Latest Critique of Venema's Claims About Past Human Population Sizes

Too liberal for you. :yum:

The rest of your post sounds like you agree with me.

@Richard_Wright1

I think I do agree with you … unless the Swammi can come up with a compelling reason why Adam
really just has to be one of the common ancestors for all humans alive today …

God has surprised us many times! In this case, one could claim that God could arrange it so that Adam was the MRCA, which bumps up everything substantially. But if one is going to claim divine intervention to arrange a perfect MRCA, then all bets are off anyway, aren’t they?[quote=“gbrooks9, post:117, topic:37034”]
These dates are estimates based on culture and technology?
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There are a lot of assumptions built into the model, of course. I think Rohde did yeoman’s work in building it, but he lays out numerous qualifications, especially on the migration numbers. Their lifespan was a problem, too, being based on early 20th-century figures (51.4 median age at death, as I recall). Median lifespans began to climb in the 20th century. Rohde should’ve chosen something from the 19th century, at the latest. (Median lifespans were fairly steady from antiquity until the 20th century. We take it for granted these days that we should live to at least 70.) A function of the math that I frankly don’t completely understand is that the MRCA fluctuated mainly with migration and wasn’t affected too much by other factors, but the IAP seemed to be affected by every variable. At least, that’s how I read it. Maybe someone with more math skills than me can decipher the prose …

Edit: I meant migration numbers, not patterns.

@Jay313

Hasn’t this been the point some of us have been trying to make with you for the last dozen posts or so?

You are getting all wrapped up in technicalities… as though that was somehow the real issue at hand.

When in fact, the real issue at hand, is identifying and listing those premises of Creation that would need to be modified by God the Creator (in other words, would require His special attention !) in order to accommodate special creation of Adam & Eve - - along with the evolution of the rest of the human population!?

For some reason, the same people that think God made humans from dirt get all shy and bashful when we suggest that God might have intentionally led a navigator to a new continent or an undiscovered island. Then, all of a sudden, we need to know the social security number of who this impertinent fellow could have been!

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Swamidass’ model has always been a mixture of science and faith. The science says that it is entirely possible that there are universal genealogical ancestors that existed in the not so distant pass relative to the MRCA’s for mitochondrial and y chromosomal DNA. However, none of the science demonstrates that the male and female MRUGA’s lived at the same time, in the same area, or even had children with each other. Swamidass’ has simply found an unknown in science, and inserted A&E. Needless to say, if A&E did not exist then we would see these same geneaological and genetic patterns.

I would classify Swadmiass’ model the same as I would classify the Resurrection. There is no scientific evidence demonstrating that a man named Jesus did not rise from the dead around 33 AD, but there is no evidence that such a thing did happen. A&E as MRUGA’s would seem to fit the same bill.

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If we use Charlemagne or Genghis Kahn as our examples, then this doesn’t quite fit. They each had many wives (and non-wives) and many children from those wives, so the female UGA would be the common genealogical ancestor of those wives. But as you say, A&E are expected to be monogamous so this doesn’t apply in every case.

However, the MRCA for mitDNA and y-chrom are not expected to be a couple, so why wouldn’t the same apply to female and male MRUGA’s? I am not arguing against the idea, just that I don’t see any reason why this would be more likely.

think we should do this in another thread…

See my answers here, and please put technical questions about UGA there: https://discourse.biologos.org/t/questions-about-universal-ancestry/

One my our kids asked us to submit DNA for analysis. I pass the hits to him. We found a bunch of close relatives on my side of who we had photos but didn’t know who they were and my wife found one “lost” cousin. This was several years ago.

Every week I get a half dozen mtDNA hits that could go back to Noah’s Ark. My wife gets almost none.

Are you referring to your idea that maybe God sent a man to have sex with women on distant continents or islands?

@beaglelady

Well, indeed I am, my dear doe-eyed Goddess of the Fleets! If we don’t know which vessel the man (or woman) got onto, and then stepped off of … well, how can we take this scenario seriously?

Aren’t you the only person who has suggested this scenario?

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@beaglelady

I’m the only one willing to couch the obvious as part of God’s providential plan? - - I would answer yes to that. But don’t you think it is odd that with all these believers around here, it is a Unitarian who suggests the obvious?

All the genealogical studies involve migrations, of a statistically small number of people, reaching the more distant or more isolated parts of the world. All these genealogical models depend upon the “migration assumptions” completely to achieve their end.

Critics then post in - - how do you prove those small migrations? All I can do is shake my head … why would we need to actually prove the un-provable? Can you prove who and when some small group arrived on the coast of Australia?

If a YEC is convinced that Adam & Eve are ancestors of all humanity, do we have to prove how God accomplished that through migration?

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There is no scientific evidence of the resurrection, but there is evidence. That is that unschooled and ordinary people gave up their lives to testify to the gospel that spread over and changed the world. That is historic evidence that something happened in Judea 2,000 years ago.

Your idea gives me the creeps (a man sailing far and wide simply to become the ancestor of all future generations). But I think it would be a good idea for a dystopian novel–perhaps about some nut desiring to become a new universal ancestor. (The Handmaid’s Tale also gave me the creeps!)

@beaglelady

That would be a good novel!

But perhaps you are working too hard to be creeped out. What makes you think these God-selected wanderers have any idea that this is their fate? They are just minding their own business, on a commercial trip, and a storm takes them off course. Not only is this not hard to believe … I think it is hard to not believe it.

But unless you think the storm winds are whispering in his ears (Voice: “When you step on the beach, you should be wearing the blue bermudas!”), I would think there is zero creepy factor - - unless you meant God’s inscrutible ways …

That is true for some cults which you probably don’t believe in. For example, the Heaven’s Gate cult all committed suicide to take a ride in a comet. I doubt you consider that evidence for a spaceship in the Hale-Bopp comet.

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That’s comparing apples to oranges. The Apostles (except for the, “abnormally born” Paul) were historically unlearned fishers and tax collectors who started a movement that changed the world and still changes individual lives today, like mine. But that’s hardly the only historical evidence. We have the written accounts 3 men who claimed to by eyewitnesses of the 3 years of Jesus’ public ministry (John, Mark and Matthew), we have someone who researched from witnesses and people who spoke to witnesses and wrote an account of what he discovered (Luke) and we have 3 references in the works of the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus that mention Jesus and John the Baptist, as well as other more contested historical evidence. IMHO, that is a lot weightier than the actions of a tiny suicidal cult.

The same could be said for many other religions, with Islam as one example.[quote=“Richard_Wright1, post:136, topic:37034”]
We have the written accounts 3 men who claimed to by eyewitnesses of the 3 years of Jesus’ public ministry (John, Mark and Matthew), we have someone who researched from witnesses and people who spoke to witnesses and wrote an account of what he discovered (Luke) and we have 3 references in the works of the 1st century Jewish historian Josephus that mention Jesus and John the Baptist, as well as other more contested historical evidence. IMHO, that is a lot weightier than the actions of a tiny suicidal cult.
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The same evidence exists for the Mormon faith, yet I doubt you find that evidence to be as compelling. In fact, there are multiple eyewitness accounts of people looking upon the Golden Tablets. There are many historians from the 1800’s who mention Joseph Smith.

I just find it interesting that the evidence Christians put forth is not considered evidence when the same exists for other religions.

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@DennisVenema,

I was looking for information what multi-allele traits in the human genomes have the longest list of alleles.

So far, the clearest case I could find is the Rh blood factor, + or - . For the sake of convenience, I am using parentheses to indicate “raised” alpha characters:

Using the RH symbolism by Wiener, one page listed eight alleles for the human trait:

                       **R(z), R(1), R(2), R(0), r(Y), r('), r (''), r** 

Is there another trait, Dennis, that lots more? Naturally I would like the max. allele counts to include any and all of the Rarest of Alleles for any given trait.

What trait do you recommend?

Dennis mentions genes from the MHC complex in part I of his response to Buggs:

“Humans, however, have a large number of alleles for many genes – famously, there are hundreds of alleles for some genes involved in immune system function.”

You can find a list of alleles for MHC genes here. For HLA-A there are nearly 4,000 alleles. However, I don’t know if these are the best examples because I remember hearing that there is a higher than average recombination rate in the MHC complex.