Your thoughts on punishment or rehabilitation and whether there are any truly bad people

Faith & Science Conversation
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164

I agree with your distinction, but I think you are attributing to me a stronger claim than the one I am actually defending.

A strict two-person genetic bottleneck and a divinely selected or elevated original pair aren’t the same hypothesis, and on that point I agree with you. And I also agree that once the claim concerns a divine act, we are no longer dealing with an ordinary demographic variable that population genetics can model in the same way it models drift, admixture, or bottlenecks. That is precisely why questions about a rational soul, original justice, or a theological Fall are not settled by genetics alone. Science is limited to empirically testable explanations.

But that does not mean my position collapses, and it does not mean I was defending a strict recent genetic bottleneck of two as the sole source of all present-day human genetic diversity. To be precise, as I have already written to Knor, that isn’t the claim I’m defending.

In that sense, I think my reply to Knor already covered most of your point:

  1. I had already distinguished genealogical from genetic descent,
  2. And i had already said that some of the relevant questions are theological rather than purely genetic. So I don’t your comment overturns my position, I think it mostly clarifies a distinction that was already implicit in what I was saying.
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A longer extract:

In particular, the MRCA of all present-day humans lived just a few thousand years ago in these models. Moreover, among all individuals living more than just a few thousand years earlier than the MRCA, each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.

More than twice as far is not “a little farther”. You are quote-mining.

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Just because the people at the Discovery Institute say something doesn’t make it true.

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166

Unless the state of holiness allows for things like murder and cannibalism, it can be tested.

I never claimed to be presenting a scientific discovery about the fall. I merely asked the question: At what point in history would the fall even be possible? Then I simply traced the evolutionary path(s) that led to the point and made my best estimate of the date.

You completely misunderstand evolution and speciation. ALL species appear as a population, without exception. There are exactly ZERO cases of a species arising from a single breeding pair.

I’m familiar with all of that and agree with it. And I also read the original papers that their review was based upon. For the record, I never said there was a “discrete threshold” for a complete modernity package. I described “modernity” as a long on-ramp from roughly 100,000 years ago to 40,000 years ago, which agrees with McBrearty and Brooks.

The “discrete threshold” I was trying to estimate was when the fall might have occurred. I think you would agree that was a discrete event, not a gradual process. Honestly, it could have happened anywhere between 100,000-40,000 years ago. The midpoint of that timeline is 70,000 years ago. I give that the highest probability because it was just prior to the Out of Africa migration, after which humans “filled the earth,” and it coincides with several other lines of converging evidence, such as the first known intentional burial in Africa at 75,000 years ago. So add some error bars and that’s my best educated guess.

Right. It’s a theological conclusion I came to based on my reading of the scientific evidence. (Can you do something about that incredibly long hyperlink in your reply?)

Just FYI, Buggs is a joke.

I can’t keep up with these walls of text. My apologies to those of you who I didn’t have time to reply to.

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No, you have completely and thouroughly misunderstood my point. And as a consequence you are answering a different claim from the one I’m making.

I am not saying that Homo sapiens as a biological species originated from a single breeding pair. Species arise as populations; that is not my point.

My point is that fact that humans emerged as a population doesn’t by itself rule out a real original pair becoming the universal genealogical ancestors of all living humans, nor does it rule out that such a pair could have been specially singled out by God within a wider population.
Those are different claims. Population-based speciation addresses the origin of a species; it doesn’t by itself settle questions of later genealogical universality or theological vocation. Mainstream population genetics itself warns against conflating genealogical ancestry with genetic ancestry, noting that genetic data are “surprisingly uninformative” about the former, that pedigrees include “many ancestors from whom you inherited no genetic material,” and that the genealogical MRCA “need not have any genetic relation to present-day individuals”.

So you didn’t refute my argument, you’ve refuted a strawman of my argument. Read my reply to Knor.

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Again, you are wrong.

Nobody here is saying that Homo sapiens as a biological species originated from a single breeding pair, or that the entire early human population lived in an archaeologically pristine state with no violence anywhere. Species arise as populations; that is not the point at issue.

I am not claiming that the entire early human population lived in a universally observable archaeological state of holiness, with no violence anywhere. If that were my claim, then evidence of violence elsewhere in the record would be relevant.

My claim is different: within a wider human population, there could have been a real pair specially called by God, endowed with rational souls, and placed in a state of holiness and righteousness, who later became the universal genealogical ancestors of all living humans.

That is not the same thing as saying that the whole species originated from one breeding pair, and it is not the same thing as saying that every human group alive at the time shared the same spiritual state.

In fact, even Jeff Hardin’s summary of genealogical models makes exactly this distinction. He says these models allow Adam and Eve to be “genealogical - not genetic - ancestors of all of us” and that they may be “genealogical ancestors of all living people,” while still allowing that “their descendants interbred with a larger population who were created in an evolutionary process,” so that “our ancestors would still arise as a population that never dipped down to a single couple.” https://biologos.org/articles/on-geniality-and-genealogy

That is exactly why your cannibalism objection misses the point. Evidence of violence or cannibalism somewhere in the wider prehistoric population would not, by itself, disprove the possible existence of a special pair within that population.

And the specifically theological part of the claim ( holiness, righteousness, rational soul, special divine calling ) is not directly testable in the way trauma or butchery marks are.

So no: your cannibalism point does not refute my position. It only refutes a much stronger claim, namely, that the entire early human population, in every place, left no traces of violence before the fall but, again, that isn’t what I am arguing.

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Good gosh. The goalposts are constantly shifting. We’re talking about one thing and then you reply as if we were talking about something else. Go back and read what you wrote:

We’re talking about humanity arising as a population. But “that objection is too strong.” In what way? Well, because of the Most Recent Common Ancestor of all present-day humans, which has nothing to do with how the human population appeared in the first place.

And then you go on to disprove we began as a population:

Humans arose as a population. So did every other species in history. Genetics settles the issue.

On strictly scientific grounds, humans emerged as a population, not from an original breeding pair. It has nothing to do with pedigree.

Chomsky has likewise become a joke in his later years. He claimed language just appeared fully formed at around the same time I suggested for the fall. It’s a laughable suggestion that no one really took seriously.

You didn’t make that point and didn’t make that claim. You pretty specifically argued the opposite.

Language leaves no fossils. Duh. There’s more than the anatomical potential for speech. There are indirect evidences that leave a trace. The sudden appearance of trade networks a million years ago. Their sudden expansion 100,000 years ago, and again at roughly 40,000 years ago. H. erectus transiting bodies of water to inhabit islands. Etc.

That wasn’t the argument. You can believe that if you want to. Just don’t ask me to believe that God used that parlor trick to make everyone a sinner.

That’s fine. Just admit your claim is a faith claim with no evidence to support it.

I’m done here. Again.

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170

You are right about one thing: my earlier wording was too loose, and that made it easy to read me as though I were denying that Homo sapiens arose as a population. I am not denying that. On that point, I agree with you. The MRCA argument is not an argument about how a biological species first appears. It is an argument about whether population origins, by themselves, rule out a real original pair later becoming universal genealogical ancestors. Those are different questions.

So where I think you are still wrong is here: in your article, you don’t merely say that species arise as populations, you use that fact as the opening objection against Adam-and-Eve-style solutions: “humanity appeared as a population,” so how could a population “fall,” and then you dismiss Craig, Swamidass, and other representative-couple approaches as “special pleading and wishful thinking about human history.”

That is exactly why genealogy becomes relevant. If your objection is only about speciation, then yes, pedigree ancestry is beside the point. But if your objection is broader (that population origins make a real original pair scientifically untenable) then pedigree ancestry is directly relevant, because it shows that later universal ancestry is not the same thing as species origination.

That is also why your “genetics settles the issue” line is too strong. Genetics settles some issues. It does not settle every issue that gets lumped under “ancestry.” Mathieson and Scally explicitly warn that genealogical ancestry, genetic ancestry, and genetic similarity are often conflated, and they say genetic data are “surprisingly uninformative” about the first two; they also note that a pedigree includes “many ancestors from whom you inherited no genetic material.”

So if the claim is “humans as a species arose from a single breeding pair,” genetics and evolutionary biology are indeed relevant. But if the claim is “a real pair within a wider population later became universal genealogical ancestors,” then simply repeating “humans arose as a population” doesn’t settle it.

That is why your response about “parlor trick” is still aimed at a stronger claim than the one I am making. I’m si okay say ing that real pair within a wider population is not ruled out by population origins alone, and neither is the possibility that such a pair later became genealogically universal.

Jeff Hardin summarizes this class of models as i have show. You don’t have to accept that theology, but it‘a simply false to say that population origins, by themselves, have already excluded it.

On language, I think you are attacking a point I wasn’t making.

The Bolhuis–Tattersall–Chomsky–Berwick paper was relevant only for one narrow methodological point: language leaves no direct fossil record, and anatomical capacity for speech does not prove language use: that doesn’t disprove your trade-network argument, but It does mean that your language timeline is more inferential than you sometimes present it as being. So even there, the point is not “your model is impossible,” but “the evidence is less decisive than your rhetoric suggests.”

On the last point, I actually agree with you in part: yes, my claim is a faith claim. A pair specially called by God, endowed with rational souls, or placed in holiness and righteousness is not something genetics can prove. But that concession cuts both ways. Your own article is not a purely scientific claim either, as you explicitly frame your proposal in terms of Scripture, “conceptual metaphor,” literary archetypes, and moral-theological interpretation, and you ask whether a population-wide fall could be “supported by scripture, science, and everyone’s personal experience.” That is not a purely scientific inference from fossils and trade networks; it is also a theological construction. So yes: my position is a faith claim (and has the advantage of not contradicting orthodox theology), but so is yours, once you move from archaeological proxies to a historical Fall, moral guilt, and original sin. Neither of our positions has been scientifically proven or disproven, but you seem intent on presenting your view as the only feasible and acceptable one. That is the only thing that rubbed me the wrong way.

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The substance of what I was saying doesn’t change.

This is true.

However, Rohde, Olson, and Chang’s Nature paper is a peer-reviewed article. https://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/CommonAncestors/NatureCommonAncestors-Article.pdf? Nature states that Letters are peer-reviewed, and “Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans” is published by Nature as a Letter. So this isnkt a blog post, magazine essay, or informal commentary; it is a peer-reviewed research article in a top-tier journal.

Rohde, Olson, and Chang’s Nature paper doesn’t specifically argue for a uniquely identifiable original couple. Read in context, however, it does argue for something highly relevant: if one goes far enough back in time, all living humans come to share the same genealogical ancestral set. The paper is Douglas L. T. Rohde, Steve Olson, and Joseph T. Chang, “Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans,” Nature 431 (2004), 562–566.

The opening context is crucial. On p. 562 of the paper, that is, PDF p. 1, the authors clarify that genealogical ancestry proceeds “through both males and females” and includes one’s “parents, grandparents, and so on.” So they are not talking about only mtDNA or Y-chromosome lineages. They are talking about the full human pedigree. That matters because the claim at issue is genealogical: not “who left all the DNA,” but “who really stands in the ancestral tree.”

The central passage is on p. 563, PDF p. 2. The authors write that, beyond the MRCA, there is “a growing percentage of people” in earlier generations who turn out to be common ancestors of the present-day population. They then add that, beyond what they call the IA point, each individual living sufficiently far back is either a common ancestor of all people alive today or of none, and therefore each present-day human has “exactly the same set of ancestors.” The paper is not saying “two ancestors only.” It is saying something broader and more important: all living humans eventually share one and the same genealogical ancestral set.

The paper then places an important limit on the claim, as on p. 565, PDF p. 4, the authors say that if a human group “were completely isolated,” then the MRCA would have to predate the start of that isolation. Shortly afterward, however, they add that no large group is known to have maintained complete reproductive isolation for extended periods, and they even mention the Bering Strait. So the model doesn’t license careless claims, what it does say, clearly, is that if one places the couple far enough back ( before the relevant separations ) universal genealogy remains possible.

The conclusion of the paper confirms exactly this reading: on p. 565, PDF p. 4, the authors write that the most recent common ancestor of the world’s current population probably lived in the relatively recent past, and that a few thousand years earlier “the ancestors of everyone on the Earth today were exactly the same.” But they immediately add the decisive qualifier: this is true in “genealogical rather than genetic terms.” A few lines above, they also explain that a person may receive “little or no actual genetic inheritance” from the vast majority of ancestors living at the IA point. So the paper does not support two exclusive genetic founders; it supports the possibility of universal common genealogical ancestry.

I’m certainly not saying that “this proves one unique original couple”. My conclusion is much more careful: if all living humans share the same genealogical ancestral set, then that large common set includes real men and real women; therefore it is fully compatible with the claim that a real ancient pair, placed far enough back in time, could belong to that shared set and thus be genealogical ancestors of all living humans. The paper doesn’t prove the uniqueness of such a pair, but it certainly doesn’t rule out its possibility, nor does it make it unreasonable. On the contrary, it makes that possibility scientifically intelligible precisely because it shows how deeply human pedigrees interlock.

Put differently: Rohde, Olson, and Chang’s model is incompatible with the claim that “all humans descend genetically only from two people”, but it is compatible with the claim that “all living humans may also descend genealogically from a real ancient pair”, and that distinction is not an external gloss imposed on the paper, it’s exactly what the authors themselves mean by the contrast between “genealogical rather than genetic terms.”

This framework is also consistent with classical Christian teaching about a real primordial event, real first parents, and the transmission of original sin by descent rather than by mere imitation, provided one doesn’t confuse genealogical universality with an exclusive two-person genetic bottleneck.

The orthodox Christian teaching ties universal human solidarity and the transmission of original sin to real descent from the first parents. Science doesn’t prove their original holiness, grace, and sanctity, what it does do, in this case, is remove the objection that such a pair would be biologically impossible.

Long story short: Rohde, Olson, and Chang do not prove a unique and exclusive original couple, but their peer-reviewed Nature article is genuinely compatible with the possibility that a real ancient pair, living far enough back in time, could be genealogical ancestors of all living humans.

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No, it can’t – you’d have to have complete data on all behavior of every human ancestor.

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Perhaps not, but its worth does.

No, it’s a peer-reviewed letter. It’s not an article. See here for an explanation of the difference.

Even shorter story: if you go back far enough, everyone who left descendants is the ancestor of everyone alive today.

So it’s not just a “possibility that a real ancient pair, living far enough back in time, could be genealogical ancestors of all living humans” it’s a certainty that there were millions of pairs who are genealogical ancestors of all living humans - and whatever point you thought you were making is buried in a morass of your own misplaced astonishment..

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Yes it’s a letter, I don’t see how that changes anything.

If you say so.

You are right that Rohde, Olson, and Chang do not argue for one exclusive pair. Their peer-reviewed Nature Letterargues for a large shared genealogical ancestral set. Nature classifies the paper as a Letter, and Nature states that Lettersare peer-reviewed. In the abstract, the authors say that “the genealogies of all living humans overlap in remarkable ways in the recent past” and that “each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.”

But that does not rebut my claim, because my claim is not exclusivity; it is compatibility. If all living humans share the same genealogical ancestral set, then it remains scientifically possible that a real ancient pair could themselves each belong to that shared set and thus each be universal genealogical ancestors of all living humans. Saying that there were many such common ancestors does not refute that claim; it only means that, within a mathematical pedigree model, Adam and Eve would not have to be the only later common ancestors in order still to be the true first parents of all. This is an inference from the paper’s genealogical model, not a claim that the paper itself identifies one unique pair.

What the paper does not allow either of us to say is that science has identified one unique original pair, or that population genetics by itself can prove divine election, original holiness, original justice, or the transmission of original sin. Those are theological claims, not scientific findings. What the paper does show is narrower but still important: universal genealogical ancestry is scientifically possible, and this is to be understood in genealogical rather than exclusive genetic terms.

That framework can be compatible with doctrine only if Adam and Eve are still understood as the real first parents of the whole human race, linked to a real primordial event, and as the source from whom the fallen human condition is transmitted to all by descent. The Catechism says that Genesis 3 uses figurative language but affirms **“a primeval event,”**and that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault committed by “our first parents.” It also teaches that original sin is transmitted “by propagation” and that Adam, “as the first man,” lost original holiness and justice not only for himself but for all human beings, and that Adam and Eve transmitted a wounded human nature to their descendants.

For that reason, the decisive doctrinal condition is this: one cannot say that, after Adam, there were true human beings who did not take their origin from him “as from the first parent of all,” or that Adam stands for several independent first parents. So the existence of many later common ancestors in a genealogical model is not, by itself, a problem. What would be a problem is any model that made Adam and Eve merely one ancestral pair among several independent first-parent lineages (the denial of several independent first-parent lineages is compatible with doctrine and is not, by itself, ruled out by mainstream science, provided it is understood as a theological and genealogical claim rather than as a claim that the entire human species passed through an exclusive two-person genetic bottleneck).

So the careful conclusion is this: Rohde, Olson, and Chang do not prove a unique original couple. But their peer-reviewed article is genuinely compatible with the scientific possibility that a real ancient pair could themselves each be universal genealogical ancestors of all living humans, provided that Adam and Eve remain the true first parents of all in the relevant theological sense. Their unique theological role would come from revelation and doctrine, not from the population-genetic model itself.

Science cannot identify a pair as Adam and Eve as such, nor can it prove divine election, original holiness and justice, or the transmission of original sin as such. Science can say something narrower: a universal genealogical descent from a real ancient pair is not, in itself, ruled out by mainstream genealogical modelling.

It is also compatible with doctrine to say that Adam and Eve may have been biologically continuous with pre-existing hominins, provided that they were the first true human beings in the full theological sense because God immediately created spiritual souls in them, and provided that all later true humans descended from them. Humani generis allows discussion of the origin of the human body from “pre-existent and living matter,” while insisting that souls are “immediately created by God.” The Catechism likewise teaches that “every spiritual soul is created immediately by God.” Science may investigate biological continuity; it cannot prove or disprove the immediate creation of the spiritual soul and the elevation to sanctity and righteousness of that first couple.

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It really is that simple. There is nothing else to be added.

176

If you can’t understand the nature of your source, there’s no reason to think you’ll understand its contents either. That you think their work is helpful to your claim indicates you don’t, and that you cited something from Bio-complexity shows you can’t tell science from pseudoscience and renders your opinion moot.

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In other words: you cannot refute the content of what I said and you resort to ad hominem. Congratulations. And I have demonstrated how their work is helpful to my claim. My claim is simply that orthodox doctrine on the subject is neither proven nor disproven by science and I have explained in detail why it is so. You can’t refute that so you have to resort to pathetic personal attacks. You were funny at first, now you are just immensely boring and annoying.

Let me quote Jeff Hardin as well https://biologos.org/articles/on-geniality-and-genealogy

“A good example of this sort of diversity relates to a Common Question at BioLogos: Were Adam and Eve historical figures? There is no single “BioLogos view” on Adam and Eve and the biblical, theological, ethical, and philosophical issues of our origins (e.g. see this 2014 book). The BioLogos range of views on this topic has always included views of Adam and Eve as real individuals living in a real past. Evolutionary science does not exclude an historical Adam.”

Also regarding this specifically

Rohde, Olson, and Chang do not argue for one exclusive pair; they argue for a large shared genealogical ancestral set. That is exactly why the paper is helpful to my claim. If all living humans eventually share the same genealogical ancestral set, then the scientific possibility of a real ancient pair whose two members are each universal genealogical ancestors is not refuted (nor confirmed) but left open. That was exactly my thesis and this is exactly why their work is objectively helpful to my claim, and your pathetic attacks don’t change anything substantial and certainly don’t refute my argument (because you can’t).

Science neither confirms nor disproves the existence of a historical Adam and Eve, nor the theological claims of orthodox Christian doctrine. This is my claim and it’s objectively correct.

Now, please: go bother someone else with the absolute lack of substance, insight, and any interesting content that lies behind your posts. shake the dust off your feet. Allow me to shake the undesired dust of your presence off my feet. Thank you.

I have also said that bio-complexity doesn’t represent my claim as my claim is more modest than theirs. Learn to read and understand what you read.

This is what I wrote

So my thesis doesn’t depend on whether they are right or wrong, because my thesis is different. And I made that comment precisely because I understood that they may have gone too far in their conclusions. If I had thought that their claims were doubtlessly compatible with science, I wouldn’t have made a point of saying that my thesis was more modest than theirs.

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It’s not left open. Rohde, Olson, and Chang not only confirmed it, but confirmed that there would have been many, many such pairs.

You clearly don’t understand what they wrote,[1] or what I wrote.

You might as well be arguing that the a paper confirming the reality of Hannibal’s Alp crossing is helpful to a claim that Dumbo was a documentary because it leaves open the scientific possibility that elephants exist.

  1. If you even read it rather than just picking sentences to quote. ↩︎

179

This topic has a lot of Human Opinions, If You are a Christian, Read Mathew Chapter 18.

180

You are still attacking a claim I did not make. Rohde, Olson, and Chang do not identify one exclusive pair; they identify a large shared genealogical ancestral set. The abstract itself says that “the genealogies of all living humans overlap in remarkable ways” and that “each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors.” That is precisely why the paper is helpful to my claim, because my claim was one of compatibility, not exclusivity. If all living humans share the same genealogical ancestral set, then the possibility of a real ancient pair whose two members are each universal genealogical ancestors is not eliminated; it is left openz

Theologically, moreover, many later universal genealogical ancestors are not the issue. The issue is whether Adam remains “the first parent of all,” rather than one among several independent first-parent lineages. The Catechism speaks of “our first parents” and of original sin transmitted “by propagation,” and Humani generis rejects the view that Adam stands for “a certain number of first parents.” So a large shared genealogical ancestral set is perfectly compatible with my point; what would not be compatible is multiple independent first-parent lineages, and Rohde et al. do not establish those.

You didn’t understand my claim and tried to refute something that you didn’t understand at all, as a consequence you produced this useless garbage of a post. You are annoying, boring and you don’t produce anything of substance. Stop bothering me, I’ll say it once again.

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It’s not left open. Rohde, Olson, and Chang not only confirmed it, but confirmed that there would have been many, many such pairs.

You clearly still don’t understand what they wrote, or what I wrote.

Please apply the above response to your next post too.

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Just to show once again your lack of comprehension of what you, uncessfully, try to criticize

Citing from here https://biologos.org/articles/on-geniality-and-genealogy

“Josh’s (Swamidass N.D.R) work is based on science that goes back some years, including an influential paper in the journal Nature in 2004[i]; I and others have reviewed these and other references and confirm these scientific points. [For a popular-level presentation of the issues and how genealogical science works, please see this decidedly non-theological piece; you may not know it, but you are likely related to royalty!]. Josh now has a more extensively referenced version of this work in press with our friends at the American Scientific Affiliation, in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, and an updated overview blog post on his own site, which I encourage you to read for additional details.

Josh rightly reminds us to use caution in using the term “human” in scientific claims; the ambiguity and theological weight of the term “human” can create confusion about what science does and does not say. He also notes that genealogical science allows a scenario in which Adam and Eve were miraculously created, de novo; if their descendants interbred with a larger population who were created in an evolutionary process, such a scenario can be consistent with the findings of genetic science. In such a scenario, we would still share ancestry with the great apes, and our ancestors would still arise as a population that never dipped down to a single couple, evidence BioLogos presents regularly, see here and here.”

As you can see even Swamidass use that work to bring forth the thesis that an historical Adam and Eve are compatible (which doesn’t mean “proven”) with science.

So yes, that work is helpful to my claim.

You really should stop wasting my time like this with your inconsequential rebuttals. Thank you. Go bother someone else, as I have already asked you.

You are boring, inconsequential and annoying. Just stop. This is just low level trollish behavior on your part. Stop and/or go bother someone else.

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Person 1: This paper shows that elephants might exist, which is consistent with Dumbo being real.
Person 2: It shows that elephants do exist.
Person 1: You don’t understand. I’m only saying that this paper shows that elephants might exist.
Person 2: The paper shows that elephants do exist, not just that they might exist.
Person 1: You fail to comprehend. I’m only claiming that elephants might exist, and this paper helps by leaving the possibility of elephant existence open.
Person 2: The paper shows that elephants do exist.
Person 1: To highlight your lack of comprehension, here is another paper I have completely misunderstood.
Person 2: [Stops wrestling with the pig]