I want thank Dr Rana for his kind words, but also clarify three things here.
I Am Not an Evolutionary Creationist
I am a Christian that affirms evolutionary science. Separating ways with with BioLogos, I am not aligned with Evolutionary Creation, which I find to be a limited theological position unacceptable to most of the Church, and insufficiently engaged with science.
As I wrote in November:
I still affirm evolutionary science, but I no longer am a theistic evolutionist . Since I first became public in my work, I have never been intent on evangelizing evolution. For this reason, I am not well defined as an “ evolutionist .” My worldview does not rest on evolution; it rests on Jesus, the one who rose from the dead. I am not well defined as a “ theist ” either, because I see great evil in this world justified by generic (and specific) theism; and I follow Jesus, who is much greater than theism.
The Confessing Scientist
Sequential Reading is One of Many Readings
We have put forward a new way to think about Adam and Eve alongside mainstream science, that makes a key distinction between genetic and genealogical ancestry (Story Three: Recent Sole-Genealogical Progenitor Adam). This is the Genealogical Adam, and it is creating a stir in many circles.
In this podcast, however, Dr. Rana’s objections center on the sequential reading of Genesis. A sequential reading of Genesis is merely one of many readings. A Genealogical Adam fits with all of them. I’m thankful to both @jack.collins and @deuteroKJ for helping clarify this with me. As I’ve explained elsewhere:
Y-Adam and Mito-Eve are Not a Bottleneck
Dr. Rana appeals to Y-Chromosome Adam (y-MRCA) and Mitochondrial Eve (m-MRCA) as where he places Adam and Eve. With all due respect, coalescence does not imply a bottleneck. See the figure below. We see y-MRCA (left panel, dark box) and m-MRCA (middle panel, dark circle) arise much more recently in the genealogy than Adam and Eve. If we arise genetically from a single couple (Story One: Ancient Sole-Genetic Progenitor Adam) or from a single couple followed by interbreeding (Story Two: Genetic-Interbreeding Adam, the current RTB model: Engaging the Zoo of RTB Models), it would be exceeding unlikely for Adam and Eve to be the y-MRCA and m-MRCA. The two concepts are only related in that we should think Adam and Eve are more ancient than Y-Chromosome Adam (y-MRCA) and Mitochondrial Eve (m-MRCA).
This is a common misinterpretation of genetic data being made here, that is not intrinsic to his model. For example, a recent science article (Did All Species Arise about 200,000 Years Ago?) created a great deal of controversy by mistakenly concluding that coalescence implied a bottleneck. It does not. Coalescence is expected in even a large population. I hope, for this reason, this error can be corrected at RTB.