Thus far the main controversy between Christianity and mainline scientists has been over evolution. Many Christians have tried to resolve that dilemma by embracing “theistic evolution,” the notion that God did create every living thing, but that He used evolution to do it. (Never mind that Darwin’s theory of evolution specifically insists on the randomness of mutations and of natural selection. Believing that evolution is directed is beyond the pale of actual Darwinism and is just another form of Intelligent Design, despite what the theistic evolutionists claim.) Anyway, theistic evolutionists often still affirmed the historical existence of some kind of Adam and Eve, the first humans however they evolved, who, in some way, fell from their paradisal state and transmitted original sin to their descendants, who were redeemed by Christ, the Second Adam.
But now a new front in the battle has opened up, which, according to Christianity Today, is raising new questions and opening up a new level of controversy. According to recent genetic evidence, the human race did not begin with two people. Rather, it must have begun with a population of around 10,000. Otherwise, according to the geneticists, there is no way to account for the genetic diversity that we can currently observe. See The Search for the Historical Adam | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction.
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