Adam and Eve existed, says the Guardian. But never met.

wd400 I thought that was the thread point here?? They are saying something about us is from a common ancestor. anyways gene stuff isn't my bag. I will bow out. Robert Byers

as to: "they (bacteria) are keeping humans around as an investment in interplanetary sporulation. Gotta keep your eye on the future!" So the Darwinian explanation is that Bacteria are keeping humans around for teleological, goal oriented, purposes? Welcome to the ID camp Zach! :)

tel·e·ol·o·gy noun: teleology; plural noun: teleologies Philosophy the explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes. Theology the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world.

bornagain77

bornagain77: But if that was truly the world we lived in then the only ‘life’ that would be around would be extremely small organisms with the highest replication rate, and with the most mutational firepower, since only they would be the fittest to survive in the dog eat dog world where blind, pitiless, evolution ruled and only the ‘fittest’ are allowed to survive. Well, bacteria do make up most of the planet's biomass and numbers. However, from what we understand, they are keeping humans around as an investment in interplanetary sporulation. Gotta keep your eye on the future! Zachriel

Piotr: you agree with the evidence that I presented that demonstrates humans have been Devolving for the past several thousands of years and then go on to state:

"If evolution consisted in becoming smarter, bigger and faster, the Earth would by now be dominated by superintelligent Giant Roadrunners."

But that is the whole problem. Darwinian evolution, i.e. natural selection and random mutation, has been characterized as 'survival of the fittest'. A world of 'blind, pitiless, indifference' according to Dawkins. But if that was truly the world we lived in then the only 'life' that would be around would be extremely small organisms with the highest replication rate, and with the most mutational firepower, since only they would be the fittest to survive in the dog eat dog world where blind, pitiless, evolution ruled and only the 'fittest' are allowed to survive. The logic of this is nicely summed up here:

Richard Dawkins interview with a 'Darwinian' physician goes off track - video Excerpt: "I am amazed, Richard, that what we call metazoans, multi-celled organisms, have actually been able to evolve, and the reason [for amazement] is that bacteria and viruses replicate so quickly -- a few hours sometimes, they can reproduce themselves -- that they can evolve very, very quickly. And we're stuck with twenty years at least between generations. How is it that we resist infection when they can evolve so quickly to find ways around our defenses?" http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/video_to_dawkin062031.html

i.e. Since successful reproduction is all that really matters on a neo-Darwinian view of things, how can anything but successful reproduction be realistically 'selected' for? Any other function besides reproduction, such as sight, hearing, thinking, etc.., would be highly superfluous to the primary criteria of successfully reproducing, and should, on a Darwinian view, be discarded as so much excess baggage since it would, sooner or later, slow down successful reproduction. But that is not what we find. Time after time we find micro-organisms helping each other, and us, in ways that have nothing to with their individual ‘fitness to reproduce’.

“Microbial life can easily live without us; we, however, cannot survive without the global catalysis and environmental transformations it provides.” - Paul G. Falkowski – Professor Geological Sciences – Rutgers

In fact, instead of a world driven by competition, i.e. 'survival of the fittest', as Darwin envisioned, we find an amazing holistic 'worldwide' synchrony that is inexplicable to neo-Darwinism:

Doubting Darwin: Algae Findings Surprise Scientists - April 28, 2014 Excerpt: One of Charles Darwin's hypotheses posits that closely related species will compete for food and other resources more strongly with one another than with distant relatives, because they occupy similar ecological niches. Most biologists long have accepted this to be true. Thus, three researchers were more than a little shaken to find that their experiments on fresh water green algae failed to support Darwin's theory — at least in one case. "It was completely unexpected," says Bradley Cardinale, associate professor in the University of Michigan's school of natural resources & environment. "When we saw the results, we said 'this can't be."' We sat there banging our heads against the wall. Darwin's hypothesis has been with us for so long, how can it not be right?" The researchers ,,,— were so uncomfortable with their results that they spent the next several months trying to disprove their own work. But the research held up.,,, The scientists did not set out to disprove Darwin,,, "We went into it assuming Darwin to be right," Cardinale says. "When we started coming up with numbers that showed he wasn't right, we were completely baffled.",,, Darwin "was obsessed with competition," Cardinale says. "He assumed the whole world was composed of species competing with each other, but we found that one-third of the species of algae we studied actually like each other. They don't grow as well unless you put them with another species. It may be that nature has a heck of a lot more mutualisms than we ever expected.,,, Maybe Darwin's presumption that the world may be dominated by competition is wrong." http://www.livescience.com/45205-data-dont-back-up-darwin-in-algae-study-nsf-bts.html Oceanic microbes behave in a synchrony across ocean basins - March 16, 2015 Excerpt: Researchers have found that microbial communities in different regions of the Pacific Ocean displayed strikingly similar daily rhythms in their metabolism despite inhabiting extremely different habitats -- the nutrient-rich waters off California and the nutrient-poor waters north of Hawai'i. Furthermore, in each location, the dominant photoautotrophs appear to initiate a cascade effect wherein the other major groups of microbes perform their metabolic activities in a coordinated and predictable way.,,, The bacterial groups common to both ecosystems displayed the same transcriptional patterns and daily rhythms -- as if each group is performing its prescribed role at a precise time each and every day, even though these communities are separated by thousands of miles. "Our work suggests that these microbial communities broadly behave in a similar manner across entire ocean basins and that specific biological interactions between these groups are widespread in nature,",,, "Surprisingly, however, our work shows that these extremely different ecosystems exhibit very similar diel cycles, driven largely by sunlight and interspecies microbial interactions," said Aylward, "This suggests that different microbial communities across the Pacific Ocean, and likely waters across the entire planet, behave in much more orderly ways than has previously been supposed," http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150316102112.htm

Indeed, instead of eating us, time after time these different types of microbial life are found to be helping us in essential ways that have nothing to do with their individual ability to successfully reproduce,,,

We are living in a bacterial world, and it's impacting us more than previously thought - February 15, 2013 Excerpt: We often associate bacteria with disease-causing "germs" or pathogens, and bacteria are responsible for many diseases, such as tuberculosis, bubonic plague, and MRSA infections. But bacteria do many good things, too, and the recent research underlines the fact that animal life would not be the same without them.,,, I am,, convinced that the number of beneficial microbes, even very necessary microbes, is much, much greater than the number of pathogens." http://phys.org/news/2013-02-bacterial-world-impacting-previously-thought.html#ajTabs

Piotr, you also said that my posts were 'supplementary evidence' that we are Devolving. But actually Piotr my posts, and everybody else's posts, are proof that we are made in the 'image of God'. Unguided material processes are simply grossly inadequate to explain to origination of functional information. Yet human beings uniquely produce information almost as a force of habit. Moreover, we aquired this unique ability suddenly, not gradually, as is presupposed in Darwinism.

Evolution of the Genus Homo – Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences – Ian Tattersall, Jeffrey H. Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: “Unusual though Homo sapiens may be morphologically, it is undoubtedly our remarkable cognitive qualities that most strikingly demarcate us from all other extant species. They are certainly what give us our strong subjective sense of being qualitatively different. And they are all ultimately traceable to our symbolic capacity. Human beings alone, it seems, mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities. When exactly Homo sapiens acquired this unusual ability is the subject of debate.” http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html

More interesting still, the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic, i.e. the unique ability to process information inherent to man, are the very first things to be taught to children when they enter elementary school. And yet it is this information processing, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic that is found to be foundational to life:

Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer - video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVkdQhNdzHU

As well, as if that was not 'spooky enough' information, not material, is found to be foundational to physical reality:

"it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Quantum physics just got less complicated - Dec. 19, 2014 Excerpt: Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner,,, found that 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum 'uncertainty principle' in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.,,, "The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information,",,, http://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html

It is hard to imagine a more convincing proof that we are made 'in the image of God' than finding that both the universe and life itself are 'information theoretic' in their basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information. Verses and Music:

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men. Casting Crowns - The Word Is Alive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9itgOBAxSc

bornagain77

Unguided evolution can't explain Y chromosomes. Joe

BA77

In fact, when we look at the fossil and genetic evidence, we find that humans have been Devolving instead of Evolving...

Absolutely. Your posts are supplementary evidence.

I guess what I’m really trying to ask you Piotr is this, “Where is the evidence that humans are evolving into something better, (smarter, bigger, faster), as I was taught as I was growing up?”

I wasn't your teacher, so don't ask me why they taught you nonsense. If evolution consisted in becoming smarter, bigger and faster, the Earth would by now be dominated by superintelligent Giant Roadrunners. Piotr

They are admitting we all had a original ancestor. Nope.All populations necessarily have "mtEves" and "Y-chrom Adams". wd400

Bornagain 77 are you saying brain size is relative to smartness? I'm sure there is no difference in brain size since adam but anyways there is no evidence brains size is related to smarts. The bible says our intelligence comes from our immaterial soul being made in gods image. Our brain is just a tool for us between our soul and the material world. in fact i think the brain is just a memory machine. blue eyes etc are not losses. they are gains for people in northern areas due to a pigmentation adaptation. the need was there and the bodies changed. niot a random mutation. a innate mechanism. It was on purpose and general across segregated people groups. I'm sure hitler didn't say blue eyes equals superior because slavic and celtic peooples have blue eyes. I could wrong as i don't know what Hitler said. I do think people would choose blue/blond ness as it tends to be more attractive. Robert Byers

piotr I don't see why your correcting mem. They are admitting we all had a original ancestor. Chick side too. Science proves the bible was right. Why not? Robert Byers

Of related note, contrary to what Hitler thought, light skin, blond hair and blue eyes, are all found to be losses of genetic information, not gains:

Daily thought: blue eyes and other gene mutations, April 25, 2013 Excerpt: "Research on blue-eyes has led many scientist to further affirm that humans are truly mere variations of the same origin. About 8% of the world's total population has blue eyes so blue eyes are fairly rare. In fact, blue eyes are actually a gene mutation that scientist have researched and found to have happened when the OCA2 gene "turned off the ability to produce brown eyes." http://www.examiner.com/article/daily-thought-blue-eyes-and-other-gene-mutations Melanin Excerpt: The melanin in the skin is produced by melanocytes, which are found in the basal layer of the epidermis. Although, in general, human beings possess a similar concentration of melanocytes in their skin, the melanocytes in some individuals and ethnic groups more frequently or less frequently express the melanin-producing genes, thereby conferring a greater or lesser concentration of skin melanin. Some individual animals and humans have very little or no melanin synthesis in their bodies, a condition known as albinism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin#Humans Subtle change in DNA, protein levels determines blond or brunette tresses, study finds - June 1, 2014 Excerpt: The researchers found that the blond hair commonly seen in Northern Europeans is caused by a single change in the DNA that regulates the expression of a gene that encodes a protein called KITLG, also known as stem cell factor. This change affects how much KITLG is expressed in the hair follicles without changing how it's expressed in the rest of the body. Introducing the change into normally brown-haired laboratory mice yields an animal with a decidedly lighter coat -- not quite Norma Jeane to Marilyn Monroe, but significant nonetheless. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140601150924.htm Got milk? Research finds evidence of dairy farming 7,000 years ago in Sahara Excerpt: In premature babies, the gene coding for lactase is sometimes not yet active. And in much of the world’s population, the gene is downregulated after weaning, eventually producing some degree of lactose intolerance. Those whose genes are not downregulated are said to have “lactase persistence.” However, even lactose-intolerant people still have genes coding for lactase enzyme; they are just switched off. In an adult with lactase persistence, one or both alleles of the lactase gene remain switched on. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2012/07/07/news-to-note-07072012

Moreover, Africans have more genetic information than the other races:

"We found an enormous amount of diversity within and between the African populations, and we found much less diversity in non-African populations," Tishkoff told attendees today (Jan. 22) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Anaheim. "Only a small subset of the diversity in Africa is found in Europe and the Middle East, and an even narrower set is found in American Indians." Tishkoff; Andrew Clark, Penn State; Kenneth Kidd, Yale University; Giovanni Destro-Bisol, University "La Sapienza," Rome, and Himla Soodyall and Trefor Jenkins, WITS University, South Africa, looked at three locations on DNA samples from 13 to 18 populations in Africa and 30 to 45 populations in the remainder of the world.- New analysis provides fuller picture of human expansion from Africa - October 22, 2012 Excerpt: A new, comprehensive review of humans' anthropological and genetic records gives the most up-to-date story of the "Out of Africa" expansion that occurred about 45,000 to 60,000 years ago. This expansion, detailed by three Stanford geneticists, had a dramatic effect on human genetic diversity, which persists in present-day populations. As a small group of modern humans migrated out of Africa into Eurasia and the Americas, their genetic diversity was substantially reduced. http://phys.org/news/2012-10-analysis-fuller-picture-human-expansion.html

And whereas the preceding evidence that humans are getting 'Dumber, Smaller And Weaker' should be surprising for a neo-Darwinist, such deterioration is not unexpected for the Theist:

Genetic Entropy - Dr. John Sanford - Evolution vs. Reality - video https://vimeo.com/35088933

I guess what I'm really trying to ask you Piotr is this, "Where is the evidence that humans are evolving into something better, (smarter, bigger, faster), as I was taught as I was growing up?" Verse and Music:

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. Patrick Hernandez - Born to Be Alive - Official Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UaJAnnipkY

bornagain77

Piotr, when I was growing up I was told that humans are more evolved today (i.e. smarter, bigger, faster, etc..) than they were just a few thousand years ago. Now that I've looked into the matter, it appears that I was taught something that was false. In fact, when we look at the fossil and genetic evidence, we find that humans have been Devolving instead of Evolving:

If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking? - January 20, 2011 Excerpt: John Hawks is in the middle of explaining his research on human evolution when he drops a bombshell. Running down a list of changes that have occurred in our skeleton and skull since the Stone Age, the University of Wisconsin anthropologist nonchalantly adds, “And it’s also clear the brain has been shrinking.” “Shrinking?” I ask. “I thought it was getting larger.” The whole ascent-of-man thing.,,, He rattles off some dismaying numbers: Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa—everywhere we look.” http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking Cro Magnon skull shows that our brains have shrunk - Mar 15, 2010 by Lisa Zyga Excerpt: Using new technology, researchers have produced a replica of the 28,000-year-old brain and found that it is about 15-20% larger than our brains. http://phys.org/news187877156.html Human face has shrunk over the past 10,000 years - November 2005 Excerpt: Human faces are shrinking by 1%-2% every 1,000 years. What’s more, we are growing less teeth. Ten thousand years ago everyone grew wisdom teeth but now only half of us get them, and other teeth like the lateral incisors have become much smaller. This is evolution in action." http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/001604.html Scientists Discover Proof That Humanity Is Getting Dumber, Smaller And Weaker By Michael Snyder, on April 29th, 2014 Excerpt: An earlier study by Cambridge University found that mankind is shrinking in size significantly. Experts say humans are past their peak and that modern-day people are 10 percent smaller and shorter than their hunter-gatherer ancestors. And if that’s not depressing enough, our brains are also smaller. The findings reverse perceived wisdom that humans have grown taller and larger, a belief which has grown from data on more recent physical development. The decline, said scientists, has happened over the past 10,000 years. http://thetruthwins.com/archives/scientists-discover-proof-that-humanity-is-getting-dumber-smaller-and-weaker Moreover, Neanderthals had a larger cranial capacity than humans: “Neanderthals are known for their large cranial capacity, which at 1600cc is larger on average than modern humans.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Anatomy

As well, the genetic evidence shows this same pattern of degeneration instead of evolution:

Human Genetic Variation Recent, Varies Among Populations - (Nov. 28, 2012) Excerpt: Nearly three-quarters of mutations in genes that code for proteins -- the workhorses of the cell -- occurred within the past 5,000 to 10,000 years,,, "One of the most interesting points is that Europeans have more new deleterious (potentially disease-causing) mutations than Africans,",,, "Having so many of these new variants can be partially explained by the population explosion in the European population. However, variation that occur in genes that are involved in Mendelian traits and in those that affect genes essential to the proper functioning of the cell tend to be much older." (A Mendelian trait is controlled by a single gene. Mutations in that gene can have devastating effects.) The amount variation or mutation identified in protein-coding genes (the exome) in this study is very different from what would have been seen 5,000 years ago,,, The report shows that "recent" events have a potent effect on the human genome. Eighty-six percent of the genetic variation or mutations that are expected to be harmful arose in European-Americans in the last five thousand years, said the researchers. The researchers used established bioinformatics techniques to calculate the age of more than a million changes in single base pairs (the A-T, C-G of the genetic code) that are part of the exome or protein-coding portion of the genomes (human genetic blueprint) of 6,515 people of both European-American and African-American decent.,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121128132259.htm Critic ignores reality of Genetic Entropy - Dr John Sanford - 7 March 2013 Excerpt: Where are the beneficial mutations in man? It is very well documented that there are thousands of deleterious Mendelian mutations accumulating in the human gene pool, even though there is strong selection against such mutations. Yet such easily recognized deleterious mutations are just the tip of the iceberg. The vast majority of deleterious mutations will not display any clear phenotype at all. There is a very high rate of visible birth defects, all of which appear deleterious. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Why are no beneficial birth anomalies being seen? This is not just a matter of identifying positive changes. If there are so many beneficial mutations happening in the human population, selection should very effectively amplify them. They should be popping up virtually everywhere. They should be much more common than genetic pathologies. Where are they? European adult lactose tolerance appears to be due to a broken lactase promoter [see Can’t drink milk? You’re ‘normal’! Ed.]. African resistance to malaria is due to a broken hemoglobin protein [see Sickle-cell disease. Also, immunity of an estimated 20% of western Europeans to HIV infection is due to a broken chemokine receptor—see CCR5-delta32: a very beneficial mutation. Ed.] Beneficials happen, but generally they are loss-of-function mutations, and even then they are very rare! http://creation.com/genetic-entropy

bornagain77

So science proves the bible is right. All men are of one blood and from one first man. I guess no one before eh

No, nothing of the sort. Most of your Y-chromosome DNA comes from the same male ("Adam") as the Y-chromosome DNA of all other men living today, and your mitochondrial DNA come from the same female ("Eve") as the mtDNA of all modern women. But the Y chromosome and the mitochondria contain only a tiny fraction of your entire genome. The rest comes from "Zoe", "Kevin", "Jim", "Sue", "Mohammed", "Alice", "Howard", "Tom", "Ernestina", "Charlie", "Xiuying", "Tricia", "Nick", and a few thousand other "most recent common ancestors" of various loci in your and other people's chromosomes. Piotr

Hello bornagain77, Thanks for your reply to my remarks. You gave me a lot to look into. I appreciate that. Let me clarify my previous remarks. I reread them and realized I didn't make myself clear. What I meant by "the length of the antediluvian period" was the length of the period between Eve and Noah, not the period from the beginning of time to Noah. If Y-chromosomal Adam is the most recent patrilineal common ancestor of humanity, then, biblically, that ancestry would converge on Noah. If mitochondrial Eve is humanity's matrilineal common ancestor, that ancestry would, biblically, narrow through Noah's wife and his sons' wives and through them converge on the Eve of Genesis. If calculating the times at which mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam lived becomes credibly reliable (I have doubts about that even being possible, but I still find it very interesting), then we would have a better notion of the length of time that elapsed between Eve and Noah. I think that could be a rather long period of time, considering the following from Genesis:

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. -- Genesis 6:4

In mentioning "the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown" the author is assuming his contemporaries are familiar with the notable personalities of antediluvian history. How many millennia might the antediluvian history of humanity comprise? That history and the stories of its mighty men of renown are lost to us, but if it can be credibly, albeit very roughly determined when mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam (Noah) lived we would at least have some idea of the length of the period of time of which it consisted. The contributors to this forum appear to be a very diverse group whose foundational intellectual assumptions range from those of Young Earth Creationists to those of hard core atheists. Some readers, I assume, are scoffing at the very notion that the antediluvian period of human history might have consisted of many millennia, while others are scoffing at the very notion that there is such a thing as an antediluvian period. I commend the YECs for their sincere belief in the truth of God's Word and in its inerrancy. I share that belief with them. We disagree on the interpretation of God's word; we have no disagreement regarding its inerrancy. I would ask the atheists to consider the possibility that the mind that Max Planck believed was the "matrix of all matter" has revealed itself to humanity. Let go of your judgment of religion for a minute and consider the possibility that mind brought matter into being, not the reverse. Consider for a moment the possibility that the primary, fundamental reality is someone not something. I can't imagine what could be more fascinating than that. Many intellectual giants, like Augustine, after years of intellectual pursuits that in the end were not intellectually satisfying for them, found that such considerations were enthralling. They found that which filled an emptiness in themselves that nothing else had done. Augustine ultimately responded to the Mind that is the matrix of all matter with "Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee." harry

So science proves the bible is right. All men are of one blood and from one first man. I guess no one before eh I guess their was no interference from other "hominids"! A neanderthal wasn't our firstr daddy. i never liked them actually. Who says that such long time is needed for gene change? Prove it1 Why not other mechanisms that speecd things up. We don't look alike so gene change did happen. if it happened fast, after the flood, then it also would show this. They are guessing about timelines on gene change. I don't think evolution welcomes a first man idea. Robert Byers

Moreover, the fossil record for supposed human evolution is not nearly as smooth and gradual as Darwinists have misled people to believe:

“We have all seen the canonical parade of apes, each one becoming more human. We know that, as a depiction of evolution, this line-up is tosh (i.e. nonsense). Yet we cling to it. Ideas of what human evolution ought to have been like still colour our debates.” Henry Gee, editor of Nature (478, 6 October 2011, page 34, doi:10.1038/478034a),

Skull fossils are usually lined up in an ascending order by Darwinists to give the appearance of gradual evolution, but this leading expert disagrees with that misleading line-up:

“A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens…Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.” Dr. Ian Tattersall: – paleoanthropologist – emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History – (Masters of the Planet, 2012)

In the following podcasts, Casey Luskin, who has done much research of the literature on this topic, speaking at a 2014 Science and Human Origins conference, discusses why the fossil evidence is far from supporting the claim that humans evolved from some ape-like precursor.

2014 - podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 1 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 2 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-2/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 3 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-3/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 4 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-4/

To show how misleading Darwinists can be with the 'reconstruction' of fossil evidence for supposed human evolution, the following video shows how a Darwinist used a powersaw to give the hip bone of 'Lucy' the correct angle so it could walk upright:

Lucy - The Powersaw Incident - a humorous video showing how biased evolutionists can be with the evidence - 32:08 mark of video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI4ADhPVpA0&feature=player_detailpage#t=1928

The same type of shenanigans can be found in how Darwinists handled the skull fossils of Lucy:

Lucy, the Knuckle-walking abomination? by Dr. David Menton and Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on October 24, 2012 Excerpt: We would submit that the anterior migration of the afarensis foramen magnum occurred not deep in the evolutionary history of humanity but quite possibly sometime after 1992 in the laboratory. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/lucy-the-knuckle-walking-abomination/

Other 'Lucy' fossils have been found since the 'powersaw incident' that show that Lucy could not have possibly walked upright.

A Look at Lucy’s Legacy by Dr. David Menton and Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on June 6, 2012 Excerpt: Other analyses taking advantage of modern technology, such as those by Christine Berge published in 199425 and 201026 in the Journal of Human Evolution, offer a different reconstruction allowing for a unique sort of locomotion. Berge writes, “The results clearly indicate that australopithecine bipedalism differs from that of humans. (1) The extended lower limb of australopithecines would have lacked stabilization during walking;,,, Lucy’s bones show the features used to lock the wrist for secure knuckle-walking seen in modern knuckle-walkers. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/a-look-at-lucys-legacy/

Yet, despite this contrary evidence, Lucy is still dogmatically defended by many Darwinists as if it were some type of missing link instead of just another ape like it really is. Here a paleontologist expresses his surprise when his false conception of Lucy met the reality of Lucy's bones:

My Pilgrimage to Lucy’s Holy Relics Fails to Inspire Faith in Darwinism Excerpt: ---"We were sent a cast of the Lucy skeleton, and I was asked to assemble it for display,” remembers Peter Schmid, a paleontologist at the Anthropological Institute in Zurich.,,, "When I started to put [Lucy’s] skeleton together, I expected it to look human,” Schmid continues “Everyone had talked about Lucy as being very modern, very human, so I was surprised by what I saw.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/my_pilgrimage_to_lucys_holy_re.html

Well despite the determination of Darwinists to perpetuate fraudulent interpretations of the evidence, the evidence itself speaks otherwise: Here is a correct 'reconstruction' of the Lucy fossil that portrays Lucy as she most likely looked:

Lucy - a correct reconstruction - picture https://cdn-assets.answersingenesis.org/img/articles/campaigns/lucy-exhibit.jpg

Quite a difference compared to what Darwinists try to tell us Lucy looked like isn't it? bornagain77

As to the supposed genetic similarity evidence between chimps and humans, it turns out that inferring relationship from genetic similarity is misleading from another angle as well. It turns out that vastly different creatures can have remarkably similar genetic sequences. Dr. Sternberg comments here:

5:30 minute mark quote: "Basically the dolphin genome is almost wholly identical to the human genome,, yet no one would argue that bottle-nose dolphins are our sister species" Richard Sternberg PhD - On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 2. - Podcast - (Major Differences in higher level chromosome spatial organization) http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-2/

This same 'discrepancy' is found in kangaroo genomes:

Kangaroo genes close to humans Excerpt: Australia's kangaroos are genetically similar to humans,,, "There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order," ,,,"We thought they'd be completely scrambled, but they're not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome," http://www.reuters.com/article/science%20News/idUSTRE4AH1P020081118

Thus that underscores the fact that Body plan morphology can be radically different in spite of remarkable similar genetic sequences. Moreover, genetic sequences are not as similar between chimps and humans as Darwinists have led people to believe. Dr. Stephen Meyer puts the situation like this:

An Interview with Stephen C. Meyer TT: Is the idea of an original human couple (Adam and Eve) in conflict with science? Does DNA tell us anything about the existence of Adam and Eve? SM: Readers have probably heard that the 98 percent similarity of human DNA to chimp DNA establishes that humans and chimps had a common ancestor. Recent studies show that number dropping significantly. More important, it turns out that previous measures of human and chimp genetic similarity were based upon an analysis of only 2 to 3 percent of the genome, the small portion that codes for proteins. This limited comparison was justified based upon the assumption that the rest of the genome was non-functional “junk.” Since the publication of the results of something called the “Encode Project,” however, it has become clear that the noncoding regions of the genome perform many important functions and that, overall, the non-coding regions of the genome function much like an operating system in a computer by regulating the timing and expression of the information stored in the “data files” or coding regions of the genome. Significantly, it has become increasingly clear that the non-coding regions, the crucial operating systems in effect, of the chimp and human genomes are species specific. That is, they are strikingly different in the two species. Yet, if alleged genetic similarity suggests common ancestry, then, by the same logic, this new evidence of significant genetic disparity suggests independent separate origins. For this reason, I see nothing from a genetic point of view that challenges the idea that humans originated independently from primates, http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/scripture-and-science-in-conflict/

Dr. Jeffrey Tomkins has done a comprehensive analysis of chimpanzee and human chromosomes and the 70% figure he found was drastically different that the 98% figure that Darwinists had misled the general public with for decades

The Myth of 98% Genetic Similarity and Chromosome Fusion between Humans and Chimps - Jeffrey Tomkins PhD. - video https://vimeo.com/95287522 Comprehensive Analysis of Chimpanzee and Human Chromosomes Reveals Average DNA Similarity of 70% – by Jeffrey P. Tomkins – February 20, 2013 Excerpt: For the chimp autosomes, the amount of optimally aligned DNA sequence provided similarities between 66 and 76%, depending on the chromosome. In general, the smaller and more gene-dense the chromosomes, the higher the DNA similarity—although there were several notable exceptions defying this trend. Only 69% of the chimpanzee X chromosome was similar to human and only 43% of the Y chromosome. Genome-wide, only 70% of the chimpanzee DNA was similar to human under the most optimal sequence-slice conditions. While, chimpanzees and humans share many localized protein-coding regions of high similarity, the overall extreme discontinuity between the two genomes defies evolutionary timescales and dogmatic presuppositions about a common ancestor. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/arj/v6/n1/human-chimp-chromosome

As well, the regulatory regions between chimps and humans are far more different that that 70% figure that Dr. Tomkins found. I've already referenced Dr. Sternberg's talk in the first link where he speaks of drastic differences in regulatory regions. Here are a few more references to get that point across:

“Where (chimps and humans) really differ, and they differ by orders of magnitude, is in the genomic architecture outside the protein coding regions. They are vastly, vastly, different.,, The structural, the organization, the regulatory sequences, the hierarchy for how things are organized and used are vastly different between a chimpanzee and a human being in their genomes.” Raymond Bohlin (per Richard Sternberg) – 9:29 minute mark of video https://vimeo.com/106012299 Gene Regulation Differences Between Humans, Chimpanzees Very Complex – Oct. 17, 2013 Excerpt: Although humans and chimpanzees share,, similar genomes (70% per Tomkins), previous studies have shown that the species evolved major differences in mRNA expression levels.,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131017144632.htm Evolution by Splicing – Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. – Ruth Williams – December 20, 2012 Excerpt: A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,, A commonly discussed mechanism was variable levels of gene expression, but both Blencowe and Chris Burge,,, found that gene expression is relatively conserved among species. On the other hand, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe.,,, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view%2FarticleNo%2F33782%2Ftitle%2FEvolution-by-Splicing%2F

Yet mutations to gene regulatory networks are "always catastrophically bad"

A Listener's Guide to the Meyer-Marshall Debate: Focus on the Origin of Information Question -Casey Luskin - December 4, 2013 Excerpt: "There is always an observable consequence if a dGRN (developmental gene regulatory network) subcircuit is interrupted. Since these consequences are always catastrophically bad, flexibility is minimal, and since the subcircuits are all interconnected, the whole network partakes of the quality that there is only one way for things to work. And indeed the embryos of each species develop in only one way." - Eric Davidson http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/12/a_listeners_gui079811.html

Thus, where neo-Darwinists most need plascticity in the genome to be viable as a theory, (i.e. developmental Gene Regulatory Networks), is the place where mutations are found to be 'always catastrophically bad'. Yet, it is exactly in this area of the genome (i.e. regulatory networks) where 'substantial' differences are found between even supposedly closely related species. Needless to say, this is the exact opposite finding for what Darwinism would have predicted for what should have been found in the genome. If neo-Darwinism were a normal science instead of a religion, this would have certainly counted as a major falsification of one of its primary theoretical predictions. But alas, Darwinist will ignore this as they do all other failed predictions of neo-Darwinism. It is simply heresy for Darwinists to ever express doubt of neo-Darwinism! :) bornagain77

per Harry at post 1: Here is a paper which, though technical, shows that the modern genetic evidence we now have actually supports Adam and Eve. Moreover, the evidence it presents from the latest genetic research is completely inexplicable to neo-Darwinism, i.e. neo-Darwinism, once again, completely falls apart upon rigid scrutiny; (and although I don’t agree with the extreme 6000 year Young Earth model used as a starting presumption in the paper for deriving the graphs, the model, none-the-less, can be amended quite comfortably to a longer time period. Which I, personally, think provides a much more ‘comfortable’ fit to the overall body of evidence)

The Non-Mythical Adam and Eve! - Refuting errors by Francis Collins and BioLogos http://creation.com/historical-adam-biologos

CMI has a excellent video of the preceding paper by Dr. Carter, that makes the technical aspects of the paper much easier to understand;

The Non Mythical Adam and Eve (Dr Robert Carter) – 2011 - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ftwf0owpzQ

Here is a more recent video on the subject by Dr. Carter:

THE NON-MYTHICAL ADAM AND EVE by (Dr. Robert Carter) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1_nMuq_lH4

And the preceding failure to accurately model population genetics, that Dr. Carter elucidated, is far from the only problem with the neo-Darwinian model. Another major problem with the neo-Darwinian model is that major changes in body plans are not achievable by mutations to DNA. In other words, the neo-Darwinian, (i.e. the modern synthesis), assumption that mutations to DNA can produce new body-plans does not have any empirical support, but is just another unsupported assumption that Darwinists have made in spite of contrary evidence!

Response to John Wise – October 2010 Excerpt: A technique called “saturation mutagenesis”1,2 has been used to produce every possible developmental mutation in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster),3,4,5 roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans),6,7 and zebrafish (Danio rerio),8,9,10 and the same technique is now being applied to mice (Mus musculus).11,12 None of the evidence from these and numerous other studies of developmental mutations supports the neo-Darwinian dogma that DNA mutations can lead to new organs or body plans–because none of the observed developmental mutations benefit the organism. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/10/response_to_john_wise038811.html Stephen Meyer – Functional Proteins and Information for Body Plans – video https://vimeo.com/91322260 Dr. Stephen Meyer comments at the end of the preceding video,,, ‘Now one more problem as far as the generation of information. It turns out that you don’t only need information to build genes and proteins, it turns out to build Body-Plans you need higher levels of information; Higher order assembly instructions. DNA codes for the building of proteins, but proteins must be arranged into distinctive circuitry to form distinctive cell types. Cell types have to be arranged into tissues. Tissues have to be arranged into organs. Organs and tissues must be specifically arranged to generate whole new Body-Plans, distinctive arrangements of those body parts. We now know that DNA alone is not responsible for those higher orders of organization. DNA codes for proteins, but by itself it does not insure that proteins, cell types, tissues, organs, will all be arranged in the body. And what that means is that the Body-Plan morphogenesis, as it is called, depends upon information that is not encoded on DNA. Which means you can mutate DNA indefinitely. 80 million years, 100 million years, til the cows come home. It doesn’t matter, because in the best case you are just going to find a new protein some place out there in that vast combinatorial sequence space. You are not, by mutating DNA alone, going to generate higher order structures that are necessary to building a body plan. So what we can conclude from that is that the neo-Darwinian mechanism is grossly inadequate to explain the origin of information necessary to build new genes and proteins, and it is also grossly inadequate to explain the origination of novel biological form.’ Stephen Meyer – (excerpt taken from Meyer/Sternberg vs. Shermer/Prothero debate – 2009) Body Plans Are Not Mapped-Out by the DNA – Jonathan Wells – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meR8Hk5q_EM Ask an Embryologist: Genomic Mosaicism – Jonathan Wells – February 23, 2015 Excerpt: humans have a “few thousand” different cell types. Here is my simple question: Does the DNA sequence in one cell type differ from the sequence in another cell type in the same person?,,, The simple answer is: We now know that there is considerable variation in DNA sequences among tissues, and even among cells in the same tissue. It’s called genomic mosaicism. In the early days of developmental genetics, some people thought that parts of the embryo became different from each other because they acquired different pieces of the DNA from the fertilized egg. That theory was abandoned,,, ,,,(then) “genomic equivalence” — the idea that all the cells of an organism (with a few exceptions, such as cells of the immune system) contain the same DNA — became the accepted view. I taught genomic equivalence for many years. A few years ago, however, everything changed. With the development of more sophisticated techniques and the sampling of more tissues and cells, it became clear that genetic mosaicism is common. I now know as an embryologist,,,Tissues and cells, as they differentiate, modify their DNA to suit their needs. It’s the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/02/ask_an_embryolo093851.html

Needless to say, if you can mutate DNA 'til the cows come home' and still not produce changes in basic body plan morphology, then perhaps it is time to look for a new theory for how humans originated? :) And yes, body plan morphology is far more different between man and chimps that Darwinists have led people to believe:

The Red Ape – Cornelius Hunter – August 2009 Excerpt: “There remains, however, a paradoxical problem lurking within the wealth of DNA data: our morphology and physiology have very little, if anything, uniquely in common with chimpanzees to corroborate a unique common ancestor. Most of the characters we do share with chimpanzees also occur in other primates, and in sexual biology and reproduction we could hardly be more different. It would be an understatement to think of this as an evolutionary puzzle.” http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/08/red-ape.html In “Science,” 1975, M-C King and A.C. Wilson were the first to publish a paper estimating the degree of similarity between the human and the chimpanzee genome. This documented the degree of genetic similarity between the two! The study, using a limited data set, found that we were far more similar than was thought possible at the time. Hence, we must be one with apes mustn't we? But…in the second section of their paper King and Wilson honestly describe the deficiencies of such reasoning: “The molecular similarity between chimpanzees and humans is extraordinary because they differ far more than sibling species in anatomy and way of life. Although humans and chimpanzees are rather similar in the structure of the thorax and arms, they differ substantially not only in brain size but also in the anatomy of the pelvis, foot, and jaws, as well as in relative lengths of limbs and digits (38). Humans and chimpanzees also differ significantly in many other anatomical respects, to the extent that nearly every bone in the body of a chimpanzee is readily distinguishable in shape or size from its human counterpart (38). Associated with these anatomical differences there are, of course, major differences in posture (see cover picture), mode of locomotion, methods of procuring food, and means of communication. Because of these major differences in anatomy and way of life, biologists place the two species not just in separate genera but in separate families (39). So it appears that molecular and organismal methods of evaluating the chimpanzee human difference yield quite different conclusions (40).” King and Wilson went on to suggest that the morphological and behavioral between humans and apes,, must be due to variations in their genomic regulatory systems. David Berlinski - The Devil's Delusion - Page 162&163 Evolution at Two Levels in Humans and Chimpanzees Mary-Claire King; A. C. Wilson - 1975 http://academic.reed.edu/biology/professors/srenn/pages/teaching/BIO431S05_2008/431S05_readings/431s05_examples/king_wilson_1975(classic).pdf

bornagain77

Unlike their biblical counterparts, genetic Adam and Eve were by no means the only humans alive, and although they almost certainly never met, the latest estimate which gives a closer match between their dates makes more sense, according to the researchers.

Well, I guess scientists, living in the 21st century and peering into Darwin's crystal ball, know a good bit more than God and the human writers of Scripture that can speak from experience, right? tjguy

If one man, his wife, their three sons, and the sons' wives were the sole survivors of a world-wide disaster, then science should find that mitochondrial Eve lived further into the distant past than Y-chromosome Adam. If such calculations are at all realistic, then as they become more precise we will have an increasingly better estimate of the length of the antediluvian period, "mitochondrial Eve" being the Biblical Eve and "Y-chromosome Adam being the Biblical "Noah." Just a thought. harry