.

  3. Entropy: That you’d give more importance to two individuals being of “one species,” to whatever many other individuals of “other species” is but your personal preference, but not a bottleneck.

    So then there is no two individual bottleneck of the Northern white rhino and conservationists can relax?

    peace

  4. Entropy: A bottleneck of two would mean that we’ve got our genes from those two alone.

    So if you killed all but two wolves and kept the population in isolation for thousands of years we could not say there was a bottleneck if there was even one subsequent interbreeding with coyotes……ever?

    better yet, are you saying there was never a bottleneck of Florida panthers?

    peace

  5. Entropy: That you’d give more importance to two individuals being of “one species,” to whatever many other individuals of “other species” is but your personal preference

    I think we might be getting to the meat of the issue

    Are species boundaries ever anything but personal preference in your opinion?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

    If that hybrid was successful would unrelated chimps be entitled to human rights?

    peace

  6. fifthmonarchyman: So then there is no two individual bottleneck of the Northern white rhino and conservationists can relax?

    If there are only a couple of Northern white rhinos left, then cross-breeding them will not result in rescued Northern white rhinos, but in somewhat-rescued genes of two Northern white rhinos mixed with whatever else. Whatever results cannot be said to be the offspring of a bottleneck of two, since they’ll also have genes from whatever else participated in the cross breeding. This is very simple filthy.

  7. fifthmonarchyman: 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

    It seems that you don’t grok literary allusions?

    Or maybe you think that Jesus and Paul were dumb as rocks and not capable of literary allusions.

  8. fifthmonarchyman: 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??

    Again, because it isn’t true. Whether or not these other ancestors were part of our species, they would be ancestors and so part of the ancestral population. Species here is irrelevant. You’re the one that brought species into the discussion, and for no rational reason.

  9. fifthmonarchyman: So if you killed all but two wolves and kept the population in isolation for thousands of years we could not say there was a bottleneck if there was even one subsequentinterbreeding with coyotes……ever?

    When referring to the resulting population, you cannot say that it’s the result of a bottleneck of two, since there’s plenty of other genes from coyotes. Again, this is very simple filthy.

  10. fifthmonarchyman:
    Are species boundaries ever anything but personal preference in your opinion?

    Shit man. The issue is not the “species” “barrier,” but the ancestors from which a population got its genes. Why do you have to over-complicate something that simple, I’ll never understand.

  11. Entropy: The issue is not the “species” “barrier,” but the ancestors from which a population got its genes. Why do you have to over-complicate something that simple, I’ll never understand.

    I don’t think you understand.

    For Christians it is vitally important that the entire human species is descended from Adam.

    It’s not about where a population got it’s genes it’s about the possibility that Adam and Eve existed.

    It seems the species barrier is important to that topic and that is the topic of this thread

    peace

  12. fifthmonarchyman:
    I don’t think you understand.

    I understand all right.

    fifthmonarchyman:
    For Christians it is vitally important that the entire human species is descended from Adam.

    I know. This is why they’re so willing to bastardize any conceptual framework to try and smuggle their bullshit in.

    fifthmonarchyman:
    It’s not about where a population got it’s genes it’s about the possibility that Adam and Eve existed.

    But the issue here is that there’s a couple IDiots who are trying to prove it by claiming that there was a bottleneck of two, which, under your scenario, would be false. Under your scenario, some magical feature would be inherited from the last two of some “species” that hybridized with “something else” to then give rise to the whole human population.

    fifthmonarchyman:
    It seems the species barrier is important to that topic and that is the topic of this thread

    No it isn’t. The topic is whether there was a bottleneck of two. The answer is no. Your scenario might solve things from your magical-being-in-the-sky-makes-magical-couple perspective, but would make the bottleneck claim false by definition, and Adam and Eve unidentifiable by bottleneck-analysis.

  13. Entropy: Your scenario might solve things from your magical-being-in-the-sky-makes-magical-couple perspective, but would make the bottleneck claim false by definition, and Adam and Eve unidentifiable by bottleneck-analysis.

    interesting,

    So you are saying that trying to argue genetic isolation for humans is irrelevant to the question of whether there was a literal Adam and Eve?

    I’d agree with that. It was my point after all.

    Once we can agree that genetic isolation after Adam and Eve is entirely immaterial to the question of their literal existence we can view the paper on it’s merits and not from a culture war perspective. I like that approach as well.

    lets do science for once!!!!!

    Do you think think that there are any species that have ever been isolated in the way you are describing?

    check it out

    https://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/jumping-genes-hop-across-species-to-stir-human-evolution/81256005

    quote:
    Interestingly, they found that cross-species transfers, even between plants and animals, have occurred frequently throughout evolution and identified multiple possible L1 horizontal transfer events in eukaryotic species, primarily involving Tx-like L1s in marine eukaryotes. They also found new parasite vectors of horizontal transfer such as the bed bug, leech, and locust and discovered BovB occurrences in new lineages such as bat and frog.

    end quote:

    In your opinion would gene transfer as described in the linked article falsify a “bottleneck” if it occurred in humans long after A&E?

    peace

  14. Mung: So?

    Curious how Fifth knew what to take as literally true or not if everything that is logically possible is possibly true with an omnibeing.

  15. newton: Curious how Fifth knew what to take as literally true or not if everything that is logically possible is possibly true with an omnibeing.

    The same way I know what to take as literally true when I talk to you……context

    peace

  16. newton: Curious how Fifth knew what to take as literally true or not if everything that is logically possible is possibly true with an omnibeing.

    If by “omni-being” you mean to include omniscience, then fifth has already answered that. Your implied restriction to an omnipotent being was simply a non-sequitur. Therefore, my response. So?

    How could an omniscient being not know where Adam was?

  17. I ain’t no monkey, y’all! I’m the product of tons of inbreeding & bestiality!

  18. dazz: I ain’t no monkey, y’all! I’m the product of tons of inbreeding & bestiality!

    I don’t see anyone disagreeing with you.

  19. Entropy: But the issue here is that there’s a couple IDiots who are trying to prove it by claiming that there was a bottleneck of two, which, under your scenario, would be false.

    Could you please point me to where the paper in question makes a claim of total genetic isolation in perpetuity after A&E that you ascribe to it.

    thanks in advance

    peace

  20. fifthmonarchyman: The same way I know what to take as literally true when I talk to you……context

    How does context tell you that Adam wasn’t literally created from non-living matter and Eve wasn’t taken from his rib?

  21. John Harshman: How does context tell you that Adam wasn’t literally created from non-living matter and Eve wasn’t taken from his rib?

    It doesn’t say anything one way or the other AFAICT.

    So I’m free to withhold judgement as to whether this passage is to be taken literally or not. Which is what I do

    peace

  22. fifthmonarchyman: Could you please point me to where the paper in question makes a claim of total genetic isolation in perpetuity after A&E that you ascribe to it.

    Holy crap filth, it’s implicit in the very attempt to figure out if there was a two-individuals bottleneck.

  23. fifthmonarchyman: It doesn’t say anything one way or the other AFAICT.

    So I’m free to withhold judgement as to whether this passage is to be taken literally or not. Which is what I do

    Damn jello keeps slipping off that nail.

  24. Entropy: Holy crap filth, it’s implicit in the very attempt to figure out if there was a two-individuals bottleneck.

    I don’t think so.
    I read the paper and I did not come to that conclusion at all. In fact I found very little I would consider controversial given the understanding I’m presenting here.

    It’s certainly possible I’m missing something that’s why I asked for the link to the claim of no interbreeding or HGT after A&E.

    Is it possible you are reading your understanding into the text?

    peace

  25. John Harshman: Damn jello keeps slipping off that nail.

    Why is it important to you that I take a position on this?

    Do you have something against withholding judgement when you are not sure about something?

    peace

  26. Entropy: Holy crap filth, it’s implicit in the very attempt to figure out if there was a two-individuals bottleneck.

    can you please point me to the place where the paper expressed a desire to figure out if there was a “two-individuals bottleneck”

    peace

  27. I did find this mention of a bottleneck but it was not exactly the connotation you suggest

    quote:

    For years geneticists have known that there is a single paternal ancestor and a single maternal ancestor for all of humanity (Cann et al.1987;Karafet et al. 2008). This is a direct prediction of the biblical model. It can also be explained in the evolutionary model, but only by assuming random mating on a global scale,and by invoking a bottleneck that would in any other species almost certainly cause extinction.The evolutionary model did not anticipate this discovery. Instead, the evolutionary model had to be radically modified to accommodate this remarkable development while invoking various ad hoc rescue mechanisms, specifically a long-term bottleneck among the African population.

    end quote:

    peace

  28. fifthmonarchyman: the evolutionary model had to be radically modified to accommodate this remarkable development while invoking various ad hoc rescue mechanisms

    That’s the history of evolutionary theory in a nutshell.

  29. fifthmonarchyman:

    Every sentence in that quote has something wrong with it.

    For years geneticists have known that there is a single paternal ancestor and a single maternal ancestor for all of humanity (Cann et al.1987;Karafet et al. 2008).

    That’s ambiguously-stated in a way that makes it both technically true and highly misleading. What’s true is that there is a single, male ancestor for all the Y-chromosomes and a single, female ancestor for all the mitochondria in the human population. But every linkage group in the human genome would also have its own separate ancestor.

    This is a direct prediction of the biblical model.

    They say that as if it’s an achievement. It’s a direct prediction of any model in which there is a human population reproducing over time. Nor does it fit anything else in the creation model.

    It can also be explained in the evolutionary model, but only by assuming random mating on a global scale,and by invoking a bottleneck that would in any other species almost certainly cause extinction.

    This seems to have no citation, with good reason. No bottleneck is implied by coalescence of single linkage groups, nor is global random mating a necessary assumption.

    The evolutionary model did not anticipate this discovery.

    Nonsense. It’s the inevitable result of coalescent theory. The only way to prevent it is by selection favoring genetic diversity, which applies to few loci. And those few loci — you may recall MHC —don’t show coalescence.

    Instead, the evolutionary model had to be radically modified to accommodate this remarkable development while invoking various ad hoc rescue mechanisms, specifically a long-term bottleneck among the African population.

    It’s not a remarkable development, and no bottleneck is indicated by the data. I see again that there are no citations to support anything except the true part. Coincidence?

  30. John Harshman: But every linkage group in the human genome would also have its own separate ancestor.

    No bottleneck is implied by coalescence of single linkage groups, nor is global random mating a necessary assumption.

    I have a mild disagreement with this: if a “linkage group” is a chromosome, it is much shorter segments of chromosome that have their own coalescents (in humans roughly every 100k bases).

    Which does not detract from your refutation of the mysterious quote.

  31. John Harshman: Every sentence in that quote has something wrong with it.

    I did not present the quote to attest to it’s factual accuracy.

    I presented it as evidence that the paper was not in fact arguing for a “two-individuals bottleneck” with no interbreeding ever after that event as you and entropy apparently understand it to be doing.

    John Harshman: What’s true is that there is a single, male ancestor for all the Y-chromosomes and a single, female ancestor for all the mitochondria in the human population. But every linkage group in the human genome would also have its own separate ancestor.

    I would say that the paper is arguing that it’s possible that the single male ancestor (Y-chromosome Adam) and the single female ancestor (mitochondria Eve) were in fact a mating couple that corresponded to the biblical Adam and Eve.

    whether they convincingly made that case is what the discussion should be about IMO.

    whether there were other ancestors involved is beside the point.

    peace

  32. John Harshman: Nonsense. It’s the inevitable result of coalescent theory. The only way to prevent it is by selection favoring genetic diversity, which applies to few loci. And those few loci — you may recall MHC —don’t show coalescence.

    I’m mildly interested in this statement.

    Suppose homo arose from a diverse population of say 200,000 thousand individuals living in Africa 2 million years ago.

    Now suppose there were several migrations of these homos to different parts of the world, Lets call 3 of the migrations neanderthal, devonian, and early modern human. Each of these groups would have it’s own mitochondrial eve.

    Now fast forward to 20 thousand years ago and another migration occurs this time it’s behaviorally modern humans with it’s own single mitochondrial eve.

    Question: does coalescent theory predict that all persons alive anywhere in the world today would trace their mitochondrial ancestry to that single individual and not the neanderthal or devonian eve? If so why?

    peace

  33. Mung: f by “omni-being” you mean to include omniscience, then fifth has already answered that. Your implied restriction to an omnipotent being was simply a non-sequitur. Therefore, my response. So?

    How could an omniscient being not know where Adam wa

    Does asking a question require not knowing the answer beforehand?

  34. fifthmonarchyman: Suppose homo arose from a diverse population of say 200,000 thousand individuals living in Africa 2 million years ago.

    Now suppose there were several migrations of these homos to different parts of the world, Lets call 3 of the migrations neanderthal, devonian, and early modern human. Each of these groups would have it’s own mitochondrial eve.

    Now fast forward to 20 thousand years ago and another migration occurs this time it’s behaviorally modern humans with it’s own single mitochondrial eve.

    Question: does coalescent theory predict that all persons alive anywhere in the world today would trace their mitochondrial ancestry to that single individual and not the neanderthal or devonian eve? If so why?

    None of the above. You are trapped by the Adam & Eve narrative, Fifth. Time to think out of the box.

    Most likely mitochondrial Eve of behaviorally modern humans (that’s us) is a different one from Eve of the first 3 of your hypothetical migrated populations, including those early modern humans. Why? because during the time between those early hominins and modern humans mitochondrial lineages were constantly being lost, thus pushing mitochondrial eve forward in time.

    Think about it like this: Suppose all of humanity was terminated by a virulent disease contracted via unsanitary telephones, except the inhabitants of say, Iceland. Then mitochondrial eve would be whoever they trace their mitochondrial ancestry to, and that person most likely would NOT be the current mitochondrial eve, but some great-great-great-etc-granddaughter of her. See?

  35. Joe Felsenstein: I have a mild disagreement with this: if a “linkage group” is a chromosome, it is much shorter segments of chromosome that have their own coalescents (in humans roughly every 100k bases).

    I didn’t intend a linkage group to be a chromosome. I meant a piece of DNA that’s strongly linked enough to have a single coalescent. Come to think of it, isn’t there a pseudautosomal bit on the Y chromosome that wouldn’t have the same coalescent as the rest of the Y chromosome?

  36. fifthmonarchyman: Question: does coalescent theory predict that all persons alive anywhere in the world today would trace their mitochondrial ancestry to that single individual and not the neanderthal or devonian eve? If so why?

    By “devonian” you mean “denisovan”. A priori, it isn’t clear that each population would have its own mitochondrial Eve; that depends on the population size and how long it was isolated from others. And I will also point out that due to the nature of coalescence, the identity of the mitochondrial Eve changes over time as lineages are lost. The current Eve is different from the Eve of 20,000 years ago. Anyway, the reason the current Eve would appear to exclude denisovans and neandertals is that none of the introgression between modern humans and other populations has left surviving mitochondrial lineages, at least that have been found so far. That means that Small-Chunk-of-Chromosome-17 Waldo is much older than mitochondrial Eve.

  37. fifthmonarchyman: I presented it as evidence that the paper was not in fact arguing for a “two-individuals bottleneck” with no interbreeding ever after that event as you and entropy apparently understand it to be doing.

    It doesn’t do that either. It has nothing to do with that. It’s just a random bit snipped from the paper that happens to mention the word “bottleneck”.

  38. Corneel: Most likely mitochondrial Eve of behaviorally modern humans (that’s us) is a different one from Eve of the first 3 of your hypothetical migrated populations

    It’s pretty well documented that that is the case, that is why I brought it up.

    Now John Harshman claims that the fact that all humans alive today are decended from the same mitocondrial eve as me is predicted by coalescent theory.

    I simply think that is not the case.

    Coalescent theory simply does not predict that there will be no isolated remnant populations anywhere in the world today that trace their mitochondrial DNA to neanderthal eve for instance.

    unless I’m wrong

    peace

  39. John Harshman: It doesn’t do that either. It has nothing to do with that. It’s just a random bit snipped from the paper that happens to mention the word “bottleneck”.

    In fact it’s the only place in the entire paper that mentions the word bottleneck AFAICT.

    Therefore naturally it’s very hard to argue as Enthropy was doing that the paper is about proving that there was a two-individual bottleneck

    again unless I’m wrong

    peace

  40. John Harshman: By “devonian” you mean “denisovan”. A priori, it isn’t clear that each population would have its own mitochondrial Eve; that depends on the population size and how long it was isolated from others.

    But they do for some coincidental reason have a different mitochondrial eve than we do.

    That is why I brought it up.

    John Harshman: And I will also point out that due to the nature of coalescence, the identity of the mitochondrial Eve changes over time as lineages are lost. The current Eve is different from the Eve of 20,000 years ago.

    again that is why I brought it up. All the other lineages are lost except the one we happen to occupy

    John Harshman: Anyway, the reason the current Eve would appear to exclude denisovans and neandertals is that none of the introgression between modern humans and other populations has left surviving mitochondrial lineages,

    Exactly this is what the paper was getting at.

    Evolutionary theory does not predict exactly one surviving linage of humans that shares the same recent single ancestor despite other possible human lineages.

    However the bible does predict such a thing.

    quote:

    And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
    (Act 17:26)

    end quote:

    peace

  41. fifthmonarchyman: Evolutionary theory does not predict exactly one surviving linage of humans that shares the same recent single ancestor despite other possible human lineages.

    However the bible does predict such a thing.

    I hope you managed to convince yourself that that is an impressive feat, because it sure didn’t impress anybody else.

  42. fifthmonarchyman: But they do for some coincidental reason have a different mitochondrial eve than we do.

    That is why I brought it up.

    again that is why I brought it up. All the other lineages are lost except the one we happen to occupy

    All the other mitochondrial lineages. And I still don’t know why you brought up denisovans and neandertals.

    Exactly this is what the paper was getting at.

    No, that isn’t what it’s getting at. Once again you have confused the mitochondrial ancestor with what the paper is claiming: a single female ancestor of everyone alive today. That is, the paper is talking about the coalescent of the entire genome, not just of the mitochondrial genome.

    Evolutionary theory does not predict exactly one surviving linage of humans that shares the same recent single ancestor despite other possible human lineages.

    Agreed. And we do not see exactly one surviving lineage of humans. We see one surviving lineage of mitochondria. Evolutionary theory would predict different surviving lineages for different linkage groups.

    However the bible does predict such a thing.

    quote:

    And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
    (Act 17:26)

    Yep, that says that all humans are descended exclusively from that one man (and his wife), something you yourself deny. Otherwise it would have said “from multiple men”. So if that is in fact intended as a prediction — which is your fallible interpretation — it’s wrong.

  43. fifthmonarchyman: Coalescent theory simply does not predict that there will be no isolated remnant populations anywhere in the world today that trace their mitochondrial DNA to neanderthal eve for instance.

    unless I’m wrong

    Oh for crying out loud, yes, you are wrong.

    If there happens to be an isolated remnant population that traces its mitochondrial DNA to neanderthals, then mitochondrial eve is simply pushed back to include those sequences. There is nothing that connects that DNA sequence to the Eve of the bible.

  44. Corneel: because during the time between those early hominins and modern humans mitochondrial lineages were constantly being lost, thus pushing mitochondrial eve forward in time.

    I think that as soon as you start appealing to time travel you’ve lost the argument.

  45. John Harshman: Once again you have confused the mitochondrial ancestor with what the paper is claiming: a single female ancestor of everyone alive today. That is, the paper is talking about the coalescent of the entire genome, not just of the mitochondrial genome.

    The paper doesn’t stop with Mitochondrial Eve it includes Y-chromosomal Adam. There are two ancestors in play and not just one.

    John Harshman: And we do not see exactly one surviving lineage of humans.

    one single male ancestor plus one single female ancestor living at the same time and place equals one surviving lineage.

    John Harshman: that says that all humans are descended exclusively from that one man (and his wife), something you yourself deny.

    I really have no clue what you are talking about. The word “exclusively” is not in the text anywhere and it would be silly if it was.

    My large maternal clan can all trace our linage directly to my great great grandfather on my mothers side.

    That does not necessarily mean that there are no other men in our respective family trees.

    peace

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