In this post on YACC, we look at the significance of Eden for science. If the Genesis account is correct, and if it truly represents a revolution some 6000 years ago in the Middle East, then the repercussions should still be echoing around the world. 

In particular, I want to put to rest the idea that Genesis is opposed to science, or is true in spite of science.  Someone has criticized YACC as "Yet Another Creation Compromise", so I want to be very clear, if one side is compromising, it is not Genesis but science. But then, science is always compromising, trying to find the best theory that accounts for the most facts. What I will not compromise is epistemology, taking the post-modern view that contradictory truths can be "both right", for such a view is basically polytheism, and polytheism is inimical to science.

So with a healthy regard for facts, and a skeptical regard for theory, let us take on some of the real contradictions within YACC.

Four Rivers

Why does Eden's four named rivers (Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel, Perat) not seem to exist? Many attempts have been made to fit the four rivers into a location in the Middle East: some in Jerusalem,  some in Iraq, some in the Persian Gulf. (One imaginative fellow places it in Pangea, some 250 million years ago!)  The translators usually think the last two rivers have high probabilities to be the Tigris and Euphrates, but the first two are are a mystery. While it might not seem strange that small rivers "drop off the map", it would be rather odd if the writer of Genesis were to give a location that so rapidly vanished from all maps. Especially when he was describing a place of great interest. Imagine giving directions to the Cheops pyramid and using a nearby small town for a reference point--would you locate a place that has existed for 5500 years with a town that has existed for 100?

The 1991 book by Iman Wilkens, now a collector's item "Where Troy Once Stood", makes the case that rivers don't change their names very often. It is an odd claim, but as I drive around the US, it is true that many rivers have Indian names: Tennessee, Hiwassee, Shenandoah, and Potomac, were ones that I crossed on a recent trip. Their names have survived over 300 years yet is there any other sign or signal of the vanished tribes that named them?  So one would imagine that Eden's rivers would still be around. Yet the mystery is at least as old as the Septuagint (200-150BC).  That is, if Eden were truly in Iraq, it would seem that the ancients would have said so, translating Gihon and Pishon into local names the same way they translated Hiddekel and Perat into Tigris and Euphrates.

If the latter rivers are properly translated, then why the mystery concerning the location of Eden? So either the ancients had no good match between Iraq and Eden, or the latter two rivers aren't in Iraq.  If even in 200BC they didn't know the proper translations of these first two rivers, it seems likely that the later two rivers are mistranslated as well. This gives me freedom to ignore their translator's identifications with Tigris and Euphrates, and concentrate on other features that might identify them.

To begin with, several people have pointed out that a river doesn't divide downstream (except in flat deltas which don't appear to be the case here) but upstream. Accordingly they take the view that the phrase in Genesis 2:10 "a river was giong out of Eden" to be an upstream, rather than a downstream view. So the 4 rivers flow into a single stream and thence into Eden. As you know from reading earlier posts, I favor a location in the Mediterranean basin for Eden, both because it places Eden in the Middle East, and because it also solves the Great Deluge problem.

There are several other below-sea-level proposed locations for Eden and the Deluge, with both the Persian Gulf and the Black Sea having at one time been dry and possible fertile areas. The Black Sea is interesting, since it has some support for an earthquake-caused deluge around 3600 BC. However, this is somewhat removed from the Middle East, and not consistent with the chromosome and linguistic analysis that puts the origin of language further south. Likewise the Persian Gulf location has at least two rivers in its favor, but seems to push back the Deluge another four or five millennia. They remain intriguing options, but I still prefer a Mediterranean location.

Because more water evaporates from the Mediterranean than comes in with rivers (by about 50cm per year), the  Atlantic Ocean has to make up the difference. So the Mediterranean basin was dry 6 million years ago when the gates of Gilbraltar were tectonically closed, but there is no evidence of a recent (4000 BC) drying event. Of course, short time periods, say 1000 years in duration, would be hard to catch in the drill core data, so this doesn't exclude the possibility of a brief event, but does limit its duration.  Using the 50cm/year drop in water level, 1000 years would correspond to a 500m drop, which would dry out the Adriatic, the Aegean, and about a third of the Black seas, but have little effect on the deeper Mediterranean.

Now the basin would normally be hotter than the surrounding region, since it is below sea level, much as the floor of the Grand Canyon is much warmer than the Rim. (A college trip I experienced a 70F change hiking from Phantom Ranch to the top of Bright Angel trail in a snowstorm.) So should a brief glaciation, such as the 11-10,000BC Younger Dryas, be responsible for an ice dam and the temporary drying out of the basin, it would also correspond to a balmier climate for the basin. Note that closing of the gates of Gilbraltar also diminishes the "engine" that drives the Gulf Stream conveyer belt bringing heat to Europe, so that there would be a positive feedback keeping Europe in an Ice Age.

So if Eden were in the Mediterranean basin, all the rivers would flow downhill and be forced to combine at the lake at the bottom, somewhat west of Eden. Looking at bathymetric map of the basin (see below), and drawing in the possibly major rivers, we have the Danube (flowing into the Black Sea, and then perhaps into the Mediterranean), the Nile, the Po (which flows down the Adriatic Bed), and possibly some rivers off of North Africa. A rough intersection of these rivers in the Levantine basin south of Cyprus at 2000m depth, and eventually the deeper Ionian basin between Italy and Greece. One would have to imagine a drying period of about 3-4000 years to dry out most of the basin leaving behind some brackish lakes in the deepest sections, placing Eden either just south of Crete or just south of Cyprus.

Map of the Mediterranean basin, showing the depth and terrain (The Oceans, Their Physics, Chemistry, and General Biology. New York:  Prentice-Hall,  c1942 1942.)


Note the descriptions of the rivers in Genesis. The Hiddekel (translated Tigris) flows east of Assyria, which could be the easternmost branch of the river feeding the Black Sea. The Gihon flows around Cush, which is usually taken to be Ethiopia, and would identify the Gihon as the Nile. The Pishon might be the Po (or the Danube), and the Perat (Euphrates) remains a puzzle.

Therefore, a Mediterranean solution to Eden satisfies several constraints: it places Eden and the birth of language in the Middle East or close to it as expected; it explains the wiping out of all civilization in a catastrophic flood; it explains perhaps the missing river names; and it explains a change in climate that seems to be indicated by the opening verses of Chapter 2. That is, mists form wherever the ground is warmer than the overlying air, and moisture condenses as it rises. This temperature inversion is particularly likely in a bowl like Los Angelos and would indicate that the rainfall patterns in the Mediterranean were different during the Edenic period (as expected if the sea had dried up).  Like any good scientific hypothesis, it makes predictionss: a 3000 year drying period, cities below sea level, riverine canyons joining four into one, and perhaps, buried under 6 millennia of sediment, a very special tree.

Neolithic Revolution

In an earlier post, we talked about the spread of cultivation and the fertility gods. This occurred between 8000 and 6000 BC, which places it before the time period of Eden. How is this pre-human spread of human civilization possible? Doesn't this invalidate the whole hypothesis of a recent Eden? Do I need to push Eden back to 8000 BC?

After several false starts, I think the answer lies in a better understanding of civilization and chimpanzee capabilities. Chimps can use tools, and learn quite complicated methods of hunting. However, they learn by imitation, and are not really very good at inventing or improving on it.  One can find genetically related "troops" of monkeys that hunt in the same manner, with a different skill set than non-genetically related troops, indicating that hunting skills are learned from close parental supervision. The Neolithic spread of cultivation occurred only in close association with the spread of genes, and it occurred at a rate of 1-2 km/year for 2000 years, from 8000-6000 BC, which is about what one would expect from population pressure.

In contrast, when Europeans first landed on North American soil, the knowledge of horsemanship spread among the Native Americans much much faster than the Europeans. Likewise, the corn & bean cultivation of the Americas spread all through Europe within a century or less. So clearly there is a huge difference between Neolithic and human communication skills. More than anything else, this demonstrates that the Neolithic did not have language. That is, not only do we have the first evidence of language in 4000BC, but we have evidence of the lack of language in the Neolithic, in 6000BC (at least, among the people groups displaced by Neolithic farmers, but likely the farmers too.)

However, it also demonstrates that fire-making, cultivating, even the domestication of livestock are not dependent on language. Another way to say this, is to ask how many skills could be taught a trained chimp and passed on to his progeny? I would venture that IQ measures the same thing as language ability. If we look for non-speaking, severely retarded but trainable children, we discover an IQ between 20-35, while some have estimated chimpanzee IQ  about 40, so I would estimate Neolithic hominids in this 20-40 IQ range as well.

[One might claim that I just said that children with severe mental retardation do not have souls. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The sanctity of life which is only true of "soulful life", is embodied in the smallest embryo, independent of the functioning of its larynx. It is the genetic (and through development, morphology) of the embryo that makes it human, not its ability to function.]

Therefore our YACC hypothesis suggests that Neolithic discoveries will corroborate an IQ below 35, and an abrupt change with the introduction of language. It also suggests that there should be a heritable as well as observable effect of language.

The Talking Gene

Clearly, if all of Adam's descendants could talk, and all of his "ancestors" couldn't, this is consistent with a genetic trait. Therefore the spread of civilization should parallel the spread of the "talking gene". Using the example mentioned above, talking peoples can rapidly adopt new technologies such as maize-growing, firearms, horsemanship, whereas non-talking peoples can't. So if language is genetic, it spreads at the speed of a genetic mutation, which is similar to that 1km/year spread of Neolithic farming.

However, if the genetic mutation is strongly correlated to fertility, to dominance, to survivability, then 1 km/year is far too slow. Genetic studies suggest that one in twelve asians bear Y chromosomes from Genghis Khan. At 1 km/year, theoretically one would have to live not just in China, but in northern China to carry those genes today, yet Khan's genes are found thousands of miles away, in Europe, as well as across Asia. My point here is not just that Neolilthic farmers spread far too slowly for someone who had such an advantage, but that when the language advantage appeared, it would sweep across the world like Genghis Khan's genes and military innovations.

Therefore my earlier suspicions about language being associated with the Neolithic Revolution are probably wrong. YACC is predicting two waves of genes out of the Middle East, the first, slow Neolithic Revolution wave in 7000BC, followed by the fast, conquering language wave around 4000BC. Much of this research using Y-chromosomes to trace the male lineage, and  mitochondrial mtDNA to trace the female lineage, is being done presently, and we expect that in 10 years or so, a coherent model will emerge which will vindicate or falsify the hypothesis.

So in the spirit of science, here are predictions for the YACC hypothesis. The talking gene (or genes), must not be on the Y chromosome (or else women wouldn't talk), yet must somehow be related to the Y, as we discuss below. The talking gene will be found to be very "young", with far fewer changes than other parts of the genome. If the gene can be tracked, it will exactly follow the evolution of language, the Indo-European roots and all that. And such tracking will reveal it to have a single origin (rather than multiple origins), which will be close to the Middle East.

North America

This business of separating the diffusion of genes from the diffusion of culture, or from the explosive conquests of empire is fraught with uncertainty. Could some of these changes have arisen independently? (Remember Elisha Gray's independent invention of the telephone?)  But certainly, an ocean should be a barrier to both genes and culture. Didn't the original settlers in the Americas come over the Bering land bridge about 9000 BC and remain isolated since? How then did North American language develop, apparently independently from Eden? If language could arise independently, wouldn't this invalidate YACC?

Well, yes it would. But there are some intriguing connections between the Americas and the Old World that all predate Columbus discovery in 1492. The Olmec statues and Mayan pyramids,  the supposed coded map of including Cuba in the Odyssey, the Oklahoma find of Phoenician script (not to mention, Joseph Smith's tablets). But perhaps the most intriguing data, is Barry Fell's lifework, the influence of Phoenician and Celtic languages in the New World.

Therefore it seems likely that the talking gene made it over the Atlantic, perhaps multiple tiimes before Columbus. Did this leave a genetic marker? Work with Y-chromosomes doesn't seem to indicate this, showing a dominance by markers related to Siberia, and the purported Bering land bridge around 7000BC, or at the Neolithic Revolution. But, as we remarked earlier, the talking gene cannot be on the Y-chromosome. Nevertheless, it seems troubling that Barry Fell's hypothesis of pre-Columbian, even pre-Christian communication would have left no chromosomal fingerprints.

As with the European chromosome work, I would expect much of this research will congeal in 10 years or so, and we will have a much better understanding of the flow of genes both in the Old World and the New. As we see with regard to the Basque people of Europe, which have been hypothesized to represent Paleolithic genes surrounded by Neolithic, the results show with ever greater refinement an intermediate picture, with "clines" or gradients in the mixing ratio across Europe. So also we expect to see clines in the Americas, with Darwin's own observations of the peoples of the southern tip of South America, Tierra del Fuego, being the most primitive "paleolithic" gene pool. However, should the New World show very little gene transfer from the Old, then I would probably have to retreat to an older Eden around 8000BC, simultaneous with the Neolithic Revolution. It would leave an enormous gap of almost 4000 years before written history, which is troubling for several theological reasons we discuss later.

Of course, there are other solutions to the heredity of language that don't entail a gene, such as "live memory" heredity of information passed by living cells as they divide, "epigenetic" or "exogenetic" or "nongenetic" heredity in other information passing mechanisms. Nevertheless, normal genetic mechanisms seem better suited for explaining language transmittal, and we would expect to find a genetic signature associated with this transfer. So we make a dangerous prediction: New World genetic studies will find a gene transfer and diffusion much more recent than the Neolithic migration.

Cities, Civilization and the Neolithic

YACC claims that language acquisition was dramatic and sudden, but why should language be different than technology? That is, just as copper tools start showing up in the Neolithic "Copper Age" around 6000 BC, evolving from natural copper nuggets beaten with hammers, to cast copper by 4000BC, why wouldn't language have been the same gradual evolution? Or to put it the other way, why should the Bronze Age (2000BC) be the result of talking humans, and not the Copper Age (5000BC), isn't one merely a variant on the other?

We could make this same argument about villages to cities, or megalithic burial mounds to urban architecture. Why should one be the result of IQ=35 hominids, and the other the result of IQ=100 humans?

My answer isn't very helpful, but it gives a starting point, "Why not?" That is, we fit the data into a gradualist interpretation because of our expectation that we are just so very much smarter than our ancestors. But suppose IQ has declined since 3000 BC,  (would you want to defend your thesis in front of Socrates, or counsel Job)?  That would remove 5000 years of progress, and suggest that what happened in the Neolithic Revolution (6000BC) or "Edenic" (4000BC) was truly revolutionary, because it went from IQ=40 technology (hunter-gatherers, low-tech) to IQ=100 civilization, dialogues, and mythology in a very short time (2000-4000 years).

Is there any archaeological support (since writing didn't come about until 3100BC) for such a rapid change in IQ? Quoting from Colin Renfrew's "Before Civilization",

 But civilization, as here intended, and as defined by most archaeologists, suggests something more than this. It implies a more complex society, with a well-defined social stratification--usually with princes and priests, with full-time professional craftsmen producing a range of sophisticated goods, and with a permanent, central organization, often a literate one, based upon the prince's palace, or on the priest's temple or upon an urban community, living in a city. Man has created for himself a new environment which insulates him (or at any rate those well placed in the social hierarchy) from immediate contact with the world of nature and from the pressing concerns of the hunter or the simple subsistence farmer. As the American anthropologist Robert Redfield wrote: 'The turning point in the changes which mankind has undergone is the passage from precivilized to civilized life.'
When deciding whether a specific early culture should be ranked as a civilization, archaeologists look for certain revealing features, including the following three: towns indicating a considerable concentration of population, monumental buildings such as temples or palaces, and writing. Most societies which we would wish to call civilizations can boast at least two of these.

Renfrew is correct in saying that these are characteristics of a civilization that are lacking in mere society, but he focusses on the architectural because that is what archaeologists observe.  Using the density of settlements, he also attempts to map the population density with time, which shows a tenfold increase at the coming of civilization. However,  the complexities of society are only inferred from a comparison to modern societies. But the inferences, we would claim, are largely wrong because they underestimate the differences.

That is, archaeologists cite modern anthropologists and sociologists in their analysis, making comparisons to tribal societies (say, Papua New Guinians), and chiefdom societies (Hawaiian islanders) as precursors to a truly "great" civilization such as the Minoans or the Incas. But all these modern comparisons are to people who talk. If, as YACC claims, the Edenic revolution was a comparison of non-talking and talking societies, then the break becomes far more significant. Talking permits true societies to form, be they tribal or chiefdom or kingdom, but non-talking relegates them to the level of troops of monkeys.

So YACC claims that hominids (and likely the neolithic revolution) were no more than troops of very smart monkeys, whereas civilization occurred shortly after the introduction of "the talking gene". How can we tell from the data whether Renfrew or Genesis is correct? Genesis 2:23 spells the difference: Adam and Eve can be married because they can talk. Monkeys don't marry. None of the primates other than humans pair up for life. Bonobo chimps are known for their casual sex. But not humans. So to answer the question, "are neolithic farmers talking beasts?" we must look for signs of marriage: Burials together, nuclear family units, etc. Surely that should be an easily checked prediction.

Viruses, Genes and SIn

All this evidence of a more radical "Edenic" revolution that followed the cultivation-oriented Neolithic revolution is admittedly circumstantial. The changes in technology are thought to be gradual, while changes in language left no artifacts until the proto-Sumerian writings of 3100 BC. But there is a theological reason to think that the critical factor was the presence or absence of a "talking gene", and that is original sin.

Original sin is attributed to Adam, and we are told, passes down through the line of Adam, much like the Y-chromosome. Admittedly, the Medieval scientists thought of procreation like a seed, and the womb like the soil, so that the woman supplied no genetic or sinful influence in procreation. Microscopes and modern genetics have corrected this science, but have not replaced the theology. If there be an error in the Medieval Church, it was due to science, not theology.

But suppose, for a moment, that language was a gradually acquired trait, which appeared simultaneously in multiple populations of hominids. Then there would exist talking humans without the sin of Adam, and presumably, special access to the Garden and God. This would wreak havoc with the theology of Paul, and the message of Jesus, not to mention the special status of the Jews. Therefore, there must be one source for both.  Echoing St Paul, if by one man sin came into the world, then also by one man did souls come into the world. The two are very closely related. If one is genetic, the other is genetic.

Now suppose the opposite, that original sin is some sort of epigenetic phenomenon, say, mitochondrial RNA, or "live memory", that is passed from father to child, yet not in nuclear chromosome material. In a previous post, I discuss whether the infamous fruit could have contained mutagenic materials that have resulted in this shift. For example, herpes is a virus that inserts its DNA into a cell, and manages to remain dormant for years before erupting in a cold sore. Suppose a herpes-like virus managed to infect a gamete, a reproductive cell? Or suppose there is a chemical "switch" that turns on expression of a gene as well as itself, so that once it switched on, it cannot be switched off? The switch need not be made of DNA at all, but it gets passed on every time a cell divides. If such an epigenetic factor were the source of language and sin, it would be difficult to observe in Y-chromosome or mtRNA tracking. We are still mastering the DNA tracking, and are only beginning to believe in epigenetics, so it may be a while before the genetic origin of sin and speech can be answered.

Regardless of how the science resolves this question, notice how Genesis and science interact. Theology gives hints on what to look for, science returns with data, and theology reshapes the search.  Just as science does not trump theology, so theology does not trump science, they are equals in the effort of understanding the mind of God. 

Conclusion

This post is getting far too long, but I hope I have demonstrated that many of the shortcomings of YACC are known, and may still overcome them. But to the detractors who think YACC is far too unorthodox a view, let me pose a question:  Why is it that evolution demands all life proceed from other life with modifications, so that there is a single origin to all life, but language must have appeared gradually and simultaneously in prehistory? Is not the opposite situation just as likely? And if so, then Genesis would be the natural result of humans recording this event.