Real Science Friday: Christianity Today's Search for Adam

[Jefferson]

Christianity Today's Search for Adam

This is the show from Friday June 17th, 2011.

SUMMARY:

* Christianity Today Denies that God Made Adam from the Dust of the Earth: Real Science Friday co-hosts Fred Williams and Bob Enyart look at the cover story, The Search for the Historical Adam, in the current edition of Christianity Today. The liberal churches that affirm abortion and homosexuality and that deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ -- all began their moral and spiritual slide by denying the historicity of the foundation book of Genesis. Christianity Today is following in their footsteps with their claim that God put a human soul into animals that had evolved from ape-like creatures.

* Looking at CT's Scripture and Science: As for the Scripture, Bob and Fred point out that Moses, Paul, and Jesus all referred to Adam as a literal person and the creation account is presented as historical, with Jesus reminding people that God made them, male and female, at the beginning of creation. And they explain something that Christianity Today leaves out of their article, that that those who do away with a literal Adam, also do away with the biblical teachings of no death before Adam, the six literal days of creation, the global flood, the order of the days of creation, and they even weaken the veracity of the genealogy of Jesus Christ as given in the New Testament. As for the science, something that Christianity Today's editors left out of the discussion, is this information about Adam and Eve from the KGOV.com/writings article titled, Why Was Canaan Cursed?

Actual measured mutation rates for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), as reported by Ann Gibbons in Science magazine, indicate that if these rates have been constant, "mitochondrial Eve… would be a mere 6000 years old." From an anthropology professor's popular article, "Analyses of the mitochondrial DNA of living humans from around the globe have shown that all are ultimately descended (if we trace exclusively through female links) from a common ancestress..." The same result would occur if in fact we have all descended from an original, created biblical Eve. However scientists quickly point out that their analysis doesn't require a biblical Eve. For example, you and all your full siblings have your maternal grandmother's mtDNA and yet you are all also descended from another woman from her generation, your paternal grandmother. Yet this finding does falsify two evolutionary expectations, the first from an old minority view held by evolutionists like the discoverer of "Peking Man," that humans evolved from parallel hominid groups. Secondarily, just as the discovery of soft-tissue from a T-rex falsified the evolutionary expectation that we would never find original biological material from dinosaur fossils, the recent age of mitochondrial Eve falsifies the mainstream Darwinist expectation that she would have been much older. That expectation is falsified whether we use the 6,000 year date which is based on exclusively human DNA and documented mutation rates, or even when evolutionists stretch that date by one or two orders of magnitude as they do by including chimp DNA in their data set. Either way, this finding falsifies the evolutionary expectation that such an Eve would have lived much earlier. Likewise, scientists have discovered a recent Y-chromosomal Adam. As Dr. Walt Brown summarizes all this, "How likely is it that other men lived a few thousand years ago but left no continuous male descendants, and other women lived 6,000 years ago but left no continuous female descendants, and we end up today with a world population of almost 7 billion people?" Extraordinarily unlikely. So just as most astronomers came to admit, uneasily, that the universe had a beginning (but still they reject Genesis by holding to an increasingly untenable Big Bang theory), so too evolutionists are acknowledging much of what the biblical creation model predicts about the human genome, while not realizing that the historic events recorded in Genesis help wonderfully to account for their data. For the Bible says that God recently created Adam and his wife, and that "Eve... was the mother of all." more...

* To be continued...





Today’s Resource: You'll just love the science DVDs, books, and written, audio and video debates offered by Real Science Friday! So have you browsed through ourScience Department in the KGOV Store? Check out Bob most highly-recommended astronomy DVD, What You Aren't Being Told About Astronomy! And see Walt Brown’s great hardcover book, In the Beginning! You’ll also love Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez’ Privileged Planet (clip), and Illustra Media’sUnlocking the Mystery of Life (clip)! You can consider our BELScience Pack; Bob Enyart’s Age of the Earth Debate; Bob's debate aboutJunk DNA with the infamous anti-creationist Dr. Eugenie Scott. And if you have young kids or grand kids, you owe it to them and to yourself to give them as a gift the SUPERB kids' radio programming on audio CD, Jonathan Park: The Adventure Begins! And Bob strongly recommends that you subscribe to CMI’s great Creation magazine and if you're up to reading more technical scientific articles, you'll also want to subscribe to CRSQ! And to order any of our BEL science products by phone, just call us at 1-800-8Enyart (836-9278).

* Special Editions of Real Science Friday:
- RSF's famous List of Not-So-Old Things
- Bob's debate with Christian Darwinist British author James Hannam
- PZ Myers blogs against Real Science Friday so we hit back with the PZ Trochlea Challenge
- Waiting for Darwin's Other Shoe: Science mag cover: Darwin Was Wrong on the Tree of Life
- Microbiologist in Studio: Creation Research Society Quarterly editor on new genetic findings
- Caterpillar Kills Atheism: describe how a bug could evolve to liquefy itself and then build itself into a flying creature
- And see the RSF Offer of $2,000 to get 16 letters of the alphabet in their correct places; $500 paid in 1998; $1,500 in 2010...

 

[Alate_One]

* Christianity Today Denies that God Made Adam from the Dust of the Earth: Real Science Friday co-hosts Fred Williams and Bob Enyart look at the cover story, The Search for the Historical Adam, in the current edition of Christianity Today.

I happen to have read this article, I found it fairly interesting though I was aware of nearly all of what they said already. It was a rational conversation about scientific data. Something we'll probably never see on *wrong* Science Friday.

Actual measured mutation rates for mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), as reported by Ann Gibbons in Science magazine, indicate that if these rates have been constant, "mitochondrial Eve… would be a mere 6000 years old."

Except that paper is from 1998, over 10 years, which is forever with regards to DNA science. The most recent paper from 2010, puts mitochondrial eve at 200,000 years ago. And frankly 6000 years doesn't even make any sense since, from archaeology humans were disbursed around the globe long before that.

Likewise, scientists have discovered a recent Y-chromosomal Adam. As Dr. Walt Brown summarizes all this, "How likely is it that other men lived a few thousand years ago but left no continuous male descendants, and other women lived 6,000 years ago but left no continuous female descendants, and we end up today with a world population of almost 7 billion people?" Extraordinarily unlikely.

A. it wasn't 6000 years ago, it was a bit farther back that mtEve and B. it's actually quite easy to "lose" other direct lines of descent. All that has to happen is for a man to have only daughters survive and have *sons* of their own and no more mtDNA.

So just as most astronomers came to admit, uneasily, that the universe had a beginning (but still they reject Genesis by holding to an increasingly untenable Big Bang theory),

The big Bang theory is the *basis* of scientific thinking saying the universe had a beginning. Your linked "statement" (which is not a scientific paper or document) asserts that cosmological ideas that have no beginning or end better explain the data! Toss the Big Bang and you toss the concept of a beginning. You've managed to contradict yourself. :rotfl:

so too evolutionists are acknowledging much of what the biblical creation model predicts about the human genome,

Not at all. You're a liar for asserting this. The diversity of human NUCLEAR DNA directly contradicts the idea of 2 people founding the human race 6000 years ago. If you'd like to discuss this in detail (I've brought this up with you before) feel free.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

The big Bang theory is the *basis* of scientific thinking saying the universe had a beginning. Your linked "statement" (which is not a scientific paper or document) asserts that cosmological ideas that have no beginning or end better explain the data! Toss the Big Bang and you toss the concept of a beginning. You've managed to contradict yourself. :rotfl:

Just because he agrees that the big bang theory is looking more and more untenable doesn't mean he has to agree with the alternative theories proposed in the linked document. You seem to have a serious problem with conflation.

 

[The Barbarian]

BTW, there is no conflict between the evidence for evolution, and a literal Adam and Eve.

For a Christian, that's a pointless argument.

 

[Dr.Watson]

BTW, there is no conflict between the evidence for evolution, and a literal Adam and Eve.

For a Christian, that's a pointless argument.

I was always under the impression that the two were incompatible. Populations evolve. Not individuals. Mind explaining this more thoroughly?

 

[The Barbarian]

I was always under the impression that the two were incompatible.

Don't see how. If two individuals were given immortal souls by God, and we all descended from them, it's perfectly compatible with the evidence.

And it has the virtue of explaining why our bodies are produced naturally, but our souls come directly from God.

 

[Alate_One]

Just because he agrees that the big bang theory is looking more and more untenable doesn't mean he has to agree with the alternative theories proposed in the linked document. You seem to have a serious problem with conflation.

You don't get it. The argument in the link was that explanations without a beginning were better explanations of the data. You can't say "hey this guy agrees with me" when they only agree with one tiny part of what you're saying and directly oppose the other half of what you've said. It's nonsense.

 

[Alate_One]

I was always under the impression that the two were incompatible. Populations evolve. Not individuals. Mind explaining this more thoroughly?

There are some conflicts but they are not necessarily fatal to the idea.

You could have a literal Adam and Eve that were actually special members of a population. Scripture gives some hints to this with Cain's wife and his reference to "everyone that finds me". Which is very odd when Cain says this since if we assume scripture is telling the complete narrative in chronological order there should be exactly three people on the planet (left).

Or you could have had two special individuals very far back in time - millions of years - so that enough time would pass for genetic diversity to be created through mutation.

There are also people that say Adam and Eve were only founders of the Israelites and their relatives (other semites), 6000 years ago.

What you can't have is a literal Adam and Eve 6000 years ago that solely spawned the entire human race. (Unless you insert a lot of other miracles creating genetic diversity or more people later on.) There's a big conflict from population genetics, the population is simply too diverse to have come from two people so recently. And you need a certain population size to maintain genetic diversity, and it's way more than two!

There are also people that think the whole thing is symbolic and that a small population may have been involved etc.

I don't really have a strong position on any of the options.

 

[DavisBJ]

Christianity Today's Search for Adam

This is the show from Friday June 17th, 2011.

SUMMARY:
...
So just as most astronomers came to admit, uneasily, that the universe had a beginning (but still they reject Genesis by holding to an increasingly untenable Big Bang theory), so too evolutionists are acknowledging ...

The petition against the big bang that Bob links to has a few over 500 signatories. That is not a trivial number, but it is not an impressive number, either. The only comparable list that comes to mind is NCSE’s “Steve” listing. Since nature, the ultimate arbiter of science, has a callous lack of interest in who or how many sign such lists, they really are only a useful as a crude measure of how people feel about whatever the list pertains to. But since Bob uses this list to buttress his disbelief in the big bang and evolution, it is worth examining a bit.

Comparing this list with the “Steve” list, the first thing I note is that the “Steves” are affirming their support of a quite specific statement that says they think evolution is a good scientific theory, but to sign Bob’s list one only has to have a desire to oppose the big bang. People who have religious motivations (creationists), people with fringe scientific views at odds with some big bang concepts, people who have scientifically credible views differing from the big bang, people who just can’t get past the idea of time starting when the universe did – all of these could be, and most likely are, found among those who have signed Bob’s petition.

The next thing I notice is that the academic and professional credentials of the signers to Bob’s list are vastly fuzzier, and probably lower, than the Steves. To be a Steve signer, I think one has to have a doctorate, and be working as a scientist, or retired from such work. It can be inferred that most of the top signers on Bob’s list have advanced degrees, and probably work in science. About the last half of the list could be Junior High kids playing a joke.

And thirdly are the numbers themselves. 500 signed Bob’s list. Almost 1200 Steves have signed the Steve list. But adjust that to compensate for the fact that the Steves have to be named Steve (or a close variant) and it turns out there are probably 120,000 PhDs that would sign the Steve list, if only their parents had named them Steve. Bob has a list of malcontents against the big bang that is less than one-half of one percent of the list supporting evolution.

Oh well, I suspect for Bob, having 500 names drawn from the length and breadth of big bang malcontents is sufficient.

 

[The Barbarian]

Actually, to sign, one has to have a doctorate in biology or a related field, and to be named "Steve" or some variant, like "Stephanie."

Bob's list includes things like engineers, "safety specialists" and so on. And apparently, PhDs aren't required.

I once went through the list and found three Steves who met the requirements for Project Steve. Last time I checked it was about 0.3%.

 

[Refractive]

The liberal churches that affirm abortion and homosexuality and that deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ -- all began their moral and spiritual slide by denying the historicity of the foundation book of Genesis.

Could I just ask please for a list, or example, of a "liberal church" that affirms abortion and denies the resurrection? I'm assuming this means "liberal Christian church?" I'm just curious because I never heard of that.

 

[Refractive]

Don't see how. If two individuals were given immortal souls by God, and we all descended from them, it's perfectly compatible with the evidence.

And it has the virtue of explaining why our bodies are produced naturally, but our souls come directly from God.

If it happened long ago enough, the fact of soul could give the individuals quite a strong evolutionary advantage.

You know, at some point we all derive from a single individual who's chromosomes 2A and 2B chromosomes stuck together. We're all that's left of the hominid radiation. I don't see why two humans couldn't later on spawn the whole lot of us.

 

[The Barbarian]

I don't see why two humans couldn't later on spawn the whole lot of us.

No reason why they couldn't. Only those with an agenda to keep reality and faith apart would want to argue otherwise.

 

[Sherman]

Today is following in their footsteps with their claim that God put a human soul into animals that had evolved from ape-like creatures.

​

:doh:

As a kid I was fascinated with books on human evolution. There were a lot of illustrations like this in some of the books.

The school system teaches kids that their ancestors looked and behaved like this. Now it is creeping into the Church and Christian organizations like Christianity Today. It is no small wonder that teens behave like apes!

My son invited his school friends over a couple of years over. Seriously, it was like having a bunch of chimps on the property. They tossed cigarette ash, a plate and spoons down the laundry chute. They broke glass and scattered pop cans all over the yard. The damaged the bannister in the stair well. I had to do repairs in the property after they left.

Christianity Today is way out of line doing away with the six literal days. This slippery slope is going to lead to all kinds of unholy things. In a few years they will be advocating abortion and homosexuality--if they haven't already done so. Darwinist macro Evolution is a deception that undermines the foundation of the Bible.

Data collected is interpreted according to worldview. One who accept the Darwin model sees similarity in the genome and he says common ancestry. One who accepts the Bible sees the same similarities and he says same building blocks and same builder.

Mitochondrial Eve - 6000 years ago. Sounds very familiar.

Good show!

 

[The Barbarian]

If you were right, the kids of scientists would be more criminal than average. And the opposite is true.

BTW, the evidence shows mitochondrial Eve to be about 200, 000 years back, and she was just the last common female ancestor of humans, not the first human.

More like Mrs. Noah, than Eve. And a lot older than creationists would like.

 

[Sherman]

If you were right, the kids of scientists would be more criminal than average. And the opposite is true.

I was raised as a intellectual and grew up believing in this stuff. I would tend to agree people brought up as intellectuals and scientists would tend to be more civil at least I hope they would because they have goals in life they want to attain. I am observing the impact of this on the average kid, one that does not have the talents to become a doctor, a scientist or an engineer. The average kid thinks he has no more value than an ape or a blob of cells. He is even taught that humans have evolved into a blight on this planet. He is sitting there thinking, as my son so eloquently put it, I stink! The average kid doesn't have a glittery talent to latch onto a give him a sense of self worth. So they seek it someplace else. That why we have kids joining gangs and getting in trouble. Teaching a kid that he is a special creation of God gives him a sense of self worth regardless of his talents or his intellect.

Rejecting the Genesis account and teaching kids that they are a product of chance has a trickle down effect on society. It may not impact every individual the same way, but it has a net effect on society. That impact has not been positive.

 

[The Barbarian]

I was raised as a intellectual and grew up believing in this stuff.

Lucky you. I was raised in a working-class family, and only in my last two years of high school, realized that I could make my way in college.

I would tend to agree people brought up as intellectuals and scientists would tend to be more civil at least I hope they would because they have goals in life they want to attain. I am observing the impact of this on the average kid, one that does not have the talents to become a doctor, a scientist or an engineer.

I have worked with a lot of kids in scouts, church, sports, and as a teacher. The average ones don't think about it much, and more of them are creationists, than the gifted ones.

The average kid thinks he has no more value than an ape or a blob of cells.

I'd hate to live where you do. Not like that in any place I've ever lived.

He is even taught that humans have evolved into a blight on this planet.

Could you show me what school district teaches that in their curriculum? I truly would like to know. I'll write them a nasty letter myself, if you can show me this.

He is sitting there thinking, as my son so eloquently put it, I stink! The average kid doesn't have a glittery talent to latch onto a give him a sense of self worth. So they seek it someplace else. That why we have kids joining gangs and getting in trouble.

So all that evidence showing that it's poverty, ignorance, and parental neglect is wrong. We just have to hide the evidence for evolution from them. You expect us to believe that? Seriously?

Teaching a kid that he is a special creation of God gives him a sense of self worth regardless of his talents or his intellect.

Some people used to think criminals and bullies were suffering from poor self-esteem. Turns out the opposite is true. They have an exaggerated sense of self-worth.

Rejecting the Genesis account and teaching kids that they are a product of chance has a trickle down effect on society.

If so, you should be working to see that they learn about evolution. Natural selection is not about chance.

It may not impact every individual the same way, but it has a net effect on society.

If you're right, it's a positive one. But I'd be happy to see your evidence that evolution motivates kids to be evil.

 

[One Eyed Jack]

You don't get it.

Oh, I get it all right. You don't.

The argument in the link was that explanations without a beginning were better explanations of the data. You can't say "hey this guy agrees with me" when they only agree with one tiny part of what you're saying and directly oppose the other half of what you've said. It's nonsense.

I can agree that there's a problem, yet disagree with the proposed solution, Alate_One. Something your liberal mind doesn't seem capable of grasping.

 

[Refractive]

The average kid thinks he has no more value than an ape or a blob of cells. He is even taught that humans have evolved into a blight on this planet. He is sitting there thinking, as my son so eloquently put it, I stink! The average kid doesn't have a glittery talent to latch onto a give him a sense of self worth.

This is a picture of the most beautiful girl in the world:

She has no "glittery talent." Because that's not where self-esteem comes from. It comes from being valued. It comes from your Dad and your Mom, who smile when they see you and are happy you are there and say something welcoming instead of: "There you are - I thought I told you to take out the trash."

Kids get self-esteem because you want to spend time with them, because that makes you happy, more than you want to: play golf, watch TV, post on TOL.

The fact is: humanity is a blight on the world. Want to kill two birds with one stone? Find a place to volunteer to make it better. YOU find it. You take your son fishing or hiking or any place at all and carry a trash bag with you and start picking up the trash. You find an elderly person who can't take care of their own property and you two go do something. You go to the local animal shelter and walk dogs. You get some way together to make some money and give it all to the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging and save the life of a child or an old person and their whole family.

And you don't do this to "fix" him, you do it because he'll be gone soon and you want to be with him as much as you possibly can because if he were gone, truly gone forever, your life would suck tidewater.

You make him know, through your own actions, that the fact that he exists matters. And every single time you see him, the first thing that should happen is a big smile should shine from you as you behold the most beautiful kid in the world and you open your arms to your child.

Now get off this stupid computer before your child decides he is just worthless enough to not have to be here at all.

My child and yours both have the same incredible talent as we do: to bring Light to the world. They are incredibly powerful beings.

God bless you and your child abundantly.

 

[Sherman]

This is a picture of the most beautiful girl in the world:

....Now get off this stupid computer before your child decides he is just worthless enough to not have to be here at all

Nice post. The only problem with it, you make this judgement about me without even knowing who I am.

My son is grown and in the Army. I did what you have described in your post. He has dyslexia. I spent a lot of time with him, helping him overcome this disability. And now my son is a soldier that I am very proud of.