Just having an argument with a friend
In: 4
Yes! If the two were women, fertility specialist, and had a large gene bank at their disposal.
Two is obviously under a minimal viable population for humans, but humans are clever and adaptable, and if there’s two of them left they could use the stored genetic material of the other humans (whom let’s assume have all gone to a very nice planet where they can run and play), to create embryos unrelated to our 2 women population.
These two determined women could produce and raise 20 people. If they select only female embryos for implantation and repeat the process with their daughters, teaching them to keep up the family business, your third generation would be 200 people with minimal genetic ancestors in common. At this point you could stop relying on a gene bank and female-only embryo selection (a good thing too, as even with short generations you’d be running out of viable genetic material in the freezers) and go back to making new humans the old fashioned way.
You’d want to keep careful track of parentage and ancestry to minimize inbreeding, but 200 is a viable population.
Edit: Basic math fix.
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