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To: Heartlander
The single female and single male ancestors are actually an consequence of probability theory. If you draw a random family tree and allow more or less arbitrary matings and have some prbability of dying before breeding, you will get the single ancestor phenomenon. A similar thing happens with Chinese family names. A branch may die out thus losing its tag (or name). Eventually (with probability one) there will be only one branch left.

As there are two simultaneous branches being looked at (male and female), there will be a single line for each branch. There is no reason that the single ancestor of the male branch is anywhere near in time (or location) to the single ancestor of the female branch. It's not clear that any deep philosophical insight can be drawn from the single ancestor phenomenon.

1,043 posted on 03/20/2002 7:35:05 PM PST by Doctor Stochastic
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To: Doctor Stochastic
The odds of the single ‘ancestor’ coming into existence in the first place are beyond astronomical if one limits their beliefs to ‘natural occurrence’. But, for the sake of this discussion let’s say that it happened – it just beat the odds. Let us truly apply the probability theory to genetic mutations.

“The odds of a single cell possessing non-harmful mutations of five specific (functionally related) genes is the product of their separate probabilities. Morris, 63. In other words, the probability is 1 in 108 X 108 X 108 X 108 X 108, or 1 in 1040. If one hundred trillion (1014) bacteria were produced every second for five billion years (1017 seconds), the resulting population (1031) would be only 1/1,000,000,000 of what was needed!
But even this is not the whole story. These are the odds of getting just any kind of non-harmful mutations of five related genes. In order to create a new structure, however, the mutated genes must integrate or function in concert with one another. According to Professor Ambrose, the difficulties of obtaining non-harmful mutations of five related genes "fade into insignificance when we recognize that there must be a close integration of functions between the individual genes of the cluster, which must also be integrated into the development of the entire organism." Davis, 68.
In addition to this, the structure resulting from the cluster of the five integrated genes must, in the words of Ambrose, "give some selective advantage, or else become scattered once more within the population at large, due to interbreeding." Bird, 1:87. Ambrose concludes that "it seems impossible to explain [the origin of increased complexity] in terms of random mutations alone." Bird, 1:87.,
When one considers that a structure as "simple" as the wing on a fruit fly involves 30-40 genes (Bird, 1:88), it is mathematically absurd to think that random genetic mutations can account for the vast diversity of life on earth. Even Julian Huxley, a staunch evolutionist who made assumptions very favorable to the theory, computed the odds against the evolution of a horse to be 1 in 10300,000. Pitman, 68. If only more Christians had that kind of faith!”

“The evolutionists’ argument is that an a priori adherence to materialism is necessary to protect the very existence of science. If design in biology is real, then the Designer also might be real, and scientific materialists contemplate this possibility (if at all) with outright panic. Science will come to a screeching halt, they insist, because everybody will stop doing experiments and just attribute all phenomena to the inscrutable will of God.
Nonsense. On the contrary, the concept that the universe is the product of a rational mind provides a far better metaphysical basis for scientific rationality than the competing concept that everything in the universe (including our minds) is ultimately based in the mindless movements of matter. Perhaps materialism was a liberating philosophy when the need was to escape from dogmas of religion, but today materialism itself is the dogma from which the mind needs to escape. A rule that materialism should be professed regardless of the evidence, says Behe, is the equivalent of a rule that science may not contradict the teachings of a church. "It tries to place reality in a tidy box, but the universe will not be placed in a box."
The fundamental principle is that "scientists should follow the physical evidence wherever it leads, with no artificial restrictions." Science has come as far as it has because scientists of the past were willing to describe the universe as it really is, rather than as the prejudices current in their times would have preferred it to be. The question is whether today's scientists have lost their nerve.”

“Whether one looks to mutations or gene flow for the source of the variations needed to fuel evolution, there is an enormous probability problem at the core of Darwinist and neo-Darwinist theory, which has been cited by hundreds of scientists and professionals. Engineers, physicists, astronomers, and biologists who have looked without prejudice at the notion of such variations producing ever more complex organisms have come to the same conclusion: The evolutionists are assuming the impossible. Fix, 196.”

1,090 posted on 03/21/2002 7:36:51 AM PST by Heartlander
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