Re: Special Creation

*While humans are less diverse than many species, there is still far more
diversity than can be fit into 100,000 years. That is the whole point of
Templeton's work. That is why he says the replacement theory is strongly
rejected.*

Right, the genome of those emigrants from Africa 100,000 or so years ago
didn't entirely replace the genome of the hominids who emigrated before
them. But I guess what I'm trying to suggest is that the group that
emigrated from Africa 100,000 or so years ago could have acquired genetic
information from those earlier hominds in some way other than through
breeding *after* arriving in Europe. Looking at it in a strictly
naturalistic sense, perhaps there was cross-migration -- earlier hominids
migrated back into Africa 200,000 or so years ago, bred with the archaic
hominids there, and a group of those hybrids evolved into homo sapiens
sapiens and migrated into Europe. Templeton's work seems to destroy one
earlier theory of replacement, but from what little I know of the field, it
seems fair to say that there's lots and lots and lots of genetic and fossil
data still to be uncovered and analyzed.

From a perspective that requires harmonization with a certain reading of
scripture, one thought: God takes genetic material from an existing hominid
or hominids in Europe / the Levant / Asia, whatever; out of this "dust" he
fashions Adam and places him in the Garden, say 150,000 years ago; he clones
Adam (the "rib") to make Eve; he kicks Adam and Eve out the garden and
perhaps boots them all the way to Africa. Or the African emigrants are
remnants from Babel. Or something like that. Again -- not something I feel
I'm capable of or wanting to propose, or suggesting anyone should accept,
but just exploring alternative possibilities if we have to adhere to a
traditional notion of special creation based on scripture but also provide
real explanations for the genetic data.

On 3/7/06, glennmorton@entouch.net <glennmorton@entouch.net> wrote:
>
> David Opderbeck wrote:
>
> >>Ok -- but isn't this effectively what we see now in the human genome?
> In modern humans, there is not a great deal of genetic diversity throughout
> the existing population. We are a young species. Our genome, however,
> contains evidence of far more ancient haplotypes. Observing where those
> haplotypes occur in the genome and the number of mutations between them
> permits the construction of a haplotype tree that permits estimates about
> population growth and gene flows. So yes, the new Imago Dei man's
> ancestors would likely show limited genetic variability a couple hundred
> thousand years from now. But since He inherited my genome intact, wouldn't
> a Haplotype tree of his ancestors' genome show the same evidence of ancient
> haplotypes that mine shows? <<
> While humans are less diverse than many species, there is still far more
> diversity than can be fit into 100,000 years. That is the whole point of
> Templeton's work. That is why he says the replacement theory is strongly
> rejected.
>
>
>
>
Received on Tue, 7 Mar 2006 10:05:08 -0500