--- "Fr. Ivo C da Souza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >It provides knowledge about the scientific >reasearch which is going on to know how the first >parents, man and woman, came to inhabit the world. >
The above confusing statement and the morass of confusion evident in the rest of Fr. Ivo's latest post in this thread is precisely the disadvantage of using religious myths as strained metaphors for scientific facts. This muddle reinforces and perpetuates the conflict between science and religion. This conflict will most likely persist forever because there will always be people in this world who believe in the truth of the claims in the following statement, as Fr. Ivo apparently does: "In the end, only religion claims to deliver certainty. In other words, faith alone is immune from doubt, although few believers seem troubled by the fact that each religion offers different answers." ......Fr. Ivo For people who do not take such claims seriously, it is important to understand that there were no first parents in human evolution. No scientist ever claimed that there were. The so-called mitochondrial Eve is just one woman among many who lived about 200,000 years ago. The so-called Y-chomosomal Adam is one man among many who lived about 59,000 years ago. These findings result from the simple fact that we inherit certain components of our cells called mitochondria, entirely from our mother, and our male sex chromosome or Y-chromosome, from our father. So the findings that led to the inappropriate assignment of the names of the mythical parents, merely refer to the following facts: A. The mitochondria of all humans alive today contain DNA from the mitochondria of one woman out of many who lived about 200,000 years ago, and B. The Y-chromosomes of all boys and men alive today contain DNA from the Y-chromosome of one man out of many who lived about 59,000 years ago. Having lived approximately 140,000 years apart the man and woman in question obviously did not know each other. So they could not have been our first parents. As far as the rest of Fr. Ivo's post is concerned, here are some additional statements and implications out of several that are clearly false: > >They are the first parents. The names are meaningful: >Man and Woman, 'Mother of the Living". > > > Allan Wilson named 'Mitochondrial Eve' after Eve of > the Genesis Creation Story and subsequently the >theory of 'Out of Africa' was developed, whether she > was the only one or many. > > > Today monogenism has given place to polygenism. > > > The theologian has no problem with evolution. > Cheers, Santosh
