Is it possible for a couple to populate the entire earth with all the genetic variations in 7500 years? (Adam's creation has been dated between anywhere from 3760BC to 5411BC according to different versions of bible. Archibiship James Ussher of Armagh calculated Adam's birthday to be exactly March 21, 4004BC assuming there are only 6 days between cosmic nothingness to creation of Adam) Are we really all inbreds of Adam and Eve? If either Adam and Eve possess recessive genes such as blue eye, we should still see blue eyes everywhere. We don't see blue eyes anywhere though. Is it a new mutation that just occured within last 6000 years or somehow blue eyes cannot survive natural selection in Africa and Asia? How about skin color?

Some fundies I met today who self proclaimed to be educated try to convince me that Adam is indeed the first human being ever.

We evolved from green soup.

Substantial anthropology indicates that humans have been in existence far longer than the postulated dates above. But how could you create all the skin colors and different races within 7500 years? Sounds unlikely to me.

I have an idea in response to the fundies. Let's create a religion worshipping Lucy. The Heaven-Sent Official Synagogue of Lucyism.

And also, I introduce His, and Only His Holiest Church of AntiInfidelity QuasiBaptist Male Australopithecusism.

Or how about the Holy Green Soup "There Was an Adam, but He Had Gills!" Church.

U really have to get a grip on what the bible really means and not turn into a creationist. The bible is metaphorical. We started off with black coloured skin and brown eyes.

Adam and Eve can be thought like pure/perfect man & women free from all defects & aging & environmental contaminations. Can we differanciate between present man & women AND Adam and Eve? I mean to say what we gain or lost during this period.

Because we all only have one father and one mother it should be possible to go back far enough in time to find the adam and eve ancestors that we all have in common.

They might not have lived at the same time though and might not be human.

They might not have lived at the same time though and might not be human. It interest me a lot-- when some ancient mentioning is shown as human but may actually not be a human in today's human body's form. Some differance of basic & gross or micro or macro. :)

IIRC, you need at least 50 members of a species for a viable gene pool.

IIRC, you need at least 50 members of a species for a viable gene pool.

I don't understand. What happens if you don't have a viable gene pool?

no, mitochondiral testing put the first women back much further then 75,000 when people began to leave africa, let alone 7500 years! Though those result are controversial the most important fact was that it was not a single women but a group of proto-homo sapiens (homo erectus?) that we can trace back to, so there most likely never was one women that could have been label as the first human women (mitochondrial eve).

Joeman,

to answer alpha, something weird and usually to inbred to live, it theorized that extra small breeding populations may actually survive, but will result in rapid genetic drift and you could end up with a new species.

I don't understand. What happens if you don't have a viable gene pool?Inbreeding. Not enough genetic diversity. Offspring are deformed and have defects, etc. Eventually a species would die off.

One would guess that Adam and Eve are perfect, absolutely no defects It is possible to create a vast population of humans from just two but you'll have implement very careful breading. By keeping an eye on genetic anomalies and stopping all but the most healthy of the species from breading. I would guess that after about 15-20 generations you could start to feel safe and relax the criteria for breading, but your still on dangerous ground. Modern tech would help a great deal allowing you to screen offspring before implantation allowing for more productive breading. The question is who is in control, who judges every child and determines what is advantageous and what is not.

One would guess that Adam and Eve are perfect, absolutely no defects No, if they're human, they're certainly not perfect. According to that reason, they'd be much the same as we are now due to the presumption that evolution is false. We certainly are not perfect, so neither would they have been. Unless we evolved to be different and somehow less perfect... ;)
It is possible to create a vast population of humans from just two but you'll have implement very careful breading.No it's not. Not without some serious genetic engineering which we won't have the capability to do for a long time to come. Especially if bans on genetic research keep up. With only two members of the species, every instance of breeding after the first generation would be inbreeding. There simply isn't enough genetic diversity to continue a species from two members.
By keeping an eye on genetic anomalies and stopping all but the most healthy of the species from breading. I would guess that after about 15-20 generations you could start to feel safe and relax the criteria for breading, but your still on dangerous ground.Genetic anomalies? If you admit evolution then why are you defending the Adam & Eve story?

Alpha can you answer something for me that always confuses me


how does a new speicies begin?

i mean whats the chances of 50 people having the same mutations to created man as oposed to chimps?

Actually how a new species arise is still a controversial and debatable phenomena in biology.

Here's what I think:

'New' species are created when offsprings that branch out - far enough - from the original evolutionary tree. Should apply to us as well. So that means we must have evolved from somewhere, some single-celled microbe... and not created from abrupt and sudden appearance of Adam and Eve.

Alpha can you answer something for me that always confuses me


how does a new speicies begin?

i mean whats the chances of 50 people having the same mutations to created man as oposed to chimps?
Imagine a species with maybe a few million members. Say they start expanding into other territory. So there's several thousand, say, in a new environment. They start adapting to the changes in environment. Now the species is spread across a couple slightly differing environments. Over new generations, they evolve to be better suited to their differing environments, and since these several thousand members are in a different environment, they start to differ from the rest. Eventually they differ to the degree that, while they can still procreate among themselves, they can no longer procreate with members of the species they branched off from. That's where their genes start to diverge more rapidly, because there's no more combining genes with the same species. Now there's two species, that while similar, can no longer produce offspring amongst each other. The new species may also be better suited to a wider variety of environments and may outlast the species it branched off from.

No, if they're human, they're certainly not perfect. According to that reason, they'd be much the same as we are now due to the presumption that evolution is false. We certainly are not perfect, so neither would they have been. Unless we evolved to be different and somehow less perfect...
I beg to differ. Perfection is the ability to breed, to survive until the next generation is independent. Perfect does not mean beauty, or athletism, or even intelligence. Perfection is simply a lack of congenital defects that impair the ability of the species to breed now or many generations away.
No it's not. Not without some serious genetic engineering which we won't have the capability to do for a long time to come. Especially if bans on genetic research keep up. With only two members of the species, every instance of breeding after the first generation would be inbreeding. There simply isn't enough genetic diversity to continue a species from two members.
Selective breading does not requirer advance genetic knowledge. It simply requires a control that will stop the breeding of individuals that do not meet a set criteria. That being the ability to breed fertile offspring. Inbreeding is only a problem if it is left unchecked, allowing for the pollution of the gene pool of undesirable congenital defects. In 1788 just five rabbits where brought to Australia with the first fleet, from these 5 a large feral population had been established and first reported in 1827. In 1857 another 27 rabbits where introduced. It is clearly possible to have a successfully population from very few individuals, even without selective breeding.
Genetic anomalies? If you admit evolution then why are you defending the Adam & Eve story? Im not defending anything but the possibility of producing a viable species from a single healthy breeding pair.

Genetic aberrations that do not influence the fertility are highly desirable in any small population.

I beg to differ. Perfection is the ability to breed, to survive until the next generation is independent.Um, no. Most species do that, are you saying they're all perfect too?
That's BS, there are so many flaws in human biology, sometimes it seems a wonder we're here.
Inbreeding is only a problem if it is left unchecked,It's also a problem when there's less than 50 members of a species. A big problem. With less than 50 members, there can't not be inbreeding after a few generations.

Inbreeding is a problem if there are faults in the gene pool. These faults may not become apparent for many generations, so the path is dangerous but not impossible. There are many examples of successfully inbreeding as long as there is control. Look at the canines.


That's BS, there are so many flaws in human biology, sometimes it seems a wonder we're here.


Well I must retract the word perfect for it is too subjective. No. Iis aging an imperfection. No it is required. Some would say that the Kidneys are imperfect. Why process all that salt just to put it back into the system, what a waist of energy. But if it does not hinder us does it really matter. What about obesity, but without the ability to store excess energy it is unlikely that we would be here now.

Every life form that is flourishing on this world is perfect. It is not about the individual. Its about the species. We are the most successful mammalian species on this earth, apart from our domesticated animals, and the hanger-on ferals. We are Perfect. You may not be???

Inbreeding is a problem if there are faults in the gene pool.And there always are. The "perfection" of a species is relative to it's environment, and there are flaws in humans that make us imperfect. And if we haven't evolved from Adam & Eve, then they had the same flaws.

We are far from perfect, and so is just about every other creature. Admitted, sharks and crocodiles have barely evolved at all in the past several million years; they are almost perfectly suited to their environments.

Regardless, we cannot have stemmed from Adam & Eve as described in the bible. I suggest you read these:
- http://www.netpets.com/dogs/reference/genetics/diversity.html
- http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may99/926380864.Ge.r.html

Even if Adam & Even did somehow produce enough genetic diversity and population, there's still the supposed global flood that would have set them back to day one, only with less than "perfect" members.

no, mitochondiral testing put the first women back much further then 75,000 when people began to leave africa, let alone 7500 years! Though those result are controversial the most important fact was that it was not a single women but a group of proto-homo sapiens (homo erectus?) that we can trace back to, so there most likely never was one women that could have been label as the first human women (mitochondrial eve).

It appears you don't know what the 'mitochondrial eve' theory is about.

The hypothesis in no way implies that a single woman left Africa and founded the rest of us, it merely means that of all the mtDNA lineages that left Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, only one currently remains. The rest of the lineages, through genetic drift, independent of selection, have gone extinct.

With only two members of the species, every instance of breeding after the first generation would be inbreeding. There simply isn't enough genetic diversity to continue a species from two members.
Genetic anomalies? If you admit evolution then why are you defending the Adam & Eve story?

Ah, in theory you're correct. The theory being genetic load, i.e. the amount of deleterious recessives maintained in a population. If this population becomes very small, then one sees inbreeding depression (a decrease in fecundity due to inbreeding) because of the expression of deleterious recessives.

But, if a population has always remained small, or if it had undergone a series or periodicity of population bottlenecks, then the genetic load can be very small, and can rebound very nicely from very small population abundance.

It has now become a conservation strategy for breeding in captivity of endangered species, forced inbreeding, to eliminate the recessives. An example is Spek's gazelle.

So, it is possible to rebound from population numbers as low as 2. For example, think about island colonizations, Hawaii for example.

Actually how a new species arise is still a controversial and debatable phenomena in biology.

What do you mean? Speciation is a well studied aspect of evolution. In what way is it controversial?

As low as 2? I seriously doubt that. I'd need some evidence or support to believe that claim. There's a reason species are becoming extinct after dropping below a certain population.

I think he gave island colonization as an example.

He didn't name any that occured with only 2 members of a species.

As low as 2? I seriously doubt that. I'd need some evidence or support to believe that claim. There's a reason species are becoming extinct after dropping below a certain population.
Actually, one.

A single pregnant female could be enough.

Read Island Biogeography by MacArthur.

That's still two.
What species? I still find it difficult to believe.

That's still two.
What species? I still find it difficult to believe.
That's the theory of Island Biogeography. No one's asking you to believe it, but now you know of it.

I don't find island speciation very hard to believe. Some islands are just too isolated for 50 members of a single species to arrive there at the same time.

Don't worry Alpha excepting that a fertile pair of perfect individuals can produce a viable population does not mean that god exists. Most animals are perfect. If not this world would be a barren world.

Don't worry Alpha excepting that a fertile pair of perfect individuals can produce a viable population does not mean that god exists.Obviously. I just find it difficult to believe. I always thought you needed at least 50 for a viable gene pool. Perhaps it depends on the species.
Most animals are perfect.I disagree there. I'd say most are not perfect. Actually, I might even say none; perfection is relative.
If not this world would be a barren world.That doesn't follow.

Perfection is the ability to survive thus all living species are perfect. This is just my criteria for perfection. Or should perfection mean some existential nonsense.

Most organisms actually are not perfect at all, but just function well enough to survive and reproduce.

There are spectacular adaptations, but that doesn't mean that organisms are perfect.

EDIT- I came in too late. You explained your definition of perfect.

Perfection is the ability to survive. In my view.

As a species.. Not the individual.

Well, under that definition it's different. Note: that definition can't be applied to Adam & Eve as they are individuals.

No Adam and Eve are a species.. Note that there are two not the singular..

The really hard part to believe is that Adam and Eve could have given rise to are present diversity in just what 7000? years (creationist date please).

Oh Adam and Eve, totally hypothetical situation. 50 thousand to 100 thousand years at least for the human diversity, excluding controlled breeding, with large dispersed populations.

Lets see 7000 years is ~350 generations (~20 years per generation) is that enough time for humans to cover the earth and form every present breed? lets just pretend hypothetically that there was no evidence against this 7000 year limit, then just see if it is hypothetically possible for a Adam and Eve 7000 years ago to beg the human race.

Alpha the thing about inbreeding is wrong

yes SOMETIMES it causes genetic defects (which could be as benifical as halmful you realise) but humans inbreed animals all the time

to get prize dogs and horses ect they breed close relitives together so that the traits you want breed true

this is an artifical version of natural selection but naturally i cant see it working any differently

instead of the aim to benifit the owner to get breed its to survive to breed

B\W they say that every cheater in the world now is inbreed because there DNA is identical

Btw, Is is necessary that they should be in human form? What can be their real form as per science, if we compare their mentioned qualities with any form existed or existing?

I stand corrected. :)
Methinks this thread has been resolved. It may be possible to create the genetic diversity from two people, though highly unlikely, but it couldn't have been done in 6,000 years or less.
Less actually, if you consider that everything was supposedly wiped out in a global flood.

We actually know there were more people than just 2 about 6000 years ago I venture to guess.

Do other ancient religions also mentions somewhat like Adam & Eve?

Do other ancient religions also mentions somewhat like Adam & Eve?

Yes. Almost all ancient pagan religions from Middle East have a story of exactly like Adam and Eve or similar; (According to sacred documents of those religions that has been dug up by archaeologists) therefore a lot of scholars think the story of Adam and Eve in the bible is stolen from a nearby pagan religion.

It may not be stolen but it can be due to some similarities in every religion at some basic level with just name, form & language change & adjusting to some environmental & regional considerations. Let us now try to relate qualities as mentioned of Adam & Eve or other similars: to any possiblity in science. These may need not to be in human form but can be the basis of human bodies.

I think one of the important aspects of this debate hasn't been touched on. At least in terms of Adam and Eve. If you know your Bible, Eve had two sons. Kinda tough to reproduce eh?

If you know your Bible, Eve had two sons. Kinda tough to reproduce eh?

Indeed, but on the plus side, we now know that homosexuality is very old.

So now even if Adam and Eve really did exist (which by the way is complete mythology) we know they could not have spawned the human race alone as eve only had two sons?

Exactly

I thought there was a 10 character post limitation?

I think one of the important aspects of this debate hasn't been touched on. At least in terms of Adam and Eve. If you know your Bible, Eve had two sons. Kinda tough to reproduce eh?


Sorry but it is not that simple.

Genesis 5 - (4) "After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters." (5) Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.

Now if Adam lived 930 years how many children could he have?

Well, first of all, lets remember that Eve was created out of Adam, so they both started out with exactly identical genes (except that Eve had 2 X chromosomes).

Also, I think we can accept the hypothesis that God created Adam (and therefore Eve) with perfect DNA. Perfect in the sense that there were no genes in either set of chromosomes that had a negative impact on the organism.

Now I also think we can assume that God expected them to breed and so he made the two sets of chromosomes as different as he could think of to instill a little variety at the start.

So in the first round of children (in fact all the children of Adam and Eve, assuming they remained monogomous throughout their long lives) the only variation between the children (and indeed their parents) resulted from genetic crossover and mutations. But with the assumption that the two sets of chromosomes possessed by A&E were as different as possible, this could result in some reasonable amount of variation between the children.

In the 930 years that Adam lived, he could have had a lot of kids. As they bred together mutations and crossover would actually result in an increase of genetic diversity, i.e. in the difference between the genes of the offspring and those of A&E. Of course, you also had first generation children of A&E (from their golden years) breeding with offspring up to 40-some generations removed from A&E. However, since we know that the original genes were perfect this would not reinforce flaws as inbreeding does today, but in fact restore positive traits that may have been lost in subsequent generations. Of course, the populations that had already migrated far from the land of A&E would feel less of this effect and would be free to genetically drift as much as they liked.

Obviously, the purity of genes that once allowed us to live just shy of a thousand years has long since disappeared, so this trait must have been dependent on having a very large share of the original chromosomal sets. As life expectancy dropped, generations became shorter and the process of genetic drift accelerated, allowing us to achieve the diversity we see today, a scant 7000 years later.

All part of the miracle that is life.

Do you have any evidence of people living that long?
How about the evidence of people living much longer then 7000 years ago.
for your situation they would have the be mutations at a very high level as well as alot of stuff not writen in the bible.

maybe they produced offspring asexually to begin with. What are some some comparable facts of asexual breeding and doin' the nasty the ol' fashion way, in genetic terms; such as defects or anomalies. Does asexual breeding falter in regards to viable offspring, is it similiar to the effects of inbreeding? Just curious.

Well, first of all, lets remember that Eve was created out of Adam, so they both started out with exactly identical genes (except that Eve had 2 X chromosomes).

so maybe that "eve out of adam" thing is a metaphor for asexual reproduction.
(pardon, don't know how to qoute from previous posts yet)

Well, first of all, lets remember that Eve was created out of Adam, so they both started out with exactly identical genes (except that Eve had 2 X chromosomes).

so maybe that "eve out of adam" thing is a metaphor for asexual reproduction.
(pardon, don't know how to qoute from previous posts yet)

Isn't it looks like basic 'energy & matter' ? Even first cell as created by nature could not be assumed to be free from all environmental effects, then how can we think, complete purity/virginity in subsequent generations(by additions & variations) of this first cell? :)

Science has never been able to prove that a “first cell” ever existed. It is only assumed.

Inbreeding. Not enough genetic diversity. Offspring are deformed and have defects, etc. Eventually a species would die off.I don't think this is any more true than the average absolute statement. They keep finding populations of animals that have been separated by catastrophe or human settlements whose DNA appears to have descended from a single pair. I remember reading about a colony of big cats several years ago, possibly cheetahs, that were like that.

The problem with inbreeding is that you occasionally double up recessive genes that create unhealthy individuals. That's a huge problem for human royal families, who go to great lengths to keep the unhealthy individuals alive and then deliberately breed them. It's obviously less of a problem in species where the weak will be allowed to die, possibly even eaten by their own kind, and at least never find a mate. The weak genes have a good chance of being selected out before they take over the whole population by chance.

It's even easier with captive breeding. You don't allow the animals to choose their own mates so you control the development of the gene pool.

Pet breeders do it all the time. If they find a trait they like they breed the family members together like crazy. The hard-hearted ones let the weak die, the softies just get them neutered so they're out of the gene pool. The scrupulous ones do this for many generations before they start distributing them outside the kennel community.

The matron of our "virtual kennel" of Lhasa Apso breeders was trying to get longer legs by inbreeding and this one puppy really had them. Unfortunately not only were they a bit too long, but the front legs are noticeably longer than the rear. And his jaw has an overbite worse than Homer Simpson. And his head is shaped like a fox. And his tail is curled so tight it looks like a pig. But after a little dental surgery there was nothing else wrong with him. We owed her a favor so we took him in and diligently neutered him and he's just the sweetest dog in our pack. And very athletic with those long legs.

Many breeds of dogs and cats began that way. Somebody either by mutation, accident or inbreeding got a male and a female in the same litter with the characteristics they wanted, so they bred them to each other. Nowhere else to go for a mate, after all. Himalayan cats, probably also Somalis. Surely the Pharaoh hound -- turns out it just looks like the dog in the ancient Egyptian carvings, DNA shows somebody recreated it about 150 years ago by carefully crossbreeding various other sighthounds.

We've got a blue-eyed Lhasa Apso but the damn breeder quietly gave his sisters away because he knew the AKC wouldn't register them. If we could have gotten one we'd be working on our fourth generation of true-breeding blue eyed ones. AKC be damned, he's gorgeous and we'd have no trouble finding people who wanted one once we got the kinks out of the gene pool.

What's this new stuff about Lucy? When the DNA discovery was first made they were trumpeting the "fact" that we're all descended from a single woman. Has this been disproven?

What's this new stuff about Lucy? When the DNA discovery was first made they were trumpeting the "fact" that we're all descended from a single woman. Has this been disproven?

I think it's more a case of the media getting their wires crossed. Mitochondrial & nuclear DNA trace modern humans back to a "common ancestor" living 150,000-200,000 years ago. But this was not a single human being - rather, a population of women with a particular type of mtDNA. There would have been other people, with other mtDNA types, but they don't have any living descendants. It's a bit like surnames in systems where women take the husband's surname on marriage. You might start off with a village where there are a lot of different surnames, but if people with a given surname don't have male children, then that name's lost from the population.

"Lucy" is a female Australopithecus afarensis, dating back about 3.2million years & discovered (I think) in 1970. Not a candidate for "mitochondrial Eve".