bcspace wrote:Hence no conflict with science on this issue (and most other, if not all, issues as well).
beefcalf wrote:bcspace,
I do not believe you can properly reconcile any belief in Adam as the father of all humans on Earth with a correct understanding of how human evolution actually happened. If you ask any evolutionary biologist, I am confident that none of them would agree that the human species was ever whittled down to even as few as ten-thousand breeding pairs, much less one breeding pair, as envisioned in Genesis.
In other words, the humans which presently inhabit the earth cannot have all descended from a single human ancestor, or a single male-female pair.
If all humanity does not descend from one woman and one man, there is no place along the continuum for you to slap the label 'first man' and 'first woman'. If there is no Adam, there is no fall, etc. etc. etc.
There is strong evidence that all living humans today have mitochondrial DNA from a single female common ancestor, sometimes known as the Mitochondrial Eve. It is estimated that the Mitochondrial Eve lived some 200,000 years ago in East Africa. The patrilinial most recent common male ancestor (Y-Chromosomal Adam) lived some 50,000 to 80,000 years later than the Mitochondrial Eve.
A scientist named Mark Stoneking and his then wife, Dr. Geraldine Lee, did seminal work in population genetics and statistics in this area. A short interview with Dr. Stoneking that explains the concept very clearly can be seen here:
http://www.dnalc.org/view/15165-Mitochondrial-Eve-Mark-Stoneking.html.
Dr. Lee and I have worked together and published as co-authors since, and have spent many hours on airplanes and in the field discussing these issues.
It might take a bit of time to get one's head around the whole concept. (I know it did for me.) Drawing it out on a piece of paper, or having a look at the graphic at the URL below, can help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MatrilinealAncestor.PNG (MRCA = most recent common ancestor.)
Also keep in mind that female mitichondrial DNA is passed along, without recombination, to the daugter.
So, population genetics and statistics show that there is but one female common ancestor (with an unbroken matriarchal DNA line) to everyone living today. This female existed at the same time as thousands of other females. However, she was the only one whose pure lineage has survived. (That is, her contemporaries have no surviving offspring, or at least no surviving female offspring.)
Again, Dr. Stoneking gives a good explanation in the video.
Thus, in a sense, Eve (an anatomically modern human female) and Adam (an anatomically modern male), both of whom are related to all humans today, did exist at one time (but tens of thousands of years apart).
I am not defending BCSPace's position here. BCSpace just makes this stuff up as he goes along without regard for facts, scientific or otherwise.
Just mentioning a few fine points.
