Creationists: can you explain post-Flood repopulation?

[dad]

Doesn't matter. Rapid evolution won't produce the distribution of genetic variation that we observe.

Still waiting for your answer as to why exactly this would be true. Tick tick....

 

[sfs]

Still waiting for your answer as to why exactly this would be true. Tick tick....

Here. If you don't understand, ask questions.

 

[sfs]

That's the foundation of science. We can test things now and in the future.
But we can't test things in the past. Sorry.....but time has screwed you.

Sorry, but scientists test things from the past all the time. They study the past, they give scientific talks about the past, they write scientific papers about the past, scientific journals publish those papers about the past, and scientific funding agencies fund their studies of the past. The idea that we can't study the past is something you made up.

 

[AV1611VET]

Sorry, but scientists test things from the past all the time. They study the past, they give scientific talks about the past, they write scientific papers about the past, scientific journals publish those papers about the past, and scientific funding agencies fund their studies of the past. The idea that we can't study the past is something you made up.

Until, of course, the past involves having to uncover a miracle or two, then suddenly uniformitarianism takes precedence over catastrophism ... doesn't it?

The past is fun to ignore/rewrite, isn't it?

 

[Mr Strawberry]

Until, of course, the past involves having to uncover a miracle or two, then suddenly uniformitarianism takes precedence over catastrophism ... doesn't it?

The past is fun to ignore/rewrite, isn't it?

What miracles?

 

[AV1611VET]

Until, of course, the past involves having to uncover a miracle or two, then suddenly uniformitarianism takes precedence over catastrophism ... doesn't it?

The past is fun to ignore/rewrite, isn't it?

What miracles?

Thanks for the QED.

 

[Mr Strawberry]

Thanks for the QED.

You need evidence if you want tall tales to no longer be tall tales.

 

[AV1611VET]

You need evidence ...

No.

You need evidence.

 

[Mr Strawberry]

No.

You need evidence.

Sad.

 

[AV1611VET]

Sad.

Yup.

As we like to say about the Saducees:

They didn't believe in the Resurrection, so they're sad, you see.

 

[sfs]

Until, of course, the past involves having to uncover a miracle or two, then suddenly uniformitarianism takes precedence over catastrophism ... doesn't it?

Nope. If you can offer empirical evidence for a miracle, science can address the event. What have you got?

The past is fun to ignore/rewrite, isn't it?

Nope. Ignoring reality is your specialty -- and your boast -- not mine. i feel constrained to deal with reality, not tell it to take a hike.

 

[SteveB28]

It could happen if people didn't experience the time.
Which would be the case as described in scripture.

That is arrant nonsense. We know the speed of light. We know the distance of those stars. It is ridiculously simple to then calculate the TIME it took for that light to reach us. And the time it takes to continue to reach us.

 

[AV1611VET]

Nope. If you can offer empirical evidence for a miracle, science can address the event. What have you got?

I got nothing -- which is more than science has got.

God created the universe ex nihilo, that means "out of nothing."

But I have a feeling they won't believe it.

John 8:45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

Nope. Ignoring reality is your specialty -- and your boast -- not mine. i feel constrained to deal with reality, not tell it to take a hike.

That's your prerogative.

 

[AV1611VET]

It is ridiculously simple to then calculate the TIME it took for that light to reach us.

But not the DATE it reached us?

 

[lifepsyop]

Putting on fast forward is fine. A rapidly expanding population, though, leaves very clear genetic traces. Whatever genetic variation was in the original tiny population remains, at a frequency not too different from what it started with. For Noah and family, that would mean a minimum frequency of 10%, since there were 10 independent copies of the genome on the Ark. As the population expands, some of those variants will drift down in frequency some, so that you'll find lots of variants in around 10% of chromosomes (and around 20%, etc), some around 5%, and fewer and fewer as you look at rarer variants. There will also be a sprinkling of rare variants, from new mutations.

Real genetic variation data looks nothing at all like this. There are roughly ten times as many variants at 1% frequency as there are at 10%, and more than a hundred times as many at 0.1% frequency.

So that's the challenge: explain why there are millions of low frequency genetic variants in the human population.

ETA: Mind you, that's not the only genetic problem with the Flood, but it's probably the easiest to explain.

I'm afraid I don't understand your argument in light of statements like this from the literature:


Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans - Nature 2004

In particular, the MRCA [Most Recent Common Ancestor] of all present-day humans lived just a few thousand years ago in these models. Moreover, among all individuals living more than just a few thousand years earlier than the MRCA, each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.

Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans : Abstract : Nature


On the Common Ancestors of All Living Humans - MIT 2003

This study introduces a large-scale, detailed computer
model of recent human history which suggests that the
common ancestor of everyone alive today very likely lived
between 2,000 and 5,000 years ago. Furthermore, the
model indicates that nearly everyone living a few thousand
years prior to that time is either the ancestor of no
one or of all living humans.

http://tedlab.mit.edu/~dr/Papers/Rohde-MRCA-two.pdf


So maybe you can elaborate...

 

[sfs]

I got nothing -- which is more than science has got.

God created the universe ex nihilo, that means "out of nothing."

But I have a feeling they won't believe it.

John 8:45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.

That's your prerogative.

Focus. The question under discussion was, can science study past events? Your (and my) personal beliefs are not relevant to that question unless they involve science.

 

[sfs]

I'm afraid I don't understand your argument in light of statements like this from the literature:


Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans - Nature 2004

In particular, the MRCA [Most Recent Common Ancestor] of all present-day humans lived just a few thousand years ago in these models. Moreover, among all individuals living more than just a few thousand years earlier than the MRCA, each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.

So maybe you can elaborate...

That kind of study is trying to estimate the time to the most recent common ancestor of human beings. Genetic variation depends on the time to the most recent common ancestor of chunks of DNA. The two are fundamentally different because people have two parents while DNA only has one parent; each piece of DNA you have descends from a piece that one of your parents had. The number of genealogical ancestors you have doubles every generation, and quickly grows to be an enormous number as you look back into the past -- quickly enough that you don't have to go back very far until everyone alive is descended from the same set of ancestors.

The number of DNA ancestors does not increase at all as you look back. If you're looking at a set of ancestral DNA for, say, the modern population, the number of ancestors only decreases as you look back, as some modern pieces share a common ancestral piece (in the language of population genetics, the number of lineages decreases as they coalesce at different times in the past).

The time to the most recent genealogical ancestor of all humans is indeed a few thousand years (unless Australia was completely cut off from gene flow, in which case it was ~65,000 years). The time to the most recent common ancestor of all human DNA varies from place to place in the genome, but averages around a million years.

 

[AV1611VET]

The question under discussion was, can science study past events?

Yes.

In my opinion, science can study past events.

 

[lifepsyop]

That kind of study is trying to estimate the time to the most recent common ancestor of human beings. Genetic variation depends on the time to the most recent common ancestor of chunks of DNA. The two are fundamentally different because people have two parents while DNA only has one parent; each piece of DNA you have descends from a piece that one of your parents had. The number of genealogical ancestors you have doubles every generation, and quickly grows to be an enormous number as you look back into the past -- quickly enough that you don't have to go back very far until everyone alive is descended from the same set of ancestors.

The number of DNA ancestors does not increase at all as you look back. If you're looking at a set of ancestral DNA for, say, the modern population, the number of ancestors only decreases as you look back, as some modern pieces share a common ancestral piece (in the language of population genetics, the number of lineages decreases as they coalesce at different times in the past).

The time to the most recent genealogical ancestor of all humans is indeed a few thousand years (unless Australia was completely cut off from gene flow, in which case it was ~65,000 years). The time to the most recent common ancestor of all human DNA varies from place to place in the genome, but averages around a million years.

It sounds like you're arguing against the amount of genetic diversity since the creation of humans from the beginning, instead of post-flood re-population. Otherwise I'm hearing contradictory statements, i.e. It's acceptable that humans share a common human ancestor only a few thousand years ago.. but this is unacceptable at the same time. That's what I'm confused about.

 

[Aman777]

Meanwhile, no creationist has explained how the Flood is consistent with observed genetic diversity.

Dear sfs, I have. Noah's grandsons married and produced today's Humans with the prehistoric people who were already here when Noah arrived. This was some 10k years ago and there were millions of people here who provided the genetic diversity shown in today's Humans. Gen 6:4 God Bless you