Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Man, Part 17.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonablefaith.org.

Welcome to Defenders class. Thank you for joining us.

It occurred to me that during this time of the coronavirus pandemic, some of you joining us today might actually be suffering from the coronavirus yourselves. And you're taking advantage of this podcast to be able to be part of our Defender's class. And so I want to give a special welcome

to any of you who are dealing with such a trial. Now, in our last session, I argued that

Adam and Eve should be thought of as the most recent common ancestor of both Neanderthals

and Homo sapiens. This traditional view of

Adam and Eve as the fountainhead of all humanity has been vigorously challenged by some

on the basis of the science of population genetics.

And this morning I'd like to look at this challenge with you.

Now, in order to understand this challenge, it's important to understand that according to the theory of evolution,

and perhaps contrary to popular impression,

evolution does not proceed along an isolated individual line.

It's not as though there is some sequence of individual reptiles

that evolved, for example, into the first bird. Rather, the idea is that whole populations

evolve over time. So the ongoing front of evolution is not like the point of a spear,

rather it is like a broad front as a whole population of organisms

evolves together over time. In this sense, a whole population of reptiles would be evolving

bird-like characteristics. Similarly, in the case of human

evolution, there is a whole population of hominins, that is to say, man-like primates, which is

gradually evolving characteristics of modern human beings.

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