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

James,

You started this off to be thoughtful and worthwhile. Why then do you have to conclude by setting up a strawman between natural processes and God? What is that attempting to suggest? That we are all Liars for Darwin again?

Why did God have to be intimately involved with the creation of man through Adam and Eve? Would you still worship Him if He wasn't? What if the scientific evidence ends up falsifying this position? You may look like a buffoon like the YECs do.

And are you sure it is God you are choosing? I don't think so. Judging from this sanctimonious and pompous, gratuitous and self incriminating inane remark, I think you may be choosing an idol of imaginary concordism that gives you the upper hand and intellectual superiority you are looking for so you have a perceived advantage in fighting the culture war.

The bottom line is that neither your concordism or pure naturalism will likely ever be proven. But your concordism can be falsified while God working through natural processes cannot be. So why insist on it? And why is it not choosing God to not insist on it?

John

--- On Sat, 2/21/09, James Patterson <james000777@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> From: James Patterson <james000777@bellsouth.net>
> Subject: RE: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Date: Saturday, February 21, 2009, 2:47 PM
> 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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Received on Sat Feb 21 20:45:58 2009