How would you know that you found the bones of Adam and not some other person alive at the time?
Wouldn’t the bones have to show that this person lived for over 900 years to conclude that it might be the Genesis Adam? And of course, would Adam have a navel? And what would Adam’s Y chromosome look like? If it is too similar to other ancient DNA of the time period and location, it would infer a natural birth from a mother not a de novo creation. And of course, a de novo created Adam would have a very different immune system and stomach bacteria than contemporaries. Of course, God could have created de novo Adam to look exactly like the Adam that is portrayed at the Creation Museum with light skin color, nice teeth and perfectly groomed hair.
I find that in discussions with creationists, I often wind up in a weird territory where someone is taking a position with regard to real-world facts and attempting to justify it in terms of reasoning from first principles. My sense is that this sort of mixture of pure reason, which is what I understand “rational” to refer to, and fact is a mess.
Yes, it does, but reasoning and rationality are not at all the same thing. Once you are looking for inferences that might reasonably be drawn from facts, and attempting to assemble explanations which may account for those facts, you have stepped far, far outside of the sort of pure and abstract philosophical zone of “rationality” and are now dealing in the weighing of evidence. We take concepts from an idealized sort of “pure reason” and attempt to apply them to a messy world where facts are complex, data are imperfect, and relationships among facts are often less clear than we would like.
Almost all problems we seek to solve cannot be usefully reasoned about in the abstract – outside of mathematics, pretty much none of them can. Most problems land in the zone of practical reasoning, where principles of pure reason at best supply some outer bounds, but where those principles themselves cannot lead to useful answers because the answers we seek are neither compelled nor excluded by pure reason.
A mathematical system can be fully rational while having no relation to anything real – a set of alternative postulates to conventional mathematics can generate internally consistent, rigid logical structure. But if it cannot be shown to be usefully analogous to any real phenomenon, it is of little interest. In the same way, it is possible to form a set of YEC beliefs which do not in themselves contain any offense against rationality itself: they are rational but false.
Now, turning to your A and B: neither of these are really rational statements in themselves. The first one, A, I would rephrase: “there are possible rational belief systems which do contain ‘the Bible is the word of God’ as a postulate.” Note that this has nothing to do with the truth of the statement – only the possibility to construct rational statements which are based upon it. B is, I think, not a rational statement; it is instead a statement about what is reasonable. I do not think it can be employed in a rational system, though it is the sort of inference which, if rendered more specific and testable, could be supported, or disconfirmed, by evidence in an empirical system – that is to say, it is of no use in a formal logical structure where we are evaluating rationality only, but it is a claim one might make, and might attempt somehow to support, in practical reasoning.
I do not think that the core assertions of A or B – the notion that the Bible is the word of God, or the notion that the word of God is trustworthy – are reasonable in light of the evidence. But a rational system might be constructed upon A. The simple assertion that the word of God is true might be offered instead of B, in which case it would allow a rational belief system to be formulated (granting, arguendo, that the Bible itself contains no internal inconsistencies – not a rabbit hole worth delving). That belief system would, of course, be massively falsified by empirical evidence, but in its pure-reason form it could exist. This is why I say it can be “rational” to be a YEC; it is, for reasons well known, quite unreasonable.
Honestly I’m a bit surprised at these questions, as I would have thought that scientists had a good grasp of how thought experiments work. If we do a thought experiment regarding motion on a frictionless surface, do scientists ask how we know that it’s a frictionless surface or how we acquired the frictionless surface?
The thought experiment stipulates a frictionless surface. It’s stipulated in the thought experiment that we know these are the bones of Adam.
I’m not sure what about the thought experiment is difficult to imagine. The significance of the thought experiment is this:
The specific evidence in the thought experiment is the same sort of evidence that is used to support common descent. It’s one of the pieces of evidence that many believe undermines the rationality of YEC, correct? So either the evidence in the thought experiment would demonstrate it is irrational to continue to believe that Adam was created de novo or else one needs to recalibrate their epistemology.
Well, in the GAE (have you read it?), there is a reason given for why AE would have very similar genomes, including the Chromosome 2 fusion, because God intended them to interbreed with people outside the garden who did in fact share common ancestry with the great apes.
This explanation is not available in a YEC scenario.
It is hard to imagine because it isn’t reality, and hard to envision in reality (as others aptly explained). I’m still happy to suspend disbelief and enter the thought experiment with you.
I have a good grasp on how science is done. Before anyone can make the claim “I found the bones of Adam”, she must be sure that the evidence supports the claim. That is the difference between science and YEC. In science, the data and results are subject to intense scrutiny and peer review. Conclusions come from consensus over time.
This is why I asked whether not having chromosome 2 fusion (C2f) would prevent Adam and Eve and their immediate descendents from interbreeding. The answer seems to be that it wouldn’t. In which case, the interbreeding explanation doesn’t really do any work there.
But if it doesn’t serve any known purpose, you could just postulate that Adam and Eve and their immediate descendents wouldn’t have had C2f. Or, if there might be some important purpose for the fusion we don’t know about, you might hypothesize that there is a good reason aside from interbreeding and we might discover it. (This last route would be available to YEC.)
Let’s say that C2f isn’t necessary for interbreeding, as @John_Harshman has indicated. In that case, the explanation isn’t available in the genealogical hypothesis either, is it?
There are several options here:
Adam, Eve, and their immediate descendants would have C2f
They would have C2f and, since C2f is evidence of common descent, maintain that it is irrational to believe that God created Adam and Eve de novo.
They would have C2f and maintain that there is a good reason for C2f that we haven’t discovered yet. It is still rational to believe that God created Adam and Eve de novo because of the evidence of Scripture.
Not that this aspect even matters, but the explanation here still doesn’t make sense. A frictionless surface isn’t reality. Star Wars isn’t reality. A surface in which every point is equidistant from its center isn’t reality. But we don’t have a hard time imagining these things.
Asking “How would we know the bones belong to Adam?” seems like a classic case of missing the point or not understanding how thought experiments work.
P.S. I’m on page 130 of the book and had to set it aside for other things. I allowed myself to get too distracted over the weekend here, I admit. I’ll be a lot slower in my responses (if I stay on task ) now. But I will finish the book and will try to respond to relevant posts as I have time.
Also you need to discuss the damage YEC causes. YEC isn’t science and YEC degrades scientists who spend a lifetime doing research and making key discoveries only to be labeled “atheist evolutionists” by YECs. YEC causes damage to society by casting doubt on the motivation of scientists. It is one thing to be skeptical of the latest results of cutting edge scientific results but wrong to think that there is an atheistic science conspiracy to go against the “Word of God”.
At the risk of oversimplifying, the Chromosome 2 fusion can viewed as just one of the mutations that have become fixed in our lineage since some time after the split from chimpanzees. The fusion itself could even have originated earlier than the split.
It could have been fixed before GAE, or after. And GAE could have had the fusion, or not. Any of those scenarios could be compatible with GAE.
That’s my understanding as a non-population geneticist, anyway. Hope I’m not misleading you.
That’s correct @Faizal_Ali. This is equivalent to musing about Jesus’ genome, as there is no theological guidance or scientific evidence if we are to affirm the Virgin Birth.
Still not getting your point. Why would Adam be created to be different from other humans? Why would you expect him to be created with unfused chromosomes as in other apes, rather than fused chromosomes as in humans? What would be the point?
Of course characters like that are evidence of common descent. But so are chins, thumbs, GULO pseudogenes, and C in position 832 of the mitochondrial cytocrome b gene. So what? If Adam was created to resemble other humans, it would take a special purpose for him to be different, not for him to be the same.
And yes, the only reason to believe that God created Adam and Eve de novo is that scripture says so. There couldn’t even in principle be any evidence for it.
First of all, humans aren’t computers. It is normal for humans to hold beliefs that are not supported by evidence. It is also normal for humans to hold false beliefs, or just be wrong. It is also normal for humans to hold faith-based beliefs. Can humans think irrationally? Yep, we sure can, me included.
One way I approach this topic is to ask “What would it take to change your mind?”. There are two main questions I have asked over the years:
What features would a fossil need in order for you to accept it as evidence for humans and chimps sharing a common ancestor?
What features would a geologic formation need in order to evidence a lack of a recent global flood and an old Earth?
If people aren’t able to answer these questions it tells me that they are either ignorant of the science (which is perfectly fine) or they didn’t reach their current position by using reason and evidence.
It is evidence for common descent. However, the “God just did it that way” ad hoc excuse is always available. This is a good illustration of the difference between “rational” and “reasonable.” Adopt the ad hoc postulate, and the system becomes rational, but not reasonable.
) now. But I will finish the book and will try to respond to relevant posts as I have time.