How many YECs are there?
Frank J
evolution/creationism I have ever seen. The poll, from Harris
Interactive, has 25 questions. Here are 4, with the % of adult
Americans that answered “true”:
1. The earth is less than 10,000 years old: 18%
2. God created the universe, earth, the sun, moon, stars, plants
animals and the first 2 people within the past 10,000 years: 39%
3. All people are descendents of one man and one woman – Adam and
Eve: 60%
4. Layers of rock containing fossils cover the earth’s surface and
date back hundreds of millions of years: 78%
The article attributes the discrepancies – note especially questions 1
and 2 – to “cognitive-psychological incongruities.” My less technical
term is “massive confusion.”
Yet, I’m not really surprised at the 1-2 discrepancy. We all know that
how a question is worded has a profound effect on the answer. In
question 2, people focus more on the “the first 2 people” than
“earth,” universe,” etc. But question 1 forces them to focus on
“earth.”
Note that the results of 1 and 4 add up to almost 100%, and probably
have near-zero overlap. Neither question mentions God, Bible,
evolution or humans, so without those emotional distractions they are
likely reliable indicators of what people truly believe in simple
terms of “what happened when.” Since some YECs allow for an earth more
than 10,000 years old, but not millions or billions, so I’ll be
generous and use 22% (100 – 78) rather than 18%.
But how many of that 22% actually believe that the evidence
independently confirms the YE interpretation of scripture? I would bet
that most have simply not thought about it, and that many if not most
would confidently claim that scripture overrules any evidence to the
contrary. My personal anecdote is not representative of course, but I
find it interesting that the only “YEC” I spoke to at length about it
admitted that he took his position “on faith” and conceded that the
evidence would probably not support it. So much for 50+ years of
“scientific” YEC strategy.
The more familiar Gallup poll indicates that ~45% believe that the
first humans appeared “in their present form” less than 10,000 years
ago; that result has been quite consistent over 25+ years. While that
~45% probably includes some theistic “evolutionists” who think “souls”
not “cells,” it should be fairly close to the total of YECs and OECs.
So even if we count the entire 22% as “YECs,” the % estimated to be
OECs (45 – 22) is about the same, and greater if we omit those YECs
who admit that independent evidence doesn’t necessarily support their
conclusion. That may be slightly encouraging, but still reflects a
disturbing amount of public science-denial and/or science-illiteracy.
What ought to be even more alarming is the (increasing?) tendency of
people to claim that the “when” questions are unimportant.
Also interesting is that 60% answered “true” for question 3. In light
of the other results, that 60% apparently includes not just YECs and
OECs, but many “evolutionists.” Note that the question makes no
mention of whether Adam and Eve had parents, or whether their children
produced offspring with more distant relatives.
r norman
wrote:
About question 3: Considering the abount of articles about
"Mitochondrial Eve" and "Y chromosome Adam" it is quite reasonable
that so many people believe there was "an Adam" and "an Eve" from whom
all humans descend. The number really should be 100%.
Frank J
> On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:53:22 -0700 (PDT), Frank J <f...@verizon.net>
I was thinking of that. I have heard of people who assumed (from
nontechnical articles which didn't try hard to explain the difference)
that ME ad YCA were indeed the Biblical characters.
If the people I know (few scientists, many engineers) are any
indication, only a minority ever heard of ME and YCA, and almost none
can define them correctly (matrilineal, patrilineal lineages, etc.) I
fact when I first heard of ME in 1988, I assumed they had found the
fossil!
DougC
> The latest issue of RNCSE has the most interesting poll about
> evolution/creationism I have ever seen.
Try the same poll in Tibet. Or Japan.
Doug Chandler
John Harshman
Even though there's a mitochondrial Eve and a Y chromosome Adam, aren't
you forgetting small-piece-of-aldolaseB Bob,
10,000-bases-of-chromosome-21 Edna, and so on for quite a long time?
Every linkage group has an ancestor, and that's assuming there are
nicely bundled, permanent linkage groups, as well as no balancing
selection. I certainly wouldn't answer yes to the question. Are you sure
you would?
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
Anyway, they weren't contemporaries and those weren't their real
names.
The point of course, as you are assuming everyone already qrnmm is
that mitochondria come from one parent and relatively intact, and the
Y chromosome likewise, and those can be traced back.
Darwin123
> The latest issue of RNCSE has the most interesting poll about
> evolution/creationism I have ever seen. The poll, from Harris
> Interactive, has 25 questions. Here are 4, with the % of adult
> Americans that answered “true”:
>
> 1. The earth is less than 10,000 years old: 18%
>
> 2. God created the universe, earth, the sun, moon, stars, plants
> animals and the first 2 people within the past 10,000 years: 39%
>
> 3. All people are descendents of one man and one woman – Adam and
> Eve: 60%
You will also note that the terms "Adam" and "Eve" are no longer
exclusively used by YECers. Mitochondrial evidence is said to support
the idea of a mitochondrial Eve. There is a Y-chromosome Adam. The two
individuals probably lived 30 KY apart, but who cares?
An atheist could answer question 3 in the affirmative. All 60%
could be atheists! There is no qualification here as to, "As stated in
the Bible."
There are also YECers who think that the current populations of
humans are descended from more than one pair of human beings. Some
believe that the Adam and Eve of Genesis are not the only source of
people. The Neanderthal and other early hominids come from subhumans
distributed around the earth, that the "pute" humans should not have
mixed with. The difference in response of numbers 1 and 2 could come
from odd hypotheses like this.
I heard such models from what I call the YEC Nazis. Some YECers
have a very racist view of reality, and have to develop nonstandard
interpretations of Genesis to justify them. I suspect many Nazis are
YECers. I met a few.
Darwin123
> Frank J wrote:
> > The latest issue of RNCSE has the most interesting poll about
> > evolution/creationism I have ever seen.
>
> Try the same poll in Tibet. Or Japan.
Try the poll a mainland Chain, and compare it with the poll in
Tiawan.
John Harshman
No, that isn't the point. The point is that one shouldn't answer the
question "agree". We are not descended from one man and one woman.
John Harshman
> On Aug 11, 4:53 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> The latest issue of RNCSE has the most interesting poll about
>> evolution/creationism I have ever seen. The poll, from Harris
>> Interactive, has 25 questions. Here are 4, with the % of adult
>> Americans that answered “true”:
>>
>> 1. The earth is less than 10,000 years old: 18%
>>
>> 2. God created the universe, earth, the sun, moon, stars, plants
>> animals and the first 2 people within the past 10,000 years: 39%
>>
>> 3. All people are descendents of one man and one woman – Adam and
>> Eve: 60%
>
> You will also note that the terms "Adam" and "Eve" are no longer
> exclusively used by YECers. Mitochondrial evidence is said to support
> the idea of a mitochondrial Eve. There is a Y-chromosome Adam. The two
> individuals probably lived 30 KY apart, but who cares?
> An atheist could answer question 3 in the affirmative. All 60%
> could be atheists! There is no qualification here as to, "As stated in
> the Bible."
I agree that an atheist could do that, but it would have to be an
ignorant atheist. All people are descendants of a great many people.
mtEve is the ancestor of your mitochondria, nothing else. YAdam is the
ancestor of most (though not all) of your Y chromosome, assuming you
have one, nothing else. The rest -- the great bulk -- of your genome is
descended from a great many people who lived at all sorts of different
times. Not 2. Many.
> There are also YECers who think that the current populations of
> humans are descended from more than one pair of human beings. Some
> believe that the Adam and Eve of Genesis are not the only source of
> people. The Neanderthal and other early hominids come from subhumans
> distributed around the earth, that the "pute" humans should not have
> mixed with. The difference in response of numbers 1 and 2 could come
> from odd hypotheses like this.
Doubtful. Small minority.
r norman
You have answered the technical points at various times already in
this thread. But the point still remains: there did exist one
specific female who was an ancestor we all share in common. There did
exist one specific male who was an ancestor we males all share in
common. There is no conceptual reason to believe that these two
individual were even human -- only that they are on the line of our
ancestry -- although the dating seems to be so recent that they
certainly were. That one male and that one female almost certainly
lived far separated in time and space. There is no conceptual reason
to believe that we all share even one nucleotide that derives from
those two individual although more likely the mitochondria and the Y
chromosome still have significant relics from them. But nevertheless
we ARE descended from that one man and that one woman.
cassandra
I see the same confusion you do resulting in part from the sloppy
reporting of these findings. For example, its easy to misunderstand
that ME and YCA means that no other males and females of that time
have living descendants. The fact is, the farther back in time you
go, the more likely it is that anybody who had children then is
related to everybody living today. And that statement is entirely
consistent with ME and YCA.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
In fact it means that other individuals' mitochondria and their Y
chromosomes, as according, have no living descendants.
For instance, because I'm a male, only some crazy cloning process
would produce a child with my mitochondria. Having said that, my
mitochondria are at least almost identical to my sisters'
mitochondria. My mitochondria have nephews and/or nieces. (I don't
want to reveal a lot of personal information to make a point.)
> The fact is, the farther back in time you
> go, the more likely it is that anybody who had children then is
> related to everybody living today. And that statement is entirely
> consistent with ME and YCA.
Um...
TomS
<8fbc5a9a-9bb1-456f...@x21g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>, Frank J
stated..."
In the course of trying to make sense of these inconsistent answers,
I came up with this idea.
What planet does Mr. Spock come from?
Are there human-like inhabitants of any planet other than the earth?
It is perfectly reasonable for a person to give answers to these two
questions which are formally inconsistent.
Perhaps people deal with some of these questions in the poll as
"religious questions" and others of them as "scientific questions".
--
---Tom S.
Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold,
with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead
The Crime of Galileo (1976) by Giorgio De Santillana, p. 167
Burkhard
> "On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:53:22 -0700 (PDT), in article
the questions as a sort of Trivial Pursuit Questions, the 2 and 3 from
the category" Christian Religions and theology" and the fourth from
the category science, and woudl have answered them accordingly
Friar Broccoli
> On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:44:41 -0700, John Harshman
>
>
>
>
>
> >Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-orig...@moderators.isc.org wrote:
> >> John Harshman wrote:
> >>> r norman wrote:
I take it that what makes this particular man (Adam) important is that
all males can trace themselves back through an exclusively male line
of descent to him, while all females can trace themselves back through
an exclusively female line of descent to the Eve.
Igor's contribution to a brain structure chromosome from 4.7 million
years ago can be traced via a LARGE variety of mixed lines of descent
including some exclusive male lines (since Igor was a male).
I am really very confused about all this. Some key retained
characteristics must have been made by our common ancestor with
lancets.
cassandra
When I first heard about these concepts, I thought so as well, but
that only proves my point. See below.
> For instance, because I'm a male, only some crazy cloning process
> would produce a child with my mitochondria. Having said that, my
> mitochondria are at least almost identical to my sisters'
> mitochondria. My mitochondria have nephews and/or nieces. (I don't
> want to reveal a lot of personal information to make a point.)
I understand your hesitation, but doing so is unnecessary. I bet you
understand that just because you have no patrilineal mitochondria in
no way suggests you have no father.
> > The fact is, the farther back in time you
> > go, the more likely it is that anybody who had children then is
> > related to everybody living today. And that statement is entirely
> > consistent with ME and YCA.
>
> Um...
I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but its still true. Perhaps the
source of your confusion is similar to mine, in failing to recognize
the consequence of the fact that all lineages ultimately overlap, and
do so rather quickly and completely.
These links might be helpful.
Ernest Major
<d771dc48-426d-434d...@f42g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
Friar Broccoli <eli...@gmail.com> writes
To state it more precisely, emphasising where your definition was
imprecise, ...
Y-chromosome Adam is the *most recent* *male* whom all *living* *human*
males can trace themselves back to through an exclusively male line of
descent. mt-Eve is the *most recent* *female* whom all *living* *humans*
(*male* and female) can trace themselves back to through an exclusively
female line of descent.
That Y-chomosome Adam and mt-Eve were members of the species Homo
sapiens is not part of their definitions, but we infer from their
estimate ages, and the inferred chronological range of the species, that
they were members of the species, so (after most recent) you can put man
and woman back in the place of male and female.
There is the possibility of a small amount of paternal transmission of
mitochondria, which messes up the definition of mt-Eve, but if it occurs
it's sufficiently rare that we can neglect it.
The most recent individual to be a common ancestor of contemporary
humanity was much more recent than Y-chromosome Adam or mt-Eve, but you
may have inherited no genetic material from him. (Asymmetries in the
distribution of reproductive success between the sexes means that he is
almost certainly male.)
>
>Igor's contribution to a brain structure chromosome from 4.7 million
>years ago can be traced via a LARGE variety of mixed lines of descent
>including some exclusive male lines (since Igor was a male).
There's no such thing as a brain structure chromosome.
Two parts of the human genome - part (not all) of the Y-chromosome and
the mitochondrion - are both uniparentally inherited and don't undergo
recombination.
The rest of the human genome undergoes recombination. If we pretend that
chunks delimited by recombination points can be treated as units any
such chunk can be traced back from any living individual to the latest
common ancestor for that chunk by one or more lines of descent. (You're
probably right about the many.) There's no guarantee that includes some
exclusive male lines.
>
>I am really very confused about all this. Some key retained
>characteristics must have been made by our common ancestor with
>lancets.
>
--
Alias Ernest Major
John Harshman
No, there existed many specific females.
> There did
> exist one specific male who was an ancestor we males all share in
> common.
No, there existed many specific males. Every bit of the genome has a
coalescent. Different ones for different bits.
> There is no conceptual reason to believe that these two
> individual were even human -- only that they are on the line of our
> ancestry -- although the dating seems to be so recent that they
> certainly were. That one male and that one female almost certainly
> lived far separated in time and space. There is no conceptual reason
> to believe that we all share even one nucleotide that derives from
> those two individual although more likely the mitochondria and the Y
> chromosome still have significant relics from them.
Unless mitochondrial recombination is more frequent than we think, the
significant relics are the whole mt genome. Same with the Y, other than
the pseudoautosomal part.
> But nevertheless
> we ARE descended from that one man and that one woman.
That's not what the question means. You know it, I know it, and anyone
who can read knows it. There is no rational way to interpret the
question in the way you do.
Friar Broccoli
> In message
> <d771dc48-426d-434d-9aad-a01488b93...@f42g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
> Friar Broccoli <elia...@gmail.com> writes
I suspected this ~inherited no genetic material from most recent
individual to be a common ancestor~ business and was / and remain
deeply confused by it - no doubt part of my sloppy definition haze.
> (Asymmetries in the
> distribution of reproductive success between the sexes means that he is
> almost certainly male.)
.
> >Igor's contribution to a brain structure chromosome from 4.7 million
> >years ago can be traced via a LARGE variety of mixed lines of descent
> >including some exclusive male lines (since Igor was a male).
>
> There's no such thing as a brain structure chromosome.
Sorry, I meant "gene" - although I've never been sure what the word
refers to.
> Two parts of the human genome - part (not all) of the Y-chromosome and
> the mitochondrion - are both uniparentally inherited and don't undergo
> recombination.
>
> The rest of the human genome undergoes recombination. If we pretend that
> chunks delimited by recombination points can be treated as units any
> such chunk can be traced back from any living individual to the latest
> common ancestor for that chunk by one or more lines of descent. (You're
> probably right about the many.) There's no guarantee that includes some
> exclusive male lines.
Thanks for the info.
Ernest Major
<f762afea-c93a-4225...@z10g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
Friar Broccoli <eli...@gmail.com> writes
>> >> >>>>> terms of what happened when. Since some YECs allow for an earth more
>> >> >>>>> than 10,000 years old, but not millions or billions, so I ll be
>> >> >>>>> generous and use 22% (100 78) rather than 18%.
>>
>> >> >>>>> But how many of that 22% actually believe that the evidence
>> >> >>>>> independently confirms the YE interpretation of scripture? I
>> >> >>>>>would bet
>> >> >>>>> that most have simply not thought about it, and that many if
>> >> >>>>>not most
>> >> >>>>> would confidently claim that scripture overrules any evidence to the
>> >> >>>>> contrary. My personal anecdote is not representative of
>> >> >>>>>course, but I
>> >> >>>>> find it interesting that the only YEC I spoke to at length about it
>> >> >>>>> admitted that he took his position on faith and conceded that the
>> >> >>>>> evidence would probably not support it. So much for 50+ years of
>> >> >>>>> scientific YEC strategy.
>>
>> >> >>>>> The more familiar Gallup poll indicates that ~45% believe that the
>> >> >>>>> first humans appeared in their present form less than 10,000 years
>> >> >>>>> ago; that result has been quite consistent over 25+ years.
>> >> >>>>>
>> >> >>>>> not cells, it should be fairly close to the total of YECs and OECs.
>> >> >>>>> So even if we count the entire 22% as YECs, the % estimated to be
>> >> >>>>> OECs (45 22) is about the same, and greater if we omit those YECs
>> >> >>>>> who admit that independent evidence doesn t necessarily
>> >> >>>>>support their
>> >> >>>>> conclusion. That may be slightly encouraging, but still reflects a
>> >> >>>>> disturbing amount of public science-denial and/or
>> >> >>>>>science-illiteracy.
>> >> >>>>> What ought to be even more alarming is the (increasing?) tendency of
>> >> >>>>> people to claim that the when questions are unimportant.
>>
>> >> >>>>> Also interesting is that 60% answered true for question 3. In light
>> >> >>>>> of the other results, that 60% apparently includes not just YECs and
>> >> >>>>> OECs, but many evolutionists. Note that the question makes no
>> >> >>>>> mention of whether Adam and Eve had parents, or whether
>> >> >>>>>their children
>> >> >>>>> produced offspring with more distant relatives.
>> >> >>>> About question 3: Considering the abount of articles about
>> >> >>>> "Mitochondrial Eve" and "Y chromosome Adam" it is quite reasonable
>> >> >>>> that so many people believe there was "an Adam" and "an Eve"
>> >> >>>>
>> >> >>> Even though there's a mitochondrial Eve and a Y chromosome
>> >> >>>Adam, aren't
>> >> >>> you forgetting small-piece-of-aldolaseB Bob,
>> >> >>> 10,000-bases-of-chromosome-21 Edna, and so on for quite a long time?
>> >> >>> Every linkage group has an ancestor, and that's assuming there are
>> >> >>> nicely bundled, permanent linkage groups, as well as no balancing
>> >> >>> selection. I certainly wouldn't answer yes to the question.
If we pretend that recombination doesn't occur, then it theoretically
possible for your father to pass onto you the 23 chromosomes he
inherited from his father, and none of the 23 chromosomes that the
inherited from his mother, in which case you would have inherited no
genetic material from your grandmother. This would be a low probability
- an expectation of about 1 person in the current human population, but
it demonstrate the principle.
In general there's a 50% chance of a chromosome being passed onto an
offspring. Assuming no inbreeding, over 7 generations that becomes a
less that 1% chance of a particular chromosome being passed on to a
specific descendant. There's a nearly 70% chance of none of the 46
chromosomes are passed onto a specific descendant. (But over 30% of 7th
generation descendants inherit one or more chromosomes.)
Recombination means that the genetic contribution isn't lost so rapidly,
as does inbreeding, and modelling it mathematically is less tractable.
>
>> (Asymmetries in the
>> distribution of reproductive success between the sexes means that he is
>> almost certainly male.)
>
> .
>
>> >Igor's contribution to a brain structure chromosome from 4.7 million
>> >years ago can be traced via a LARGE variety of mixed lines of descent
>> >including some exclusive male lines (since Igor was a male).
>>
>> There's no such thing as a brain structure chromosome.
>
>Sorry, I meant "gene" - although I've never been sure what the word
>refers to.
>
There isn't a single universally used definition of a gene. Wikipedia
offers "A modern working definition of a gene is "a locatable region of
genomic sequence, corresponding to a unit of inheritance, which is
associated with regulatory regions, transcribed regions, and or other
functional sequence regions"".
Gene is often used where a pedant would prefer allele.
>
>> Two parts of the human genome - part (not all) of the Y-chromosome and
>> the mitochondrion - are both uniparentally inherited and don't undergo
>> recombination.
>>
>> The rest of the human genome undergoes recombination. If we pretend that
>> chunks delimited by recombination points can be treated as units any
>> such chunk can be traced back from any living individual to the latest
>> common ancestor for that chunk by one or more lines of descent. (You're
>> probably right about the many.) There's no guarantee that includes some
>> exclusive male lines.
>
>Thanks for the info.
>
--
alias Ernest Major
Steven L.
"Frank J" <fc...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:8fbc5a9a-9bb1-456f...@x21g2000yqa.googlegroups.com:
> The latest issue of RNCSE has the most interesting poll about
> evolution/creationism I have ever seen. The poll, from Harris
> Interactive, has 25 questions. Here are 4, with the % of adult
> Americans that answered "true":
>
> 1. The earth is less than 10,000 years old: 18%
>
> 2. God created the universe, earth, the sun, moon, stars, plants
> animals and the first 2 people within the past 10,000 years: 39%
>
> 3. All people are descendents of one man and one woman - Adam and
> Eve: 60%
>
> 4. Layers of rock containing fossils cover the earth's surface and
> date back hundreds of millions of years: 78%
>
> The article attributes the discrepancies - note especially questions 1
> and 2 - to "cognitive-psychological incongruities." My less technical
> term is "massive confusion."
>
> Yet, I'm not really surprised at the 1-2 discrepancy. We all know that
> how a question is worded has a profound effect on the answer. In
> question 2, people focus more on the "the first 2 people" than
> "earth," universe," etc. But question 1 forces them to focus on
> "earth."
>
> Note that the results of 1 and 4 add up to almost 100%, and probably
> have near-zero overlap. Neither question mentions God, Bible,
> evolution or humans, so without those emotional distractions they are
> likely reliable indicators of what people truly believe in simple
> terms of "what happened when." Since some YECs allow for an earth more
> than 10,000 years old, but not millions or billions, so I'll be
> generous and use 22% (100 - 78) rather than 18%.
>
> But how many of that 22% actually believe that the evidence
> independently confirms the YE interpretation of scripture? I would bet
> that most have simply not thought about it, and that many if not most
> would confidently claim that scripture overrules any evidence to the
> contrary. My personal anecdote is not representative of course, but I
> find it interesting that the only "YEC" I spoke to at length about it
> admitted that he took his position "on faith" and conceded that the
> evidence would probably not support it. So much for 50+ years of
> "scientific" YEC strategy.
>
> The more familiar Gallup poll indicates that ~45% believe that the
> first humans appeared "in their present form" less than 10,000 years
> ago; that result has been quite consistent over 25+ years. While that
> ~45% probably includes some theistic "evolutionists" who think "souls"
> not "cells," it should be fairly close to the total of YECs and OECs.
> So even if we count the entire 22% as "YECs," the % estimated to be
> OECs (45 - 22) is about the same, and greater if we omit those YECs
> who admit that independent evidence doesn't necessarily support their
> conclusion. That may be slightly encouraging, but still reflects a
> disturbing amount of public science-denial and/or science-illiteracy.
> What ought to be even more alarming is the (increasing?) tendency of
> people to claim that the "when" questions are unimportant.
>
> Also interesting is that 60% answered "true" for question 3. In light
> of the other results, that 60% apparently includes not just YECs and
> OECs, but many "evolutionists."
The Vatican's view is that God infused souls into two hominids who
became Adam and Eve.
For many years, that was the mainstream Christian view.
-- Steven L.
r norman
<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
We are quibbling about very fine nits, here. You are right that every
part of the genome has a coalescent which doesn't change the point
because we are talkiing about two specific parts of the genome. Also,
as somebody else has already pointed out, the way that mitochondrial
eve and Y chromosom adam are defined is independent of the rates of
recombination. And your "multiple" ancestral adams and eves can
always be reduced to a single individual by going back far enough.
It is a mathematical certainty that there was one single female
individual who was in the maternal line of descent of everyone now
alive. And it is a mathematical certainty that there was one single
individual who was in the paternal line of descent of everyone now
alive. Those certainties have nothing to do with genetics except for
the fact that every individual must have exactly one mother and one
father. There is no way of interpreting the words other than to say
that we are all descended from that one maternal ancestor and that we
are all descended from that one paternal ancestor.
Frank J
> "Frank J" <f...@verizon.net> wrote in message
If NCSE's "Voices for Evolution" is any indication, it still is. AIUI
only a minority of Judeo-Christian religions officially deny
evolution, and even probably even fewer hold a strictly YE version of
Genesis.
But I can understand how the churches that accept evolution can't
admit that too loudly to the congregation.
Frank J
> "On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:53:22 -0700 (PDT), in article
That's why I prefer the plain "what happened when" questions, with no
"emotional distraction."
If they really need a demographic breakdown, the poll can ask
respondents about their religious (e.g. "Is God ultimately responsible
for life?") and mythological (e.g. "Was there a literal Adam and Eve
that had no parents") opinions in separate sections that do not deal
at all with evolution.
>
> --
> ---Tom S.
> Surely, God could have caused birds to fly with their bones made of solid gold,
> with their veins full of quicksilver, with their flesh heavier than lead
> The Crime of Galileo (1976) by Giorgio De Santillana, p. 167- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Greg G.
I think you will find that all the people with living descendants are
an ancestor to all of us is far more recent than ME and YCA. I'm not
sure how the the first Americans and the first Australians factor in
but if you go back 10 generations or 400 years, you have 1000+
ancestors, so going back 50 generations or 2000 years, everybody on
the continent of your ancestors who has living descendants is an
ancestor an average of 5 million times.
The trade routes between Egypt and Europe allowed the ancestry of each
continent to be represented on the other continent more than 2500
years ago.
When Alexander the Great opened the trade routes from the
Mediterranean to China, some descendants of the Asian ancestors came
West while African and European ancestors went East, about 2400 years
ago so if any of those have living descendants, they are an ancestor
about 5,000,000,000 times for every person on all three continents.
If you go back 2400 years before that, each person on the continent is
an ancestor even more times due to a smaller population.
johnbee
> The latest issue of RNCSE has the most interesting poll about
> evolution/creationism I have ever seen. The poll, from Harris
> Interactive, has 25 questions. Here are 4, with the % of adult
> Americans that answered “true”:
>
> 1. The earth is less than 10,000 years old: 18%
>
> 2. God created the universe, earth, the sun, moon, stars, plants
> animals and the first 2 people within the past 10,000 years: 39%
>
> 3. All people are descendents of one man and one woman – Adam and
> Eve: 60%
>
> 4. Layers of rock containing fossils cover the earth’s surface and
> date back hundreds of millions of years: 78%
>
> The article attributes the discrepancies – note especially questions 1
> and 2 – to “cognitive-psychological incongruities.” My less technical
> term is “massive confusion.”
>
> Yet, I’m not really surprised at the 1-2 discrepancy. We all know that
> how a question is worded has a profound effect on the answer. In
> question 2, people focus more on the “the first 2 people” than
> “earth,” universe,” etc. But question 1 forces them to focus on
> “earth.”
>
That sentence is why I made this reply. The fact is that it is wrong to
have such a long multi part question in an opinion poll. It requires far
too much interpretation and decision making on the part of the respondent.
You think that the question causes people to focus on 'the first two
people' rather than earth or universe, while I am fairly certain that many
respondents ignored the whole of the question except 'God created', because
'all the rest is quibbling'.
In addition to your point about the wording having an affect, it is also
true that it is very easy indeed to obtain conflicting answers. If another
poll had been conducted next day which asked people 'Do you believe creation
occurred more than 10,000 years ago', the answer would not be consistent
with the poll you quote.
Such polls obtain precisely the answers which the pollsters wanted. For
example, I, being an atheist and logical, would certainly answer 'No' to the
question I suggested in the previous paragraph so would be taken to be an
idiot. This would be confirmed by me answering no to the covering the
surface of the Earth question , because most of it is covered by the sea and
lots by ice.
I wonder why the ancestors were supposed to be Adam and Eve and not Noah and
his wife?
Inez
> On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 07:16:34 -0700, John Harshman
>
>
>
>
>
> <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >r norman wrote:
> >> On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:44:41 -0700, John Harshman
>
> >>> Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-orig...@moderators.isc.org wrote:
> >>>> John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>> r norman wrote:
There were a lot more than one single individual. Mitochonrial Eve's
mother, for example, and her grandmother.
> And it is a mathematical certainty that there was one single
> individual who was in the paternal line of descent of everyone now
> alive. Those certainties have nothing to do with genetics except for
> the fact that every individual must have exactly one mother and one
> father.
What about Heather, who has two mommies?
> There is no way of interpreting the words other than to say
> that we are all descended from that one maternal ancestor and that we
> are all descended from that one paternal ancestor.- Hide quoted text -
aganunitsi
> It is a mathematical certainty that there was one single female
> individual who was in the maternal line of descent of everyone now
> alive. And it is a mathematical certainty that there was one single
> individual who was in the paternal line of descent of everyone now
> alive. Those certainties have nothing to do with genetics except for
> the fact that every individual must have exactly one mother and one
> father. There is no way of interpreting the words other than to say
> that we are all descended from that one maternal ancestor and that we
> are all descended from that one paternal ancestor.
Is the question "Are all Homo sapiens descended from exactly one
maternal Homo sapiens and one paternal Homo sapiens?" That is highly
unlikely - we would be woefully inbred. The smallest population
bottleneck I've heard mentioned is in the thousands.
A new sexually reproducing species is very unlikely to spring forth
whole as two individuals from a prior species. It isn't impossible,
just unlikely to result in the proliferation of that new species. Who
are they going to mate with? If just each other, they have a huge
uphill climb. The new species is more likely to result from gradual
changes of many individuals spread out across a population, with many
new members of the species arising as a subspecies of the progenitors.
We wouldn't be descended from exactly two of these first Homo sapiens
unless the descendants of all but one coupling were subsequently wiped
out.
That's assuming that anyone could go back in time and draw a line in
the genome "Homo sapiens begins here". It is easier to conceive of the
process as many Homo sapiens-ish individuals arising, and over time
the totality of the population gradually becoming Homo sapiens. It
could have been exactly two individuals, but it isn't likely and it
doesn't fit the evidence (diversity of the human genome).
el cid
Uh, no.
And not because your powers of 2 are off but you are completely
dismissing inbreeding. It has a big affect on the numbers as does
local levels of population isolation.
> The trade routes between Egypt and Europe allowed the ancestry of each
> continent to be represented on the other continent more than 2500
> years ago.
Yes but who begets with whom is perhaps not so simple as rolls
of the dice. There may be enough genealogy data out there to
run some real numbers but the trite sort of calculations that ignore
inbreeding and local population isolation are garbage in/garbage
out.
r norman
Yes, to say that "there exists one individual" should not imply rule
out that "there also exists another one individual". Still, it is
true that one individual exists. And Heather would be rather unusual
indeed if bother mommies were biological. I think you also have to
account for two embryos even perhaps with different fathers, merging
during divelopment to produce a chimera.
John Harshman
Consider your great^25 grandmother, 25 generations ago (one of them,
that is, since you have 2^24 of them). You get half your genome from
each parent, a quarter from each grandparent, and so on. So you get
1/(2^25) of it from extra-great grandma, or 1/1024; about one base in 17
million in your 6-billion-base genome, or about 400 bases. But that's
only on average. You might have more, you might have less, depending on
how all the recombination in those 25 generations happened to go. It's
quite probable that you inherited nothing at all from many of your
millions of extra-great grandmas. They're your ancestors, but you have
none of their DNA.
John Harshman
You are. The question wasn't.
> Also,
> as somebody else has already pointed out, the way that mitochondrial
> eve and Y chromosom adam are defined is independent of the rates of
> recombination. And your "multiple" ancestral adams and eves can
> always be reduced to a single individual by going back far enough.
Far enough, sure. But that "far enough" is much, much farther than
anyone is talking about, and certainly not human. If you go back far
enough, the present Y chromosome is just an autosome, and you can
combine a mitochondrial and Y-chromosome ancestor.
> It is a mathematical certainty that there was one single female
> individual who was in the maternal line of descent of everyone now
> alive.
Yes, that's mt Eve.
> And it is a mathematical certainty that there was one single
> individual who was in the paternal line of descent of everyone now
> alive.
Yes, that's Y-Adam.
> Those certainties have nothing to do with genetics except for
> the fact that every individual must have exactly one mother and one
> father. There is no way of interpreting the words other than to say
> that we are all descended from that one maternal ancestor and that we
> are all descended from that one paternal ancestor.
And from lots of other people living at various times before, after,
between, and during Adam & Eve's lives. We are not descended through
paternal and maternal lines alone. At least I'm assuming you had both
paternal and maternal grandfathers.
Would you agree that you have two digits, your left pinkie and your
right big toe? Would you agree that a baseball team has two players, a
catcher and a shortstop? Would you agree that the Spanish Inquisition
has two main weapons, fear, terror, and ruthless efficiency?
r norman
You are reinterpreting the notion of mitochondrial eve in a way that
doesn't apply. It is not the case that all Homo sapiens individuals
that ever lived shared a common mitochondrial mother. But it IS the
case that all now living Homo sapiens did. And all of us have bits of
mitochondrial DNA (perhaps large bits, perhaps virtually none -- that
doesn't matter) inherited from that one woman. But at the same time
we also have lots and lots of other bits of DNA in all the rest of our
genome that derived from other people in the population that
mitochondrial eve belonged to, not to mention separate populations of
H. sapieins that were contemporaneous. In other words, your mother's
mother's mother's ... mother's mother is just one of many ancestors
that you have. Still, you are a descendant of that individual.
This situation produces an enormous amount of puzzlement and
confusion. You had an awful lot of ancestors going back generations:
two parents, four grandparents .... Going back just 40 generations,
perhaps only one thousand years, there would be one trillion ancestors
except, of course, for tremendous amounts of inbreeding. However, if
you look only at your mother's mother's mother's .... mother and your
father's father's father's ... father there is only one single man and
one single woman going back as far as you want. You are a descendant
of ALL of your ancestors and you are also a descandant of those two
individuals. To say you are a descendant of Grandpa Joe and Grandma
Mary does not mean that you don't also have another Grandpa and
another Grandma.
aganunitsi
<snip>
> Consider your great^25 grandmother, 25 generations ago (one of them,
> that is, since you have 2^24 of them). You get half your genome from
> each parent, a quarter from each grandparent, and so on. So you get
> 1/(2^25) of it from extra-great grandma, or 1/1024; about one base in 17
> million in your 6-billion-base genome, or about 400 bases. But that's
Whazzat? 1/(2^25) = 1/1024 = 1/17,000,000?
alextangent
> r norman wrote:
> > On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 07:16:34 -0700, John Harshman
> > <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> >> r norman wrote:
> >>> On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:44:41 -0700, John Harshman
>
> >>>> Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-orig...@moderators.isc.org wrote:
> >>>>> John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>> r norman wrote:
That, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope, and nice red
uniforms.
John Harshman
Yes it is. Any collection of individuals shares a common mitochondrial
mother, of some age or other. But of course the mt Eve of the current
population is more recent than the mt Eve of, say, the population of
10,000 years ago.
> But it IS the
> case that all now living Homo sapiens did. And all of us have bits of
> mitochondrial DNA (perhaps large bits, perhaps virtually none -- that
> doesn't matter) inherited from that one woman.
Are you proposing frequent mitochondrial recombination? Otherwise I
can't make sense of your claim. Mitochondrial genomes are inherited as
wholes. Paternal leakage seems rare enough we can discount it, as does
the maintenance of multiple mitochondrial lineages within a single
female germ line for any great length of time.
Frank J
> "Frank J" <f...@verizon.net> wrote in message
While the God part is certainly front and center in their minds, I
doubt that anyone ignores the "first 2 people." In fact most probably
also insert the apple and the snake that the question never
mentioned.
>
> In addition to your point about the wording having an affect, it is also
> true that it is very easy indeed to obtain conflicting answers. If another
> poll had been conducted next day which asked people 'Do you believe creation
> occurred more than 10,000 years ago', the answer would not be consistent
> with the poll you quote.
True too.
>
> Such polls obtain precisely the answers which the pollsters wanted. For
> example, I, being an atheist and logical, would certainly answer 'No' to the
> question I suggested in the previous paragraph so would be taken to be an
> idiot. This would be confirmed by me answering no to the covering the
> surface of the Earth question , because most of it is covered by the sea and
> lots by ice.
>
> I wonder why the ancestors were supposed to be Adam and Eve and not Noah and
> his wife?
Good question for Biblical literalists. I would guess that most have a
well-rehearsed answer, though not necesarily the same one.
aganunitsi
What interpretation of mitochondrial eve did I offer? I stated "If the
question is X, then my reply is Y."
You stated that "we are all" descended from "that one (male or female
ancestor)", and that "there is no way of interpreting the words other
than to say (that)." I offered a very specific question regarding
interpretation.
My response had nothing to do with mitochondrial Eve (or for that
matter, Y-chromosomal Adam). Can one section of everyone's DNA be
traced back to one common ancestor? Sure, meaning everyone alive today
shares a common ancestor among many uncommon ancestors. Can the
entirety of the human genome be traced back to two human-ish
progenitors? Not likely, and it doesn't fit the evidence.
r norman
<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
Unfortunately I studied logic and language and know that when I say
that I have two of something it does not exclude the possibility that
I have more than two. It does exclude the possibility that I have
only zero or one.
I have repeated this claim many times. We are all descendants of
mt-Eve and Y-Adam. We are also descendants of many other individuals.
We are NOT descendants ONLY of mt_eve and Y-Adam.
In a court of law, if somebody asked me if I was a descendant of
mt-Eve I would have to say "yes". So would you.
I did err about a saying there was not a mt-Eve for all of H. sapiens.
I did not about the rest.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
Noah's children are stated to have brought their wives. Y-Adam ought
to be Noah - but as a layman I think we heard about "mitochondrial
Eve" first, anyway.
Re Mrs. Noah, according to,
<http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/content/what-was-noahs-wifes-name>
"according to Jewish tradition her name is Naamah".
As for the rest, it strikes me that you may have run into one of those
science teachers who likes to set questions where you choose between
the "science answer" and the "common knowledge answer", but it's a
trick and your "science answer" is wrong and maybe the other one is
right. T.o has previously discussed "What reading do you get if you
carbon-date natural diamonds?"
John Harshman
John Harshman
John Harshman
True or false?
cassandra
That's how I understand it, yes. And its consistent with ME and YCA.
cassandra
<snip for focus>
> Would you agree that you have two digits, your left pinkie and your
> right big toe? Would you agree that a baseball team has two players, a
> catcher and a shortstop? Would you agree that the Spanish Inquisition
> has two main weapons, fear, terror, and ruthless efficiency?
This reminds me of that famous saying "There are three kinds of
mathematicians; those who can count and those who can't."
cassandra
Would I be over-simplifying your point here by saying that you
interpret the statement from the OP to be: All people are descendents
of *only* one man and *only* one woman?
Frank J
orig...@moderators.isc.org" <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> johnbee wrote:
> > "Frank J" <f...@verizon.net> wrote in message
I remember an article from ~20 years ago, possibly even written by a
"science writer," that confused mt-Eve with Lucy (the A. afarensis
fossil)!
To be fair, I wasn't that far behind in confusion, since, as I
mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I briefly assumed that a fossil
had been found when I first read about mt-Eve in 1988.
>
> Re Mrs. Noah, according to,
> <http://www.bibleinfo.com/en/content/what-was-noahs-wifes-name>
> "according to Jewish tradition her name is Naamah".
>
> As for the rest, it strikes me that you may have run into one of those
> science teachers who likes to set questions where you choose between
> the "science answer" and the "common knowledge answer", but it's a
> trick and your "science answer" is wrong and maybe the other one is
> right. T.o has previously discussed "What reading do you get if you
> carbon-date natural diamonds?"- Hide quoted text -
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
I'm a descendant of four grandparents.
Here we're almost getting picky about grammar as well as logic, but
nicety is important. For instance if I say "There is a number larger
than any number", do I mean that every ordinal number has another
number larger than it (true), or that I know of a number, call it
"omega", that is larger than all the other numbers (false, if omega+1
is not equal to omega, such as aleph-null fails to be)?
How about: All people are descendants exclusively of one man and one
woman? (i.e. bible Adam and Eve).
Or:
All people are descendants of one particular man.
(And also of his father, etc.)
And all people are descendants of one particular woman.
Or:
The first humans hatched out of thousands of eggs that fell from outer
space. Or grew from the ground after Thor made it rain with magic
in. Or whatever.
As for the inevitability of common descent and intermarriage, remember
that the Inhumans have been living in the secret city of Attilan in
the Himalayas for a very long time, and I think they've only married
out with mutants. So you won't find any ancestors from Attilan in
your no-X-Men human family tree. (Of course it isn't to be confused
with Atlantis, except when it is. They moved it at least once...)
Burkhard
> On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:45:39 -0700, John Harshman
>
>
>
> <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >r norman wrote:
> >> On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 07:16:34 -0700, John Harshman
> >> <jharsh...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> >>> r norman wrote:
> >>>> On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:44:41 -0700, John Harshman
>
> >>>>> Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-orig...@moderators.isc.org wrote:
> >>>>>> John Harshman wrote:
> >>>>>>> r norman wrote:
I wouldn't I would plead the fifth, and ask for a mistrial to be
declared. I had incompetent representation. Also, I was never near
that woman when she died, never touched here,and anyway it was self-
defence.
Nick Keighley
r norman
<b.sc...@ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>On 13 Aug, 00:34, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:45:39 -0700, John Harshman
>> In a court of law, if somebody asked me if I was a descendant of
>> mt-Eve I would have to say "yes". So would you.
>
>I wouldn't I would plead the fifth, and ask for a mistrial to be
>declared. I had incompetent representation. Also, I was never near
>that woman when she died, never touched here,and anyway it was self-
>defence.
>
The classic version (i.e., the one I learned) is:
It wasn't me.
This isn't the girl.
Besides, she wanted to.
r norman
<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
I would have to parse it thusly:
All people are descendants of one man, Y-Adam. True.
All people are descendants of one woman, mt-Eve. True.
Therefore all people are descendants of one man, Y-Adam, and one
woman, mt-Eve. True.
The implication that the one man and the one woman were mates so that
all people are children that the one man and the one woman had
together is incorrectly derived from the words provided.
Nick Keighley
> r norman wrote:
> > On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 19:44:41 -0700, John Harshman
>
> >> Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-orig...@moderators.isc.org wrote:
> >>> John Harshman wrote:
> >>>> r norman wrote:
I still think it manages to confuse people.
Nick Keighley
well 1024 is a Special Magic number to programmers.
I think you suffer from more than a missing character
1/2^25 is NOT 1/10^24
not unless you are using an unusually small 10:2 ratio
1/(2^25) is more like 1/(32 x 10^6)
Nick Keighley
> On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:03:09 -0700 (PDT), aganunitsi
>
>
>
>
>
> <ssyke...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> >On Aug 12, 9:15 am, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
the original question was "[do you believe that] all people are
descendents of one man and one woman – Adam and Eve?"
Plainly this was intended to be taken at face value. That the entire
population was two people. This is what genesis meant. This is what
the survey meant. To jabbering about mitochrodrial Eve and Y-Adam is
to just muddy the waters. (Why to look smart?). ME and YA were
probably separted by 1000s (more? much more?) of years of time. Just
becasue most of Y chromasome came from YA doesn't say *anything* about
the rest of my genome.
> >> It is a mathematical certainty that there was one single female
> >> individual who was in the maternal line of descent of everyone now
> >> alive.
and also a mathematical certainty that I share almost no nuclear DNA
with her.
> >> And it is a mathematical certainty that there was one single
> >> individual who was in the paternal line of descent of everyone now
> >> alive.
and with whom I shar very little DNA
you mean "do". Doesn't mDNA mutate?
> And all of us have bits of
> mitochondrial DNA (perhaps large bits, perhaps virtually none -- that
> doesn't matter) inherited from that one woman.
in what sense "doesn't it matter"?
> But at the same time
> we also have lots and lots of other bits of DNA in all the rest of our
> genome that derived from other people in the population that
> mitochondrial eve belonged to, not to mention separate populations of
> H. sapieins that were contemporaneous.
right which what makes the ME claims so unrelated to the Genesis
claims
> In other words, your mother's
> mother's mother's ... mother's mother is just one of many ancestors
> that you have. Still, you are a descendant of that individual.
>
> This situation produces an enormous amount of puzzlement and
> confusion.
not helped by you!
alextangent
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:10:24 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard
>
In Glasgow, it's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Big_Boy_did_it_and_Ran_Away
John S. Wilkins
I didn't do it
Nobody saw me do it
You can't prove anything
- Bart Simpson
--
John S. Wilkins, Philosophy, Bond University
http://evolvingthoughts.net
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre
r norman
<nick_keigh...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On 12 Aug, 22:42, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> This situation produces an enormous amount of puzzlement and
>> confusion.
>
>not helped by you!
I am merely playing the t.o. game according to the rules. I read the
words as written and produce a perfectly correct and logically valid
interpretation of those words. That my interpretation of the words
differs from yours in no way suggests that my way is invalid. And
clarification of puzzlement and confusion is rarely part of t.o.
procedure.
The whole question of mt-Eve and Y-Adam truly is confusing because
most people fail to understand that the existence of those two
individuals has nothing to do with whether we posess even a shred of
genetic information from them because their existence does not depend
on the biology of how genetic information works. They are products of
the fact that we each have one biological father and one biological
mother ignoring all other biology or genetics or evolution or anything
else. It is confusing because it incorrectly leads people to think
along the lines of a biblical adam and eve as the sole progenitors of
the human species when these notions have no such implication. I am
trying to force people to confront those misconceptions.
John Harshman
Sorry. Let's try that again. Your great^25 grandmother contributes, on
average, 1/2^25 of your genome. 2^25 is 33,554,432. Call that 3*10^7.
Your diploid genome has about 6*10^9 bases. So your great^25 grandmother
contributes, on average, 200 bases. Is that better?
Nick Keighley
fine!
:-)
John Harshman
Why would you have to parse it thusly? Some compulsion to ignore the
obvious intended meaning?
> All people are descendants of one man, Y-Adam. True.
> All people are descendants of one woman, mt-Eve. True.
>
> Therefore all people are descendants of one man, Y-Adam, and one
> woman, mt-Eve. True.
Why single out those particular ancestors to the exclusion of all others?
> The implication that the one man and the one woman were mates so that
> all people are children that the one man and the one woman had
> together is incorrectly derived from the words provided.
English is indeed, as are all natural languages, filled with little
ambiguities that you have to resolve based on context. And I have to
ask: have you been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome?
John Harshman
>>>> And it is a mathematical certainty that there was one single
>>>> individual who was in the paternal line of descent of everyone now
>>>> alive.
>
> and with whom I shar very little DNA
Very little, perhaps, but much, much more than you share with any other
ancestor of that time, since you inherit the entire non-recombining
portion of your Y chromosome from him. Other contemporary ancestors just
contribute tiny little bits of DNA here and there, or, with a fair
probability, none at all. (The biggest other contribution, dwarfed by
even the Y chromosome, is the 16,000 bases you get from your female-line
mitochondrial ancestor).
But your point remains.
Nick Keighley
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 06:07:07 -0700 (PDT), Nick Keighley
> <nick_keighley_nos...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >On 12 Aug, 22:42, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> This situation produces an enormous amount of puzzlement and
> >> confusion.
>
> >not helped by you!
>
> I am merely playing the t.o. game according to the rules. I read the
> words as written and produce a perfectly correct and logically valid
> interpretation of those words.
ah, TO rules. No biting and gouged eyes to handed back at the end.
> That my interpretation of the words
> differs from yours in no way suggests that my way is invalid. And
> clarification of puzzlement and confusion is rarely part of t.o.
> procedure.
>
> The whole question of mt-Eve and Y-Adam truly is confusing because
> most people fail to understand that the existence of those two
> individuals has nothing to do with whether we posess even a shred of
> genetic information from them
it just happens to be one of my pet.. high horses. Why did the
biologists start throwing terms like Adam and Eve around? Wasn't the
confusion predictable.
I've just read "Out of Eden". All those cute names... "and then
Shaharazade walked aound the coast of India...". No. No she didn't!
> because their existence does not depend
> on the biology of how genetic information works. They are products of
> the fact that we each have one biological father and one biological
> mother ignoring all other biology or genetics or evolution or anything
> else. It is confusing because it incorrectly leads people to think
> along the lines of a biblical adam and eve as the sole progenitors of
> the human species when these notions have no such implication. I am
> trying to force people to confront those misconceptions.
I still think the first popularisations of the subject of Eve caused
untold (and partly unnecessary) confusion
r norman
<jhar...@pacbell.net> wrote:
I have two philosphers and a lawyer as children (including by
marriage). Interpreting the fine points of a linguistic utterance is
a very natural process to me.
I cannot understand how you can deny that you are a descendant of
mt-Eve and of Y-Adam. Those are patently true statements.
Your problem is similar to that of people who interpret "A OR B" as to
mean that you can't have "Both A AND B". That is, OR cannot mean
"inclusive OR". But anybody who has studied logic or computer
programming automatically assumes that OR is inclusive. By the same
token, when given the statement about "Adam" and "Eve" I automatically
think of "Y-Adam" and 'mt-Eve" and since both are my ancestors (along
with a lot of other ancestors) I am automatically a descendant of
both.
aganunitsi
> I have two philosphers and a lawyer as children (including by
> marriage). Interpreting the fine points of a linguistic utterance is
> a very natural process to me.
Well then you should have known that a simple "True" or "False" answer
to the statement " All people are descendants of one man and one woman
– Adam and
Eve." would be ignoring the finer points. The proper nouns "Adam" and
"Eve" introduce a "finer point", namely "I can't state true or false
without clarification as to whether or not you are you referring to
the common definition of the proper nouns Adam and Eve."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve
Introducing the terms "mitochondrial" and "Y chromosome" where there
are none, then stating that there is no other way to interpret the
question so the answer has to be "True", is pure bullshit on you part.
I blame your kids.
If the statement had been "All people are descendants of one man and
one woman." - well then that's a different statement.
r norman
It doesn't matter. There existed one man of whom all people are
descendants. There existed one woman of whom all people are
descendants. Ergo, there exists one man AND one one of whom ...
I never said there was no other way to interpret the statement (or at
least I shouldn't have said any such thing). But I insist that my
interpretation is quite valid and, to me at least, comes easily and
naturally.
el cid
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:10:24 -0700 (PDT), Burkhard
>
I ran outta gas! I had a flat tire! I didn't have enough money for
cab fare! My tux didn't come back from the cleaners! An old
friend came in from outta town! Someone stole my car! There
was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts!! It wasn't my
fault I swear to God!!!
Free Lunch
wrote in talk.origins:
So why did the object of this craven "apology" have better weapons in
_Blues Brothers_ than in _Star Wars_?
cassandra
Jake and Elwood?
cassandra
orig...@moderators.isc.org" <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> On Aug 13, 7:02 am, cassandra <cassandra99...@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip for focus>
> > Would I be over-simplifying your point here by saying that you
> > interpret the statement from the OP to be: All people are descendents
> > of *only* one man and *only* one woman?
>
> I'm a descendant of four grandparents.
No kidding? Me too! It's a good thing neither of us claim
parthenogenesis in our immediate ancestry.
> Here we're almost getting picky about grammar as well as logic, but
> nicety is important. For instance if I say "There is a number larger
> than any number", do I mean that every ordinal number has another
> number larger than it (true), or that I know of a number, call it
> "omega", that is larger than all the other numbers (false, if omega+1
> is not equal to omega, such as aleph-null fails to be)?
>
> How about: All people are descendants exclusively of one man and one
> woman? (i.e. bible Adam and Eve).
Fine by me, if that's the question aganunitsi means. Of course, only
aganunitsi knows the answer to that question for certain.
> Or:
> All people are descendants of one particular man.
> (And also of his father, etc.)
> And all people are descendants of one particular woman.
>
> Or:
> The first humans hatched out of thousands of eggs that fell from outer
> space. Or grew from the ground after Thor made it rain with magic
> in. Or whatever.
>
> As for the inevitability of common descent and intermarriage, remember
> that the Inhumans have been living in the secret city of Attilan in
> the Himalayas for a very long time, and I think they've only married
> out with mutants. So you won't find any ancestors from Attilan in
> your no-X-Men human family tree. (Of course it isn't to be confused
> with Atlantis, except when it is. They moved it at least once...)
Are you now, or have you ever been, a lawyer?
cassandra
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:26:37 -0700 (PDT), el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com>
You can get anything in Chicago.
el cid
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:26:37 -0700 (PDT), el cid <elcidbi...@gmail.com>
First answer: well, one of those was long long ago.
Second answer: I thought she was packing pretty good in the
PLGB. (do you need to search t.o. for PLGB?)
aganunitsi
<snip>
> It doesn't matter. There existed one man of whom all people are
> descendants. There existed one woman of whom all people are
> descendants. Ergo, there exists one man AND one one of whom ...
Yes, it does matter. Because the common definition of Adam and Eve is
"the *first* man and the *first* woman." As I pointed out in my
original post to this thread, it is highly unlikely that the human
race began as one man and one woman, and much more likely that it
began as a subspecies of the progenitors. So the individuals who were
the first two humans chronologically were likely members of a human-
ish pool that was generating humans throughout it's population. There
is no reason to assume that the two chronologically first humans have
any surviving offspring today, much less that all of humanity is
descended from them.
Free Lunch
wrote in talk.origins:
I vaguely remembered it, but I didn't realize that was more than a
decade ago.
Free Lunch
<cassand...@gmail.com> wrote in talk.origins:
Jake. The explanation for his need to make excuses comes from the
Mystery Woman:
"You contemptible pig! I remained celibate for you. I stood at the back
of a cathedral, waiting, in celibacy, for you, with three hundred
friends and relatives in attendance. My uncle hired the best Romanian
caterers in the state. To obtain the seven limousines for the wedding
party, my father used up his last favor with Mad Pete Trullo. So for me,
for my mother, my grandmother, my father, my uncle, and for the common
good, I must now kill you, and your brother."
John Harshman
father. Right?
aganunitsi
<snip>
> And you have two grandparents: your mother's mother and your father's
> father. Right?
Well yeah, I'm not Jesus.
Mitchell Coffey
I assume this is the get up she wore while she was Jabba, .t.H.'s sex
slave, but I'm not ashamed to ask what "PLGB" stands for.
Mitchell Coffey
Mitchell Coffey
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:44:01 -0700 (PDT), cassandra
Easily a far, far better line than any granted Fisher in her entire
Star Wars career.
Mitchell Coffey
el cid
Princess Leia Gold Bikini, standard swimwear at the
Aquatic Ape Facility, not that much swimming goes
on there. Available at the UofE bookstore.
johnbee
As for the rest, it strikes me that you may have run into one of those
science teachers who likes to set questions where you choose between
the "science answer" and the "common knowledge answer", >
No. I am afraid that I was much too well educated to have such a thing as a
science teacher. Of course I had some physics teachers, biology teachers,
chemistry teachers and the like. The reason I answered the post (as well as
it being interesting) was that I have knowledge about the subject of opinion
polling.
cassandra
> On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:44:01 -0700 (PDT), cassandra
I am familiar with the scene. I had thought my effort to avoid giving
away the answer might be appreciated. Apparently not.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
If they get to read comicbooks all day too, then I am from now.
Actually, Princess Crystal (really sounds less silly without the
title) married (and divorced) Pietro Maximoff before (if) he was in
the X-Men. He was in The Avengers and, um, the Brotherhood of Evil
Mutants. Oops. Not at the same time.
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
Here I disagree. If there's a gene for being human whilst living
amongst our not-quite-human ancestors, a simple interpretation is that
one individual got it first by some kind of mutation, and the next
ones to get it were some of his or her offspring, and then finally
everyone is descended from number one.
It's more complicated than that, and we haven't defined humanness or
whether it /is/ genetic,but where do /you/ think that my
interpretation fails?
aganunitsi
orig...@moderators.isc.org"
<snip>
> Here I disagree. If there's a gene for being human whilst living
> amongst our not-quite-human ancestors, a simple interpretation is that
> one individual got it first by some kind of mutation, and the next
> ones to get it were some of his or her offspring, and then finally
> everyone is descended from number one.
>
> It's more complicated than that, and we haven't defined humanness or
> whether it /is/ genetic,but where do /you/ think that my
> interpretation fails?
I already said that the scenario you described is (remotely) possible,
but not likely and it doesn't fit the evidence. Your interpretation
doesn't "fail" any more than betting on winning the lottery "fails".
Greg G.
> On Aug 12, 3:51 pm, "Greg G." <ggw...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Aug 12, 9:30 am, cassandra <cassandra99...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Aug 12, 6:36 am, "Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-
>
> > > orig...@moderators.isc.org" <rja.carne...@excite.com> wrote:
> > > > On Aug 12, 6:41 am, cassandra <cassandra99...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > On Aug 11, 5:38 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > On Aug 11, 5:11 pm, r norman <r_s_nor...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > > > > > > On Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:53:22 -0700 (PDT), Frank J <f...@verizon.net>
> > > > > > > wrote:
>
> > > > > > > >The latest issue of RNCSE has the most interesting poll about
> > > > > > > >evolution/creationism I have ever seen. The poll, from Harris
> > > > > > > >Interactive, has 25 questions. Here are 4, with the % of adult
> > > > > > > >Americans that answered “true”:
>
> > > > > > > >1. The earth is less than 10,000 years old: 18%
>
> > > > > > > >2. God created the universe, earth, the sun, moon, stars, plants
> > > > > > > >animals and the first 2 people within the past 10,000 years: 39%
>
> > > > > > nontechnical articles which didn't try hard to explain the difference)
> > > > > > that ME ad YCA were indeed the Biblical characters.
>
> > > > > > If the people I know (few scientists, many engineers) are any
> > > > > > indication, only a minority ever heard of ME and YCA, and almost none
> > > > > > can define them correctly (matrilineal, patrilineal lineages, etc.) I
> > > > > > fact when I first heard of ME in 1988, I assumed they had found the
> > > > > > fossil!
>
> > > > > I see the same confusion you do resulting in part from the sloppy
> > > > > reporting of these findings. For example, its easy to misunderstand
> > > > > that ME and YCA means that no other males and females of that time
> > > > > have living descendants.
>
> > > > In fact it means that other individuals' mitochondria and their Y
> > > > chromosomes, as according, have no living descendants.
>
> > > When I first heard about these concepts, I thought so as well, but
> > > that only proves my point. See below.
>
> > > > For instance, because I'm a male, only some crazy cloning process
> > > > would produce a child with my mitochondria. Having said that, my
> > > > mitochondria are at least almost identical to my sisters'
> > > > mitochondria. My mitochondria have nephews and/or nieces. (I don't
> > > > want to reveal a lot of personal information to make a point.)
>
> > > I understand your hesitation, but doing so is unnecessary. I bet you
> > > understand that just because you have no patrilineal mitochondria in
> > > no way suggests you have no father.
>
> > > > > The fact is, the farther back in time you
> > > > > go, the more likely it is that anybody who had children then is
> > > > > related to everybody living today. And that statement is entirely
> > > > > consistent with ME and YCA.
>
> > > > Um...
>
> > > I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but its still true. Perhaps the
> > > source of your confusion is similar to mine, in failing to recognize
> > > the consequence of the fact that all lineages ultimately overlap, and
> > > do so rather quickly and completely.
>
> > > These links might be helpful.
>
> > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
>
> > >http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mitoeve.html
>
> > I think you will find that all the people with living descendants are
> > an ancestor to all of us is far more recent than ME and YCA. I'm not
> > sure how the the first Americans and the first Australians factor in
> > but if you go back 10 generations or 400 years, you have 1000+
> > ancestors, so going back 50 generations or 2000 years, everybody on
> > the continent of your ancestors who has living descendants is an
> > ancestor an average of 5 million times.
>
> Uh, no.
> And not because your powers of 2 are off but you are completely
> dismissing inbreeding. It has a big affect on the numbers as does
> local levels of population isolation.
>
> > The trade routes between Egypt and Europe allowed the ancestry of each
> > continent to be represented on the other continent more than 2500
> > years ago.
>
> Yes but who begets with whom is perhaps not so simple as rolls
> of the dice. There may be enough genealogy data out there to
> run some real numbers but the trite sort of calculations that ignore
> inbreeding and local population isolation are garbage in/garbage
> out.
You only need a few traveling salesmen or a few mail-order brides to
transport all of one area's ancestors to another area.
cassandra
Makes about as much sense to me as the rest of you posts.
Burkhard
You could then come to next year's GiKii conference..
http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/gikii/
Ron O
Robert Carnegie: Fnord: cc talk-origins@moderators.isc.org
I don't yet see what's really wrong with defining a genetic humanness
and hypothetically tracing that back through our ancestors till we get
to an individual whose ancestors didn't have it, and calling that
organism the first human.
Of course, to do the trace, we'd need to have had space aliens keeping
all of our ancestors' tissue samples.
Frank J
> On Aug 11, 3:53 pm, Frank J <f...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> Too many.
Well, even one is too many. But if I had to choose between:
1. ~22% are YECs, but they are all so confident that the evidence
supports it that they put as much effort and passion to challenging
OECs as they do "evolutionists,"
and
2. ~22% are YECs but most of them claim that "when" questions are
unimportant, and put 99+% of their efforts into misrepresenting
evolution and/or deluding themselves, and make excuses for anti-
evolution positions that either contradict theirs or refuse to take a
position.
I'd choose #1 hands down over #2.
#1 would undermine the "big tent" strategy, while #2 - what we have
now - keeps *a sizable majority* (~70%) believing that it's fair to
"teach the controversy" in science class.
r norman
This is a version of what philosophers call the "Sorites Problem"
One grain of wheat does not make a heap ('soros' in Greek). Suppose
you do have a heap of wheat and then remove one grain at a time. At
what point does it stop becoming a heap?
Exactly what do you mean by "human". If you trace back through our
ancestors, is it possible to draw a clean line and say "this one yes,
the next one up the line no"? You simply declared that you would
define it "genetically" without specifying how.
el cid
From the point of view of humans, yes the gene for being
human is unlikely and misleading. From the point of view
of the currently nondescript species specialous pledus
there is an interesting story.
What makes specialous pledus special is that back in its
evolution a gene arose involving it genitalia that as the
homozygous recessive provides for reproductive isolation.
hh x hh can mate and reproduce but not hh x hH or hh x HH.
hH x hH, hH x HH and HH x HH also reproduce. In this
case (as happens with some insects) mating is mechanically
impossible. Other forms of isolation involving more
mundane forms of non-viability or sterility for crosses
can likely be cited.
The parent population eventually lost the h allele but
a subpopulation fixed h and became the species
specialous pledus. Fred was name of the critter
that first had the h allele. It might have been a better
example if his name was Adam or Eve, but it was Fred.
To confuse matters, Fred also has descendants in the
parent species and Fred isn't the most recent unique
parent of specialous pledus but his was a special
contribution.
r norman
I'd give this a "B" for demonstrating knowledge of reproductive
isolation and basic genetics but no higher because of flaws in the
argument. Well, maybe "B+" for a clever exposition of the idea. Also
lack of grammatical and spelling errors makes it a very unusual
submission.
The problem is that you specify that the parent population originally
developed the h allele although it was later lost. Certainly in that
original population, there must have been a case of Hh x Hx mating
resulting in at least one hh offspring. This would have been a rare
occurrence and so would have died childless unable to find a suitable
partner. But there was at least one and, your definition of the
species is possession of that hh genotype. So long before the
existince of your special subpopulation that fixed the h allele there
were lots of childless members of that species.
You say Fred was the first to have the h allele but Fred was not a
member of specialus pledus! The subpopulation that became specialus
pledus had no specific "first member" who was that species.
Ron O
The vast majority of YEC are neither. Most just don't know any
better. When you can have a quarter of your adults that don't know
that the earth orbits the sun, being YEC isn't that much worse.
Ron Okimoto
Frank J
I'll rephrase #2, which I take to be the status quo. You're right that
most rank-and-file YECs rarely gave any serious thought to "when"
questions, but when forced to take a position, even the most
hopelessly ignorant, confused or compartmentalized YECs know better
than antagonize any potential ally in the war against "Darwinism."
>
> Ron Okimoto- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Ron O
Rephrase it again. Most of those types are clueless that there aere
alternative creationist scenarios.
>
>
> > Ron Okimoto-
el cid
I don't recall requesting a grade. Further, I wonder if it might be
the work of an impostor given your comments on spelling and
grammar.
> The problem is that you specify that the parent population originally
> developed the h allele although it was later lost. Certainly in that
> original population, there must have been a case of Hh x Hx mating
> resulting in at least one hh offspring. This would have been a rare
> occurrence and so would have died childless unable to find a suitable
> partner. But there was at least one and, your definition of the
> species is possession of that hh genotype. So long before the
> existince of your special subpopulation that fixed the h allele there
> were lots of childless members of that species.
You are confused. The existence of individuals that could
have been ancestral to specialous pledus but died out
does not change things. Further, while the h allele is of
special import to specialous pledus I did not claim it to
be the fully sufficient characteristic of the species other
than in its historically fascinating role.
> You say Fred was the first to have the h allele but Fred was not a
> member of specialus pledus! The subpopulation that became specialus
> pledus had no specific "first member" who was that species.
I don't believe I claimed otherwise. I feel for those who
you make down for failing support the arguments you
erroneously presumed they were making.
You might pause to consider that, contrary to the tone
of your response, I did not begin by saying you were
wrong regarding your story of grains in a heap of wheat.
The value of the story, such as it may exist, is that there
is perhaps something in between the two scenarios that
were being discussed.
However, I will offer a variant where Fredrica is in fact
the founder though not a member of the species
eggus though she herself was a chickenus. In this
case, the mutant allele for prezygotic isolation is
dominant and appears in half of her 20000 offspring.
As they were an incestuous brood and she herself
hatched early that spring, and further was blown uphill
to be the first to lay her eggs by a freshly thawed
pond, her offspring were not hopelessly diluted by
others of her species so took hold. And ultimately,
her chickenus offspring survived while her eggus
offspring died out as did the homozygous recessive
children her various decedents had while the H
gene was becoming fixed.
Yes, things might have turned out differently but
that is of course beside the point which is that
a gene/allele can be functionally essential in
differentiating a species even if it remains silly
to speak of a gene as defining a species. I don't
believe that stacks of wheat are formed and
differentiated in an analogous manner.
Frank J
Agreed there too, but because almost no one ever bothers to tell them.
Not even the clergy in their church, who might be aware, and might
even know that all are nonsense.
However you describe the status quo, I'd much prefer #1 if it were the
only other option.
>
>
>
>
>
> > > Ron Okimoto-- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -