The Science of Adam

Christians who accept a theory of human evolution are still faced with the question of Adam. Was there a single human being who could be said to be first and the ancestor of all other human beings? Christians have traditionally thought so, following the account given in Genesis and the idea that the sinfulness that afflicts every human being (Jesus excepted -- as well as Mary, according to Catholic teaching), "original sin" in one sense of the term, is inherited from the first human beings, who committed the original sin. The Catholic Church has thus affirmed that Adam was "the first parent of all," notably at the Council of Trent and in Pius XII's Humani Generis. Yet those approaching the question from a purely scientific point of view have long wondered whether, and sometimes doubted that, the human race began with a single couple. The problems are not primarily paleontological. However much fossils might add to our evidence for animal ancestry, they provide no evidence of population size. The problem is rather the Darwinian theoretical presumption that species originate in a group -- "No … 'first man' ever existed," Ernst Haeckel said, "just as there was never ... a first individual Englishman or German" -- and human genetic diversity.