This is the first post in a series that is designed as a discussion starter about the scientific probability of Adam and Eve. The argument is a unique apologetic advancing the philosophical argument for Fine Tuning by applying new genomic research into the controversial study of human origins. As each part is posted, I invite discussion and critique to help refine the argument.

Abstract

The latest genetic research into increasing homozygosity provides a testable hypothesis that the Adam and Eve bottleneck is a seminal event in human history and, like thermodynamic entropy, substantiates the Fine Tuning argument. This argument is supported on two fronts. First, just as the thermodynamic increase of entropy will eventually lead to the heat death of the universe, the biological increase in homozygosity will eventually lead to the extinction of life. Second, just as the physics of entropy leads to the conclusion that the universe began with a singular act of creation, so too the genetics of homozygosity lead to the conclusion that human life is the result of a singular act of Divine creation.

Introduction

A fundamental question facing scientists (both the naturalist and the supernaturalist) was posed by preeminent mathematician Jules-Henri Poincaré in his 1902 work, Science and Hypothesis, who, when faced with the pervasive reality of entropy, asked, “whether the living beings of the world have been brought into existence by the activity of something which can be validly compared to the creative intelligence, or alternatively whether they have assumed their present form by the operation of ‘natural’ processes not involving anything comparable to intelligence.”[1] In response to this question, Christian philosophers posit the Fine Tuning arguments which leverages empirical observations to conclude that a life-permitting universe is so overwhelming rare that the only probable explanation for the cosmos is a supernatural Creator. Observations from physics engaged to substantiate this inference of Divine creation, according to Robin Collins, fall within four categories: the laws of physics (e.g. the equations that describe gravity, weak force, electromagnetism, and strong nuclear forces), the constants of physics (e.g. the numbers we plug into these equations such as the gravitational constant tuned to 120 decimal places), the initial conditions of the universe (e.g. dark energy distribution, and the distribution of mass and energy which gives us the low entropy state), and essential properties of chemical elements that are life-permitting (e.g. properties of carbon, oxygen, water, and the electromagnetic spectrum).[2]

Physics, a mature science, is most commonly used to establish the premise of fine-tuning whereas supporting arguments from biology are less common because the fundamentals of biological life are less explicit.[3] Genetics is a much newer science than physics with less than 70 years of experimentation since the discovery of DNA by James Watson and Francis Crick in 1953 and less than 20 years since the human genome sequence has undergone serious investigation by the ENCODE project started in 2003. However, recent findings in the relatively young science of genetics make possible a line of argument in support of fine-tuning. Studies demonstrating increasing genetic homozygosity (an organism that carries two of the same alleles for the same trait) provide a strong parallel to the thermodynamic observations of increasing entropy and, therefore, bolster the already strong foundation for the Fine Tuning argument.

This paper demonstrates two important parallels: First, just as the thermodynamic increase of entropy will lead to the heat death of the universe, the biological increase in homozygosity cannot be saved by the neo-Darwinian mechanism of mutation and will eventually lead to the extinction of human life. Second, just as the physics of entropy leads to the probabilistic conclusion that the universe began with a singular act of Divine creation, so too the genetics of homozygosity lead to the probabilistic affirmation of the so-called Adam and Eve hypothesis (the genetic bottleneck of a single pair of humans who were the progenitors of all humankind). Taken together, these two assertions form the foundation of a testable hypothesis which affirms the scientific probability of the orthodox Christian confession that in His image God created the first two humans—Adam and Eve—who are the progenitors of all mankind.