Evangelical Scientists Debate Creation Story 1014
Hugh Pickens writes "Polls by Gallup and the Pew Research Center find that four out of 10 Americans believe humanity descend from Adam and Eve, but NPR reports that evangelical scientists are now saying publicly that they can no longer believe the Genesis account and that it is unlikely that we all descended from a single pair of humans. 'That would be against all the genomic evidence that we've assembled over the last 20 years so not likely at all,' says biologist Dennis Venema, a senior fellow at BioLogos Foundation, a Christian group that tries to reconcile faith and science. 'You would have to postulate that there's been this absolutely astronomical mutation rate that has produced all these new variants in an incredibly short period of time. Those types of mutation rates are just not possible. It would mutate us out of existence.' Venema is part of a growing cadre of Christian scholars who say they want their faith to come into the 21st century and say it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence."
Re:Science vs Religion: Contradictions? (Score:5, Informative)
Evangelical Christians believe they have been reborn and saved by Jesus and it's there duty to spread the word. Fundamentalists Christians believe in the literal interpretation of the bible as being absolute (despite over a thousand years of modifications, but I digress). You can be an Evangelical Christian and believe in Evolution. You just can't be an Evangelical-Fundamentalist Christian and believe in evolution.
Re:Single source? (Score:2, Informative)
Well there is genetic evidence of historical human interbreeding with Neanderthals in Europe and another archaic hominin group discovered in Denisova Cave in Siberia, but less so in Africa. Thus european whites and asians still carry some "non-human" DNA, and ironically this would suggest that blacks are "more human" than "whites".
This article in nature goes over some recent research:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7327/full/nature09710.html#/a-model-of-population-history
Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia
* David Reich,1, 2, 15
* Richard E. Green,3, 4, 15
* Martin Kircher,3, 15
* Johannes Krause,3, 5, 15
* Nick Patterson,2, 15
* Eric Y. Durand,6, 15
* Bence Viola,3, 7, 15
* Adrian W. Briggs,1, 3
* Udo Stenzel,3
* Philip L. F. Johnson,8
* Tomislav Maricic,3
* Jeffrey M. Good,9
* Tomas Marques-Bonet,10, 11
* Can Alkan,10
* Qiaomei Fu,3, 12
* Swapan Mallick,1, 2
* Heng Li,2
* Matthias Meyer,3
* Evan E. Eichler,10
* Mark Stoneking,3
* Michael Richards,7, 13
* Sahra Talamo,7
* Michael V. Shunkov,14
* Anatoli P. Derevianko,14
* Jean-Jacques Hublin,7
* Janet Kelso,3
* Montgomery Slatkin6
* & Svante Pääbo3
* et al.
Journal name:
Nature
Volume:
468,
Pages:
1053–1060
Date published:
(23 December 2010)
DOI:
doi:10.1038/nature09710
Received
15 August 2010
Accepted
30 November 2010
Published online
22 December 2010
*Abstract*
Using DNA extracted from a finger bone found in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, we have sequenced the genome of an archaic hominin to about 1.9-fold coverage. This individual is from a group that shares a common origin with Neanderthals. This population was not involved in the putative gene flow from Neanderthals into Eurasians; however, the data suggest that it contributed 4–6% of its genetic material to the genomes of present-day Melanesians. We designate this hominin population ‘Denisovans’ and suggest that it may have been widespread in Asia during the Late Pleistocene epoch. A tooth found in Denisova Cave carries a mitochondrial genome highly similar to that of the finger bone. This tooth shares no derived morphological features with Neanderthals or modern humans, further indicating that Denisovans have an evolutionary history distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans.
*Introduction*
Less than 200,000years ago, anatomically modern humans (that is, humans with skeletons similar to those of present-day humans) appeared in Africa. At that time, as well as later when modern humans appeared in Eurasia, other ‘archaic’ hominins were already present in Eurasia. In Europe and western Asia, hominins defined as Neanderthals on the basis of their skeletal morphology lived from at least 230,000 years ago before disappearing from the fossil record about 30,000 years ago1. In eas
Re:Science vs Religion: Contradictions? (Score:5, Informative)
>Only a very small fraction of Christians - even evangelical Christians - insist on taking every word of the Bible literally.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Earth_creationism [wikipedia.org]
http://www.gallup.com/poll/27682/onethird-americans-believe-bible-literally-true.aspx [gallup.com]
1/3 of the US are literalists. That's not a small number. And they are motivated.
And they are telling you and me that we are going to Hell.
--
BMO
Re:Any Rabbi worth his salt could have told them. (Score:4, Informative)
So, they'll make it to heaven with you? Even though they don't believe Jesus Christ is Lord?
That's a prevailing belief among many Christians.. The explanation I was given was that the Jews are grandfathered in under the old contract, so long as they kill and burn a lamb every now and again. But anyone just joining has to go under the new contract, which involves swearing fealty to Jesus and taking a bath.
Re:Extremely old news (Score:2, Informative)
How is it that Christian people (Catholics in particular; the pope is supposed to be your earthly representative for God) just seem to "forget" this ever happened?
You're a little off... if you're not Catholic then you aren't supposed to listen to what the Pope says. So this statement only applies to Catholics, and not non-Catholics.
Almost all (I don't have numbers, sorry) of the Christians in the U.S. arguing that evolution is not real and 7 day Creation is real are Protestant Christians.