Genealogical Adam & Eve: An Attempt to Reconcile Science and Faith

It is one of the embarrassments of our supposedly educated and enlightened age that a large percentage of the population continues to reject the scientific theory of evolution.   It is also clear that this rejection is largely  related to the perception that the theory is in conflict with religious belief.  People interested in fostering the public understanding and acceptance of science have taken various approaches to this problem.  Some, notably Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, and PZ Myers, endeavor to tackle the problem at its root by directly criticizing theism and religious belief.  Others are more circumspect and try to persuade creationists that there is no necessary contradiction entailed in accepting the science of evolution and believing in God.

Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass, a medical doctor and researcher in bioinformatics, belongs to the latter camp.  I first came aware of him through his work with BioLogos, an organization that was established by Francis Collins with the goal of  increasing acceptance of science by Christians.  Swamidass eventually left the organization and, while I am not aware of all of his reasons for doing so, among them was BioLogos’s position at the time that science refuted the existence of a literal Adam and Eve.  He went on to found his own organization called Peaceful Science .  I am an active member of the Peaceful Science forum, which has attracted an impressive roster of scholars from various fields.  While I disagree with Swamidass on several issues, he has always treated me with respect and courtesy there, and I have tried to respond in kind (with varying degrees of success.)

Recently, Swamidass has been developing an idea which he believes will be instrumental in fostering greater acceptance of evolution by his fellow Christians.   He calls this idea “Genealogical Adam and Eve”,  and summarizes it as follows: “Entirely consistent with the genetic evidence, it is possible Adam was created out of dust, and Eve out of his rib, less than 10,000 years ago in a divinely created garden where God might dwell with them, the first beings with opportunity to be in a relationship with Him. Perhaps their fall brought accountability for sin to all their descendants. Leaving the Garden, their offspring blended with their neighbors1 in the surrounding towns. In this way, they became genealogical ancestors of all those in recorded history. Adam and Eve, here, are the single-couple progenitors of all mankind. Even if this scenario is false or unnecessary, nothing in evolutionary science unsettles this story. So, evolution presses in a very limited way on our understanding of Adam and Eve, only suggesting (alongside Scripture) that their lineage was not pure.”  He will be releasing a book in December where he elaborates on this subject.

It is important to understand what he is suggesting here.  He is not rejecting the idea that humans share common ancestry with every other organism that inhabits the earth, nor is he claiming that humans, as a biological species,  were all specially created by God without the process of evolution being involved.  He is also not suggesting that, at the time of their creation, Adam and Eve were the only two human beings (in the biological sense) inhabiting the earth.  Instead, in the scenario he suggests there already existed a population of human beings at the time that God created Adam and Eve, from dust and a rib respectively.  These two individuals, while uniquely human in the “theological” sense, were biologically indistinguishable from the other humans that existed.  As a result, after the Fall when they were cast out of the Garden of Eden, they and their progeny could intermingle and interbreed with the rest of the (biological) human population.  

To explain what Swamidass means by Adam and Eve becoming our genealogical ancestors, imagine that you  pick any random person currently alive on the face of earth and you and he proceed to trace your family trees back in time.  If you each knew of every single one of your ancestors, you would eventually come to a person whose ancestry you share.  This would be the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of you and this other person.  You could repeat this process with not just one other person, but any number of people.  And if you performed this exercise simultaneously with every single person currently alive on earth, you would arrive at the MRCA of every human now alive.  (This individual may have lived as recently only a few thousand years ago. )

The MRCA, of course, is not the only common ancestor of all humanity. Every single person who was an ancestor of the MRCA would also be an ancestor to all of people now alive. Actually, it would not just be “every single person”; the line of ancestry would stretch all the way back to the first life forms. In Swamidass’s scenario, then, Adam and Eve would have joined the human family tree somewhere along this line (not as the MRCA). And since they would have been physically identical in every respect, including their genetics, to the human beings who had not been created by God from dust and a rib, there would be no way we could detect their separate “ancestry” thru examining the genomes of humans now living. That is another crucial point, because otherwise the fact that our genomes show no evidence of the human species having gone through a bottleneck of only two individuals would be a problem for the claim we are all the descendants of a primal pair who were created with no ancestors. (To avoid another potential source of confusion, Swamidass is also not referring to the so-called “Mitochondrial Eve” and “Y-chromosomal Adam.”)

So it would appear that Joshua Swamidass has covered all his bases. His account is not falsified by any genomic or paleontological evidence, and it seems perfectly compatible with the belief that we are all the descendants of a literal Adam and Eve who lived in a literal Garden of Eden. Swamidass makes a distinction between biological humanity and theological humanity. Presumably, Adam and Eve, while physically identical to the humans who lived in the towns surrounding Eden, differed in some spiritual or theological respect, and this difference was passed down to their descendants (though not through genetics), which include all of us. In this scemario, we evidently also inherited the Original Sin that resulted from the Fall and the need for salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. All in all, it is a rather clever and well-thought out scenario that allows an option for the devout Christian who wants to accept the theory of evolution, but finds a sticking point in his need to also believe in a literal Adam and Eve.

However, I do have have some reservations.

Swamidass states several times in his summary that “science is silent” on the idea of a de novo creation of Adam and Eve. This is not accurate, in my view. Science is quite clear that human beings do not spring into being from a pile of dust. That is just not how it happens. Science is as clear on this question as it is on the fact that rocks do not stay suspended in mid air, impervious to gravity, when you let them go while standing on the surface of the earth. What I believe Swamidass actually means is that, if we presume the existence of an omnipotent God who is capable of performing miracles, then the fact that it is not scientifically possible for a human being to instantly spring into being from dust does not mean it will not ever happen. Which is true as far as it goes. However, why stop there? Young Earth Creationists, who insist that the universe is only 6000 years old, will often wave away the overwhelming scientific evidence that the universe is actually billions of years old by saying that God could have created the universe 6000 years ago with the appearance of being billions of years old, just as he created Adam to look like a mature adult at the moment of his creation.

I see no reason that a god who could, and would, create a pair of special organisms who are physically identical to human beings could not, and would not, create a universe that, from its inception, appeared to be billions of years old. Why not? The difference between the two is simply that Swamidass’s theology requires a literal Adam and Eve, but not a young earth. For the person whose theology requires both, Geneaological Adam and Eve offers no solution. And my concern is that Swamidass’s scenario serves to validate and legitimize this sort of sloppy thinking.

In an odd sense, it could be argued that Swamidass actually shows less respect and deference to science than does a Young Earth Creationist like Ken Ham or an Intelligent Design Creationist like Michael Behe (Though, I hasten to add, in every other respect his understanding and acceptance of science far exceeds theirs). What these two have in common is the position that the current scientific consensus is seriously wrong on the question of human origins and that, if properly understood, the scientific evidence would show that no human beings could have evolved from non-human organisms without the direct intervention of a god (which Behe calls an “intelligent designer” for legal and political reasons). They believe the theory of evolution is thereby falsified on scientific grounds. The YEC’s and the IDC’s (if we take them at their word, which should only ever be done with extreme caution) endeavour to create a better science to replace the current science which (they claim) has been corrupted by scientists’ embrace of materialism and secularism, if not outright atheism. Swamidass, on the other hand, seeks to circumscribe science and install a firewall between it and religion, such that each discipline works in relative isolation from each other. As such, I do not see his scenario holding much attraction for creationists of various stripes whose true ambition is to bring science to heel and make it subservient to scriptural revelation. I suspect this is what the Intelligent Design Creationist Ann Gauger means when she says of Swamidass’s model that she views “the cost as too high.”

Swamidass has received a somewhat more receptive response from the Christian apologist William Lane Craig who, while a bit waffley on the subject, at the very least expresses a degree of sympathy for the creationist position. I do not personally find this very reassuring. I will openly admit that I do not hold Craig in particularly high esteem with regard to his intellectual rigor and honesty, and he shows a particular predilection for misconstruing scientific findings to support his apologetics. It is certainly possible that Swamidass’s model will persuade apologists and other leaders of the Christian community to urge their followers to accept the theory of evolution. But I think it at least as likely that they will ignore Swamidass’s position that science is “silent” on the question of Adam and Eve and, instead, crow that the scientists have been proven wrong, and the Bible vindicated, on the question of human origins.

But most of this is just speculation on my part. I don’t believe Swamidass has much expectation that he will receive a sympathetic response from the most prominent leaders in the creationist movement. However, he does hope to cut into their support and persuade a significant number of their followers to more fully accept the science of evolution. I do not necessarily share his optimism, but do agree it would be a good thing if he succeeds. We will see what happens in a few months, when his book is released.