Posted on 09/22/2012 10:25:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Geneticists have previously estimated mutation rates by comparing the human genome with the sequences of other primates. On the basis of species-divergence dates gleaned -- ironically -- from fossil evidence, they concluded that in human DNA, each letter mutates once every billion years. "It's a suspiciously round number," says Linda Vigilant, a molecular anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The suspicion turned out to be justified.
In the past few years, geneticists have been able to watch the molecular clock in action, by sequencing whole genomes from dozens of families5 and comparing mutations in parents and children. These studies show that the clock ticks at perhaps half the rate of previous estimates, says Scally.
In a review published on 11 September1,Scally and his colleague Richard Durbin used the slower rates to reevaluate the timing of key splits in human evolution. "If the mutation rate is halved, then all the dates you estimate double," says Scally. "That seems like quite a radical change." Yet the latest molecular dates mesh much better with key archaeological dates.
Take the 400,000-600,000-year-old Sima de Los Huesos site in Atapuerca, Spain, which yielded bones attributed to Homo heidelbergensis, the direct ancestors of Neanderthals. Genetic studies have suggested that earlier ancestors of Neanderthals split from the branch leading to modern humans much more recently, just 270,000-435,000 years ago. A slowed molecular clock pushes this back to a more comfortable 600,000 years ago (see 'Better agreement over the human story').
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Were Adam and Eve Neanderthals?
No, just mythical. You can’t have billions of humans descend from incestuous mating between a single couple. Just take a look at how high the rates of congenital defects are among children born to consanguineous couples, and you expect things to be fine and dandy with Adam and Eve’s children mating with their own siblings?
Peking man went out for Chinese, Java man stopped for coffee and Neanderthals just Meander Malls.
The Out Of Africa Theory, Also known as Tarzan Goes Ape does not apply.
Your use of the word “mythical” is misplaced, unless you meant it as a pejorative. If you meant it as a story of great, but unknown age then you’d be correct. It’s also a very misunderstood story.
Even the Hebrew is so archaic as to be open to interpretation. The story is repeated twice indicating redundancy or perhaps a spiritual and then a physical creation. The words in Hebrew don’t mean what many people think they mean. They’ve been told what they “mean”, but go to the source.
Take a look here: http://biblos.com/genesis/1-1.htm (Biblos is a great site for Biblical research as you can read the original language and see the occurrences as found in the Bible. Remember that every translation is a transmission as well and subject to interpretation.)
In Genesis 1:1 you can see that the word created doesn’t mean ex nihilo - http://concordances.org/hebrew/1254.htm It is more akin to the English word “fashion” or “form”.
Genesis 1:2 is even more interesting: http://biblos.com/genesis/1-2.htm
The world was formless is better translated as in primeval chaos - emptiness or waste. http://concordances.org/hebrew/8414.htm
Read the entire creation story word for word. Anciently, Eastern peoples believed that conquering chaos was the greatest power. It’s really interesting stuff when you see what’s really written as opposed to someone’s interpretation. Even the time periods involved are undefined. Read it for yourself.
The story of Eden is even more interesting, particularly because it is so commonly misunderstood and misinterpreted. Eden is a special place on earth and within Eden is a garden specially made for Adam and Eve. It isn’t the Garden of Eden, but the Garden in Eden. Eden isn’t the Garden. The Garden is simply located in a place called Eden.
Hope this helps both of your studies.
One speculative theory is that the DNA of Adam and Eve was "perfect"...in other words there would be no physical consequences to an offspring.
However the introduction of sin into the world caused physical corruption...things fall apart. Over time this corruption caused the degradation of DNA. By the time of Moses bonding between close siblings was problematic thus the need for the Lord to prohibit relations between siblings.
There can be no compromise with the Biblical account of creation and man and evolution.
A good design doesn't require much changing...
I’m going to try commenting on this again, since I was three quarters asleep last night when I tried to comment.
The rate of 1 change per nucleotide per billion years does not make sense.
Using the mutation rate from your first link of ~200 mutations, or 1 mutation per 30 million base pairs, per generation, and assuming 20 years per generation, that comes out to 1 mutation per 1.5 million base pairs per year. Put another way, that works out to a given nucleotide will mutate about once per 1.5 million years.
That’s a huge difference from each nucleotide mutating once per billion years.
Of course, it is really hard to talk about mutation rates without specifying exactly what is being discussed. The actual mutation rate is probably up to five times higher, if one considers that up to 80% of all fertilizations do not result in a viable human being, and a proportion of those viable human beings cannot reproduce even if they do manage to survive into adulthood.
Thank you for bravely going into that territory. Although the inconsistencies of Genesis are fairly obvious, I've yet to see anyone acknowledge they exist. I've also mostly avoided pointing them out, which is maybe a mistake on my part. Not only is there the issue of bad results from inbreeding, but when Cain was expelled from the garden, he was afraid of how other people would receive him, given his history of committing murder--wait, what other people? Isn't Cain supposed to be the only surviving offspring of the only other two people in the world at that point?
It's fairly obvious that the book of Genesis is metaphorical, not literal.
The Genesis account says there were two different 'days' of creation of flesh bodies. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. And according to the method in which the Creator keeps time these two 'days' were at least two thousands years apart. The Bible is the story of Christ from the beginning to eternity, and named and traced, that progeny through which He was to come and all those His progeny came in contact with through the generations. Do 'souls' also evolve?
The Universe is estimated to only be around 13.75 billion years old give or take a billion...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_universe
There is the Bible which was written by men, and then there is the Universe which was created by God. I know which one I'll believe when there can be no compromise.
Tell me some facts about these disembodied souls and perhaps I can give you an answer.
One speculative theory is that the DNA of Adam and Eve was “perfect”...in other words there would be no physical consequences to an offspring.
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Yes, speculation is all that it is and it has no basis in fact. All of the story of Genesis is that way. There is zero evidence that any of it took place and if it is taken literally then the evidence is against it being true.
The scientists here are not trying to disprove God. That would be impossible. They are simply going where the evidence leads. Valid science has no agenda other than finding the truth unlike creationists who come onto these science threads to mock and impugn science.
There is zero evidence that any of the story of Genesis is true and there is no way to prove it is true. The only argument for creation that I see is that the Universe is complex and very ordered which shows some evidence that it might have been designed. This is not a conclusive argument though.
Existence exists and only existence exists and the Universe and all its order and laws and amazing complexity exists. People talk about the probability of a Universe like ours coming into existence as being more than simply astronomical but really the probability is 100% since there are no other universes that we know of. This universe is the only possible one and it is how it is and needs no explanation. It is not even a valid question to ask what was here before anything was here. The Universe is eternal. It has always existed and always will from the standpoint of existence and there is no way to know what caused it since we can not step outside of existence to see.
Finally If the Universe needs a cause then that cause needs a cause back to infinity. If a creator God can exist without cause then so can the universe since both are entities. To take the inconclusive argument that the order and complexity of the Universe is evidence of a creator and then to say that this proves the story of Genesis is true is a non sequitur.
But you assume souls have no bodily form? The flesh body by design was to be shed and return to the dust from which it came. The soul/spirit returns to the Maker that sent it. The assertion that the Creator set in motion evolution mocks Him, the ignorance comes in ignoring why this flesh age need be.
Telling the Creator how He should have made us, rather than recognizing the way he actually did it mocks Him.
That is not the way evolution happens. It would not have been incestuous unless the new form just appeared suddenly but evolution takes place over a long time. A new mutation happens leading to a new trait and the individual is still able to breed with those who do not have the new trait introducing it into the total gene pool. At some point populations diverge so much from one another that they can no longer breed. Contrary to popular belief science does not point to Humans evolving from Apes but rather apes, monkeys, chimps and Humans evolving from a common ancestor. We can not breed with these other primates but at some point all primates could breed with one another until there was enough divergence in the different lines. So a new species does not appear suddenly as a single pair and go from there breeding incestuously.
I wasn’t disagreeing with you by the way I just got sidetracked and forgot to say that The story of creation has man and all the other primates created at the same time and presumably from a single pair in each species so yes you can’t have billions of Humans descended from a single pair. That is why creationists have to say that human DNA was perfect in the beginning. But there is no evidence that it was.
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