Genesis, the Evangelical’s test book, is quite clear on the matter:
Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
It would seem that God didn’t make man to start making clay pots, or musical instruments, or any other breakthrough technology.
But as I’ve said before, the GAE scenarios are designed to be maximally flexible. If there is a group of Creationists out there who want to support GAE, but only if they can believe Adam/Eve were created in the midst of an evolved human population exactly 33,043 years ago [because of a tapesty discovered?} - - then so be it.
I am sure we would all be fascinated watching - - as one group of pro-GAE Evangelicals “duked it out” with another pro-GAE group on whether tapestry, iron works or agriculture is the crucial “hinge” evidence.
@T_aquaticus, I am hoping that you will eventually master the mode of thinking like a struggling Creationist, and less like a contentious atheist.
Because you came barreling into the thread throwing rocks (and shoes) about issues that almost certainly don’t amount to anything in the mind of a struggling Creationist hoping to reconcile his Bible texts with millions of years of evolutionary evidence.
But, as I’ve said a few times before, in threads now long concluded, that this is your method - - at least the method you apply to my discussions. Have a great day.
I’m not the one to introduce the issue. I only point out that there is no evidence for such a thing as a “first farmer”, your claim. Your paranoia is not appropriate to peaceful science.
Forgive my absent-mindedness. I neglected to respond to this part of your post.
My answer is: “What ?!?!?”
My point has been that there is no reason to think humanity has changed much in the last 10,000 years. People who attempt to de-rail the discussions by suggesting an older time frame (so that they can draw in Neanderthals and who knows what else), are way off the reservation.
In GAE, Genesis 1 is speaking about the evolved population of humans - - and it specifically refers to them as bearing the image of God.
So whatever the evolved population is, there is no change with the de novo creation of Adam & Eve. They - - Adam & Eve - - are indistinguishable from the evolved population, except in one regard: their experience in communing with God, and in their moral awareness infamously discussed in Genesis.
So I’m not really sure you understand any of this. I once thought you did. But these hoops you are trying to make me jump through seem to suggest you have forgotten in my absence from this forum.
It is not your fault that you can’t imagine the perspective of a religious person.
The YECs to whom GAE is directed have no problem thinking about “first farmers”… and the only thing left to discuss is whether Adam & Sons were the first EXCELLENT farmer, or simply the first to consciously farm moderately well.
Naturally, you will want to attack the idea of “first farmer” as imagined by struggling YECs… but don’t criticize me for making versions of GAE more amendable to YEC mindsets - - that is exactly what the GAE is all about.
And you (and @T_aquaticus) have seemed to forget that point.
It’s not your fault that you’re smugly condescending, either. Let’s recall that this line of discussion started, not with a YEC, but with “a Christian who is being scientific” and to what “a Scientist would think”. There is no support from science for this idea of a “first farmer”. Nor does GAE require such a notion, and you can’t support it from Genesis. Adam was not created to be a farmer but, apparently, an orchardist and groundskeeper, nor does the text say that he was the first in the world, even in that capacity. There is a vague implication that Adam is expected to become a farmer after the Fall, but even so there’s no claim that he would be the first. The unspecified people outside the garden are free to be anything you want them to be, so why not allow them to have agriculture?
I should point out that I agree that it happened gradually. I just don’t agree that there is evidence against a first agriculturalist (either the first good one, or the first minimally good farmer).
But if you have the evidence against either idea (which, by definition, means you have evidence for simultaneous emergence of an agriculturalist - - using either criterion), please produce it.
A Christian who is scientific would definitely not be influenced by an unsubstantiated claim about the existence of evidence.
Anyway, you’re wrong. The fact that different plants (and animals) were farmed in different parts of the world is good evidence that agriculture appeared independently (albeit possibly aided by the transmission of ideas, rather than crops) in different parts of the world. If agriculture had originated in just one place and spread solely from that location, there would be an expectation of more overlap of crop plants and domesticated animals than is actually seen.
That would be quite a disability @T_aquaticus on a theology forum about science. That is not my role. We are trying to reach specific religious audiences. But you KNOW this.
You are writing like a non-believing scientist. YECs believe everyone came from Adam, right? And so, naturally, they already presume that there WAS a first.
Harshman doesn’t actually have a position - - except the Anti-@gbrooks9 position.
“The first farmer” is just like “the first chicken” or, in the spectrum, “the first yellow”. At which point in a continuum does one change from one category to another? It’s meaningless.
Also, this idea of simultaneous emergence is your innovation; nobody else has proposed it, and it has nothing to do with any point I or anyone else has made. Independent origins of agriculture are evidence enough against this “first farmer” notion. Incidentally, it may be that the earliest agriculture of all was of sago palms in New Guinea. How does that fit the scenario?
Ask @swamidass for a list of YECs that are here. If I have presumed wrong, and there are none, then I will console myself that I was practicing for when there ARE some YECs in the audience.
Roy, that was very helpful. I will make the necessary notations to that effect.
You seem to be working awfully hard to make me wrong about something… it doesn’t look any better on you than it looks on John.
My claim is much more open-ended, and open to broad interpretation.
I am wagering that the state of research on the origins of Agriculture will yield one or even both scenarios:
that there was a general region where agriculture first developed into a rough practice; and/or
that there was a general region where EXCELLENT agriculture first developed.
As I said in a posting above, this is more a definitional issue than anything else.
You yourself said that you doubted anyone held the position that there was a simultaneous emergence of agriculture (either of the excellent kind or not).
So aren’t you the least curious as to how John H. can be so adamant when he said there was no first of either kind? If there was no “first”, then by definition he must assert that there were simultaneous developments! Woo boy! That’s exciting.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please note that I have moved on from “family” and “group” to discussing regions. I hope this meets with your approval!
They don’t necessarily presume there was a single first agriculturist. But if they do, they would also presume, like you, that the evidence showed this. And like you, they’d be wrong.
Why are you not showing any interest in the details of regional domestication?
