Two people reproduced 7 billion people.

[Esquilax]

When discussing religion you generally get to questions of faith at some point. It's obvious that it's within god's supposed power to maintain the genome long enough for interbreeding to become avoidable. Whether he did or not is just a question of faith.

Is that a no, then?

[John V]

Is that a no, then?

Correct. I cannot produce Adam and Eve's genome for you.

[Esquilax]

Correct. I cannot produce Adam and Eve's genome for you.

Well, I'm more talking about any form of verifiable proof at all, but if you can't prove it, then why believe in it?

Or rather, look at it in the reverse: if it were true, shouldn't you be able to prove it? If scientists can provide evolutionary chains going back millions of years, should they not also be able to support this biblical claim? If it were true, there should be proof of it all over, well within our ability to find.

[Anomalocaris]

As if this needs mentioning. But our genes contains abundant evidence of the fact that several hundred millions of different couples existed at the time of supposed Adam and Eve. So except in those lines that eventually led to 21st century christians, there were no evidence of extensive inbreeding.

[festive1]

Two words eople die.

Six words: each line is a separate generation.

For example, the second line is nine. That's 3+3+3, the three surviving children of each of the three initial couples. The parents are not included in that number. We're accounting for death.

Three children per couple seems reasonable, but let's lower it. Set the growth to just 10%. Now you hit 7 billion in the 293rd generation. If a generation is 20 years, that's 5,860 years, and we're not even building in the effect of the early long life spans.

It just doesn't take that long.

How can you neglect the fact that these people would have been inbreeding with close, biological relatives for multiple generations? It didn't work for the European aristocracies, many developed genetic diseases such as hemophilia, it certainly would have been less successful 6,000 years ago when Christians believe all of this was going on.

[Ryantology]

Debating whether or not two people can produce 7 billion seems really beside the point, because it certainly didn't happen.

[Justtristo]

Just a question to christians how is this logical again? Whats your argument?

Actually the bible says that all the people alive today are descended from a couple, their three sons and their wives who lived around 4400 years ago. That was all the people living on the earth at that time, according to the bible.

[catfish]

Male and female created he them... Adm, humans (them = 2 or more)
(hermaphrodites or transexuals or whatever PC term you want to use)

God took out the tesla (angular organ, possibly "womb") , not a rib...
(1st genetic mutation of single-sex human "creating" the first female - wom(b)man?)

Adm (human) couples with Eve (1st female-only human) and creates offspring males that carry Eve's genetic traits.
(offspring males procreate with other hermaphrodite humans passing on Eve's genes) (could this be where Cane got his wife?)



If we all have a common ancestor (species, genetic trait, whatever), then I can't in good conscience say that there wasn't inbreeding. There had to be...
.

[John V]

How can you neglect the fact that these people would have been inbreeding with close, biological relatives for multiple generations? It didn't work for the European aristocracies, many developed genetic diseases such as hemophilia, it certainly would have been less successful 6,000 years ago when Christians believe all of this was going on.

1. I'm not neglecting it. My position is that A&E's genome had lots of variation built in to it and had far fewer defects than today, so inbreeding was at first not a problem. By the time we get to the patriarchs, we see Abraham married to a half sister. 400 years later in the law, that is not allowed. Errors are accumulating in the genome.

2. What's your answer to the problem? In the evolutionary paradigm life begain as asexual. There was necessarily some starting point to sexual reproduction. What's science's answer to the alleged inbreeding problem, and what is its evidence for that answer?

---

Well, I'm more talking about any form of verifiable proof at all, but if you can't prove it, then why believe in it?

We believe all sorts of things we can't prove. See my point to to festive above.

Or rather, look at it in the reverse: if it were true, shouldn't you be able to prove it?

Not necessarily, no. There's frequently not enough evidence to prove historical events.

If scientists can provide evolutionary chains going back millions of years,

Provide? Can they prove them? Is there absolute agreement on them?

should they not also be able to support this biblical claim? If it were true, there should be proof of it all over, well within our ability to find.

Again, I disagree that proof of historical events is necessarily well within our ability to find, and await your explanation of the evolutionary origin of sexual reproduction and proof of that explanation.

[festive1]

How can you neglect the fact that these people would have been inbreeding with close, biological relatives for multiple generations? It didn't work for the European aristocracies, many developed genetic diseases such as hemophilia, it certainly would have been less successful 6,000 years ago when Christians believe all of this was going on.

1. I'm not neglecting it. My position is that A&E's genome had lots of variation built in to it and had far fewer defects than today, so inbreeding was at first not a problem. By the time we get to the patriarchs, we see Abraham married to a half sister. 400 years later in the law, that is not allowed. Errors are accumulating in the genome.

2. What's your answer to the problem? In the evolutionary paradigm life begain as asexual. There was necessarily some starting point to sexual reproduction. What's science's answer to the alleged inbreeding problem, and what is its evidence for that answer?

Well, you see, when humans first evolved, there was more than one species. Higher forms of life, birds, reptiles, mammals, all tend to reproduce sexually rather than asexually. I'm sure there may be exceptions, my biology knowledge base isn't wide enough to point them out, but asexual reproduction tends to happen in lifeforms like bacteria and worms. I'm not asserting that early humans reproduced asexually. They reproduced sexually, and did so with other species.

However, an analysis of a first draft of the Neanderthal genome by the same team released in May 2010 indicates interbreeding may have occurred.[13][14] "Those of us who live outside Africa carry a little Neanderthal DNA in us," said Pääbo, who led the study. "The proportion of Neanderthal-inherited genetic material is about 1 to 4 percent. It is a small but very real proportion of ancestry in non-Africans today," says Dr. David Reich of Harvard Medical School, who worked on the study. This research compared the genome of the Neanderthals to five modern humans from China, France, sub-Saharan Africa, and Papua New Guinea. The finding is that about 1 to 4 percent of the genes of the non-Africans came from Neanderthals, compared to the baseline defined by the two Africans.[13]
This indicates a gene flow from Neanderthals to modern humans, i.e., interbreeding between the two populations

Bolding mine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

Where's your evidence that Adam and Eve had perfect DNA, incorruptible from inbreeding? It seems to me that the evidence supports a cross breeding of at least neanderthals and humans, if not other sub-species of humanoids rather than, "In the beginning there were two perfect people who populated the world."