My pop gen article at Biologos

Last year, Biologos asked me to write a new blog post for them on the subject of Adam and Eve and human genetics. The result has been up for a bit and can be found here: What Genetics Says About Adam and Eve - Articles - BioLogos. Since this evidently continues to be a controversial topic and I’d like to be sure the article is accurate, I thought I would start a thread here as a place where people can point out anything incorrect in what wrote. Have at it.

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Thanks for the kind reference to me. Since you brought it up, I’ll put my thoughts in another thread when I have a moment.

Excellent article!

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Certainly the best article ever published by BioLogos on this topic. Congrats on that @glipsnort .

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The graphs portraying frequency v. number of variants are my favorite. There’s something satisfying about concise figures that do a good job of explaining the data and concepts.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: My request to Schaffner

So @glipsnort, one gap I see is that there were several arguments put out that claimed to have evidence against a single-couple bottleneck going back much farther than 500,000 years. Some of those arguments are in materials still recommended on the website you are publishing on.

Of course, you aren’t cherry picking by ignoring those arguments. But you make no mention of them. It seems that is important to address them, even if briefly to list them out, and explain why they aren’t valid. As it is, I think that is a big gap. There is is not any explanation of what those arguments are and why they are wrong.

From the point of view of those arguing against Adam and Eve, it would examples of arguments that the should not use. It would also make clear you are not cherry picking and ignoring evidence.

From the point of view of those arguing for Adam and Eve, that would set a good precedent. There is a tendency for them to pick the weakest line of evidence and ignore the rest. But that is not valid.

Presumably, one of those arguments is cross-species polymorphism. Yes?

Nope. That is not one of them.

Why not? Isn’t it an argument that ought to be addressed?

And what are these arguments that you really are talking about? Is there a reason not to say what they are?

@glipsnort is welcome to explain the arguments offered by BioLogos against a genetic bottleneck. He knows them very well.

6 posts were split to a new topic: Responding to: Pop Gen article at Biologos

I’m not going to reply further to off-topic posts. In fact, I’d like the moderators to shut down this thread – it’s not serving the purpose for which it was intended.

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