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Author Topic:   All Human Beings Are Descendants of Adam
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 80 of 118 (609890)
03-24-2011 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 78 by Europa
03-24-2011 7:35 AM


Re: Becoming Human
Hi Europa,
So, instead of saying ME had companions, why don't we say we do not know whether ME had companions?
I am not saying that ME is the Bilical Eve. But, because we have someone like ME, I think it favours the theory that we are descendants of a single human being. Why then is the theory of bottlenecking more plausible than the theory that we descended from a single human being?
Well this is awkward...
You do know about the birds and the bees don't you?
Mutate and Survive

On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Europa, posted 03-24-2011 7:35 AM Europa has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 85 by Europa, posted 03-26-2011 4:49 AM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 93 of 118 (610098)
03-26-2011 10:30 AM
Reply to: Message 85 by Europa
03-26-2011 4:49 AM


Re: Becoming Human
Hi Europa,
No, I do not know about the birds and the bees.
Well, when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much and they want to have a little baby, they have a sort of special cuddle...

Okay. Amusing though this is, let's just get to the point; why are you talking about a single ancestor? Surely the absolute minimum number for any population is two? A man and a woman. Because, well, y'know...
Even the most bonkers-in-the-nut creationists generally accept that we are descended from at least two people. I mean, if you were talking about all humans being descended from an ancestral pair that would make a bit more sense. It would still be wrong, but at least it wouldn't be quite so obviously loopy.
It takes two to tango Europa.
Mutate and Survive

On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by Europa, posted 03-26-2011 4:49 AM Europa has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 97 by Europa, posted 03-26-2011 11:21 AM Granny Magda has replied

  
Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 98 of 118 (610110)
03-26-2011 11:26 AM
Reply to: Message 97 by Europa
03-26-2011 11:21 AM


Re: Becoming Human
Really? Enlighten me then.

Look at it this way Europa; what use is this statement that you are so keen on? What does the statement "We are all descendants of one person" tell us?
Certainly it is true in a sense. mt-Eve was one person and we are all her descendants. This is true.
However, this is far from the whole story. mt-Eve was part of a functioning human population of many individuals. Every person living will have some ancestry with those people as well - but only with some of them. Nor would those shared traits be universally shared amongst all living humans.
Worse is that the statement can be too easily taken out of context, as I have been trying to show you above. The simple, natural and straightforward meaning of "we are all descendants of one person." is that we are all descendants of only one person, a statement that is clearly absurd.
For these reasons, I don't really see the point in this line that you are trying to push. Simply saying "we are all descendants of one person." is both incomplete and misleading, too easily susceptible to being misunderstood or deliberately taken out of context. Whilst being trivially true, the statement tells us very little. Such a statement needs context in order to make sense. you seem to want to remove all context from this statement. In doing so, you are robbing it of any communicative power.
As for saying "ME may not necessarily be the BIBLICAL Eve. ", you are implying that mt-Eve might be the biblical Eve. This is not so. mt-Eve cannot possibly be the biblical Eve. The biblical Eve lived as part of a very tiny population, just her and Adam. mt-Eve lived as part of a much larger and more diverse population. If she had been one of a single pair of humans, the genetic bottleneck would be very clear and easy to observe. It is not observed, thus mt-Eve is not the biblical Eve. Further, one would expect that mt-Eve and Y-chromosome Adam would have existed at the same time. They did not. Thus, mt-Eve is not the biblical Eve
Any attempt to talk around this simple fact just comes across as blowing smoke. It is a very poor attempt at a Christian apologetic and it is worse attempt to understand biology. If understanding evolution really is your intent, I suggest that you drop the insistence on this "descendants of one person" soundbite and just forget about the Bible. It's not helping.
Mutate and Survive
Edited by Granny Magda, : No reason given.

On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage

This message is a reply to:
 Message 97 by Europa, posted 03-26-2011 11:21 AM Europa has not replied

  
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