In 1990, researchers at the National Institutes of Health successfully cloned human embryos for the first time. The experiment was stopped at the cellular stage. No clones were brought to term. But the proof of concept was established: human beings could be replicated from existing genetic material.

The ethical debates erupted immediately. Religious leaders condemned the research as playing God. Scientists defended it as medical advancement. Bioethicists warned of dystopian outcomes. But beneath the debate was a technical question that went unasked: can you clone a female from a male?

The answer is no. At least, not with simple cloning. A male has XY chromosomes. A female has XX. To clone a male produces another male. You cannot spontaneously generate a second X chromosome from a Y. If Eve was cloned from Adam, the process was not simple replication. It was genetic modification.

This is where the rib metaphor becomes illuminating. If "tsela" means side, and side means half, then what was taken from Adam was not tissue. It was half his genetic information. One of his X chromosomes. Males have one X and one Y. If you take the X, duplicate it, and discard the Y, you produce XX. You produce female.

This is not speculative. It is mechanically feasible. Modern genetic engineering can isolate specific chromosomes. CRISPR can edit, delete or duplicate genetic sequences. If you wanted to create a female from male genetic material, you would do exactly what the Genesis text describes symbolically: take half, modify, differentiate.

The deep sleep God places on Adam is significant. Genesis 2:21 says "tardemah," a word used elsewhere in the Bible for prophetic visions and supernatural unconsciousness. This is not normal sleep. It is anesthetized suspension. A medical procedure, described in the language available to ancient scribes.

The closing of the flesh afterward is also specific. Genesis 2:21: "And he closed up the flesh in its place." This is surgical closure. The text is describing an operation, not a metaphor. Something was removed. The site was sealed. The patient recovered. And from what was taken, a new being was formed.

Modern cloning follows the same structure. Extract genetic material. Culture it. Modify as needed. Implant in a host or grow in vitro. The result is a new organism, genetically derived but independently viable. Eve was not Adam's twin. She was his clone variant. Same source, different configuration.

This resolves several biological puzzles. First, why humans have similar anatomy despite sexual dimorphism. We are the same species, the same genetic template, with modifications concentrated in sex determination and associated hormones. Males and females are more similar than different because we share the same base code.

Second, why human males have nipples. They serve no function in males, but they persist because the developmental template is shared. The default human form includes mammary structures. Differentiation occurs later, triggered by sex chromosomes. Males retain the baseline; females develop it further.

Third, why the Y chromosome is so small. Human males have 23 pairs of chromosomes. The 23rd pair is XY. The X is large, containing over 1,000 genes. The Y is tiny, containing fewer than 100. The X can function alone. The Y cannot. It is an add-on, a modifier, a supplement to the default template.

This suggests the default human is female. Males are a modification. Not a separate creation, but a variation on the primary design. The genetic evidence supports this. Embryonic development begins gender-neutral. All embryos start with female anatomy. If a Y chromosome is present and activates correctly, development shifts male. If not, development continues female.

The ancient metaphor inverts this. Adam comes first, Eve second. But genetically, the process is the opposite. The X comes first. The Y is added. Female is baseline. Male is variant. The rib story may encode this truth, but in reverse, to serve a patriarchal narrative.

Or, more generously, the story describes a specific event in the modification of an existing human population. If early humans were androgynous or parthenogenetic, reproducing without sexual differentiation, the introduction of sexual dimorphism would be a major genetic modification. Splitting one type into two. Creating male and female from a prior unified form.

Some biologists have proposed that sexual reproduction itself is a form of genetic engineering. Asexual reproduction is simpler, faster, more efficient. Sexual reproduction is costly, slow and complex. Yet it dominates complex life. The evolutionary advantage is genetic variation. Sexual reproduction shuffles genes, producing diversity that allows adaptation.

If an advanced species wanted to engineer a rapidly adapting population, introducing sexual reproduction would be logical. Start with a base organism. Split it into two sexes. Force recombination through mating. Generate diversity. This is the structure of Genesis 2. One becomes two. Two reproduce. Humanity diversifies.

The genetic modification necessary for this transformation would involve precisely what the rib story describes: taking genetic material from one organism and creating a complementary variant. Not copying. Differentiating. The X chromosome duplicated, the Y chromosome discarded or suppressed. The result: female from male.

But this raises an uncomfortable implication. If Eve was cloned from Adam with genetic modification, she was designed. Not naturally evolved, but intentionally constructed. The same is true of Adam. Both are products of genetic engineering, described in mythological language.

The missing link in human evolution may not be missing. It may be edited. A sudden leap in capability, in cognition, in structure. Not because of random mutation, but because of intervention. The rib is the evidence. Not a literal rib, but a genetic record. Traces in our chromosomes of a modification event.

Modern humans have genetic markers that are difficult to explain through gradual evolution. The FOXP2 gene, essential for speech, differs from the chimpanzee version by only a few mutations, but those mutations are clustered and specific. The HAR1 gene, involved in brain development, changed dramatically and recently. These are not slow drifts. They are targeted changes.

If you were engineering a species, these are the genes you would target. Language. Cognition. Brain structure. The very traits that make us human. The traits described in Genesis as given, not evolved. Adam did not learn language gradually. He was taught it. Eve did not develop consciousness slowly. She was created with it.

The rib is the record. The genetic signature of modification. The X chromosome, large and conserved, carrying the baseline human template. The Y chromosome, small and variable, carrying the sex modifier. Together, they produce the binary that defines our species. Male and female. Both necessary. Both derived. Both engineered.

And if both were engineered, then the question is not whether we were designed. The question is by whom, and for what purpose.