Well this isn’t going to play nicely with GAE. From a recent blog entry attributed to Ken Ham at Answers In Genesis; “The genetic variants that make Neanderthals unique were likely present in the genomes of one or more of the eight people who survived the flood on the ark. And, following the flood, at the Tower of Babel, the human gene pool was split apart when God confused the languages and people spread over the earth leading to the formation of the different people groups (with unique cultures). Each population took a unique combination of genetic information with them, and that includes the human variety, including what we call Neanderthals today.”
No amount of recalculating the age of the universe is going to make the Neanderthal genome a branch of the Homo sapien sapien genome.
Now that I think about it, this supposes that Adam’s genome contained both a complete genome of us, Neanderthals, Denisovians and floresiensis. Is it even hypothetically possible to have a healthy genome that somehow contains all this information?
I believe that problem is solved by making Adam’s germ line created with lots of diversity that doesn’t make it into his soma. In other words, a full dose of gametes with the full range of human variation in them.
1 Like
Ken Ham’s genetics is not like our genetics.
4 Likes
There is no evidence, worthy, to say there ever was neaderthals. We don’t see them in any way. so its all speculation. these people are just regular people speaking regular languages.
So if different genes are found IF that is accurate itself well just other options. the big one is how quickly human bodyplans changed. after the flood. Everywhere upon migration people changed. so genetic change was quick. SO for a rough population moving into rough areas they could change as needed.
in the bible there were populations of Giants and so in europe etc there was these squat type of people.
If the diversity isn’t in the soma cells then they can’t be passed on.
You have it backwards. It’s germ line diversity that gets passed on. He just needs to be provided at creation with a full load of spermatogonia. This has been seriously advanced by creationists; I didn’t think that one up.
2 Likes
That works (sort of) for an adamic bottleneck, but not a noahic bottleneck.
1 Like
…except that it’s insane.
2 Likes
Thus, “sort of.”
I wouldnt call it “insane.” It is fantastical and unnecessary given far better options, like the GAE.
1 Like
Potato, potahto.
1 Like
Perhaps the Adamic line until the flood was polyploid! With a sufficiently large N, an N-ploid Adamic human could live for nearly a thousand years and exhibit many amazing traits—including boundless varieties of alleles, all packed-and-ready for a multiplicity of expressions in the various lineages. 
Clearly, the descendants of Noah’s sons were transformed by the new environmental conditions of a post-flood world, and their genomes were reduced to a restrictive and mundane, very diploid existence. Woe was them.
But quite fun.
1 Like
I haven’t seen the polyploid Adam theory before.
[Discourse Software error repaired by moderator.]
I just now made it up. (Solely for comic relief.)
I certainly hope that nobody has promoted that idea—but I would not be entirely shocked if somebody did.
(If it gets picked up by a PS visitor and ends up inspiring an enthusiastic article on the AIG website, I may regret my attempt at levity. I will cringe and feel ashamed of myself if I see the publisher’s press release announcing: Mega-Polyploid Adam in a Perfect Creation.
POSTSCRIPT: I’m not sure why but the idea of a N-ploid Adam really cracks me up. (And, yes, part of the humor is that polyploidy is not without its “negatives” and not necessarily some sort of “perfect creation” wonderful design.) I suppose my experiences with the “creation science” movement and what evolved from it have given me an appreciation for the tendency of defenders to grab what they perceive to be an “easy fix” that provides an alleged scientific explanation for their bizarre claims.
1 Like
@John_Harshman, there was nothing inappropriate about your above post----but it appears that just as it did with one of Patrick’s posts a while back, there must have been a linking error in the Discourse Software and my REPLY to your post appeared under your name. It appears that Discourse sometimes loses it thread “sequence” and drops a post when an index-pointer to it is lost.
Thankfully, your post that got dropped by Discourse was not much longer than what I quoted in my reply—so your primary thought was preserved.
1 Like
Now that is thinking outside the box. I like it.
1 Like
@glipsnort, I hereby also speculate in my new Theory of Polyploid Adam that the introduction of human-diploidy after Noah’s Flood explains why humans ceased being purely vegetarian and started eating animals. (Yes, that makes absolutely no sense—but so what?)
Perhaps I will start a new 501c3 non-profit organization based on this ground-breaking scientific discovery. Give me a few years for fund-raising, and I will open the tourist-friendly “The Polyploid Adam Encounter” theme-park in rural Kentucky. (I will buy at a bargain price the acreage which was building-permitted but never built for the “Solomon’s Concubine Experience” project that was planned for across the road from Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter.)
1 Like
I would also suggest that the Nephilim resulted from allopolyploidization between the already polyploid daughters of men and the sons of God (of unknown ploidy).
3 Likes
Why limit yourself to polyploidy? Consider the idea of triple-stranded, quadruple-stranded or even quintuple- or greater stranded DNA equivalents. Instead of sense and anti-sense you can have sense, anti-sense, essence, quintessence, nonsense and sixth-sense strands. Lots more scope for additional alleles.
And, as Larry Niven suggested, Adamic DNA might be so mutation-resistant you couldn’t change it with bullets.
4 Likes
Is that sort of like Miscanthus x giganteus (giant miscanthus) being produced from a hybrid of Miscanthus sinensis and Miscanthus sacchariflorus?
(I have not kept up with that particular line of research, but I had understood that creating a non-sterile Miscanthus x giganteus was a very hopeful project for converting a lot of very dry and marginal land for biofuel production and efficient electricity generation.)
I propose that because Noah’s sons were all born pre-Flood, they were N-ploid—but one of them produced a diploid son who happened to retain the giant-trait from pre-Flood populations. This explains the Nephilim found among the Canaanites when the Hebrews entered the land. (This is the premise behind my upcoming book, The Genealogical Anak. Yeah, that joke was far too inside.)