A comparison of the current standing of genetic research to the narratives from both the Biblical historical model and the Darwinian evolutionist model of human history.

Further research not only continued to affirm that the entire human race had only but one mother, but also that she did not walk the earth millions of years ago.  Instead, the diversity of mitoDNA found in all human cells was so slight, that it could have developed over a mere 120,000 years instead.  “We are finding that humans have very, very shallow genetic roots which go back very recently to one ancestor,” said Michael Hammer of University of Arizona.  “That indicates that there was an origin in a specific location on the globe and then it spread out from there.” ( US News & World Report , 12/4/1995, cited by John Heffner)   Before these discoveries, evolutionists had been arguing among themselves whether there was indeed only one point of origin for the human race.  The two competing theories were called the “Out of Africa” theory and the “Multi-regional” theory.  Many evolutionists felt that the supposed missing link fossils found in Asia, such as Homo erectus , were evidence that humans first arose in several different places at similar times.  Many “multi” theorists still reject the data to this day, though the “Africa” theory has been had their majority vote throughout this controversy.  Perhaps the “multi’s” just don’t like the idea of one “mother of all living,” sounding too much like the Bible.  Then something most disturbing and shocking happened in 1998.  A glitch was discovered in the central assumption of the “mitochondrial clock” mechanism.  MitoDNA, it was found, could diversify about 20 times faster than had been previously assumed.  A new date was recalculated for “mitochondrial Eve,” and it was even more removed from the date that they had originally been expecting by Darwinian assumptions.  Eve was now dated at 6000 years old.

Another of the world’s most respected evolutionist-run journals reported the finding that male mitoDNA could indeed be donated to offspring of both sexes at the moment of conception.  This meant that not all of the differences that we see in human mitoDNA is due to the maternal line, but that much was due to the invasion of the fertilized egg with sperm-cell mitochrondria.  It was calculated that the frequency of such an event in the breeding history of humankind, would step up the diversification process by a factor of 20 times faster than had been originally thought.  Instead of being only 120,000 years old, Eve was now finally pegged at 6000 years old.

“Regardless of the cause, evolutionists are most concerned about the effect of a faster mutation rate.  For example, researchers have calculated that ‘mitochondrial Eve’–the woman whose mtDNA was ancestral to that in all living people–lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa.  Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6000 years old.  No one think that’s the case.” (author Ann Gibbons, “Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock,” the journal Science , 1/2/1998, p28, cited by John Heffner)  The Science article (cited by Carl Wieland) quotes the original paper, saying “ evolutionary studies led them to expect about one mutation in 600 generations … they were ‘stunned’ to find 10 base-pair changes [in the mitoDNA sequences], which gave them a rate of one mutation every 40 generations” ( Nature Genetics , vol 15, 1997, p363-8)  One must account for the Biblical history of the first eight generations of humans taking place over a long 1700 years, and only then tapering to the more rapid generations more typical of the life and times of human history.  That done, Eve is confirmed as living only 6000 years ago; not 120,000 years; not 200,000 years; certainly not six or seven million years (where evolutionists current date our first split off from the ape lineages).  Researchers who persisted in this knowledge after the reports were published, are routinely ignored by those in the scientific community who are of the Darwinian faith. “The most recent common ancestor would have lived in the very recent past … the MRCA of humans lived just a few thousand years ago.” (quote from the world’s most prestigious science journal Nature , in an article “Modeling the Recent Common Ancestry of all Living Humans,” vol 431, 9/30/2004, p562, cited by John Heffner)

Some might object to the notion that one human couple might give rise to all of the genetic diversity now found in the human race.  But the origin of this one couple must be taken in account.  Creationist anatomist David Menton urges us to remember that Eve was a direct creation of God.  All baby girls after her, are born with all the egg cells in their ovaries that they will ever have for their entire lifetime.  They get those eggs by meiotic division of their parents’ DNA during their own prenatal development.  But where did Eve get her DNA?  Where did Eve get the egg cells in her ovaries?  Menton suggests that each of Eve’s 400,000 eggs could have had a set of alleles in the genes that were totally distinct and diverse from one another.  The Bible does not say how many offspring that Adam and Eve had.  Only three are named, and the rest are referenced only as “many sons and daughters.”  How many?  How many could the most healthy couple in history produce, in a fertile lifespan of perhaps more than half a millennium (500 years–Adam is recorded as living to the age of 930).  Together, our first parents could have easily provided far more genetic diversity than even now the human race displays.  Much of that diversity would have been lost when the human race was reduced once again down to only three breeding couples, who of course obtained their genetic inheritance in the same way as humans do today.  This will be discussed later in this paper.  Now we shall go to the genetic evidence for humanity’s first father, the man Adam.

Shortly after sleuthing down the genetic trail left behind in the human genome and finding the genetic Eve, researchers became interesting in doing the same for the genetic Adam.  They had found the genetic “mother of all living;” now they wanted our original human father.  What was needed was something as unique in male inheritance as the mitochondrial DNA what thought to be in female inheritance.  The obvious was the Y-chromosome, found only in male humans.  This would be trail to trace back to our first father.  This was done, and the man was of course dubbed “Y-Chromosome Adam.”

“By analyzing DNA from people in all regions of the world, Well has concluded that all humans alive today are descended from a single man who lived in Africa around 60,000 – 90,000 years ago, a man also known as Y-chromosomal Adam.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_Wells)  Evolutionist Spencer Wells is the go-to guru evolutionist for the genetic Adam.  His National Geographic documentary aired on PBS presents the evidence from his research found also in his 2002 book, “The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey.”  The key here is that our genetic Adam was found to have a history only 3/4 as long as genetic Eve (90,000 years instead of 120,000 years).  Although the 90,000 years does not fit the Biblical time line, the ratio of 3/4 does fit exactly.

MitoDNA is rarely distributed through the father, but almost always through the mother in each generation.  The glitch that multiplied the speed of diversification in the mitoDNA was the discovery that males may contribute to that diversity, though it is a rare occurrence when they do so.  Could there be a factor that might increase the rate of Y-chromosome diversity among males as well?  It is already known that fertile women are capable of carrying (and thereby transmitting to their male offspring) a Y-chromosome.  Actress Jamie Lee Curtis is the most famous example of a normal woman who is such a carrier.  Whether a cause for such a 20-times-faster diversification rate will ever be found for the male Y, the fact still remains that the history of the Y-DNA is given as 3/4 the history of the mitoDNA estimated by the evolutionist.  This ratio fits the human genetic history as paralleled in the Biblical history of humankind.

Think of the mitoDNA sample that was on the Ark.  The three couples from which we are all descended, had three women all with three different genetic backgrounds.  Combine that with the later rare contribution from the male mitoDNA, and you get a large diversity present of mitoDNA disembarking just over 4350 years ago.  Now consider the Y-DNA diversity on the Ark.  It is clear that only three Y-chromosomes led to all of the Y-DNA found in human males today, if the Biblical record is true.  Were these three already diverse?  No, they were identical.  All three were transmitted from the same man’s genome–Noah’s himself, as these were all three his direct sons.  One portion of the human Y has been found to be identical among all living males.  It is a 729-long sequence that should have randomly changed a great deal in 90,000 years, but has remained the same since during the actual Biblical 4450-year period since diversification began in Noah’s offspring. (“Absence of polymorphism at the ZFY locus on the human Y chromosome, Science , vol 268, p1183-5, 1995. cited by Don Batten)   According to the Biblically-based genetic history of humans then, 6000 years of female genetic diversity has been preserved from Eve, through the Flood, and on to today.  But by that same history, only 4450 years-worth of male genetic diversity would show up in the world today.  Don’t forget, Shem was 98 years old when he got on the Ark and had a son at 101.  This works out cleanly as a 3/4 ratio to the female genetic diversity (and therefore, genetic history).  Once again, the genetic history of mankind correlates better with the Biblical time line than with the Darwinian one, and may even fit more certainly if a female contribution to the male lineage can be established, as has already been found in the vice-versa case.

Also early in the study of the human genome, there was evidence of the entire human race been reduced to a tiny number about the time the Biblical reckoning of Noah’s Flood in Genesis.  Before DNA sequencing was developed, blood serum protein analysis was used in doing genetic research.  In the 1970’s, it was realized that such a “genetic bottleneck” at such a time period, was indicated by the human hemoglobin protein found in the bloodstreams of all living humans.  (“Population size and protein variation in man, Genetical Research , vol 19, p73-89, 1972. cited by Don Batten.) 

The research of Spencer Wells (mentioned above) and others, has verified many times over, that all living humans are descended from one of four–and only four–human gene pools.  Think of this for a minute.  Why not just one gene pool?–whether you believe in evolution or not.  Think of the crew on Noah’s Ark.  There was Noah and his family–that makes one gene pool.  Then there were the three wives of the three sons, presumably from three additional gene pools–making a total of four.  Once again, modern genetics has corroborated the Biblical account of the history of humankind–not the Darwinian version.  But can three couples begin a population that reaches 7 billion within only 4350 years.  Yes.

Mathematician John Heffner has calculated that given only an average family size of 2.5 children per generation, from the Flood until now, the world population would be estimated at 6.5 billion.  If the first Homo sapiens came on the scene even 500,000 years ago ( Biology , AP/college textbook by Raven & Johnson, cited by Heffner) then that number could be potentially many trillions of times greater.  Why is the human population not vastly greater than it is now, as the Darwinian model would predict?  Why is the population right at the prediction of the Biblical model?  Logic dictates, once again, that the Biblical account of the history of the human race is indeed the true and actual account.  There simply is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the Biblical history of mankind.  There is a plethora of scientific reasons from the field of genetic research, to merit the wholesale abandonment of the distorted Darwinian history along with its erroneously inflated time lines.