Just to throw into the mix, here’s the Wikipedia entry for Y-Chromosomal Adam, who is consistent with Noah (every male is descended from him, but there were other men back when he existed) – unless you go by a Bible-based timeline.
Just to throw into the mix, here’s the Wikipedia entry for Y-Chromosomal Adam, who is consistent with Noah (every male is descended from him, but there were other men back when he existed) – unless you go by a Bible-based timeline.
NOW we has fodder for a reconciliation of science and Christianity:
To Christians: How came us by the diversity of recessive and non-recessive chromosomally linked traits if our Y chromosomes (and, similarly, their X counterparts), along with the other 21 (i think…) chromosomes, came from 1 person? I’m stupid at genetics, so please enlighten me. I thought this was why inbreeding was bad.
Under our current understanding of science, wouldn’t we need like…ten genetically distinct men and ten genetically distinct women to have a sufficently diverse genetic population? Otherwise, we’d all have autism and other less-than-hillarious genetic ailments.
Quite the heavy subject matter today, Frank. I thought Fridays were for catblogging?
Chris,
I rarely cat-blog. Fridays are for whatever I feel like.
Mutations, Hebert.
The original human genome was perfect. There were no recessive genetic diseases until they were created by several generations of mutations. Inbreeding did not seem to be a problem at all until after Noah, whose descendants had significantly smaller lifespans that generally decreased with each generation (Genesis 11), presumably until the gene pool was large enough to stabilize things.
Oh…that’s coo.
good one George Guy. you’re smart.
George guy,
I’d never heard that one before. Certainly worth me pondering that this weekend. My first question is this: how did the human genome become flawed? I’m guessing it would be slow in its genesis (heh), taking many generations, so when it became imperfect probably cannot be known. Could it be simply a matter of something immensely complex developing a “bug” or something? To use a relatively simplistic analogy, a sophisticated software, such as AutoCAD, could, and has in the past, developed errors that go unnoticed for several generations and then suddenly become large problems.
This would lead to someone questioning whether something could actually be perfect if it’s susceptible to corruption, but even so, a very interesting concept for me to cogitate with a sixer of beer.
Dang you guys! I’m not supposed to do this much thinking on a Friday!
Og.
I’m always interested when people start assigning abilities or the lack there of to God. He does seem to be an entity that likes rules and order. If that is so, why would anyone think he doesn’t operate with in natural laws. If he made them, he’d abide by them, I would think.
Let us remember that until the beginning of the 20th century man had been sure that the smallest unit of matter was the atom. We now know that this is not true. Copernicus discovered that the Earth revolves around the sun. This was an idea that caused the Church and the world quite a bit of trouble. He was forced to repudiate his findings or be burned as a heretic.
What we know now is tenfold what we knew even 50 years ago. As Agent K told soon to be Agent J in Men in Black “Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.” If God is indeed God, why would we put limits on a power we can only partially understand.
Of course this is just my opinion, and since I don’t know God personally it probably isn’t worth all that much. Still it helps me sleep at night.
Where is Lair when we need him…..more Cat pics LOL!!! 🙂
Hi Frank,
I could go on and on and on about this stuff, and I’d love to discuss it in depth if you’re interested. For now, I’ll limit this to two comments.
1. You said, “…unless you go by a Bible-based timeline.” That reminds me of my favorite article ever in a secular publication. It’s called “Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock” from Science magazine, Jan. 2, 1998. Copyright forbids me from posting it in whole, but I could email it to you if you like. My favorite quote is “For example, researchers have calculated that ‘mitochondrial Eve’–the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people–lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa. Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old.” And of course, Y-chromosome Adam is younger than mitochondrial Eve. (i.e. Noah vs. Eve.)
2. One reason why evolution vs. creation matters from a theological viewpoint is that under evolution, you need to have death before sin. The Bible is pretty clear that death entered the world because of sin. It states that all animals were vegetarians in the beginning. The very first death was the animal God killed to make skins for Adam and Eve.
Oops. You wanted to move on from the topic of creation vs. evolution and why it’s important or not. Sorry about that.
Great day of debate. I’ve done a lot of thinking and, to be honest, I remain steadfast in my beliefs. but I admire the level of the discourse of the commentors on IMAO, so rare in my day to day dealings with people on all sides of the issue. I have friends who spit and curse the very mention of God, the Bible, Catholics and Mormons. I also have friends whose eyes glaze over at the mere mention of Jesus, and assume that their weekly attendance at their particular church assures them a spot in heaven.
In short, what I experience in my immediate surroundings is often disappointing, and I have really enjoyed discussing all this with people much smarter than me.
God Bless…
I thought this discovery last year was interesting because I know of no mechanism by which soft tissue could be preserved in a 70 million year old, non-frozen (or even frozen for that matter) fossil.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7285683/
Maybe things aren’t as old as we’ve presumed?
From the Wiki: “The name incorrectly implies that Y-chromosomal Adam was the only living male of his time; he was not. Many men alive at the same time as Y-chromosomal Adam have descendants alive today. However, only Y-chromosomal Adam produced an unbroken line of male descendents carrying his Y chromosome (Y-DNA) that persists today.”
This would make it more likely to be one of Noah’s sons, then, wouldn’t it?
//The original human genome was perfect. There were no recessive genetic diseases until they were created by several generations of mutations. Inbreeding did not seem to be a problem at all until after Noah,//
I know it’s a little late to add to the mix, but here’s my belief about the rise of mutations from Gensis 6, verse 2:
the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
And 4: The Nephilim were on the earth in those days–and also afterward–when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them.
I had heard this theorized that the Sons of God referred to the fallen angels. If they bred with human women, wouldn’t that have caused some weird diversity or mutations?
Anyway, I’m thinking that people who are saved and get to Heaven will get to find all this scientific stuff out, which makes curiousity a very good reason to become a Christian.