William Lane Craig and Joshua Swamidass: Did Adam and Eve Live Recently?

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Capturing Christianity is live streaming us on April 14th, 2020 at 2pm CST.

Don’t miss, either, our collaboration at the RTB workshop in January 2019:

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Nice discussion. I like how collegial you and WLC are

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Thanks for tuning in @Michelle. I think it went really well!

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Thanks, Josh, for doing this discussion w/ WLC with Capturing Christianity.

You mentioned some reviews of Adam and the Genome that indicated that D. Venema might have overstated the data, regarding the case made in the book against genetic(???) Adam and Eve, as sole progenitors. Do you have any links to those reviews? Did I understand you correctly?

By the way, I do like Dennis Venema, but if he got something wrong in that book, and he admits it, it would be good to know where he says that.

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Unfortunately, there were several significant scientific errors in Dennis Venema’s work, and his claims were inconsistent with the mainstream consensus in population genetics. Here are some key links. First one is for a popular audience, and second is more technical. The second one was referenced by WLC in the video above.

  1. Three Stories on Adam

  2. Heliocentric Certainty Against a Bottleneck of Two?

Unfortunately, Dennis himself has not been terribly clear with what he got wrong. Back in November (Venema: Adam, Once More With Feeling), he sort of walked back some of it, but there are some important scientific errors in this post. For now, I won’t elaborate more than I already have done so.

BioLogos recently began what will likely be a long process of backing away from Dennis’s claims. Some of this has been public: Haarsma Makes First Round of Corrections at BioLogos. Some of it has not been transparent: Deleted: Does Genetics Point to a Single Primal Couple?. I suspect it will take them time to untangle all of this, so I don’t want to get into too many details now, beyond what I’ve already written.

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This video presentation from late 2019 might also be helpful too: Swamidass: A Way Forward for The Reasons to Believe Origins Model .

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Thanks. You might want to think about asking Cameron, or Michael Jones (IP) to see about getting you and Dennis together for a YouTube session. I am not sure if Dennis would be game for it, but it would not hurt to ask. It would probably help a lot of folks out.

… and while you are it, how about seeing if someone can get you and Todd Wood together???

Now, that would be something!!!

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I would be willing, but I’m not sure if Dennis would. Given the whole picture, the soonest this could happen would be Fall 2020, but it isn’t too early to try and schedule it.

Dennis does not, generally speaking, acknowledge his mistakes. If you’d like clarity on where things stand, see what BioLogos has written so far about his work, and watch what they write in the future. Though they have not been terribly clear themselves, they are far more likely to come clean.

As far as my assessment of Adam and the Genome, as I’ve written in 2018, and is now appreciated by many scientists, on Adam and Eve, his science was just not valid (Three Stories on Adam).

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I would be up for that too! However, I doubt he would agree to it :slight_smile: .

Just as interesting and much more likely, at this time, would be Rob Carter, Nathaniel Jeanson, or Ken Ham. If you can set it up, go for it! I’m game.

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I have met Nathaniel, at an apologetics conference. Seems like a good guy, but would he really be willing to do it? Wow. How to even set something like that up???

By the way, really love your book. I did not grow up YEC, and I am somewhere between being an RTB and a Biologos person, but I have A LOT of friends who are YEC, who are completely freaked out by Biologos. I think a book like yours is a wonderful attempt at offering an olive branch. Keep up the great work!

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Thanks @cmorledge. That is kind of you, and I’m really glad it serves you. I’m also in the No Man’s Land between the trenches, and sometimes find myself freaked out by BioLogos too :slight_smile: . I hope we can find a way to seek peace together, and thanks for reading the book. Consider leaving a review at Amazon.

Setting up Jeanson and I? Why not contact Jeanson and ask?

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Yes, indeed. Clarke, I like the way you think. I’ve always respected Todd Wood’s honesty and sincerity. That would be great if we could learn more of how he navigates his situation in the YEC ministry world.

And welcome to Peaceful Science, Clarke.

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I can’t believe that I still have not seen this - or read Joshua’s book.

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