Even Richard Dawkins is Right Sometimes (Is the Biblical story of Adam and Eve a myth?)

Religious Dispatches ^ | 11/28/2011 | Paul Wallace

[SeekAndFind]

For the last several months there has been a flurry of discussion—mostly online, of course—about the impossibility of a literal Adam & Eve (see, e.g., here and here and here). This ruling-out has been accomplished recently by the Human Genome Project, which indicates that anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors about 100,000 years ago, from a population of something like 10,000. In short, science has confirmed what many of us already knew: there was not a literal first couple. So what else can we learn from this story?

Plenty, it turns out. Peter Enns, a biblical scholar who blogs at Patheos, has been following the discussion with some care. Lately he has done us all a great favor: written a series of posts pointing out recurring mistakes made by many of those doing the discussing. Many of these mistakes are rhetorically effective but collapse upon even modest inspection.

But not all of them.

On Friday, he listed one held mostly by the pro-science crowd: “Evidence for and against evolution is open to all and can be assessed by anyone.”

Enns declares that this is not so. “The years of training and experience required of those who work in fields that touch on evolution rules out of bounds the views of those who lack such training,” he writes.

This is true but it misses the point. The open-access-to-science cliché, usually trundled out by those who wish to contrast the transparency of science with the supposed obfuscation of religion, carries some truth.

Science actually is transparent in a way that religion is not. That’s because, in science land, there is nothing but to follow the evidence. It’s out on the table, after all, able and willing to be poked and prodded and analyzed and figured out and held up and turned around and looked at from new angles. Also, what counts as evidence in science is pretty well-defined. And if you do become an evolution expert, you actually will see that 99% of all scientists back evolution for a reason: the evidence demands it.

This is the great generosity of science, and its great strength: It is actually all right there, ready to be seen and understood. It is relievedly explicit. It takes effort, sure, just as Enns suggests; it’s not easy to become a professional research biologist. But the reason biologists agree on evolution is because it’s a relatively simple matter to be objective about fossils and genes. Unlike the objects of religion—the divine and humanity’s relation to it—the objects of science give themselves up for abstraction and analysis without a fight.

Therefore Richard Dawkins (for example) is right when he says, as he has on many occasions, that the evidence for evolution is there to be inspected by anyone. It is sitting out there on the table, waiting patiently for most of humanity to catch up to it, waiting to tell us it’s time to bid the historical Adam & Eve a final, if fond, farewell.

[BipolarBob]

I thought I heard a hummingbird break wind. God will not be mocked. In a hundred years, it will be Richard who?

[aimhigh]

Science actually is transparent in a way that religion is not.

Ya, just like global warming science. The author drank too much of the coolaid.

[NakedRampage]

Actually, there was a literal first couple. Because God's bible says so. Simple as that.

But also, this is nothing but conjecture. Studies prove this and studies prove that and chewing gum causes cancer but the other study says no, gum PREVENTS cancer.

Studies come and studies go -- God's word is forever.

[newheart]

...anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors about 100,000 years ago, from a population of something like 10,000.

I am not a scientist, so sometimes the subtlety of their arguments escapes me, but don't those "10,000" have a genome that originated somewhere, or is the assumption that those 10,000 spontaneously generated?

[trumandogz]

[count-your-change]

“Enns declares that this is not so. “The years of training and experience required of those who work in fields that touch on evolution rules out of bounds the views of those who lack such training,” he writes.”

What arrogant claptrap! I dare those who have been steeped in an academic “doublethink” are often those with the least ability to evaluate the reasonableness of the evidence.

[SENTINEL]

The Human Genome Project is just renamed and repackaged Eugenics of the sort that led to over a quarter million forced sterilizations OF US CITIZENS, IN THE US, and ultimately led to the Nazi gas chambers.

Make no doubt about it, these folks are cultists of the worst type, funded by the worlds ruling elite. They want massive depopulation and world government.

I highly recommend this shocking book for those wanting a more in depth, well researched and documented explanation.

[Strategerist]

Actually I’ve always thought natural science museums could do a bit better job with displays of the innumerable examples of transitional fossil sequences.

[allmendream]

Those who accept literally the story of Noah - and think all species on Earth are descended from those “kinds” of animals that could fit on a Ark - believes in evolution and the (semi) common descent of species.

Moreover they believe evolution happens at a rate far in excess of that ever proposed by any competent evolutionary biologist.

And yet they claim to not believe in evolution.

They are obviously quite confused.

[C. Edmund Wright]

>> Science actually is transparent in a way that religion is not. >>

Yep, that was the tip off for me too. Another junk science BS piece.

[rokkitapps]

The bible was assembled by a Council that had human hands and a human agenda. It isn’t one monolithic book, it is many books that have some errors - intentional, and unintentional.

[GeronL]

A lot of the stories in the Bible are used to make a point rather be literal. “Eating from the tree of knowledge” is obviously a description of humans learning and retaining what they learned. That is when humans separated themselves from the animals after all, when we became “self aware”. Actions have consequences, Adam and Eve hid themselves because they realized their thoughts and actions are transparent to God, they are “naked” to him.

I guess that is one way to interpret Genesis, I guess.

Would Dawkins say that this is also wrong? lol.

[SZonian]

"...what counts as evidence in science is pretty well-defined."

Didn't they say something similar about the AGW scam as well?

[Cardhu]

We can all look and enjoy a beautiful garden but only the children believe there are fairies at the bottom of it.

[GeronL]

10,000 just popped out of the ground.... yeah, that makes more sense than God making them. lol.

NOT.

[thesaleboat]

Evolution does exist, but humankind did not evolve from any other creatures.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2807739/posts

[TalBlack]

IF the Bible says it’s a myth, then it is. If It don’t, then it ain’t.

[Grunthor]

God created science.

[kidd]

...anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors about 100,000 years ago, from a population of something like 10,000...

This is ignorance on display.

The author is apparently unaware of the population bottleneck caused by the Toba volcanic eruption some 70,000 years ago. Many theories suggest that we all evolved from as few as ten females. Plus or minus nine.