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Every Christian, Jew, and Muslim (over 50% of the world population) have the same two “bottleneck” stories in their traditions and religious texts. I find it ha

Every Christian, Jew, and Muslim (over 50% of the world population) have the same two “bottleneck” stories in their traditions and religious texts. I find it hard to believe that the idea is foreign to most people, maybe just most people you interact with.

mmastrac 3y ago
I assume Noah's Ark/great flood and ???. I can't pin down the second.
- linux2647 3y ago
  Everyone being descended from Adam and Eve
  - flangola7 3y ago
    What I was explained was how they kept reproducing without 100% incest
    - gorgoiler 3y ago
      There an amazing number of coincidences that have led to human life existing. I only know of the anthropic principle greatest hits from physics including The Moon, plate tectonics, distance from sun, etc but I assume there are more from the natural world of evolution. So I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the bottleneck population also wiped their bottoms with leaves from a tree that grows only in natural uranium ore, thereby artificially boosting their genetic diversity as well as putting pressure on them to reproduce frequently and often before they reach their radiologically reduced life expectancy of 25.
      - neuronic 3y ago
        > amazing number of coincidences All of this in light of the very literal form of survivorship bias. Try a few billion or trillion planets to get the conditions JUST right and there will probably be at least one getting it right. Inhabited by folks who wonder why it was their planet that had everything going for it.
        bondarchuk 3y ago
        >All of this in light of the very literal form of survivorship bias. That's basically what is meant with "anthropic principle" (as mentioned by parent).
        FrustratedMonky 3y ago
        "anthropic principle" = Survivor Bias. Never liked the anthropic arguments. Even back with Leibniz, arguing this is the 'best of all possible worlds' because it is the one we exist in that god provided. It's circular, or calls for some mysticism or parallel universes.
    - clarionbell 3y ago
      Hypothetically speaking, and I'm putting an emphasis on the "hypothetical" part, you could have two individuals starting a new population of arbitrary size, without ill-effects of inbreeding. There is only one requirement. And one caveat. The requirement is that both individuals need to be free of genetic defects in their alleles, so that no matter how many generations down you go you never end up with two defective alleles in the same descendant. That is impossible in practice. Eventually you would get some diversity from random mutation and at that point you would be back to "normal" state of affairs. The caveat is disease resistance. All of their descendants would have the same immune system. If one gets sick, they all do. Any infection will spread like wildfire, if it spreads. And nothing short of total quarantine would stop it.
    - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
      >"reproducing without 100% incest" This seems like such a contradiction with Christians. They just do lot of hand-waving and ignore it. Then went and read the Bible and what did I find, there were other people at the time of Adam and Eve. The Bible actually discusses the other humans that were living in other lands At The Same Time As Adam and Eve. Totally blown away. So then, why do Christians today completely believe that God Created Adam And Even and they were the very first humans and thus Evolution is Wrong. How can you argue that Evolution is wrong, because of Adam and Eve, when right in the Bible it discusses the other groups of humans?
      - saalweachter 3y ago
        I think some of it is conflict from the evolution of monotheism from "the true god, the only one you should worship" to "the only god".
lazyninja987 3y ago
[dead]
svnt 3y ago
Yes, fair.
meindnoch 3y ago
>Every Christian, Jew, and Muslim Ummmmm... You realize these religions split off from Judaism less than 2k years ago?
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  I fall to see your point?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - notahacker 3y ago
    It's a single creation and flood story from a single Middle Eastern culture Just because it spread across half the world by the later military and commercial success of its practicioners doesnt mean the "distant history" aspect of its mythology has any more basis in reality than gods manipulating lightning, the divinity of cats or tree nymphs (or indeed the same religious tradition's emphasis on creation as a six day process). Especially since a couple birthing children and a flood are near-universally experienced concepts that don't really have that much in common with tribal migrations and non-flood near-extinction events many millenia earlier.
    - psychoslave 3y ago
      Sure but I think that what was pointed by the parent post is that many people are very acquainted with the concept of human population going through a bottleneck. Just because you learnt it in a fairy tale doesn’t mean you didn’t understand a concept.
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      this reaction here reminds me of a party in Denmark where I made a comment about the concept of a genetic eve having been found and one party goer got very indignant and explained how humans came from Africa, in short I don't think the person you're replying to said anything about the flood myth being true, they just said that the concept of a genetic bottleneck is actually pretty widespread throughout the world and many people would be familiar with the idea even if not actually believing in the story that gave them that idea.

mmastrac 3y ago

I assume Noah's Ark/great flood and ???. I can't pin down the second.

linux2647 3y ago
Everyone being descended from Adam and Eve
- flangola7 3y ago
  What I was explained was how they kept reproducing without 100% incest
  - gorgoiler 3y ago
    There an amazing number of coincidences that have led to human life existing. I only know of the anthropic principle greatest hits from physics including The Moon, plate tectonics, distance from sun, etc but I assume there are more from the natural world of evolution. So I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the bottleneck population also wiped their bottoms with leaves from a tree that grows only in natural uranium ore, thereby artificially boosting their genetic diversity as well as putting pressure on them to reproduce frequently and often before they reach their radiologically reduced life expectancy of 25.
    - neuronic 3y ago
      > amazing number of coincidences All of this in light of the very literal form of survivorship bias. Try a few billion or trillion planets to get the conditions JUST right and there will probably be at least one getting it right. Inhabited by folks who wonder why it was their planet that had everything going for it.
      - bondarchuk 3y ago
        >All of this in light of the very literal form of survivorship bias. That's basically what is meant with "anthropic principle" (as mentioned by parent).
        FrustratedMonky 3y ago
        "anthropic principle" = Survivor Bias. Never liked the anthropic arguments. Even back with Leibniz, arguing this is the 'best of all possible worlds' because it is the one we exist in that god provided. It's circular, or calls for some mysticism or parallel universes.
  - clarionbell 3y ago
    Hypothetically speaking, and I'm putting an emphasis on the "hypothetical" part, you could have two individuals starting a new population of arbitrary size, without ill-effects of inbreeding. There is only one requirement. And one caveat. The requirement is that both individuals need to be free of genetic defects in their alleles, so that no matter how many generations down you go you never end up with two defective alleles in the same descendant. That is impossible in practice. Eventually you would get some diversity from random mutation and at that point you would be back to "normal" state of affairs. The caveat is disease resistance. All of their descendants would have the same immune system. If one gets sick, they all do. Any infection will spread like wildfire, if it spreads. And nothing short of total quarantine would stop it.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    >"reproducing without 100% incest" This seems like such a contradiction with Christians. They just do lot of hand-waving and ignore it. Then went and read the Bible and what did I find, there were other people at the time of Adam and Eve. The Bible actually discusses the other humans that were living in other lands At The Same Time As Adam and Eve. Totally blown away. So then, why do Christians today completely believe that God Created Adam And Even and they were the very first humans and thus Evolution is Wrong. How can you argue that Evolution is wrong, because of Adam and Eve, when right in the Bible it discusses the other groups of humans?
    - saalweachter 3y ago
      I think some of it is conflict from the evolution of monotheism from "the true god, the only one you should worship" to "the only god".

lazyninja987 3y ago

[dead]

svnt 3y ago

Yes, fair.

meindnoch 3y ago

>Every Christian, Jew, and Muslim Ummmmm... You realize these religions split off from Judaism less than 2k years ago?

actionfromafar 3y ago
I fall to see your point?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- notahacker 3y ago
  It's a single creation and flood story from a single Middle Eastern culture Just because it spread across half the world by the later military and commercial success of its practicioners doesnt mean the "distant history" aspect of its mythology has any more basis in reality than gods manipulating lightning, the divinity of cats or tree nymphs (or indeed the same religious tradition's emphasis on creation as a six day process). Especially since a couple birthing children and a flood are near-universally experienced concepts that don't really have that much in common with tribal migrations and non-flood near-extinction events many millenia earlier.
  - psychoslave 3y ago
    Sure but I think that what was pointed by the parent post is that many people are very acquainted with the concept of human population going through a bottleneck. Just because you learnt it in a fairy tale doesn’t mean you didn’t understand a concept.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    this reaction here reminds me of a party in Denmark where I made a comment about the concept of a genetic eve having been found and one party goer got very indignant and explained how humans came from Africa, in short I don't think the person you're replying to said anything about the flood myth being true, they just said that the concept of a genetic bottleneck is actually pretty widespread throughout the world and many people would be familiar with the idea even if not actually believing in the story that gave them that idea.