Science says Bible and Quran are equivalent

[bilby]

I don’t think the biblical forming man from the dust is contradicted by anything science ‘says’.

There is some counterevidence, in the form of study of genetic variation and estimates of the sizes of past genetic bottlenecks. I've seen estimates like a population of 1,000, but no evidence for a population of only 2.

Neither do I feel compelled to accept the advice of argumentative bible skeptics who (ironically) are the ones telling me that I have to take Genesis literally.

But if one doesn't, then one can interpret away anything that one does not like. For instance, I'm sure that if one is sufficiently imaginative, one could "show" that the Genesis creation stories mean that the Universe is eternal.

Yup.

Nobody is saying that you have to take Genesis literally; Only that if you choose not to, you can't reasonably claim that it has any value whatsoever in establishing how the universe, the Earth, or any of its inhabitants came to be. As it doesn't in itself contain any indication of what parts are literally true, and what parts are not, you are forced to look at OTHER sources (such as science) in order to assess it's truth value; And if you are doing that, why bother with Genesis at all? Or indeed, with ANY part of ANY religious text.

If you DO take it literally, it is trivially easy to show that it is wrong; If you DON'T take it literally, it is trivially easy to show that it is valueless as a guide to truth.

A text has value in describing the truth, ONLY if it includes detailed information on how to test whether it is untrue, and those tests have so far failed to show that it is false.

In modern scientific literature, this may be in the form of references to the papers that provide these details; Or (in primary sources) it may be in the form of detailed methodologies that allow any suitably motivated reader to reproduce the foundational observations for themselves. The Bible (and indeed other holy texts) fail to provide this supporting data, and as such are incapable of being a guide to the truth - because even in those cases where something in these texts happens to be true, we have no way of telling. If there are errors, contradictions, poetic language, metaphors and/or allegories, blended with statements that are clear and absolute truth, then how do we know which is which? And if we don't know, how can the text possibly be a guide to truth?

 

[DBT]

I don’t think the biblical forming man from the dust is contradicted by anything science ‘says’.

Neither do I feel compelled to accept the advice of argumentative bible skeptics who (ironically) are the ones telling me that I have to take Genesis literally.

You don't have to take Genesis literally, take it any way you want, whatever floats your boat.....but what did the writer or writers of genesis have in mind?

Was it originally meant to be taken as a literal account of creation, or not?

 

[DrZoidberg]

There is some counterevidence, in the form of study of genetic variation and estimates of the sizes of past genetic bottlenecks. I've seen estimates like a population of 1,000, but no evidence for a population of only 2.

Meh... without a written language there's hardly any way to record this information and therefore remember it. If you were one of those few humans you wouldn't know you're the only ones. This is just after the fact justification.

I think the Adam and Eve story is metaphorical. God is the ultimate super daddy. Everybody has two parents. So if we go backwards far enough it'll be just two parents, both created by God. It's not just Christianity. This is standard in every religion.

Not to mention everything else in that story... it's heavy on the symbolism and metaphor.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don’t think the biblical forming man from the dust is contradicted by anything science ‘says’.

Neither do I feel compelled to accept the advice of argumentative bible skeptics who (ironically) are the ones telling me that I have to take Genesis literally.

You don't have to take Genesis literally, take it any way you want, whatever floats your boat.....but what did the writer or writers of genesis have in mind?

Was it originally meant to be taken as a literal account of creation, or not?

Fundamentalism is an extremely modern movement. Pre-printing press humans had another type of relation with what is true. Pagans had no problems mixing fact with fiction. The Genesis story is lifted almost intact from Babylonian religion. I think it's safe to say that the people who wrote it did not take it litterally. Paganism is a lot more sophisticated kind of religion than we give it credit today. It was a lot more sophisticated than Christianity ever has been.

I recommend reading up on Pagan sacred texts. It's fascinating. A lot of it is still relevant today. In a way the Bible isn't.

Bottom line, fundamentalists are morons, and always have been.

 

[Lion IRC]

I don’t think the biblical forming man from the dust is contradicted by anything science ‘says’.

There is some counterevidence, in the form of study of genetic variation and estimates of the sizes of past genetic bottlenecks. I've seen estimates like a population of 1,000

Where did the 1000 come from? How many parents?

Neither do I feel compelled to accept the advice of argumentative bible skeptics who (ironically) are the ones telling me that I have to take Genesis literally.

But if one doesn't, then one can interpret away anything that one does not like. For instance, I'm sure that if one is sufficiently imaginative, one could "show" that the Genesis creation stories mean that the Universe is eternal.

Perhaps. If you were able to define what you meant by ‘universe’.

 

[lpetrich]

(On ancestral human population bottlenecks)

Where did the 1000 come from? How many parents?

From a lot more than 1000 parents. That 1000 is a very rough estimate, and I've seen estimates like 10,000. That's from genetic variation, and finding the ancestry of different gene variants. From when they diverged, one can get an estimate of past population sizes. If there was a lot of divergence at roughly the same time, then that means a population expansion back then.

How big was the human population bottleneck? Another staple of theology refuted. « Why Evolution Is True from Inference of human population history from individual whole-genome sequences | Nature

Neither do I feel compelled to accept the advice of argumentative bible skeptics who (ironically) are the ones telling me that I have to take Genesis literally.

But if one doesn't, then one can interpret away anything that one does not like. For instance, I'm sure that if one is sufficiently imaginative, one could "show" that the Genesis creation stories mean that the Universe is eternal.

Perhaps. If you were able to define what you meant by ‘universe’.

I mean the physical Universe, what we are a part of.

 

[Lion IRC]

You’re saying that the population shrunk from 10,000 to 1,000
OK
Where did the 10,000 come from?

 

[DrZoidberg]

You’re saying that the population shrunk from 10,000 to 1,000
OK
Where did the 10,000 come from?

It can be calculated from the genetic variation in the genome

 

[Lion IRC]

10,000 humans all spontaneously and simultaneously popped into existence?
WOW

...and folks say the bible is hard to believe.

 

[lpetrich]

No, these 1,000 to 10,000 people are an offshoot of some previous population. That's how evolution works.

 

[DrZoidberg]

10,000 humans all spontaneously and simultaneously popped into existence?
WOW

...and folks say the bible is hard to believe.

Ehe... No. Nobody has said that.
About 500 000 years ago we get something very similar to humans. At this point there's probably tens of thousands of humans. That's how evolution works. All living in the Rift Valley in Kenya. They're no apex predator. Numbers kept in check by lions and whatnot.

70 000 years ago a volcano called Toba erupts plunging the Earth in several years of darkness and winter. This event almost pushed humanity into extinction. But it also pushed most of life in general towards extinction. It wasn't easy for anyone.

But as luck would have it humans came out of this better than other predators and came to dominate the Rift Valley. At this point humanity very rapidly spreads all over the planet, and came to dominate wherever we went. The last place humans made it to was South America 15 000 years ago. Compared to other creatures this is a phenomenly fast spread.

Another interesting fact is that the Earth was covered in mega fauna. That's very large animals. As soon as humans show up these go extinct almost immediately. Only the African elephant has survived. The rest are gone. Perhaps because it evolved together with humans and learned to steer clear of them.

BTW, your pope accepts this version of events. So it shouldn't be controversial for you?

 

[Lion IRC]

No, these 1,000 to 10,000 people are an offshoot of some previous population. That's how evolution works.

Oh, well in that case we’re good.
I thought you were one of those “...never fewer than 1,000” theorists.

The previous population could have been Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, etc etc

 

[Angra Mainyu]

No, these 1,000 to 10,000 people are an offshoot of some previous population. That's how evolution works.

Oh, well in that case we’re good.
I thought you were one of those “...never fewer than 1,000” theorists.

The previous population could have been Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, etc etc

You haven't made a reasonable argument against "never fewer than 1000", though perhaps lpetrich did not provide the evidence for that, either (ETA: now I see that in a later post, he did). Of course, the 1000 can come from 10000, and those 10000 from another number, etc., and the number of humans may well never be under 1000. Where those 1000 come from? From their parents, and so on and so forth, and if you go back to a time where you reach a population of less than 1000, those entities were not humans, but the non-human ancestors of humans.

To be clear, I'm not claiming there were never less than 1000 (I don't have time for that kind of debate; I'll leave the matter to lpetrich, who knows that sort of thing a lot better than I do, and already provided evidence in support of that), but rather, that you have not presented a reasonable argument against that.

 

[steve_bank]

No, these 1,000 to 10,000 people are an offshoot of some previous population. That's how evolution works.

Oh, well in that case we’re good.
I thought you were one of those “...never fewer than 1,000” theorists.

The previous population could have been Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, etc etc

Our ancestors were aliens to Earth who settled here after they left their home planet. The Ark was the name of their spaceship. The initial civilization was wiped out by natural disaster, The Flood, and the survivors lost awareness of their origins.

Adam and Eve were ETs. You can learn a lot from those ancient alien shows on cable.

 

[DBT]

No, these 1,000 to 10,000 people are an offshoot of some previous population. That's how evolution works.

Oh, well in that case we’re good.
I thought you were one of those “...never fewer than 1,000” theorists.

The previous population could have been Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, etc etc

So is the genesis creation story meant to be taken literally or not?

 

[lpetrich]

The pre-bottleneck population would have been larger. Inference of human population history from individual whole-genome sequences -- earlier version: Inference of Human Population History From Whole Genome Sequence of A Single Individual (2011)

Human population dynamics in Europe over the Last Glacial Maximum | PNAS has estimates of Europe's human population in the late Pleistocene. From about 330,000 at 30 kyr to 130,000 at 23 kyr to 410,000 at 13 kyr, not long before the beginning of the Holocene.

I've found it harder to find population estimates for before that time.

 

[Lion IRC]

No, these 1,000 to 10,000 people are an offshoot of some previous population. That's how evolution works.

Oh, well in that case we’re good.
I thought you were one of those “...never fewer than 1,000” theorists.

The previous population could have been Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Seth, etc etc

You haven't made a reasonable argument against "never fewer than 1000", though perhaps lpetrich did not provide the evidence for that, either (ETA: now I see that in a later post, he did). Of course, the 1000 can come from 10000, and those 10000 from another number, etc., and the number of humans may well never be under 1000. Where those 1000 come from? From their parents, and so on and so forth, and if you go back to a time where you reach a population of less than 1000, those entities were not humans, but the non-human ancestors of humans.

To be clear, I'm not claiming there were never less than 1000 (I don't have time for that kind of debate; I'll leave the matter to lpetrich, who knows that sort of thing a lot better than I do, and already provided evidence in support of that), but rather, that you have not presented a reasonable argument against that.

You just smuggled in a whole new (ancestral) species.
If you’re gonna do that, why not just say ...never fewer than 10 trillion
#primeordial

 

[steve_bank]

Genetics can show bottlenecks.

 

[lpetrich]

Demography and Cultural Evolution: How Adaptive Cultural Processes can Produce Maladaptive Losses -- The Tasmanian Case, by Joseph Henrich (2004)

When the Tasmanian people were contacted by Europeans, their technology was the most primitive known, well behind that of the people on the Australian mainland. They were cut off from the mainland by sea-level rising from the melting of the late-Pleistocene continental glaciers, and they had lost several technologies: bone tools, cold-weather clothing, hafted tools (working parts attached to handles, like axes), nets, fishing spears, barbed spears, spearthrowers, and boomerangs. For hunting and fighting, Tasmanians used only one-piece spears, rocks, and clubs. Bone tools steadily declined in quantity, quality, and variety in the archeological record from 8000 to 3000 years before present, until they disappeared outright.

Similar losses have happened elsewhere, even if not as dramatically. Like the inhabitants of some Pacific islands losing the ability to make the sorts of long-distance boats that their ancestors had arrived in.

JH uses a simple model, based on the psychological tendency we human beings have, to try to learn from and imitate especially skillful, prestigious, and/or successful individuals. However, we may learn imperfectly, and we may vary in how well we learn. Thus, in a small population, there may not be many skillful individuals to succeed earlier ones, and skill levels decline. Given the skill losses of he Tasmanians, it is evident that their population may not have been great enough to support enough highly-skilled individuals. When they were contacted, there were only a few thousand of them. This suggests that it requires more than several thousand people to maintain the more complicated sorts of technology, at least under Paleolithic conditions.

 

[lpetrich]

From 100,000 Years of Dramatic Population Changes | DiscoverMagazine.com I found the article that I previously posted on, and also some others:

Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior | Science

The origins of modern human behavior are marked by increased symbolic and technological complexity in the archaeological record. In western Eurasia this transition, the Upper Paleolithic, occurred about 45,000 years ago, but many of its features appear transiently in southern Africa about 45,000 years earlier. ... Demographic factors can thus explain geographic variation in the timing of the first appearance of modern behavior without invoking increased cognitive capacity.

Implications for complex cognition from the hafting of tools with compound adhesives in the Middle Stone Age, South Africa | PNAS

Compound adhesives made from red ochre mixed with plant gum were used in the Middle Stone Age (MSA), South Africa. Replications reported here suggest that early artisans did not merely color their glues red; they deliberately effected physical transformations involving chemical changes from acidic to less acidic pH, dehydration of the adhesive near wood fires, and changes to mechanical workability and electrostatic forces. Some of the steps required for making compound adhesive seem impossible without multitasking and abstract thought. This ability suggests overlap between the cognitive abilities of modern people and people in the MSA. Our multidisciplinary analysis provides a new way to recognize complex cognition in the MSA without necessarily invoking the concept of symbolism.

In short, tool complexity.

Tenfold Population Increase in Western Europe at the Neandertal–to–Modern Human Transition | Science I imagine some modern-human hunter approaching some Neanderthals at their campsite, taking off a moccasin, slapping a tree with it, and shouting "We will outbreed you!!!" The Neanderthals then respond by picking up their spears, and the modern-human hunter flees.