William Lane Craig on the Genealogical Adam Workshop

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

There are actually atheists that participate in these dialogues. He said it’s been shocking to him how sympathetic the atheist biologists have been to his genealogical Adam proposal since they don’t really care whether it coheres with biblical teaching or not. They weigh it purely scientifically, and they say it’s unobjectionable to say that there was this human pair created 10,000 years ago de novo by God whose descendants interbred with other hominids, that had evolved and from whom every human being alive on Earth today is descended. They have no problem with it.

And one recent example:

@John_Harshman

Let me try. I don’t know, first, if “scientific” is the proper term. None of this is scientific. However, creation of the universe, etc., last week or 6000 years ago requires God to lie, presenting false evidence of history that never happened. Genealogical Adam requires no such false evidence, as it’s not expected to have left any evidence. Thus no deception on God’s part, which is theologically better. We have lots of evidence of the universe’s (etc.) age, but we have and can have no evidence against the creation of two individuals added to an existing population.