The challenge for Theistic Evolutionists

[EternalDragon]

Um. No.

From the source you yourself used.



Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor. Not the first woman. Not the oldest. She had a natural mother and father.

Keep in mind, I'm getting this from YOUR source.

If the human population never dropped below tens of thousands, then there was always that many humans alive on the earth? Always? I suspect you will probably imply they were here but in different morphological forms?

So if we go back far enough we run into a bottleneck, do we not?

Tens of thousands would leave millions and millions of fossils, no?

 

[StormanNorman]

Why even call her "Mitochondrial Eve" when you don't believe in Eve at all? That's like debating about a God you claim doesn't exist. Oh, wait.... that happens all the time.

That's just what they call her, dude ... it doesn't really matter all that much ....

 

[StormanNorman]

If the human population never dropped below tens of thousands, then there was always that many humans alive on the earth? Always? I suspect you will probably imply they were here but in different morphological forms?

So if we go back far enough we run into a bottleneck, do we not?

Tens of thousands would leave millions and millions of fossils, no?

Why?? Fossilization is a rather rare process especially in jungle environments.

 

[AV1611VET]

Why even call her "Mitochondrial Eve" when you don't believe in Eve at all? That's like debating about a God you claim doesn't exist. Oh, wait.... that happens all the time.

Scientists, while claiming God doesn't exist, won't hesitate to use Christian terminology:

1. God particle
2. y-Adam
3. mtDNA Eve
4. El Niño
5. [blasphemy] La Niña [/blasphemy]

 

[EternalDragon]

Why?? Fossilization is a rather rare process especially in jungle environments.

Yeah, I know. The body has to be buried rather quickly in the ground.

Like how humans bury their dead for instance. Or how a flood would
bury things quickly.

Your statement is not consistent with the facts.

 

[StormanNorman]

Yeah, I know. The body has to be buried rather quickly in the ground.

Like how humans bury their dead for instance. Or how a flood would
bury things quickly.

Your statement is not consistent with the facts.

How so? Which facts?

 

[EternalDragon]

How so? Which facts?

Fossil facts.

Only 6,000 ancient human fossils? In a million or so years?

And I am not even including animal fossils yet.

 

[StormanNorman]

Fossil facts.

So, how do the "fossil facts" not jive with my previous statement?

 

[Dizredux]

Originally Posted by Dizredux

This involves the fallacy of the excluded middle. There are other options.

No, there are not. Removing the six day creation and the first three chapters of Genesis denies several core principles of the Bible INCLUDING one of the Ten Commandments. It is NOT possible for the Bible to be true if its core principles are false. It is NOT possible for man to have evolved if God created him on day six.

If you do not see other options, that is not saying anything about there being other options only that you appear to be rejecting the possibilities because they do not agree with your religious convictions but there are indeed other options.

No it really doesn't. It tells us that there is, to date, no evidence that this can happen.

You failed biology, I take it. "Once the flesh begins to rot, there's no possibility of resuscitation. A word of clarification, however: flesh can die in areas around the body even on a live person. That's why frostbite turns black. When we talk about decomposition being a sign of death, we are suggesting the entire body has begun to decompose and that the person is not breathing and the heart is not beating."

Remind me where it says in the Bible that Jesus's flesh was rotting. BTW I was not insulting you just commenting on some of your statements. The comment about failing biology was gratuitous and uncalled for plus being rather petty.

There are however instances of people who are apparently dead that have recovered.

You're begging the question. Being apparently dead is not the same as being dead. Lazarus had begun to decompose. Jesus was also clearly dead. Science cannot account for someone actually BEING DEAD for three days and returning to life.

I have no doubt that Jesus was dead and returned but I cannot support it with objective fact nor do I need to but you appear to have that need. One might ask why?

It is part of my faith that Jesus did return but that is my faith and that is adequate for me. I feel no need to try to present it as scientific fact.

No it doesn't. It only tells us that there is, to date, no evidence of this.

Do you really think that something non-physical is going to leave physical evidence?

No but God-did-it leaves us with no way to go very far as studying the world we live in. That God did it is my faith but not necessarily my facts. To paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "You have the right to your own faith but not your own facts".

Oh my, I can see no way for you to back that up except by rejecting the principle of scientific evidence and the *huge* amounts of evidence for biological evolution.

There is no scientific evidence for origination.

Origin of life is not part of evolution.

There is no proof of evolution.

I thought you understood that science does not do "proof" and here you are faulting science for not having proof. A tad confusing I would say.

Science can only offer a natural explanation for things. If something is supernatural, science cannot possibly supply the correct answer.

That is true but where does that leave us? If you wish to study the world around us by scientific methodology, the supernatural must be left out; not rejected, just left out. My question is how do we know that something supernatural is "the correct answer" except by faith. Science cannot touch it so cannot even address the question much less the answer.

I am a bit confused here. You start off by saying that science cannot deal with the supernatural then chastise it because it does not deal with the supernatural.

Interesting points but not very consistent.

Dizredux

 

[StormanNorman]

Fossil facts.

Only 6,000 ancient human fossils? In a million or so years?

6,000?? When I google human fossils, I get this list which looks like maybe 100 or 150 fossils listed. Now, granted, this list probably doesn't include fragment fossils, etc., but only the more substantial specimens.

List of human evolution fossils - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And I am not even including animal fossils yet.

Well, I hope not as I thought we were talking about human evolution.

 

[EternalDragon]

6,000?? When I google human fossils, I get this list which looks like maybe 100 or 150 fossils listed. Now, granted, this list probably doesn't include fragment fossils, etc., but only the more substantial specimens.

List of human evolution fossils - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Well, I hope not as I thought we were talking about human evolution.

Yes, only 6,000 where there should be billions. Your Wiki page mentions thousands in the very first sentence.

Human Fossils | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program

 

[TLK Valentine]

Scientists have borrowed terms from all sorts of mythological stories to name things...

Scientists, while claiming God doesn't exist, won't hesitate to use Christian terminology:

1. God particle
2. y-Adam
3. mtDNA Eve
4. El Niño
5. [blasphemy] La Niña [/blasphemy]

So what? Christians, while claiming no other gods exist, won't hesitate to use pagan terminology...

Would you like the list, or have I made my point?

 

[StormanNorman]

Yes, only 6,000 where there should be billions. Your Wiki page mentions thousands in the very first sentence.

Human Fossils | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program

Why should there be billions? Again, fossilization is rather rare. And, along the same logic, where all the people that died in the flood (not that they would already be fossils necessarily)?

 

[EternalDragon]

Why should there be billions? Again, fossilization is rather rare. And, along the same logic, where all the people that died in the flood (not that they would be fossils necessarily)?

In many cultures, human corpses were usually buried in soil. The roots of burial as a practice reach back into the Middle Palaeolithic and coincides with the appearance of Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens, in Europe and Africa respectively.

Burial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's like 2.6 million years ago. Tens of thousands of humans as Black Akuma states, would equal a billion graves at very, very extremely conservative calculations. Using just 100,000 years instead of millions.

 

[StormanNorman]

In many cultures, human corpses were usually buried in soil. The roots of burial as a practice reach back into the Middle Palaeolithic and coincides with the appearance of Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens, in Europe and Africa respectively.

Burial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's like 2.6 million years ago. Tens of thousands of humans as Black Akuma states, would equal a billion graves at very, very extremely conservative calculations. Using just 100,000 years instead of millions.

Well, first of all, it's not 2.6 million years ago. Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens came much, much later than that. Your link says that the earliest burial appears to have been 100,000 years ago. But, a couple of more points:
- Just because there were some burials doesn't mean they all did it or even many did it. These were not societies; they were primitive nomadics following the animals.
- Also, burial doesn't necessarily lead to fossilization; what's the percentage?

And, how many ancient Romans, Greeks, Germanics, etc. have we found buried randomly (without the help of written history)? My point is that there is a lot of earth out there and comparatively not that much digging. I mean you just don't dig for no reason. My understanding is that most Neanderthal fossils have been found accidentally when people were digging for other reasons (buildings, etc.). There's probably lots more out there, but the world is a big place.

 

[Strathos]

"La Niña" is just Spanish for "the (female) child".

 

[Black Akuma]

In many cultures, human corpses were usually buried in soil. The roots of burial as a practice reach back into the Middle Palaeolithic and coincides with the appearance of Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens, in Europe and Africa respectively.

Burial - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's like 2.6 million years ago. Tens of thousands of humans as Black Akuma states, would equal a billion graves at very, very extremely conservative calculations. Using just 100,000 years instead of millions.

I would like to see your 'extremely conservative calculations'.

 

[Oncedeceived]

From the Wikipedia article that AV ironically used as a source.



See? It's not the Biblical Eve. It's not one set person anymore than 'World Heavyweight Champion' or 'President of the United States' are. It's a title with specific parameters that can apply to different people as time goes on.

It is not the Biblical Eve. The site you used as a source actually explains this is great detail - you should read the entire article.

This is from another article:

Nuclear DNA changes a lot since it undergoes recombination in every generation. However, the mitochondrial DNA gets transfered from generation to generation without any recombination. Only the normal mutation rate that occurs when DNA is replicated allows the mitochondrial DNA to change. This is why the world wide survey was able to determine that all people are related via some original mother which they called the "mitochondrial Eve". They produced ancestral trees that depended on the slow mutation rate of mitochondrial DNA to estimate how the whole human population came from a single woman.
After the initial discovery of the "mitochondrial Eve", Wilson felt uneasy about using the term "Eve" because it caused many to think that she was the only woman living at that time, much like what is written in Genesis of the Bible concerning Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Also, the usual evolutionary time-scale for man did not allow such a short time as 200,000 years. Rather, it is believed that man has been around for a much longer period of time. Java man is thought to be 800,000 years old. Homo erectus specimens are found all throughout the world. Over forty specimens of Asian Homo erectus which have been found in China, have been dated 220,000 to 500,000 years of age. Lucy, and the earliest remains of specimens that are thought to be of the first to stand upright, are thought to be at least 1 to 4 million years of age.
So, because the presence of man is thought to have been around for a much longer period of time than just 200,000 years, it was concluded that the mitochondrial Eve must not have been the first human female nor would she have been the only female alive at the time. Evolutionists have come to believe that Eve must have been one of many women of her time, in a genetic bottleneck. A time when there were a tiny population of people alive.
It is not known why the human population would became so depleted in a bottleneck. Some suggests that environmental pressures could have brought the human population almost to extinction. It has even been suggested, that the ability to speak languages was a reason why only one group survived over all others. All sorts of reasons have been offered to explain why bottlenecks would exist: a continuous plaque, asteroid impact, or a climate change are just a few of the many ideas.
Many suggest that Eve must have had some vast superiority because her offspring are thought to have conquered the whole world without any evidence of any interbreeding. Others state that selection had nothing to do with the takeover of the human population. They inject that it was a purely statistical process.
The Mitochondrial Eve: Have Scientists Found the Mother of Us All? MHRC


Now standard Biblical understanding surmises that Adam and Eve were the first humans on earth, the first and only humans alive at the time. However, I don't necessarily believe that has to be the case and in fact, I think Scripture supports that other living beings were present at the time:


11 So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth." 13 And Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is greater than I can bear! 14 Surely You have driven me out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me." 15 And the Lord said to him, "Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." And the Lord set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him. 16 Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. 17 And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son--Enoch. 18 To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad begot Mehujael, and Mehujael begot Methushael, and Methushael begot Lamech.


Many have said that Cain married a sister or some other relative but this doesn't fit because we are told that Eve begot two sons but nothing is said of any other offspring earlier or during their time.



IF we look at Adam and Eve being the first humans that are made in the image of God, not the first humans on earth we see it all coming together. IF there were other beings of mankind that were not created in God's image like Adam and Eve, then there would be others at the time. This would also explain why there is a discrepancy in the fossil record and our own ancestry linked to this one woman 200,000 or so years ago. It also fits with the findings that are dubbed the "creative explosion" in the fossil record. Looking at the Biblical narrative in this way not only reconciles the other people that Cain feared and eventually took a wife from and the scientific fossil evidence from the past.

 

[Black Akuma]

This is from another article:

Why are you going to another article? What's wrong with the one you had?

After the initial discovery of the "mitochondrial Eve", Wilson felt uneasy about using the term "Eve" because it caused many to think that she was the only woman living at that time, much like what is written in Genesis of the Bible concerning Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden

I note that your article is devoid of any sources, whatsoever, so I'll have to ask you to provide something to back the claim that this was why Wilson felt 'uneasy'. Presumably, she could have called it whatever she wanted to.

This is why the world wide survey was able to determine that all people are related via some original mother which they called the "mitochondrial Eve".

I'm starting to see why you switched sources. This one - completely unsourced, by the way - agrees with you and makes the same mistakes. The last one, which had sources, doesn't. Not very honest, I have to say.

Many suggest that Eve must have had some vast superiority because her offspring are thought to have conquered the whole world without any evidence of any interbreeding.

Yeah, your link is a joke. No one ever suggested that. Ever. That's utterly ridiculous, and you will find nothing like it any journal, anywhere. You should take better care of the people you cite.

This would also explain why there is a discrepancy in the fossil record and our own ancestry linked to this one woman 200,000 or so years ago.

What discrepancy? Your link never actually explains that or gives any evidence to back it up.

It also fits with the findings that are dubbed the "creative explosion" in the fossil record.

If you're talking about the Cambrian Explosion, it really doesn't. That was much earlier than 200,000 years ago.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Why are you going to another article? What's wrong with the one you had?

Nothing was wrong with it, I just thought this would give you another look at it.

I note that your article is devoid of any sources, whatsoever, so I'll have to ask you to provide something to back the claim that this was why Wilson felt 'uneasy'. Presumably, she could have called it whatever she wanted to.

It was Allen Wilson that was uncomfortable with the name, but he thought at least it go the attention he wanted it to.

I'm starting to see why you switched sources. This one - completely unsourced, by the way - agrees with you and makes the same mistakes. The last one, which had sources, doesn't. Not very honest, I have to say.

Hummmm, I agree. I didn't notice that it didn't have sources. I apologize for that.

Yeah, your link is a joke. No one ever suggested that. Ever. That's utterly ridiculous, and you will find nothing like it any journal, anywhere. You should take better care of the people you cite.

What issue do you take with this statement?

What discrepancy? Your link never actually explains that or gives any evidence to back it up.

They said:

The overtaking of the world's population by Eve's descendants in the last wave, a mere 100,000 years ago, is a point of contention because many of the paleoanthropologists saw a continuity of genetic traits between Homo erectus (the older type of man that Eve's descendants are thought to have killed off) and modern man.
A continuity of genetic traits of the fossil remains suggests that Homo erectus actually had a direct genetic link to the more modern form of man. So, the modern chinese would be the decendants of Chinese erectus.
Paleoanthropologists see this continuity as happening in separate parts of the world at the same time, in a parallel evolutionary process. What they see in the field is: African erectus evolving into modern africans, Chinese erectus evolving into modern chinese, European erectus evolving into Neandertals then modern Europeans, etc.
So, the mitochondrial data seems to be at odds with fossils found in the field. The idea that Eve's children had conquered the whole world without any interbreeding at all, goes against the evidence showing that Homo erectus in various places of the world like China and Africa, look like the modern people of those same regions. Why do the chinese have traits associated with Asian erectus if all the Asian erectus had been wiped out when Eve's descendants arrived in Asia with no interbreeding at all?

If you're talking about the Cambrian Explosion, it really doesn't. That was much earlier than 200,000 years ago.

No, not the Cambrian Explosion.

African Artifacts Suggest an Earlier Modern Human - NYTimes.com



But after more than a decade of controversy, the South African cave artifacts are now being generally accepted as the earliest evidence of such modern human behavior. If correct, these and other findings establish that Homo sapiens came out of Africa not only with fully modern anatomies, but also with at least 30,000 years of experience in modern behavior. Dr. Potts said the beginning of this gradual behavioral evolution might reach back more than 200,000 years.