Comments on What Genetic Science Says About Adam and Eve

[John_Harshman]

@swamidass

In my view this a valid line of evidence that must be addressed by @glipsnort.

I fail to understand. @glipsnort is not proposing a bottleneck of two. So why should he have to confront evidence against something he doesn’t claim? Nor is phylogenetic inference the concern of population geneticists, and the evidence from population genetics was the subject of that article. I remain mystified by your belligerence on my behalf.

@swamidass

I presented evidence (which WLC explains in his new book) which substantially weakens the argument based on this line of reasoning. But I cannot fully dispatch it.

I don’t even think you have weakened the case, which depends not at all on Ayala’s focus, on strictly human alleles, and I think you have misunderstood the paper on convergence.

@swamidass

WLC makes clear that he is thinks there is a larger population of reproductively compatible individuals that may have interbred with Adam and Eve’s lineage.

Then there was no bottleneck of two.

@swamidass

He has been excruciatingly clear that by “sole-genetic progenitor” he means to exclude any interbreeding between Adam and Eve’s lineage at all.

I’m pretty sure that without interbreeding between Adam’s and Eve’s lineages they would have no descendants. Perhaps there are a few words missing there? And of course that’s what “sole-genetic progenitor” actually means to people who value language.

@swamidass

Winning the argument here with @John_Harshman

There is no argument. You are trying to create one.