Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve are, per the Bible, the first man and woman, created by God for the purpose of caring for the animals of the Earth and to originate the human race. Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden as punishment for committing the first sin.

Evidence for
The evidence for the historicity of Adam and Eve includes the observation the Bible, God's inerrant word, supports the claim. In addition one can cite erroneous inferences from evolution as evidence.

Evidence against
The consensus of evolutionary biologists is that a bottleneck of two people as recently as the biblical Adam and Eve could not have resulted in the genetic diversity observable today. Whyevolutionistrue explains "there simply could not have been two individuals who provided the entire genetic ancestry of modern humans. Each of our genes 'coalesces' back to a different ancestor, showing that, as expected, our genetic legacy comes from many different individuals. It does not go back to just two individuals...we can dismiss a physical Adam and Eve with near scientific certainty." Michael Ruse concludes "science tells us that Adam and Eve are fictions."

Mitochondrial Eve
Mitochondrial Eve is defined as "the most-recent common ancestor of all humans alive on Earth today with respect to matrilineal descent." Contrary to implication from the name, she is not the same as our most-recent common female ancestor and was not the only female living at her time. Her mitochondrial, or matrilineally inherited, DNA exists in all humans now living. She is not merely theoretical and existed about 200,000 years ago. The title of Mitochondrial Eve is not permanent and can change hands as contemporary people die.

Y-chromosome Adam is analogous to Mitochondrial Eve but relates to patrilineal descent. His legacy is identified by a small region of the Y-chromosome occurring in all men. Y-chromosome Adam lived tens of thousands of years after Mitochondrial Eve.