Philosophy Now Forum

From Chat confirming the obvious, even if one doesn't know anything about evolution, that a "first couple" scenario makes no sense:

The idea of an "original mating pair" often comes up in discussions about the origin of life or the first humans, but it’s not exactly how evolution works. Evolution is a gradual process, not a sudden event involving one pair of individuals.

In terms of humans, we don’t have a single "first couple." Rather, there was a population of early humans (or human ancestors), and over time, through small changes and natural selection, they evolved into the species we are today.

For example, if you’re thinking of the concept of "Mitochondrial Eve" or "Y-chromosomal Adam," these are terms used to describe the most recent common ancestors of all living humans through either the maternal or paternal line. They weren't necessarily contemporaries or the first humans, but rather individuals who happened to have lineages that survived and passed on their genetic material. These ancestors lived at different times, likely tens of thousands of years apart.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 9:29 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 9:18 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 8:50 pm
No, that would be in the very early primordial soup. At some point, sooner or later, it would have to be a sexually binary pair. There's no other possibility -- not in Evolutionism.

I didn't ask for names...just for a return to a plausible story. Have you got one?

Are you saying there is no other possible alternative that you can think of to the origins of human beings than a single mating pair...

I'm waiting to hear what the alternative would be. So far, we have nothing from anybody, and nothing from AI, for that matter, though all have tried.

That was the limit of Dube's alleged skeptical "challenge," which didn't turn out even to make sense or to be remotely scientific, or even to allow for something like Evolutionism, let alone be a real challenge. The smugness, it turns out, was worse than unwarranted...it was, in Dube's own terms, "ignorant." Even Dube, if she/he were now honest, would have to admit that there had to have been an original pair of 'modern'-type humans. Logically, there's no other possibility...unless Dube can now propose one...which hasn't happened yet.

Dube's challenge doesn't require more. After that, people can argue about the particulars of the narrative if they want to, but no longer about the reasonableness of believing in an original mating pair. And that was my point in taking up the argument here. You'll have to ask Dube what his/her point was, in raising a skeptical scoff at something that accords with the only plausible and logical hypothesis scientifically -- namely, that such a pair had to have existed.

I gave you an alternative in my post. Did you not read the whole post? I'll be kind enough to repost it for you:

Gary Childress wrote:If evolution is the case, then why could it not be the case that there was a single male hominid who mated with multiple female hominids of less human-like DNA (or vice versa) to create a step towards what we now call Homo-Sapiens (ourselves).

According to genetics, Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam were likely not the only hominids of their kind alive at that time. Human DNA sequences have many contributors, not just two people.

Equally problematic is that evidence seems to suggest that Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosome Adam are lived somewhere around a hundred thousand years apart from each other.

From what I understand, if I understand correctly, given what is known about genetics, Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosome Adam would have to have existed among other mating pairs (perhaps ever so slightly less "human" than they were) to account for the variation in human DNA. Two people alone could not account for the variety in our DNA. But genetics does suggest that the pre-historic human population may have faced some serious bottlenecks at points such that all humans can be traced back (in part) to a single male and a later single female from which all known humans today share SOME common lineage with. Other humans alive at the same time contributed genes to modern populations, but their specific Y-chromosome or mitochondrial DNA lineages did not survive to the present day.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 9:29 pm
I'm waiting to hear what the alternative would be. So far, we have nothing from anybody, and nothing from AI, for that matter, though all have tried.

It is possible -- nay, probable-- that many mating pairs were involved. The dividing line between homo sapiens sapiens and other, similar species or sub species is arbitrary. Therefore, let's postulate a mating pair of Neanderthals that, through a rare combination of genes (and, possibly, a mutation or two) produces a homo sapien. This individual breeds with his Neanderthal cohorts. Most of his children do not cross the threshold which would qualify them as homo sapiens, but, perhaps, some of their children do. Over the course course of several hundred generations, the selective advantages of the homo sapien genotype increases the descendant-leaving success of these individuals, and the species becomes differentiated from other, similar species or sub species.

This is the likely scenario, and no one breeding pair can be given sole credit.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 10:09 pm Well, wait: objectively evil, or only perceived as evil? It makes a world of difference.

My views on this issue were influenced by very old Vedic theory: the so-called Rishis of ancient India. They describe the world, our world, similarly to how the Greeks viewed it: a “fish eat fish world” is how they put it. And as far as man is concerned, ending always in rather terrible circumstances, our final expiration.

They marveled that •a world• existed, and described God (Brahma) as creating or providing a sphere (loka, planet) for man to exist in. But when they approached the problem, the perennial question, of why man exists here; why we have to live in such a wonderful, and terrible, world as our world is — well, as you likely know their existential and theological speculations on that question were different than the Hebrew story (which has you totally captured and from which you cannot deviate).

(Belief, for you, is a form of capture).

It should be obvious, if it isn’t to you, that intelligent men of all ages have ALWAYS noted the dual nature of life here. It can all be wonderfully charming and then, in a random second, turn into a nightmare. Will you haggle over the term perceived? If a man finds himself trapped under a boulder alone in the desert with no phone, no water, no food, and sees he faces an agonizing death — is that perceived or objective evil?

If a man traps him under a rock in the desert and leaves him to die, is this objective or perceived evil? The buzzards sitting nearby waiting for his death to they can pierce his eyes and later eat his guts, the world is “good”, right?

Please, Immanuel, be fair and realistic.

The world — life, death, suffering, joy, progress and success — these are all conditions here.

It all begs for interpretation.

All of us, really. When we were babies, nobody needed to teach us how to hit our little brother, or to scream in rage at our mothers when we didn't get our way. We figured that stuff out all on our own. At least, by age 2 we had that all down. "The Terrible Twos" have become legendary for a reason.

I have not forgotten your primary argument, Immanuel. I understand its logic but it is entirely superficial or rather “shallow”.

Whether man has a tempered will or a ill-tempered will does not change “the nature of this world” in the sense I explained.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 10:38 pm I gave you an alternative in my post. Did you not read the whole post? I'll be kind enough to repost it for you:

Gary Childress wrote:If evolution is the case, then why could it not be the case that there was a single male hominid who mated with multiple female hominids of less human-like DNA (or vice versa) to create a step towards what we now call Homo-Sapiens (ourselves).

That's a scenario we'd have to have some evidence for, and we really don't. But even if we did, it wouldn't really change anything. The fact is that we have nothing but "modern" humans today. And that entails that at some point in whatever process happened, there was a union between two originals of that modern human. So we're in the same place, anyway.

I don't have much time to respond in detail, but...

"The Impossible" is greater than what is possible. What is possible, is based on what is already known. But the impossible is based on what is unknown, to the masses. It is the rare geniuses of Mankind and history, that go beyond what is known and possible, and tread into the impossible.

Impossible is where all human Greatness has ever come from.



This is why "Science" and "Empiricism" is always a step behind the "Religious".

Science is confined to what is possible, but never what is "impossible", according to these Atheists and Secularists.

Secularism is confined to its own prison.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 12:15 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 10:38 pm I gave you an alternative in my post. Did you not read the whole post? I'll be kind enough to repost it for you:

Gary Childress wrote:If evolution is the case, then why could it not be the case that there was a single male hominid who mated with multiple female hominids of less human-like DNA (or vice versa) to create a step towards what we now call Homo-Sapiens (ourselves).

That's a scenario we'd have to have some evidence for, and we really don't. But even if we did, it wouldn't really change anything. The fact is that we have nothing but "modern" humans today. And that entails that at some point in whatever process happened, there was a union between two originals of that modern human. So we're in the same place, anyway.

Well, I don't know what to tell you. Given the current state of genetic science, it seems unlikely that there was only one mating pair to start off the homo-sapiens because there's too much variation to be created by a single mating pair. It seems likely that other hominids also contributed to our genetic makeup. The evidence suggests that Y-chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve lived tens of thousands of years apart and only account for some of our genetic material.

If you want to believe the story of the Bible, it seems there's nothing I can do to suggest otherwise that you will accept.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 11:49 pmIf a man finds himself trapped under a boulder alone in the desert with no phone, no water, no food, and sees he faces an agonizing death — is that perceived or objective evil?

A man, thru no fault of his, is trapped, without supplies or rescue: not an evil, perhaps a tragedy. Or, mebbe, an opportunity for courage.

If a man traps him under a rock in the desert and leaves him to die, is this objective or perceived evil?

If one sentences another to death without just cause, it's evil, pure, simple, wholly objective.

The buzzards sitting nearby waiting for his death to they can pierce his eyes and later eat his guts, the world is “good”, right?

The birds fall outside the sphere of morality. Or, mebbe, it's better to say the birds fall short of the sphere of morality. The birds aren't moral beings. The trapped man may curse the birds, but the birds are not an evil, and the birds cannot partake in a good.

The world — life, death, suffering, joy, progress and success — these are all conditions here.

It all begs for interpretation.

No, it doesn't. The world is as it is, full of violent beginnings, endings, and middles. You don't have to interpret it. Just see it as it is. What you can do, what you ought to do, is recognize you are in the world, but not completely of the world. You have some say on what the world imposes on you. You have the means to defend yourself against it, to redirect it.

It's foolish when we believe we are its masters, but it's equally foolish when we believe the world masters us.

(Anywho, I'm late to this leg of the conversation. I had snow to contend with [snow in S. La.]. It seems like I've missed out on a bit so this post may be not in keepin' with things [and I'm too lazy to go back and read the recent, relevant, thread-portion] but -- fuck it -- I've never let ignorance stop me...)

Alexiev wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 11:45 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 9:29 pm
I'm waiting to hear what the alternative would be. So far, we have nothing from anybody, and nothing from AI, for that matter, though all have tried.

It is possible -- nay, probable-- that many mating pairs were involved.

Describe how that story would go.

There are a bunch of pre-moderns...Neanderthals, maybe, running around...and then what? They all suddenly burst forth with progeny that are fully modern human beings? What's the mechanism for that sudden, colossal shift in genetics? What precedent have we for such an event?

You see, when you try to describe it in detail, it gets very implausible.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 11:49 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 23, 2025 10:09 pm Well, wait: objectively evil, or only perceived as evil? It makes a world of difference.

My views on this issue were influenced by very old Vedic theory: the so-called Rishis of ancient India. They describe the world, our world, similarly to how the Greeks viewed it: a “fish eat fish world” is how they put it. And as far as man is concerned, ending always in rather terrible circumstances, our final expiration.

Maybe. But that doesn't show that any of it is "evil." Rather, it suggests that death is just part of the way things are, and any feeling of "evil" existing in it would be a delusion.

It should be obvious, if it isn’t to you, that intelligent men of all ages have ALWAYS noted the dual nature of life here.

Duality takes various forms. But it's not clear that any of them are evil. They may, instead, be Yin-Yang, just two aspects of a single reality, with no sense of "evil" as we Westerners would understand the concept, being implicated at all.

But then, the existence of "evil" is again not a problem: it's just a delusion that people have. There's nothing alleged to be inherently evil in the Yin. The Yin simply is. And a philosophy of fatalistic acceptance is all that that view can argue for.

Will you haggle over the term perceived?

Not "haggle." It's not a trivial problem.

If we only perceive evil, but it doesnt really exist in objective reality, then the fault's with us. We need to grow up, get over it, be more realistic, and stop "perceiving" that which is not there. That would be the only answer to the alleged problem of evil, if "perceived" is all it is.

If a man finds himself trapped under a boulder alone in the desert with no phone, no water, no food, and sees he faces an agonizing death — is that perceived or objective evil?

That depends. What are you trying to involve when you say "evil"? The boulder intended him no harm. It did no "evil." Is he unhappy? Sure. Will he have agony? Sure. But if "evil" is merely "perceived," all we can say is, "I perceive that to be bad, but the truth is that it's just how things go: there is no such thing as objective evil, even in that."

I don't say that, of course. But then, I believe in objective evil, so I can rationally say that I find the situation evil, and even that it is objectively evil.

But how can somebody who believes that evil is merely a perception call anything "evil"? What does he mean? There is no objective reality that corresponds to his term. Nothing is objectively evil, he insists. So this can't be, either.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 1:48 am Given the current state of genetic science, it seems unlikely that there was only one mating pair to start off the homo-sapiens

That doesn't seem obvious at all.

Evolutionism insists that genetic mutation takes place through countless generations of reproduction -- at first, asexual, but then sexual. And here we are, with all human beings at the same essential stage of alleged development -- all modern, all at once. What's your evidence for a sudden genetic surge across an entire population, that completely wipes out all prior stages and launches the entire population into the next stage at precisely the same time? And what mechanism would even make such a surge possible?

It's so much easier and more elegant simply to say that if human evolution took place -- which I find obvious poppycock, but I'll indulge for your sake -- it took place in a single pair, and the particular mutation was passed on to subsequent generations by way of reproduction. At least reproduction is a known scientific process; universal genetic surge isn't.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:05 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 1:48 am Given the current state of genetic science, it seems unlikely that there was only one mating pair to start off the homo-sapiens

That doesn't seem obvious at all.

Evolutionism insists that genetic mutation takes place through countless generations of reproduction -- at first, asexual, but then sexual. And here we are, with all human beings at the same essential stage of alleged development -- all modern, all at once. What's your evidence for a sudden genetic surge across an entire population, that completely wipes out all prior stages and launches the entire population into the next stage at precisely the same time? And what mechanism would even make such a surge possible?

It's so much easier and more elegant simply to say that if human evolution took place -- which I find obvious poppycock, but I'll indulge for your sake -- it took place in a single pair, and the particular mutation was passed on to subsequent generations by way of reproduction. At least reproduction is a known scientific process; universal genetic surge isn't.

If there was a single mating pair named Adam and Eve then where did all the genetic variation come from that now exists in the human genome? Was it produced over tens of thousands of years of mutations? And if so, how is that different from the scientific evidence. If not, then why is the human genome so diverse?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:29 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:05 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 1:48 am Given the current state of genetic science, it seems unlikely that there was only one mating pair to start off the homo-sapiens

That doesn't seem obvious at all.

Evolutionism insists that genetic mutation takes place through countless generations of reproduction -- at first, asexual, but then sexual. And here we are, with all human beings at the same essential stage of alleged development -- all modern, all at once. What's your evidence for a sudden genetic surge across an entire population, that completely wipes out all prior stages and launches the entire population into the next stage at precisely the same time? And what mechanism would even make such a surge possible?

It's so much easier and more elegant simply to say that if human evolution took place -- which I find obvious poppycock, but I'll indulge for your sake -- it took place in a single pair, and the particular mutation was passed on to subsequent generations by way of reproduction. At least reproduction is a known scientific process; universal genetic surge isn't.

If there was a single mating pair named Adam and Eve

We don't have to give them names. You can call them "Oog" and "Ook," if you want. Or nothing at all. Dube's point was that such a thing couldn't happen.

...then where did all the genetic variation come from that now exists in the human genome?

Well, if that's supposed to be a question specifically for humans, it's not. It's a question about how all of evolution is supposed to work. And so far as I know, all the current theories hold it happens by way of mutation through reproduction, modified by survival of the fittest, not by way of a magical genetic surge simultaneously across the entire population at one time.

Though if you have a case of such a thing happening, I'd be interested in knowing about it. So would Evolutionists, of course.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:39 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:29 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:05 am
That doesn't seem obvious at all.

Evolutionism insists that genetic mutation takes place through countless generations of reproduction -- at first, asexual, but then sexual. And here we are, with all human beings at the same essential stage of alleged development -- all modern, all at once. What's your evidence for a sudden genetic surge across an entire population, that completely wipes out all prior stages and launches the entire population into the next stage at precisely the same time? And what mechanism would even make such a surge possible?

It's so much easier and more elegant simply to say that if human evolution took place -- which I find obvious poppycock, but I'll indulge for your sake -- it took place in a single pair, and the particular mutation was passed on to subsequent generations by way of reproduction. At least reproduction is a known scientific process; universal genetic surge isn't.

If there was a single mating pair named Adam and Eve

We don't have to give them names. You can call them "Oog" and "Ook," if you want. Or nothing at all. Dube's point was that such a thing couldn't happen.

...then where did all the genetic variation come from that now exists in the human genome?

Well, if that's supposed to be a question specifically for humans, it's not. It's a question about how all of evolution is supposed to work. And so far as I know, all the current theories hold it happens by way of mutation through reproduction, modified by survival of the fittest, not by way of a magical genetic surge simultaneously across the entire population at one time.

Though if you have a case of such a thing happening, I'd be interested in knowing about it. So would Evolutionists, of course.

What do you mean by "magical genetic surge simultaneously across an entire population?" Can you unpack that statement?

As far as Dubious position, I don't know what it is so I can only guess. Was he implying that the genesis account of human creation was scientifically impossible or improbable? That seems to be the conclusion gleaned from scientific evidence in genetics.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:47 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:39 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Jan 24, 2025 3:29 am

If there was a single mating pair named Adam and Eve

We don't have to give them names. You can call them "Oog" and "Ook," if you want. Or nothing at all. Dube's point was that such a thing couldn't happen.

...then where did all the genetic variation come from that now exists in the human genome?

Well, if that's supposed to be a question specifically for humans, it's not. It's a question about how all of evolution is supposed to work. And so far as I know, all the current theories hold it happens by way of mutation through reproduction, modified by survival of the fittest, not by way of a magical genetic surge simultaneously across the entire population at one time.

Though if you have a case of such a thing happening, I'd be interested in knowing about it. So would Evolutionists, of course.

What do you mean by "magical genetic surge simultaneously across an entire population?" Can you unpack that statement?

I mean, how does an entire population suddenly mutate from Neanderthal to modern person? Do you have any mechanism that can do that? Have you got any cases of it happening with any population?

As far as Dubious position, I don't know what it is so I can only guess. Was he implying that the genesis account of human creation was scientifically impossible or improbable?

You can go back and read what Dube says. Apparently, it's that it's impossible that at any time in the past there was a "first mating pair" of modern humans. So the alternative would be some kind of massive, universal genetic shift, wouldn't it? So now, we'd need evidence of such a thing.