Adam, Eve and Population Genetics: A Reply to Dr. Richard Buggs (Part 1)

[Swamidass (Peaceful Science)]

@TedDavis

Dennis,

I appreciate the great clarity of your reply to Dr. Buggs–not that an absence of clarity has ever been something I would associate with your work.

I hope that Discovery also tweets your reply to Dr. Buggs. They owe it to fair discourse to do exactly that much, since they are responsible for bringing Buggs’ concerns out of the academic tent and into their own, much larger tent. Otherwise, they might be skirting with the same danger that Buggs is worried about: that “of alienating Christians from science on the basis of a wrong interpretation of the current literature.”

I resonate with that concern. That’s one of the main reasons why I decided to devote my professional life to helping Christians (and others too) understand the history better. Thank you for helping us understand the science better.

Hello @TedDavis, I hope you are well my friend. Things have come a long substantially since you first posted on this thread, back about 2 months ago. I summarized the scientific highlights of this conversation here.

Heliocentric Certainty Against a Bottleneck of Two?

Surprisingly, at lease to me, @RichardBuggs was on to something. Our certainty about a bottleneck in the distant past (e.g. before 500 kya) may not be as high as we imagined. As I write here…

@Swamidass

This is not evidence for a single couple bottleneck but evidence that population genetics will be unable to detect a bottleneck in the distant past. It is an argument that such a bottleneck would be hidden in the shadows, and not clearly seen in the data.

And the implications for theology…

@Swamidass

As many people have noted, for most people, this is a fairly disturbing challenge to theology. Perhaps some will find solace in an ancient Adam that was not Homo sapien. At the moment, that seems to be an outlier position, though perhaps it will grow

Now, @TedDavis, I agree with you that a recent genealogical Adam (A Genealogical Rapprochement on Adam?) is probably more significant in the long run that an ancient single-couple bottleneck. This, nonetheless, is a surprising finding. Assuming, of course, that it pans out. We are still early in the game, and might find a mistake. This reminds, many ways, of a similar point we were almost exactly 12 months ago on the genealogical Adam work.

Nonetheless, this really could pan out, and some Christians mich join @agauger in taking this view. At the very least, much of the claims on the science have been overstated if it takes this much effort to disprove an ancient bottleneck, and we have yet to do so.

I’m curious, therefore, your thoughts on a few levels as a historian many of us trust in this conversation:

1. How do you think an ancient bottleneck couple will influence the conversation?
2. How do you think a recent genealogical Adam will influence the conversation?
3. If TE / EC’s have overstated or been overconfident on the evidence, how should this correction rework our voice?
4. Do you know any good historical analogies to these two corrections, if they end up being correct.
5. I am planning for the ASA Workshop in June in Boston on “Reworking the Science of Adam.” What do you think are the key things for the ASA community to know about these exchanges?

Thanks for your thoughtfulness here. I’m wondering how your perspective could guide us here. Many of us are doing what we can to serve the Church, and the science of Adam appears to be a place where the ball was fumbled.