Skeptic March 2020

More than anything else, this book
illustrates the futility of attempting to
either shoehorn the Bible into science
or science into the Bible. To his credit
S. Joshua Swamidass seems to be at-
tempting more to make evolution palat-
able to evangelical Christians than to
attempt to convert scientists and secu-
larists to Christianity.
Dr. Swamidass’s basic thesis is
that, while humans evolved over hun-
dreds of thousands of years from aus-
tralopithecines, as evolutionary science
and theistic evolutionists assert, God
created Adam and Eve supernaturally
from dust in the Garden of Eden. De-
spite this miraculous origin, Adam and
Eve were not genetically different from
the divinely evolvedhumans outside the
garden. Thus, their offspring were able
to interbreed with the outsiders (solv-
ing the troubling question of where
Cain found his wife) and spread their
genes through the entire population.
This thesis not only makes all of us
their genealogical descendants, but as
well conferred on all of us the curse of
original sin.
Swamidass devotes much of the
book to describing genealogical de-
scent, and points out that one might
have a biological ancestor that has be-
queathed a son or daughter almost no
genetic inheritance. How? A child in-
herits half its genes from each parent,
but only one quarter of its genes from
any of its grandparents and only one
eighth of its genes from any one of its
great-grandparents, and so on. Thus, it
is possible for Genghis Khan to be the
ancestor of one in every 200 men living
today without any of them inheriting
much more from the feared conqueror
than his Y chromosome. Swamidass
states (p. 10):

Entirely consistent with the genetic

and archeological evidence, it is possi-

ble that Adam was created out of dust,

and Eve out of his rib, less than ten

thousand years ago. Leaving the Gar-

den, their offspring would have blended

with those outside it, biologically iden-

tical neighbors from the surrounding

area. In a few thousand years, they

would become genealogical ancestors

of everyone.

That Adam, Eve and their descen-

dants were biologically identical to the

evolved humans, of course, makes any

detection of the supernaturally created

genes impossible. Swamidass continues

(p.12):

Much like the Virgin Birth of Jesus,

there is no evidence for or against the

de novocreation of Adam and Eve, an-

cestors of us all, a historical couple

who lived recently in the Middle East.

There being no evidence one way

or the other means that this hypothesis

in untestable. Hence, it is not science.

This makes the subtitle of the book,

The Surprising Science of Universal An-

cestryevidently untrue: If it can’t be

tested it’s not science. Nevertheless,

Swamidass makes six propositions

about Adam and Eve (pp. 24-26):

1. They lived recently in the Middle East.
   Adam and Eve are situated in recent
   history, perhaps as recently as six
   thousand years ago, and in the Middle
   East. We can explore if and how the
   evidence constrains where they could
   be located.


2. They are genealogical ancestors of
   everyone.By AD 1, Adam and Eve are a
   couple from whom all humans across
   the globe descend. In the distant past,
   at some point before AD 1, there

would be biological humans alive that

do not descend from them.

3. They are de novocreated.God creates
   Adam and Eve by a direct act, de novo
   from dust and a rib (or Adam’s side). We
   have not specified the ways Adam and
   Eve are the same or different from
   those outside the Garden, but some
   constraints will arise. This proposition
   is not required, and it might be dropped
   if required by the evidence or disfa-
   vored in theology,


4. Interbreeding between their lineage
   and others.Adam and Eve’s lineage
   eventually interbreed with people out-
   side the Garden. Adam would be the
   same biological type of those outside
   the Garden, with no biological advan-
   tages over everyone else.
   To scientifically assess this hypothesis, how-
   ever, we need add two more propositions:


5. No additional miracles allowed.No ap-
   peals to divine action are permitted to
   explain the data or increase confidence
   in the hypothesis. Yes, one direct act of
   God is included in the hypothesis itself,
   but the evidential evaluation of the hy-
   pothesis cannot infer or rely upon di-
   vine action in any way.
   We will also add this proposition about the
   people outside the Garden, which will fill
   in poorly specified details of the traditional
   account.


6. The two findings of evolutionary sci-
   ence.The people outside the Garden
   would share common descent with
   the great apes, and the size of their

REVIEWS

54 SKEPTIC MAGAZINE volume 25 number 1 2020

IVP Academic/InterVarsity Press.

2019. 264 pp. $27.
      ISBN-13: 978-0830852635

Leaving the Garden

A review of The Genealogical Adam and Eve: The Surprising

Science of Universal Ancestr y by S. Joshua Swamidass

REVIEWED BY TIM CALLAHAN