Fwd: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article

David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 7:02 PM
Subject: Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article
To: James Patterson <james000777@bellsouth.net>

Except that you have to expand that circle all the way down to what is now
Kenya and Tanzania, which is the portion of Africa from which the first
biological humans migrated -- not northern Africa / present-day Egypt.

On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 6:57 PM, James Patterson
<james000777@bellsouth.net>wrote:

> Just to reply to the location question, take a look at this map:
>
>
>
> http://www.pattersonhistory.net/map01.jpg
>
>
>
> Pretty small circle compared to the world map. Egypt is in East Africa.
> East of there is Iraq/Mesopotamia/Sumeria/Eden. Genesis 2:8.
>
> And even if you want to include the rest of East Africa, that's fine…it's
> still in the neighborhood.
>
> More later. JP
>
>
>
> *From:* David Opderbeck [mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Saturday, February 21, 2009 2:09 PM
> *To:* James Patterson
> *Cc:* asa@calvin.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article
>
>
>
> James, I appreciate your digging into this. I agree with you that this is
> a troubling problem, perhaps the most troubling problem theologically, for
> simply accepting the evolutionary narrative of human beings. A few
> comments, however:
>
> -- do you accept the evidence for an old universe and earth? If so, aren't
> you being inconsistent in rejecting the conclusions population geneticists
> draw from the MHC data based on the presumption you've drawn from the Bible
> that there must have been only one pair from whom all present humans
> directly are genetically descended? The YEC's, after all, make *exactly
> the same argument *about the "days" of creation, the age of the earth, and
> the nature of Noah's flood.
>
> -- you say, ". . . we see the emergence of man in the correct **general**
> location, from (at least) a small population, sometime in the past." I used
> to find this kind of argument from RTB et al. somewhat persuasive.
>
> However, let's be honest: central Africa is *not* the same "general
> location" as Mesopotamia, and "sometime in the past" -- if that is 150 kya
> or so even for Mitochondrial Eve -- doesn't fit with the Bible's description
> of the culture into which Adam's immediate descendants were placed.
> Moreover, "(at least) a small population" isn't two individuals. I am no
> expert either, but my sense is that for the MHC data to be accounted for by
> a single pair, you'd either have to have (a) diversification of the MHC at a
> truly astonishing (not just 'fast') rate; or (b) a whole set of miracles not
> mentioned in scripture.
>
> Isn't it more parsimonious to suggest, as John Stott did in his Romans
> commentary, that the "image of God" and "original sin" are essentially
> spiritual qualities rather than genetic ones? It seems to me that this
> removes much of the burden of trying to tie Adam to the genetic record.
> Perhaps Adam lived in (or was removed from the "garden" into) a context
> where there were other "humans," but this says nothing of the spiritual
> aspects of those other homo sapiens who shared the physical world with Adam
> and his descendants for a time.
>
> Well, I don't like that either, but I haven't been able to conceive of a
> way to pull these threads together more tightly without resorting to
> presuppositional logic that ultimately leads to YECism.
>
> David W. Opderbeck
> Associate Professor of Law
> Seton Hall University Law School
> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>
> On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 2:47 PM, James Patterson <
> james000777@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> All,
>
>
>
> I've finally been able to get back to this thread (and sub-threads) and
> read them. I wanted to go read the Ayala manuscript first. I have read it as
> well as the comments on the article, and a few other related articles.
>
>
>
> I must also classify myself as "not an expert" in this field. However, I
> find it quite interesting to look at how often the words "presume" and
> "presumption" are used in the Ayala article. If you look at this article
> specifically and the field as a whole, there is significant controversy over
> the various models and how to interpret the results…more so than I am
> comfortable with. This is reflected in the comment in reply to the Ayala
> article, as well as several other articles (see below).
>
>
>
> All that as an aside. The main issue is the size of the "n" required to
> pass thru a bottleneck. Ayala argues there wasn't even a bottleneck, but I
> think most would agree there is plenty of evidence that there was at least
> one if not more bottlenecks. So I am not going to belabor that issue.
>
>
>
> Ayala's point is that, for a given chunk of DNA, including mtDNA chunks,
> you may be able to trace that chunk back to a common ancestor. However, the
> next chunk of DNA will be from a **different** ancestor, not the same one,
> implying not one, but a population of "Eves". I am NOT familiar enough to
> state for certainty, but I thought that the mtDNA was looked at more as a
> whole than other DNA? It's size is about 15-17 kbp, and codes for 37 genes.
>
>
>
>
> When we get to the point of whether there was a n=2 vs an n=X, Ayala puts X
> at ~100,000. He describes how it would be impossible for all the alleles of
> the MHC to survive a population smaller than (I think) about 10,000 sexually
> active humans, which equates to a total population that is of course larger.
> The issue here of course is the MHC region. If one is going to look at
> comparative regions and molecular clocks, it seems to me that the MHC has
> got to be the **worst** possible choice to use. Within the field of
> immunology, this region of the genetic code is sometimes called the G.O.D.
> (interesting, yes?) region, for Generator (or Generation) Of Diversity.
> Mutation rates here can be quite rapid. See the Hogstrand or Carrington
> articles below.
>
>
>
> Given that, Ayala's work does not seem to distinguish itself any greater
> than other studies on this topic. And that gets to the heart of the matter:
> From a strict, naturalistic, population genetics viewpoint, a bottleneck of
> an n=2 is unacceptable. The only way to have an n=2 bottleneck is if this
> couple were quite special in some way or ways, and that isn't "natural".
>
>
>
> Thank God, I am not a strict naturalist. J
>
>
>
> The integration of science and faith is why we are here. You may want to
> find a strict natural explanation of everything, because you think that's
> the way God works at all times. If you extrapolate this to the extreme, the
> TE viewpoint becomes the DE viewpoint. I think I mentioned this in another
> thread recently. At the very least, I think you should at least consider
> this to be a prime example of Russell's OSP hard at work. You may be able to
> track the lineage of the descent of man genetically, but tracking the hand
> of God is another matter.
>
>
>
> It becomes very difficult, very quickly, to reconcile God's creation of our
> spiritual selves (as well as original sin) with a (large) population of
> humans that evolved slowly. No matter how you slice it, God's handiwork is
> present. And if we are going to presume the hand of God being involved, then
> strict naturalistic explanations will ultimately fail.
>
>
>
> However, if you **presume** that God was involved, and that God created
> Adam and Eve (as the Bible tells us), and look at what the natural sciences
> show us, we see the emergence of man in the correct **general** location,
> from (at least) a small population, sometime in the past. How exactly, may
> remain unclear. We will have to save the time question for later, tho. J
>
>
>
> If you choose not to believe that God was intimately involved with the
> creation of man through Adam and Eve, then that's your choice. As for me and
> my family, we choose God.
>
>
>
> God bless,
>
> James P
>
>
>
> A few interesting references:
>
>
>
> Gibbons A, (1993). Mitochondrial Eve refuses to die. Science,
> 259(5099):1249-1250.
>
>
>
> Ayala F, (1995). The Myth of Eve: Molecular Biology and Human Origins.
> Science, 270(5244):1930-1936.
>
>
>
> Erlich HA, Bergstrom TF, Stoneking M, and Gyllensten U (1996). HLA Sequence
> Polymorphism and the Origin of Humans (in reply to Ayala's article).
> Science, 274(5292):1552-1554.
>
>
>
> Watson E, Forster P, Richards M, Bandelt HJ, (1997). Mitochondrial
> footprints of human expansions in Africa. Am J Hum Genet, 61(3):691-704.
>
>
>
> Carrington M, (1999). Recombination within the human MHC. Immunological
> Reviews, 167(1):245-256.
>
>
>
> Gray M, Burger G, Lang BF, (1999). Mitochondrial Evolution. Science,
> 283(5407):1476-1481.
>
>
>
> Högstrand K, Böhme J, (1999). Gene conversion can create new MHC alleles.
> Immunological Reviews, 167(1):305-317.
>
>
>
> Cann R, (2001). Genetic Clues to Dispersal in Human Populations: Retracing
> the Past from the Present. Science, 291(5509): 1742-1748.
>
>
>
> Stumpf M and Goldstein D, (2001). Genealogical and Evolutionary Inference
> with the Human Y Chromosome. Science, 291(5509):1738-1742.
>
>
>
> Zimmerman S, (2001). Population size at the time of mitochondrial eve.
> Human Evolution, 16(2):117-124.
>
>
>
> Curnoe D, Thorne A, (2003) Number of ancestral human species: a molecular
> perspective. Homo, 53(3):201-224.
>
>
>
> Hagelberg E, (2003). Recombination or mutation rate heterogeneity?
> Implications for Mitochondrial Eve. Trends Genet, 19(2):84-90.
>
>
>
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_histocompatibility_complex#MHC_evolution_and_allelic_diversity
>
>
>
>
>
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>
>
>

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Received on Sat Feb 21 19:03:24 2009