BioLogos updates their scientific position Adam and Eve. This is an important step forward and a key milestone in the conversation.
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An informative, forceful, and productive summary.
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@swamidass, because my entry point into this material is as a Jesus follower interested in science who cares about how the Church parses truth and relates to people, I understand how important this material is to the Church.
But I don’t think I have the experience to fully grasp how the fact that there is no conflict between science and the Bible is important to science. I mean to say that it appears to me that science marches happily along, observing and describing the natural world whether it is or is not in conflict with religion.
You commented in the article that the lack of conflict between science and the Bible was important to science. Can you explain that further?
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Have you read our position statement on Adam and Eve yet?
What about the GAE? 
That’s true of course. The point is that there could be conflict, but there isn’t. Science has autonomy to report what it finds, but what it finds is not in conflict with Scripture.
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I have! And I just reread it.
I haven’t. But it’s on my list!
Rereading the position statement, I’d say an answer to my original question is that you have hope that the realization that there is no conflict would be an invitation to further conversation between science and religion that’s helped by the fact that there is no conflict. Is that accurate?
For my part, I’d love to see folks both religious and scientific leave the needless culture war / creation war. And it’d be great for folks to realize that the need to choose between science and religion is a false dichotomy.
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I’m trying to let go of some of my old ways of thinking. It’s hard. But this discussion, the excellent summary of the BioLogos change, and the general positivity of this forum helps. Thank you for the summary!
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Thanks for the note and welcome to Peaceful Science!
Presumably you mean that 500,000 years is enough to recharge the rare variants and restore the mutation spectrum, concealing any bottleneck. But what about the other genetic evidence? And one might also consider the idea of minimum viable population sizes.
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That’s what I’ve pointed out too. Remember?
I’m explaining their position.
I don’t think that’s true. Far less time seems to be required to accomplish this,
Sorry, what did you point to? Where?
Wouldn’t know. So what did you mean?
5 posts were split to a new topic: Scott asks questions about evolution
I enjoyed reading this forum and website and appreciate your efforts! The first two chapters of Genesis bothered me for a long time, until recently. I’ve come to realize the first chapter of Genesis, and going up to Genesis 2:4, is the account of God’s first six eras leading to the creation of early humanity. It’s a perfect match with science. The account of Adam and Eve is of God’s intervention in introducing modified genetics to humanity to enable them to build and farm. Modern grains, fruits, and farm animals are also introduced. This also matches science and modern human history for the last 6 to 10,000 years… It’s all there in the account in Genesis, but it’s clouded by Christian traditional views, so it’s difficult to spot. I wrote a book on it, God And Humans by Rhett Otis. I am a investigator, not a theologian, and tried to avoid, to the best of my ability, to not bend sound science to match the Bible, or bend the Bible to match sound science. The book points out, and makes a case for, that God created five eras before ours. The book fills in the scientific and evolutionarily gaps in explaining the sudden destructions of previous life forms, and the sudden explosions of new life forms of past eras. The book was written to help people that struggle between Bible theology and science
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Naw mate, we evolved those by artificial selection(selective breeding) of their wild ancestors, by just preferentially cultivating new variants we liked over other variants we liked less. Keep cultivating the largest and sweetest tasting fruits among those in the population, for example.
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Really? I wasn’t aware of any modified human genes needed to start the long process of agriculture and the domestication of plants and animals beginning 12,000 years ago in many places around the world. The genomes of plants and animals were modified by domestication by humans over thousands of years in different geographical locations. Rice in China, Wheat in Middle East and Maize in the Americas. The lactose tolerant gene happened just a few thousand years ago in Europe. If you are going to make claims as to what God did or didn’t do, please at least make it consistent with current scientific discoveries on the genetics of plants and animals caused by domestications by humans. You can struggle with the theology, but the science is clear: humans didn’t needed any divine intervention in their genomes to establish agriculture and plant and animal domestication anywhere in the world.
Nice to meet you @RhettOtis .
I’m not sure about God modifying our genetics by introducing Adam and Eve.
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