Biblical Genetics: Recent Episodes
Dr. Robert Carter
Biblical Genetics is a vlog/podcast by Dr. Robert Carter. His posts explore modern genetics through the lens of biblical history, and vice versa.
Natural selection comes in two forms, positive and negative. Positive selection is supposed to improve species, but Dr Rob gives a clear example where bad mutations are amplified. Negative selection is supposed to keep species from degrading, but Dr Rob uses the same example to show how it occurs too late. Based on an article from Creation.com.
Notes and links:
- Original Article: creation.com/en/articles/two-forms-natural-selection
- Dr Rob’s bio: creation.com/en/people/dr-robert-carter
- Main Citation: Neville, M.D.C. et al., Sperm sequencing reveals extensive positive selection in the male germline, Nature 2025 | DOI:s41586-025-09448-3 Link: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12611758
- Edwards, C.J. et al., Ancient hybridization and an Irish origin for the modern polar bear matriline, Curr. Biol. 21(15):1251–1258, 2011.
Scientist throw around words and phrases that are sometimes hard to understand. This is not one of them. Genetic drift is an easy concept. Dr Rob brings up the example drift among of human mitochondria, perhaps the most extreme form anyone has ever seen. And, since natural selection is generally weak, genetic drift overwhelms selection at critical junctures during development. This has profound implications for the creation-evolution debate, but first, the explanation…
Source paper under discussion: Árnadóttir et al. 2024, The rate and nature of mitochondrial DNA mutations in human pedigrees, Cell 187(15):3904-3910.
Fig 1: Mutant mitochondrial frequencies in child (y) vs mother (x), from the supporting data of the paper above.
Fig 2: Histogram of frequency changes from mother to child, same source as above.
Fig 3: Histogram data for each frequency bin in the mother (legend) vs child (x). Same source as above.
One woman is the ancestress of all living people. They call her Eve. Is she the Eve of the Bible? How long ago did she live? Join Dr Carter as he explains how scientists struggle to assign a date to Eve. It may come as a surprise, but the ‘date’ is based on questionable assumptions and debatable philosophy. All we can know is that the mutation rate is quite high and the mutation removal rate is quite low. Thus, science tells us that Eve lived not many thousands of years ago.
Note and links:
- Carter, 2025, When did Eve live? creation.com, 18 Sep 2025.
- Carter, 2025, The continuing saga of Mitochondrial Eve, bibicalgenetics.com.
- Stern-Cardinale, 2025, I BLUNDERED! A Response to Dr. Rob Carter (he agrees with me), youtube.com.
- Cann et al., 1987, Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution, Nature 325:31–36. [I accidentally said “1981”]
- Carter, 2007, Mitochondrial diversity within the modern human population, Nucleic Acids Res 35(9):3039–45.
- Carter et al., 2008, The “Eve” mitochondrial consensus sequence, Proc 6th ICC, pp. 111–116.
- Bandelt et al., 2014, The case for the continuing use of the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence (rCRS) and the standardization of notation in human mitochondrial DNA studies, J Hum Genet 59(2):66–77.
- Gibbons, 1998, Calibrating the mitochondrial clock, Science 279(5347):28–29.
- Wieland, 1998, A shrinking date for Eve, J Creation 12(1):1–3.
- Árnadóttir et al., 2014, The rate and nature of mitochondrial DNA mutations in human pedigrees, Cell 187(15):3904-3918.e8.
- Carter, 2019, Patriarchal drive in the early post-Flood population, J Creation 33(1):110–118.
- Carter, R., Genealogical vs phylogenetic mutation rates: answering a challenge, 9th ICC:68–180.
- More references can be found in the original article on creation.com.
Even though it was completed a quarter century ago, geneticists still struggle to estimate the number of genes in the human genome. They went from ‘hundreds of thousands’ to “22 thousand”, then more recently to “about 19,500”. The number, however, has just exploded. Tens of thousands of new genes with important functions were discovered hiding in the ‘junk DNA’. Dr Rob explains what these new findings mean to the creation-evolution debate.
Links and notes:
- Carter 2025 The dark proteome https://creation.com/dark-proteome
- Carter 2024 The incredible shrinking human genome, https://biblicalgenetics.com/shrinking-genome/
- Amaral et al. 2024 The status of the human gene catalogue, Nature 622(7981):41–47; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37794265/
- Prensner et al. 2024 What can Ribo-seq and proteomics tell us about the non-canonical proteome? https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.16.541049v1
- Pennisi 2024 ‘Dark proteome’ survey reveals thousands of new human genes, Science 386(6725):951–952; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39607933/
- Podcast: https://biblicalgenetics.com/contra-creation-myths
- Carter et al. 2004 Cloning of anthozoan fluorescent protein genes, Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part C 138:259–270; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15533784
- Matz et al. 1999 Fluorescent proteins from nonbioluminescent Anthozoa species, Nature Biotechnology 17(10):969–973; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10504696/
In a recent presentation on human-chimp similarities to LOGOS Research Associates, I made the (correct) claim that most new mutations are lost. An opponent attempted to make hay of this, claiming it disproves the ‘creationist’ calculations of the time to Y Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. What he failed to understand, however, is that the Y and mt chromosomes are haploid and behave very differently to the rest of the genome. In fact, mutations occur in them in a ratchet-like manner and no degree of natural selection can change that. Do you want a lesson in population genetics? Tune in!
Notes and links:
- My presentation to LOGOS Research Associates: “Chimp and Human (Dis)similarities by Dr. Robert Carter“
- Dan’s attempt at a rebuttal: “Professional Creationist Makes Huge Admission” by Creation Myths
- An older video where I answer the same claims (Creation Myths ignores other people!): Genealogy vs Phylogeny: The War Continues
- Rupe and Sanford (2013) Using Numerical Simulation to Better Understand Fixation Rates, and Establishment of a New Principle: Haldane’s Ratchet
- Carter (2023) Genealogical vs Phylogenetic Mutation Rates: Answering a Challenge
- Fixation (population genetics) on Wikipedia
- A shrinking date for Eve
- Natural Selection in Paradise
- The ‘two circles‘ illustration
In a recent Creation magazine article, I talked about an interesting new case study done on one of the world’s most favorite cheeses, Brie, and its relatives Camembert and Roquefort. A long time ago, cheesemakers unknowingly selected non-sexually reproducing fungal lines for these cheeses. Now, many decades later, mutations have built up in this lines to the point where they are starting to have trouble reproducing. Rescue efforts are underway, but in the meantime this gives us an object lesson about the impossibility of evolution, specifically the survival of the first organisms, which would not have been able to go through sexual recombination.
Links:
The Creation magazine paper: creation.com/cheese-verge-of-extinction
Signup for Creation magazine here: creation.com/en-us/creation-magazine
The original research: Harmi, M., French cheese under threat, news.cnrs.fr, 16 Jan 2024.
Additional info on Muller’s ratchet: dl0.creation.com/articles/p145/c14588/j29_2_70-77.pdf
About Dr. Robert Carter: creation.com/dr-robert-carter-cv
Gregor Mendel was the father of modern genetics. He wrote his most important papers on the topic just a few years after Darwin published the Origin of Species. What people don’t realize is that Mendel’s papers did not only describe how traits are passed down. He also explained how his ideas of genetics lead directly to an explanation of the origin of species. Was Mendel directly and purposefully contradicting Darwin?
Links and notes:
- Crompton et al. 2024 Mendelian speciation, part 1—what is the abundant source of significant biodiversity, J Creation 37(3):110–120, 2023.
- Crompton et al. 2024 Mendelian speciation, part 2—latent genetic information, J Creation 38(1):77–86, 2024.
- Crompton et al. 2024 Mendelian speciation, part 3—fixation and reproductive isolation, J Creation 382):97–104, 2024.
- Crompton et al. 2024 Mendelian speciation, part 4—adaptive radiations and cis-evolution, J Creation 38(2):105–112, 2024.
- Gregor Mendel on Wikipedia
- “They believe in bigger miracles than I do” on YouTube.com
- Species were designed to change on BiblicalGenetics.com
- Species were Designed to Change on Creation.com
- Arguments we think a creationist should not use on creation.com
- Wort und Wissen
Dr Carter spent some time recently in New Zealand. While there, he stopped by a giant colony of gannets. These sea birds number in the millions but they create a bit of a taxonomic mystery. Are three living species of gannets and the eight living species of booby one ‘created kind’? What about the cormorants? Should they also be included? Baraminology has not revealed the limits of the created kinds, so we have much work still to do.
Notes and links:
- Species were designed to change, part 1
- God Deliberately Engineered Life to Change, but How Much Change is Allowed?
- Biblical Biology 101 (my new book!)
It is only natural for people to want to compare the Table of Nations (Genesis 10) to geography, linguistics, ancient history, and/or patterns in human DNA. The solution, however, is harder than most people think. Here, I list multiple reasons why it might actually be impossible to know where Shem, Ham, and Japheth belong even though Genesis is true.
Notes and links:
- Carter, R., Can we place the sons of Noah on the Y chromosome tree? The solution is harder than most people think, 29 Oct 2024.
- Distribution map of haplogroup R1b in the Old World”, eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml.
- Carter, R.W., Patriarchal drive in the early post-Flood population, J. Creation 33(1):110–118, 2019; creation.com/patriarchal-drive.
Additional references can be found in the main article.
The woolly mammoth is strongly associated with the Ice Age, but they survived until surprisingly recent times in the far north. Recently, the genomes of multiple mammoths from the last surviving population on Wrangel Island were sequenced. The scientists concluded the population was founded by 8 or fewer individuals and only 1 mitochondrial lineage was among them. They also estimated that the population grew to a few hundred before finally going extinct. This, it turns out, is a wonderful natural laboratory for biblical events. Consider that there were only 8 people on the Ark. How much genetic diversity would we expect to lose? Is that population too small to prevent so much inbreeding that humans would have gone into mutational meltdown? Etc. Etc.
- Carter, R., DNA from the last woolly mammoths: surprising results support the Flood account, creation.com.
- Dehasque M et al., Temporal dynamics of woolly mammoth genome extension prior to extinction, Cell 187(14):3531–3540.e13, 2024.
- Carter R, Biblical bottlenecks are not bad, biblicalgenetics.com, 27 May 2020.
- Carter R, Evolutionary bottlenecks are disastrous, biblicalgenetics.com, 2 Jun 2020.
- Carter R, Did we evolve from 10,000 people in Africa? biblicalgenetics.com, 19 Jul 2022.
- Carter R, Evolutionists predict super bottleneck (it would have killed us), biblicalgenetics.com, 9 Nov 2023.
- Carter R and Powell M, The genetic effects of the population bottleneck associated with the Genesis Flood, Journal of Creation 30(2):102–111, 2018.
- Carter R, Effective population sizes and loss of diversity during the Flood bottleneck, Journal of Creation 32(2):124–127, 2018.
- Carter R, Mutations and why you shouldn’t marry your cousin, creation.com, 12 Aug 2017.
- Carter R, How carbon dating works, creation.com, 12 Apr 2022.
Mike Lynch and colleagues published a paper that is devastating to thousands of past studies on natural selection. By sequencing DNA from multiple natural populations over several years, they showed that the net effect of natural selection is “zero” for most genetic variants. They caution that selection pressures in the natural world fluctuate. This cause the chromosomal targets of selection to shift over time, etc., meaning that many thousands of scientific studies that found evidence for natural selection are probably wrong. This paper is a gold mine of quotes, so Dr Rob quotes it extensively.
Links:
- Carter, R., Natural selection in the real world is mostly ineffective, creation.com.
- Daphnia: wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphnia
- Lynch et al., The genome-wide signature of short-term temporal selection, PNAS 121(28):e2307107121, 2024; pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38959040
- Darwin’s Bluff: the Mystery of the Book Darwin Never Finished by Robert Shedinger, see also amazon.com/Darwins-Bluff-Robert-Shedinger/dp/1637120370
Neanderthals got their name from a valley that was, in turn, named after a beloved pastor and hymnwriter named Joachim Neander. Thus, since their first discovery, they have been associated with Christianity, believe it or not. Problem is, Neanderthals have been consistently used as arguments against the very foundation of Christianity: the Bible. Can we incorporate these enigmatic people into any sort of biblical history? If so, how? Dr Rob gives his solution here. Neanderthals are a post-Flood people group, descendants of Adam and Eve, and descendants of Noah. There were fully human, but also highly mutated.
- Joachim Neander: wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Neander
- Praise to the Lord, the Almighty: wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise_to_the_Lord,_the_Almighty
- Pettyjohn’s Cave: walkercountyga.gov/discover/recreation/crockford-pigeon-mountain-wildlife-management-area/caving/
- Virchow: creation.com/african-invasion-of-the-bodysnatchers
- POGs = People Outside the Garden: creation.com/review-swamidass-the-genealogical-adam-and-eve
- Questions about Cain: creation.com/cain-chronology
- Neanderthals POST Flood: creation.com/neanderthals-pre-flood
- Patriarchal Drive (article): creation.com/patriarchal-drive
- Patriarchal Drive (video): biblicalgenetics.com/old-fathers-are-genetic-poison/
- Long branch attraction: wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_branch_attraction
- Not the Flintstones—it’s the Denisovans: creation.com/denisovan
- An overview of the Denisovan puzzle: creation.com/denisovan-puzzle
- Neanderthal the changing picture: creation.com/neandertal-man-the-changing-picture
- Poznik’s claim that most African Ys arose outside of Africa: Poznik, G.D. et al., Punctuated bursts in human male demography inferred from 1,244 worldwide Y-chromosome sequences, Nature 48:593–599, 2016, nature.com/articles/ng.3559.
Thumbnail photo by Jakub Hałun Model of Homo neanderthalensis man in The Natural History Museum, Vienna – via Wikimedia Commons. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homo_Sapiens,_Cro-Magnon_1_The_Natural_History_Museum_Vienna,_20210730_1223_1272.jpg.
There are two conflicting genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament. Anyone can see that the name lists in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are not at all similar. Worse, 1 Chronicles 3 adds a THIRD conflicting genealogy for a pivotal person in these lists, Zerubbabel, the first governor of Judah after they were restored from the Babylonian Captivity. In this episode, Dr. Rob presents a logical answer to the problem that follows Old Testament law and basic logic and that does not have to invoke improbable circumstances. The key is realizing that Matthew is probably not a genealogy. Instead, it is a list of the rightful kings of Judah. Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, was the rightful king and a descendant of David. His kingship and his descent from David are both attested to in the New Testament.
In this, the 7th episode in our series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob takes us deep into the genealogy of the nation of Edom. This was a people/tribe/kingdom that existed south of the Dead Sea and southeast of the kingdom of Judah, which dominated Edom for several centuries. There are several textual mysteries in Edom’s data, but they can be solved satisfactorily if we think through the issues carefully.
https://youtu.be/OTj_P8P1v6Q
In this, the 6th episode on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains where the nation of Edom came from, how they tie into the main biblical story, and how to handle several tricky textual problems in Genesis 36.
In this, the 5th episode in our series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains the origins of the nations that surrounded (and still surround) Israel. He explains who the Philistines, the Phoenicians, the Aramaeans, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites were while adding lots of interesting little factoids that help us better understand the Bible.
Notes and links:
- Egyptian mummies and Hebrew perfume
- Who were the Philistines?
-
The ‘Table of Nations’ (Genesis 10 and 11)
-
The descendants of Seir, the kings of Edom, and the chiefs of Edom
In this fourth installment in a series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob works through three challenging details that must be overcome if one is to use those genealogies to build a chronology of biblical history: how to link Genesis 5 and 11, how old Terah was when Abram left Haran, and how old Abram was when God made the “Promise”.
In this third installment in our series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains why the data in Genesis 5 and 11 are so important. These are not just lists of names. The added ages allows us to piece together a timeline of biblical history. Problem is, you can’t directly connect the two passages. A several-year ambiguity is created when you try. There are other interesting factoids that pop out when one studies the chronogenealogies, so you will enjoy this episode much.
Links:
- SCAPER (a creationist organization in Norway)
- Undeland Mission farm
- The biblical minimum and maximum age of the earth
- Biblical chronogenealogies
- LXX vs MT articles
- Length of the Egyptian Sojourn
In this second installment on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains why all those names (or at least most of them) in the Bible are so important. This should be encouraging to anyone who struggles to read the Bible for comprehension.
This is the first in a multi-part series on biblical genealogies. To understand what we are dealing with, we first need to know that there are two completely different types of name lists in the Bible. The first, an ancestor tree is easy. Ancestor trees are balanced and have a known number of people at each level. Even better, nearly all biblical ancestor trees only list fathers, so there is but one person at each level. The second, descendent trees, are the stuff of genealogical nightmares. Dr Rob makes it all easy.
Here are some helpful images.
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Ancestor trees:
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A descendant tree:
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A mixed tree:
Human-chimpanzee similarity is a hotly-debated topic in the evolution-creation wars. Are we 98, 95, 90, or 85% similar? One way to get at the question is to ask what is the longest stretch of DNA that is shared between the two species. This is a very difficult question to answer! But, unperturbed, Dr Rob set out to answer it. Will our fearless hero be able to pull it off? Spoiler alert: not quite, but the path of discovery is still very interesting.
- LastZ github.com/lastz/lastz
- LastZ chaining github.com/hillerlab/make_lastz_chains
- Mummer4 mummer4.github.io/
- Blast blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi
- Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium primate projects github.com/marbl/Primates
- Python python.org/
-
Standard Bases:
- A: Adenine
- C: Cytosine
- G: Guanine
- T: Thymine (in DNA)
-
U: Uracil (in RNA)Ambiguous Bases (IUPAC Codes):These codes are used when there is ambiguity in the nucleotide present at a particular position:
-
R: A or G (puRine)
- Y: C or T (pYrimidine)
- S: G or C
- W: A or T (Weak)
- K: G or T (Keto)
- M: A or C (aMino)
- B: C, G, or T (not A) (B comes after A)
- D: A, G, or T (not C) (D comes after C)
- H: A, C, or T (not G) (H comes after G)
- V: A, C, or G (not T) (V comes after U; U is replaced with T in DNA)
- N: Any base (A, C, G, T) (N for any nucleotide)
- Silver Comet Trail silvercometga.com/
https://youtu.be/-jpoxCZgZKQ
Is the human genome highly functional or mostly junk? This is a question that is not only being asked in the creation-evolution debate; it is a question raging in the ivory tower as well. The ‘old guard’ is much more likely to resist any claim that large swaths of the genome are useful. The ‘young punks’ in science is more willing to accept the obvious fact that the genome is highly functional. Who is going to win? In this episode, Dr Rob puts a few more nails in the coffin of junk DNA..
Notes and links:’
- Carter 2023 What proportion of the human genome is actually functional? And how much variation is tolerable?
- Chen et al. 2023 A genomic mutational constraint map using variation in 76,156 human genomes
- Moran 2023 What’s in your genomes? 90% of your genome is junk
Is the human genome highly functional or mostly junk? This is a question that is not only being asked in the creation-evolution debate; it is a question raging in the ivory tower as well. The ‘old guard’ is much more likely to resist any claim that large swaths of the genome are useful. The ‘young punks’ in science is more willing to accept the obvious fact that the genome is highly functional. Who is going to win? In this episode, Dr Carter highlights four new studies that ratchet the argument toward high function.
Notes and links:’
- Carter 2023 What proportion of the human genome is actually functional? And how much variation is tolerable?
- Zhang et al. 2023 FOXP3 recognizes microsatellites and bridges DNA through multimerization
- Walter 2024 Are non-protein coding RNAs junk or treasure?
- Stepankiw et al. 2023 The human genome contains over a million autonomous exons
- Chen et al. 2023 A genomic mutational constraint map using variation in 76,156 human genomes
- Moran 2023 What’s in your genomes? 90% of your genome is junk
No, the size of the genome has not changed, but the number of genes we thought it contains certainly has. After lots of double checking, there are fewer known protein coding genes today (~19,000) than there were when the human genome was first published, and even that count (~23,000) was shockingly small, according to the predictions of the world’s top geneticists. The nature of the genome has consistently surprised people, but mostly because they applied Darwinian concepts to it. Instead, the genome is a wonderful testimony to the engineering prowess of God, who built something unexpected.
LInks:
- GeneSweep
- One-gene-one-enzyme
- Central dogma of molecular biology
- Amaral et al. 2014 The status of the human gene catalogue, Nature 622(7981):41-47.
- What on earth is a ‘gene’? Slicing and dicing the genome
- The Barrier has been breached: new discoveries are challenging neo-Darwinism
A slew of videos has recently come out arguing for and against the work of Dr Jeffrey Tomkins, who claims humans and chimps are only about 85% similar. His detractors have made some massive blunders and I attempt to document them here. This is not to gloat, however. I understand that all humans are bigoted, biased, myopic, jealous, envious, etc., including all scientists. So, we’ll apply James 3:1 (“Not many of you should presume to be teachers…for know that we will be judged more strictly) and Philippians 2:3… (Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit…) to the situation as we outline multiple lapses of logic and analysis that have been done in an attempt to discredit Tomkins’ work. To be fair, though, the main person in my crosshairs has admitted to making these mistakes. I am only documenting things for posterity.
Notes and links:
- James 3:1–2
- patternsofevidence.com/patterns-plus
- The 3rd Commandment
- Dr Jeffrey Tomkins
- Blast
- Gutsick Gibbon, A Professional Creationist Agrees with Me: Tomkins Wrong, 30 Dec 2023.
- Roohif, Jeffrey Tomkins is allergic to controls, 29 Dec 2023. Note: I made several mistakes when describing Roohif’s results. First, he was looking at older trace read datasets, not the contig database I (and Gutsick Gibbon, and Tomikins in his 2018 paper) have been working with, so his conclusions about vector, etc., contamination do not apply here. Second, I stated that he only tested a few of the problematic areas, but he actually performed several thorough tests. Third, I also conflated his analysis on non-aligning subsequences in Blast matches with his analysis of the sequences for which Blast failed to find any alignment at all. After being challenged on a few of these points, and upon re-watching the video, paying attention this time (!) I stand corrected. Yet, that was but a small portion of my presentation and I included it almost as supplementary information, trying to cover all bases. In retrospect, I could easily have left it out entirely.
- Gutsick Gibbon’s Blast program on Github: GGBlast
- Philippians 2:3–11
Chromosomal recombination is an essential part of the life cycle of all sexually reproducing organisms. Yet, the system is complex, involving hundreds to thousands of proteins and RNAs. It also involves DNA repair pathways, which are themselves incredibly complex. The newest available information on recombination tells us it is mutagenic, meaning that recombination erodes the very places where recombination happens. How did such a system arise by chance? Can we assume the recombination rate has always been the same? What happens when a new allele arises in the protein that controls recombination? What is the mutation burden caused by this important system? Finally, how does this affect the creation-evolution debate?
Links and notes:
- 15 Questions for evolutionists, #8 How did sex originate?
- Geeking out about DNA damage repair, June 2023.
- Grey et al. 2018 PRDM9, a driver of the genetic map, PLoS Genet 14(8):e1007479.
- Altemose et al. 2017 A map of human PRDM9 binding provides evidence for novel behaviors of PRDM9 and other zinc-finger proteins in meiosis, eLife 6:e28383.
- Robert Carter gets everything wrong?, creation.com, 10 Jul 2021.
- Hussin et al. 2011 Age-dependent recombination rates in human pedigrees, PloS Genetics 7(9):e1002251.
- Wang et al. 2012 Genome-wide single-cell analysis of recombination activity and de novo mutation rates in human sperm, Cell 150(2):402–12.
- African origins and the rise of carnivory, creation.com,19 Dec 2020.
- Hinch, A.G. et al., The landscape of recombination in African Americans, Nature 476:170–177, 2011.
- Hinch et al. 2023 Meiotic DNA breaks drive multifaceted mutagenesis in the human germ line, Science 382:eadh2531.
My new video made quite a splash! Apparently, lots of Christians are asking questions about the DNA we can now pull from very old skeletons. How do they do it? What are the data telling us? How is it even there, if the bones are as old as claimed? Without revealing too many details about what is in the main presentation, here I am just talking about ancient DNA and its implications for the creation-evolution debate. I also throw in a few things I was not able to address in the main presentation, including the genetics of ancient Canaanites and Philistines found in and around Israel.
Notes and links:
- You can order Ancient DNA: Illuminating the Tapestry of Biblical Human History at creation.com (physical DVD or streaming format): creation.com/en/landing/ancient-dna
- How reliable are genomes from ancient DNA? (Creation.com)
- Patriarchal Drive in the early post-Flood population (Creation.com)
- Patriarchal Drive (BiblicalGenetics.com)
- Ancient History vs the Table of Nations (BiblicalGenetics.com)
- Extensive mixing of Israelites and non-Israelites in biblical history (Creation.com)
- The genetic history of the Israelite nation (Creation.com)
- The Israelites: forging of a nation (Creation.com)
- Genetics of modern Jews (BiblicalGenetics.com)
- Early Israel was a hotbed of interracial mixing (BiblicalGenetics.com)
- The Jews, Israel, and false notions of ‘race’ (BiblicalGenetics.com)
- Who were the Philistines? (Creation.com)
- Ötzi
- Mitochondrial Eve and the Three ‘Daughters’ of Noah (Creation.com)
- The High-Tech Cell (Creation.com)
- Feldman et al. 2019 Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines, Sci Adv 3;5(7):eaax0061, 2019.
- Haber et al. 2017 Continuity and admixture in the last five millennia of Levantine history from ancient Canaanite and present-day Lebanese genome sequences, Am J Hum Genet 3;101(2):274-282, 2017,
- Rylands Fragment of the Gospel of John
- Georgia Institute of Technology
African cichlids are a diverse group of fishes that have frequently been used as evidence for evolution. Yet, now that the genomes of several hundred species have been published, the true history of this group has been revealed. All parties must now acknowledge that the many species arose quickly, from a common stock. In many ways, African cichlids fit beautifully into the biblical model of ‘created kinds’.
Links:
- Meier et al. 2023 Cycles of fusion and fission enabled rapid parallel adaptive radiation in African cichlids, Science 381:1428.
- Carter R 2021 Species were designed to change, creation.com.
- Carter R 2021 Species were designed to change, biblicalgenetics.com.
- Common aquatic macroinvertebrates
- Map of the biodiversity of amphibians, etc., in North America
Darwin’s finches have long been considered an icon of evolution. A recent analysis included 40 years of morphological measurements and genealogy tracing among four finch species on a small island in the Galapagos chain. This was coupled to 30 years of DNA sampling, including the recent sequencing of nearly 4,000 finch genomes from the same small island. The results tell us a LOT about biblical views of speciation, natural selection, and ‘change over time’.
Notes and links:
- Carter R, Galápagos finches, rapid speciation, and recent creation, Creation.com, 9 Nov 2023.
- Wieland C, Speciation conference brings good news for creationists, J Creation 11(2):135–136, 1997.
- Kaloyirou N, The remarkable Captain Robert FitzRoy, Creation 40(1):14–17, 2017.
- Lightner JK, Identification of a large sparrow-finch monobaramin in perching birds (Aves: Passeriformes), J Creation 24(3):117–121, 2010.
- Enbody ED et al., Community-wide genome sequencing reveals 30 years of Darwin’s finch evolution, Science 381(6665):eadf6218, 2023.
A new paper claims that the pre-human population went through an extremely small and extremely long population bottleneck. Starting about one million years ago, the population was reduced to at most 1,280 “breeding individuals” and this lasted for over 100,000 years. To get there, they examined thousands of human genomes and assumed that all mutations are neutral. What would happen if we applied real-world mutation affects to the data? You know it. We would have gone extinct. The mutation burden would have driven us to extinction. Instead, what they really discovered was the we came from a very small founding population with only a little diversity. This fits perfectly within the Adam and Eve model of human ancestry.
Links and notes:
- Hu et al. 2023 Genomic inference of a severe human bottleneck during the Early to Middle Pleistocene transition, Science 381:979–984.
- Buggs R, Science moves closer to Adam and Eve?, richardbuggs.com, 1 Sep 2023.
- Evolutionary bottlenecks are disastrous, Biblical Genetics, 2 Jun 2020.
- Biblical bottlenecks are not bad, Biblical Genetics, 27 May 2020.
- Sanford J, Critic ignores reality of Genetic Entropy, Creation.com, 7 Mar 2013.
- Carter R, A successful decade for Mendel’s Accountant, J Creation 33(2):51–56, 2019.
- Carter R, The Neutral Model of evolution and recent African origins, J Creation 23(1):70–77, 2009.
The opponents of biblical creation have made some glaring errors in their criticisms of prior work on human-chimpanzee genetic differences. Specifically, several of their claims are in conflict with both theory and experiment. I document these here in detail. They have also shown a rudimentary understanding of how scientific data needs to be ‘weighted’ and they completely misunderstand how BLAST is supposed to work. Despite the high level of vitriol I have received so far, I submit this detailed analysis of their work for your review.
Links:
- As promised, example programs etc. can be found at: https://github.com/BiblicalGenetics/Human-Chimp
- Creationist research is utter, utter poo, Roohif, 14 Sep 2018; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D117oXq8yT4
- “80% Chimpanzee” | The Bogus Creationism of Jeffery Tomkins, Gutsick Gibbon, 26 May 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtTHlqhRQi0
- Tomkins Responded to Me (Kinda?), Gutsick Gibon, 7 Jul 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYw9jl5jArE&t=18s
- Jeffrey Tomkins, The Creationist Who Can’t Math: The Movie, Dapper Dinosaur, 24 Aug 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BasDcbzx3AM
- Human vs Chimp: an honest appraisal of our differences, Biblical Genetics, 15 Aug 2023; https://youtu.be/FHg3LqJI34g
- The three attempted rebuttal videos: Professional Creationist RESPONDS to my Tomkins Debunk (kinda), 23 Aug 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq1AcyHfLrA; Robert Carter, Liar | Creationists Have a Bad Relationship with Honesty: Part 2, Dapper Dinosaur, 23 Aug 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx91ljv32Yc; Creationists Behaving Badly: Dr. Rob Carter, Creation Myths, 23 Aug 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LrhBnVXks0.
- Human vs Chimp, part 2: Digging deeper into our roots, Biblical Genetics, 5 Oct 2023; https://youtu.be/_vsGVN21TQU.
This is the second installment in a now multi-part series on human and chimpanzee genetic differences. I had a lot of pushback from my last episode, including negative reviews posted by Gutsick Gibbon, Creation Myths, and Dapper Dinosaur. Unperturbed, I push on. Here, I lay out some of the arguments in more detail and discuss many of the problems people are having when using one particular program, BLAST, to assess similarity between the two species. I will address the results of Gutsick Gibbon specifically in Part 3, but this was filmed before I got most of my experimental results back.Links (many of these are for Part 3 also):Background: Creationist research is utter, utter poo, Roohif, 14 Sep 2018. “80% Chimpanzee” | The Bogus Creationism of Jeffery Tomkins, Gutsick Gibbon, 26 May 2023. Tomkins Responded to Me (Kinda?), Gutsick Gibon, 7 Jul 2023. Jeffrey Tomkins, The Creationist Who Can't Math: The Movie, Dapper Dinosaur, 24 Aug 2023.My first installment: Human vs Chimp: an honest appraisal of our differences, Biblical Genetics, 15 Aug 2023.The three attempted rebuttal videos: Professional Creationist RESPONDS to my Tomkins Debunk (kinda), 23 Aug 2023. Robert Carter, Liar | Creationists Have a Bad Relationship with Honesty: Part 2, Dapper Dinosaur, 23 Aug 2023. Creationists Behaving Badly: Dr. Rob Carter, Creation Myths, 23 Aug 2023.
Several anti-creationists have made a hobby out of attacking creationists. Their best efforts, however, have generally failed. For example, see:
Sanford 2013 Critic ignores reality of Genetic Entropy: the author of a landmark book on genomic decay responds to unsustainable criticisms creation.com 7 Mar 2013. Price, Carter, and Sanford 2020, Responding to supposed refutations of genetic entropy from the ‘experts’, creation.com, 1 Dec 2020.
Unperturbed, "Gutsick Gibbon" has recently tried to discredit Dr Jeffrey Tomkins and his work on human-chimp genetic similarities:
"80% Chimpanzee" | The Bogus Creationism of Jeffery Tomkins" 26 May 2023 youtube.com/watch?v=QtTHlqhRQi0.
In my analysis of her analysis, I note several flaws in her logic. Note, however, that I deliberately ignored several of her main objections. This was not because I do not have answers, mind you, but because I wanted to focus on the most salient questions. Ignored were questions about why God would have included all the chimp-like non-coding DNA when he made humans and questions about properly weighting samples.
The most recent comparison I am aware of claimed 96.6% similarity between humans and chimps:
Seaman and Buggs 2020 FluentDNA: nucleotide visualization of whole genomes, annotations, and alignments, Frontiers in Genetics 30;11:292.
This comes from the laboratory of Richard Buggs. This is much higher than Tomkins' estimates, that, with one exception, are generally in the 80s. However, I know the first author on that paper, so I called him up to discuss his methods. Sure enough, he used entirely different methodology than earlier work from that same laboratory (which arrived at an estimate of ~85%). To reach the higher percentage similarity, they cut out everything humans and chimps do not share, including the centromeres, telomeres, copy number variations of many annotated genes, and hundreds of thousands of small insertions and deletions that must be included to align the two genomes. This "apples to apples" comparison is fine, as long as everybody acknowledges that the true similarity is necessarily less than 96.6%. Yet, if the percent similarity is much less than 99%, there is no way, mathematically, to explain how so many millions of difference arose in the (imagined) 6.5 million years since our last common ancestor.
Additional links:
The Waiting Time Problem, BiblicalGenetics.com, 8 Jun 2021. Hierachical clustering complicates baraminiological analysis Carter 2021 Robert Carter gets everything wrong? Responding to even more ridiculous aspersions, creation.com, 10 July 2021. “Dr. Rob Carter Gets Everything Wrong (with Gutsick Gibbon)” 20 May 2021. Sibley and Alquist. 1991. The Phylogeny and Classification of Birds. King and Wilson. 1975. Evolution at two levels in humans and chimpanzees, Science 188(4184):107–116. Moorjani et al. 2016. Variation in the molecular clock of primates, PNAS 113(38):10607–10612. Sibley and Ahlquist. 1984. The phylogeny of the hominoid primates, as indicated by DNA-DNA hybridization, J Mol Evol 20(1):2–15. Sibley, Comstock, and Ahlquist. 1990. DNA hybridization evidence of hominoid phylogeny: a reanalysis of the data, J Mol Evol 30(3):202–36. Wikipedia page on DNA reassociation kinetics. Bergman and Tomkins 2012 Is the human genome nearly identical to chimpanzee?—a reassessment of the literature, Journal of Creation 26(1):54–60, Tomkins and Bergman 2012 Genomic monkey business—estimates of nearly identical human–chimp DNA similarity re-evaluated using omitted data, Journal of Creation 26(1):94–100, Tomkins 2013 Comprehensive analysis of chimpanzee and human chromosomes reveals average DNA similarity of 70%. Answers Research Journal 8:379–390. The version of BLAST he used for this paper had a flaw in the algorithm that only manifested when using extremely large data sets. Tomkins corresponded with the bioinformatics group at the NIH to get the BLAST...
Dr Rob outlines three aspects of genetics that tell us that, scientifically, the human species is doomed to eventual extinction. These include the rate of mutation accumulation in our population over time, the inability of natural selection to remove most of those mutations, and the sheer number of children that would be required to remove the mutations, given perfect selection. These all argue that there is no hope, collectively, in any evolutionary process. Thus, biblically, the only hope for us individually is through belief in Jesus.
Links:
Genetic entropy Basener et al. 2023 Dynamical systems and fitness maximization in evolutionary biology Fisher’s failure and the dramatic end of neo-Darwinism Genealogy vs Phylogeny: The War Continues
Dr Rob discusses a fundamental aspect of neo-Darwinism (Fisher's Theorem of Natural Selection) and how it fails mathematically. First postulated in 1930, Fisher's idea was promoted as something as firm and settled as the 2nd Law. Problem is, he made several incorrect assumptions that invalidate the whole thing. When you add realistic mutations to the scenario (e.g., Basener and Sanford's 'Fisher's Theorem of Natural Selection with Mutations'), you see that the net trajectory of evolution is downward. Why did it take 90 years to figure this out?
Links:
Basener and Sanford 2017 The fundamental theorem of natural selection with mutations Basener et al. 2021 Dynamical Systems and Fitness Maximization in Evolutionary Biology Keightley and Lynch 2003 Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness Price 1972 Fisher's 'fundamental theorem' made clear Fisher 1930 The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (Wikipedia page) Carter 2020 A successful decade for Mendel's Accountant
Dr Rob waxes eloquent about some amazing new revelations involving DNA damage repair systems. Researchers recently turned AI onto the human genome, probing the genes and gene systems that are involved in maintaining and repairing DNA. The results shocked everyone. Many more genes that anyone thought are required, and entire new repair systems were discovered. So what came first, DNA or the amazing repair systems required to maintain DNA that are, in turn, coded into DNA? The point is that these systems are absolutely necessary for living things, yet they are also incredibly complicated. They would never be expected to arise without help, but without them the entire DNA system (not just the code, but the DNA itself) could never exist. Evolution, in this case, simply fails to explain much of anything.
Links: Kratz et al. 2023. A multi-scale map of protein assemblies in the DNA damage response. Cell Syst 14(6):447-463.e8; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37220749/
Everybody loves genealogy, but we are severely limited in what we can know about our family histories. There are two main reasons for this. First, family records only go back so far. Even the longest family trees can't go back thousands of years. Second, personal genetics testing can only tell you who your closest relatives are. Yes, genetics can tell you what population you came from, but that is a matter of statistics, not documentation. This is not a problem for belief in the Bible. Adam and Eve are still the (sole) ancestors of everyone who has ever lived, it's just that you cannot prove it with what we have available to us today.
Notes and links:
- Genetic Entropy, by John Sanford
- Keffer oak
- RNA: the epicenter of genetic information, by John Mattick and Paulo Amaral (reviewed by Witold Filipowicz)
Science advances in fits and starts, and it sometimes takes a detour onto a dead-end road. Bacteria represent one of those roads. Studying bacteria gave us a sense that we could easily figure out biology, that there was a direct connection between genes and behavior, and that life was simple. Granted, there was no other way to get started, but the study of bacteria slowed down our understanding of higher organisms in many ways. From the ‘one gene, one enzyme’ hypothesis to the thought that living systems can be reduced to a binary decision tree, many things about bacteria misled us and prevented science from seeing that the majority of the information in the genomes of higher organisms is in the non-coding DNA.
- C-value paradox
- G-value paradox
- Transcription factors
- Bathybius (on Creation.com)
- One gene, one enzyme hypothesis
- Lac operon
- Boolean data
Genetic engineering is a controversial topic. From vaccines to fetal cells to transhumanism, the debate rages. Yet, there are certain aspects to genetic engineering that are demonstrably good. How are we supposed to make heads or tails of this new technology, especially since it is impacting every aspect of our lives? I thought that a simple explanation (at least, as simple as I could make it!) of the things I did while earning my PhD could help increase our understanding. I, as a conservative Christian, made the ‘frankenfish’. I stole the genes for the bright green and red fluorescent proteins in corals, engineered them into bacteria, then into fish. There is nothing inherently difficult in what I did, but there were a LOT of steps. Perhaps, after this explanation, we can have a more civil discussion on the pros and cons.
Links and notes:
- Gibbs PDL, Carter RW, and Schmale MC (2008) Nucleic acid encoding fluorescent proteins from aquatic species. US Patent #7,413,874.
- Gibbs PDL, Carter RW, and Schmale MC (2007) Fluorescent Proteins from Aquatic Species. US Patent #7,291,711.
- Carter RW, Schmale MS, and Gibbs PDL (2004) Cloning of anthozoan fluorescent protein genes. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part C 138:259–270.
- Carter RW (2003) Cnidarian Fluorescent Proteins. PhD Dissertation. University of Miami.
- Manica A, Carter RW (2000) Morphological and fluorescence analysis of the Montastraea annularis species complex in Florida. Marine Biology 137:899–906.
- Monkeying around with human embryos?
- Harnessing God’s design to help prevent sickness, but will the new vaccine technology alter our DNA?
- Unnatural selection: CRISPR on Netflix
- Gene editing babies? A dangerous, pointless experiment
- Human/animal hybrids?
- Human Cloning?
- Mammoth clones coming to a zoo near you
We are approaching the 100th anniversary of the Scopes “Monkey Trial”. Dr Rob was in the neighborhood, so he stopped by the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, TN to tell the part of the story most people have never heard. This was the first time evolution was put on ‘trial’ in a US courtroom and it pitted two of the greatest orators of the 20th century against each other: William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. Bryan, the Christian anti-evolutionist, gave a weak performance. Darrow, the anti-theistic evolutionist, made Bryan, and thus by proxy, cultural Christianity, look foolish. Put yourself in the shoes of person living in 1925. Which side would you have chosen?
Notes and links:
- Carter R, Scopes at 100: The “monkey trial” shaped an entire century, Creation.com, 25 Aug 2020.
- Carter RW, A long-overdue review of Hunter’s A Civic Biology, Creation.com, 1 Sep 2020.
- Rhea County Courthouse
- William Jennings Bryan
- Clarence Darrow
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- Many of the references I made (e.g., to Bryans socialism and Darrow’s anti-Christian atheism) were based on facts I have learned over many years. I.e., they were from memory.
Given the biblical accounts of Creation and the Flood, can we draw any conclusions about what we would expect in genetics? That depends on status of the species in question (e.g., ‘clean’ vs ‘unclean and ‘on the Ark’ vs ‘not on the Ark’), its population history, the amount of created diversity initially engineered into that species/kind, difference in mutation rates and DNA repair systems, and things like that. In the end, no, we cannot make many direct predictions, yet much of the genetic data and observations still point straight to the Bible. The biblical model is expansive enough to take in a range of observations.
Notes and links:
- Tallulah Gorge
- Orphan Brigade Park
- Jeanson N. 2015. Mitochondrial DNA clocks imply linear speciation rates within “kinds”. Answers Research Journal 8:273–304.
- Jeanson N. 2013. Recent, functionally diverse origin for mitochondrial genes from ~2700 metazoan species. Answers Research Journal 6:467–501.
- Carter R. How to think (not what to think), Creation.com, 1 Nov 2016.
- Carter R. 2019. A successful decade for Mendel’s Accountant, J Creation 33(2):51–56.
- Carter R. Species were designed to change, part 3: the tangled web of (intrabaraminic) life, Creation.com, 12 Aug 2021.
- The Amazing Braided Baramin Concept is Intrinsic to Creation (Species were designed to change, part 4) on BiblicalGenetics.com.
Notes, links, and things to think about:
- Hinch et al. 2011. The landscape of recombination in African Americans. Nature 476:170–177, 2011.
- Eberle et al. 2017. A reference dataset of 5.4 million human variants validated by genetic inheritance from sequencing a three-generation 17-member pedigree. Genome Res 27(1):157–164.
- Altemose et al. 2017. A map of human PRDM9 binding provides evidence for novel behaviors of PRDM9 and other zinc-finger proteins in meiosis. Elife 6:e28383.
- Grey et al. 2018. PRDM9, a driver of the genetic map. PLoS Genet 14(8):e1007479.
- Stapley et al. 2017. Recombination: the good, the bad and the variable. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 372(1736):20170279.
- Protacio et al. 2022 Adaptive control of the meiotic recombination landscape by DNA site-dependent hotspots with implications for evolution. Front Genet 13:947572.
- International HapMap Project
- 1000 Genomes Program
- CEPH panel (note: In the video/audio I said that the DNA is cultured in bacterial artificial chromosomes. This is probably incorrect as there is mention of lymphoblastoid cell lines in this link. It has been a long time since I read any of the documentation on this project!
Biblical Genetics episodes mentioned:
- There is no Y chromosome clock
- Did we evolve from 10,000 people in Africa?
- Was Africa the cradle of humanity?
- Did Eve live in Southern Africa?
- Modern humans from Adam and Eve? You bet!
- Patriarchal Drive
Images:
A diagram of crossing over from Thomas Hunt Morgan, circa 1917.
Two consecutive crossings leads to gene conversion (if they are close enough)
HapMap data, Europeans, Chr 15 spanning the XXX gene. Each individual is represented by a pair of rows. Each column is a single letter in the genome, but the letters are separated by an average of ~1000 nucleotides, so this is not full sequence data.
Same as above, but for West Africans.
Two accidental three-generation families in the HapMap and 1,000 Genomes datasets. The dotted lines show where the two-parent-child trios connect.
The three-generation, 17-member CEPH panel
A recombination map of Chr1 for one child (child #5, if I remember correctly). Blue = letters that came from the paternal grandfather. Red = letters that came from the paternal grandmother. Green = a spacer region to represent the position of the centromere.
The number of recombined blocks vs the length of each block among the 11 children in the CEPH panel. Note: I totally messed up the explanation (and my hand motions) when I was describing this. I had something else in mind, but after filming, when I went looking for the image I had in my head, I realized my mistake. Either way, it is still an interesting image. It cannot be known how many of the singletons are sequencing errors of 1-SNP gene conversions, but see the Eberle reference above and how they claim to resolve many of the apparent errors.
Dr Rob spills the beans about several things he no longer believes, including Darwinian evolution, the simplicity of bacteria, Linnean taxonomy, and the thought that the human embryo goes through the stages of evolution as it develops. This is a deep dive into the world of uncertainty and scientific thinking.
Notes and links:
- My bio
- God Deliberately Engineered Life to Change, but How Much Change is Allowed? (Species were designed to change, part 1 on BiblicalGenetics.com)
- Species were designed to change, part 1 (on Creation.com)
- Origin of Life Smackdown (on BiblicalGenetics.com)
- Nature vs God? (on BiblicalGenetics.com)
- What on earth is a ‘gene’? Slicing and dicing the genome (on BiblicalGenetics.com)
- Carl Linnaeus: the scientist who saw evidence for God in everything in nature (on Creation.com)
- Ernst Haeckel: Evangelist for evolution and apostle of deceit (on Creation.com)
- Countering revisionism—part 1: Ernst Haeckel, fraud is proven (on Creation.com)
- Lewontin’s quote about “not allowing a divine foot in the door”
- For more information on the uniqueness of the Archaea (i.e., the ‘extremophiles’ I mentioned), start here: Tan and Tomkins. 2015. Information processing differences between Archaea and Eukarya—implications for homologs and the myth of eukaryogenesis, Ans. Res. J. 8:121–141.
There is scant evidence for very old people in the archaeological record, but the Bible claims people once lived for centuries. Is this a major contradiction? Not really. First, regarding the physical evidence, we would not necessarily know what to look for. Second, just because a person can get old does not mean they will. Potential lifespan is not the same as realized lifespan. Third, and this is the focus of this episode, population modeling shows that short-lived people that are the maximum number of generations removed from Noah will quickly dominate. This is a recipe for rapidly collapsing lifespans. Long-lived people would have been quite rare in the early post-Flood world.
The biblical data. See my article The rapid decline in biblical lifespans:
The actuarial table I used. Data from https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper09.pdf, WHO LIFE TABLE FOR 1999: AFR D
A population pyramid at year 1000 using the default model:
The number of generations people are ‘removed’ from Noah at 100-year intervals in the default model:
Realized vs expected lifespans at 100-year intervals in the default model:
Mutations are known to occur at much higher rates than can be accounted for in evolutionary theory. Given measurable rates, Y Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve would have lived only a few thousand years ago. To answer this, evolutionists generally appeal to natural selection or genetic drift. Yet, selection can only remove 'selectable' mutations, and most mutations are necessarily selectively neutral. Also, drift fails to do anything at all in answering the dilemma. In the end, Adam and Eve are recent and there is little anyone can say about it.
Notes and links:
Carter 2019 A successful decade for Mendel's Accountant Robert Carter gets everything wrong? Rupe and Sanford 2008 USING NUMERICAL SIMULATION TO BETTER UNDERSTAND FIXATION RATES, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW PRINCIPLE: HALDANE’S RATCHET ReMine 2005 Cost theory and the cost of substitution—a clarification International Conference on Creationism
The genetics of the humble butterfly tells us a lot about the creation-evolution debate, the definition of 'species', the definition of 'junk DNA', and how complex the control systems for things like wing patterns are. The 'unit' of creation is not the species but the baramin (e.g., the 'created kind'), so within the creation model, species can merge, split, and morph to their hearts content.
Links and notes:
Main paper: Mazo-Vargas et al. 2022. Deep cis-regulatory homology of the butterfly wing pattern ground plan. Science 378(6617):304-308. Carter. 2021. Species were designed to change, part 1.
Egyptian culture is thousands of years old, yet they never maintained perfect isolation from the nations among whom they lived. They have been conquered and they themselves have conquered many times. Invading armies brought hordes of soldiers, who would have left behind children. Given that Egypt is on the African continent, and given that there Egypt was conquered at least once by the their southern neighbors (the Nubians) at least once, why doesn't the average Egyptian have the features of, say, the average person from Sudan? To answer this requires a deep dive into history and biology. There are four factors that have the greatest effect. 1) They are a Mediterranean culture, 2) many phenotypes (e.g., skin, hair, and eye color) are controlled by multiple traits, 3) many lineages peter out over time, and 4) genetic recombination insures that most people will fail to pass on their DNA to their distance descendants even if their line is maintained.
Dr Rob describes the horrible levels of inbreeding within the ancient Egyptian royal family and how this affected them over time. This includes the problems we see in the mummies of King Tut and his father Akhenaten, plus further up the family tree in the time of Hatshepsut (who may have been the princess who drew Moses out of the Nile) and much later in time during the Ptolemies (Cleopatra only had three great-grandparents!).
Notes and links:
Curse of the Pharaoh's DNA DNA degradation (note, I don't agree with everything said in this article) Y chromosome family tree (figure 2 in this article) Hatshepsut's mummy and DNA Schuenemann et al. 2017 Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods The Faiyum Ancient History vs the Table of Nations (Biblical Genetics, May 5, 2020) Ptolemaic family tree Family tree of Hatshepsut, Tut, etc. Inbreeding among the Spanish Hapsburgs (Alvarez et al. 2009 The Role of Inbreeding in the Extinction of a European Royal Dynasty) Gad et al. 2021 Insights from ancient DNA analysis of Egyptian DNA
Dr Rob travels to Egypt to answer some difficult questions about the biblical timeline, population growth, the people of Egypt, and how, on earth, there were enough people to build the pyramids just a few centuries after Babel.
Notes and links:
Tour Egypt with CMI book Egyptian chronology and the Bible—framing the issues Time fears the pyramids? How they fit into the true biblical history Search Creation.com for articles on the LXX Modelling biblical human population growth
Dr Rob talks about how divisions and disagreements are not only necessary but also productive for scientific progress. Thus, when you see two scientists disagreeing, this does not mean they hate each other or that they are necessarily refuting each other. He talks about the debates within creationism, including the location of the post-Flood boundary, the role of natural selection in the created order of things, the usefulness of molecular clocks, the dating of the Exodus, and the location and timing of the Tower of Babel event.
Notes and links:
Weeks Bay Pitcher Plant Bog Evolutionists Say the Oddest Things The method of multiple working hypotheses My review of Nathaniel Jeanson's Traced Clarey's geological maps YEHEs Natural selection Feathered dinosaurs?
The 'molecular clock hypothesis' is critical for evolutionary theory. If it fails, many evolutionary speculations will fall as well. Yet, there is abundant evidence that mutations in the Y chromosome have happened at different rates among different people groups. If this is true, nobody an know how long ago 'Y Chromosome Adam' lived.
Notes:
My Review of Nathaniel Jeanson's Traced Ding et al. 2021. Mutation Rate Variability across Human Y-Chromosome Haplogroups. Mol Biol Evol 38(3):1000-1005.
During the process of protein translation, the cell matches three letters in DNA for each amino acid. But there are 4 x 4 x 4 = 64 possible 3-letter combination and only 20 amino acids. This means that most amino acids have more than one code and that many mutations do not change the amino acids in the resulting protein. For decades, mutations at these sites were seen as 'silent', but this can no longer be accepted. Instead, it is now clearly understood that most mutations in these sites, even if the amino acid sequence in the protein is unchanged, are measurably bad for the organism. There are various reasons for this, as Dr Rob explains, but this creates a giant headache for evolutionary theory. Removing this class of 'irrelevant' mutations means that evolution has even more mathematical difficulties. On the other hand, the new information tells us that life was designed with an amazing degree of exactitude and precision.
All quotations and references can be found in my article Carter R, Mutations are more harmful than we thought: silencing the ‘wobble’ in the codon table, creation.com/silent-mutations-harmful, 25 August 2022.
Dr Rob explains an issue in the creation vs. evolution debate: how fast mutations accumulate. The rate we can measure in families (the 'genealogical' rate) is much faster than the rate at which it is claimed mutations accumulate in the population (the 'phylogenetic' rate). There are good reasons why the genealogical rate is closer to the real value we should use to date Adam and Eve, including the fact that most mutations are selectively neutral and, therefore, accumulate at the rate at which the occur. Yes, natural selection can remove some mutations. Thus, the long-term mutation rate is a little slower than the genealogical mutation rate, but the difference is a few percent, not two orders of magnitude. There are several charts shown in this presentation that are part of an ongoing project that Dr Rob is working on. When the paper is published, a link will be added here.
In the meantime, here are the charts:
Figure 1: Using Mendel's Accountant, the accumulation of neutral (blue), deleterious (red), and beneficial (green) alleles can be tracked over time. These are the results from a model population of 500 individuals with a neutral mutation frequency of 0.5 over 10,000 generations.
Figure 2: Using Mendel's Accountant and summarizing over many runs, we can see that the separation between the blue and red lines in Figure 1 is negligible (less than 8% in populations of 10,000 individuals). The size of the population does not appreciably affect the mutation accumulation rate.
Figure 3: Using my own population modeling software, I was able to estimate the average lifespan of any new, neutral mutation. I ran each population size model 1,000 times and took an average (orange dots). Since most new alleles are lost to genetic drift very quickly, the size of the population is almost irrelevant. In the video, I say "4" generations, but I said that before I had finished all the models runs. I think "5" is a better estimate. It takes, on average, 5 generations for any new mutation to be lost (btw, this also applies to beneficial mutations, as Sanford has shown in his work with Mendel).
Further reading: Carter, R., A successful decade for Mendel’s Accountant, Journal of Creation 33(2):51–56, 2019.
Dr Rob is at Liberty University for the annual summer conference of the Creation Research Society. He shares the highlights and an encouraging message for the future of creation research.
Notes and links:
Join the Creation Research Society! Article: Species were designed to change, part 1, How much change is allowed? (follow the links for parts 2 and 3) Video: Species were designed to change, part 1: God Deliberately Engineered Life to Change, but How Much Change is Allowed? Video: Species were designed to change, part 2: Speciation and the Limits of Change Video: Species were designed to change, part 3: Classifying the Created Kinds Leads to Fascinating Results Video: Species were designed to change, part 4: The Amazing Braided Baramin Concept is Intrinsic to Creation Cserhati and Tay, Comparison of morphology-based and genomics-based baraminology methods, J Creation 33(3):49-54, 2019. You should attend the International Conference on Creationism at Cedarville University in July, 2023
The oft-heard claim is that Homo sapiens evolved from Homo erectus within a small African population with an effective size of about 10,000 individuals. What, exactly is an "effective" population size and how is that different from a "census" population size? Strangely, nobody seems to be able to identify that "population" from which we supposedly arose.
Earlier discussion on Africa on BiblicalGenetics.com:
Was Africa the Cradle of Humanity? Did Eve live in southern Africa?
Some background reading:
Henn et al. 2012. The great human expansion. PNAS 109(44):17758–17764. Ashraf and Lawson. 2022. Genetic drift from the out-of-Africa bottleneck leads to biased estimation of genetic architecture and selection. E J Hum Gen 29:1549–1556. Tournebize et al. 2022. Reconstructing the history of founder events using genome-wide patterns of allele sharing across individuals. PLoS Gen 18(6):e1010243.
This presentation was produced for a conference at the Scandinavian School of Theology in Uppsala, Sweden. I was speaking as a representative of Creation Ministries International, but since this recording is similar to my talk The Historical Adam: theological conundrums and scientific implications,* which is free on the CMI store, by the way, CMI decided to not publish my new talk. Yet, I hated to let all that work go to waste, so I am putting it out on my Biblical Genetics platform.
*If that link does not work in your country, go to Creation.com, click on “Store” in the header bar. Hover over Media tab that appears below the header and click on “Streaming Video”.
Links and notes:
A good article to explain the difference between historical and operational science: Batten D, It’s not science!, creation.com, 28 February 2002. Sanford, J. et al., Adam and Eve, designed diversity, and allele frequencies, 8th International Conference on Creationism, pp. 200–216, 2018. Carter RW, The non-mythical Adam and Eve: refuting errors by Francis Collins and BioLogos, creation.com, 20 August 2011. Carter RW and Powell M, The genetic effects of the population bottleneck associated with the Genesis Flood, J. Creation 30(2):124 – 127, 2018. Carter, R., Effective population sizes and loss of diversity during the Flood bottleneck, J. Creation 32(2):124–127, 2018. Simons Genome Diversity Project 1000 Genomes Program Carter RW. Patriarchal drive in the early post-Flood population, J Creation 33(1):110–118, 2019. Carter R, How old was Cain when he killed Abel? Creation 36(2):16–17, 2014.
The idea that old men contribute more mutations to their children than young men is not controversial. The application of this thought to people who lived 'biblical' lifespans, however, is. Here, I discuss some new information on the subject and talk a little about the Creation Research Society and what it does to promote creationist research.
Links:
Creation Research Society Kaplanis J. et al. 2022. Genetic and chemotherapeutic influences on germline hypermutation, Nature 605, 503–508. 100,000 Genomes Project Deciphering Developmental Disorders Project Carter RW. 2019. Patriarchal drive in the early post-Flood population, J Creation 33(1):110–118. Genetic Entropy: Sanford J, Critic ignores reality of genetic entropy, Creation.com, 7 March 2013. Carter R, Genetic entropy and simple organisms, Creation.com, 25 Oct 2012. Would you like to help support Biblical Genetics? It’s easy! You can become a monthly Patron, or just Buy me a Coffee.
The apple gives us several excellent illustrations for understanding biblical genetics. The genetics of the apple tree is super complicated, yet always fascinating. From one domestication event several thousand years ago we now have over 10,000 apple varieties, and this does not include the many wild species of apple-like trees. How does this fit within biblical genetics? Tune in to find out!
Filming location: Raven Rock State Park, Lillington, North Carolina
Notes and links:
Species Designed to change video series:
Part 1 God Deliberately Engineered Life to Change, but How Much Change is Allowed? Part 2 Speciation and the Limits of Change Part 3 Classifying the Created Kinds Leads to Fascinating Results Part 4 The Amazing Braided Baramin Concept is Intrinsic to Creation
Species were designed to change article series:
Part 1 How much change is allowed? Part 2 Speciation and the limits of change Part 3 The tangled web of (intrabaraminic) life
Cserhati M, Carter R (2020) Hierarchical clustering complicates baraminological analysis, Journal of Creation 34(3):64–73 (see here). Terborg, P (2020) The hemizygosity hypothesis—a novel genetic paradigm for baranomes, Journal of Creation 34(2):111–116. Journal of Creation subscription link Journal of Creation archives Qiao et al. 2021 Evolutionary history and pan-genome dynamics of strawberry (Fragaria spp.), PNAS 118(45):e2105431118.
Would you like to help support Biblical Genetics? It's easy! You can become a monthly Patron, or just Buy me a Coffee.
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"Who is a Jew?" and "Are the Jews genetically distinct?" are important and interesting questions. We have a biblical record of where they came from, of the number of people who married into Israel over time, and of the number of people were were dispersed from Israel over time. We also have historical records of the various Jewish enclaves that appeared from Spain to Burma. BUT, is it even possible that these people, from such diverse places, and often with different skin, hair, and eye colors can be traced back to a single Middle Eastern source population? Yes, it is, but there are several important caveats to consider.
Main source article: Carter R (2017) The genetic history of the Israelite nation, Journal of Creation 32(1):114-120.
Would you like to help support Biblical Genetics? It's easy!
One time: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BibGenetics Monthly: https://www.Patreon.com/BiblicalGenetics
The biblical story details a surprising number of marriages between Israelite and non-Israelite people. This leads to questions about what is a "Jew", where the boundaries are between "races" (if they even exist), and what we should expect to see when we look at the DNA of Jewish and other Middle Eastern people. According to the Bible, the Jews should be a mélange of all the people among whom they lived. Is it true?
Min article: Carter R (2017) Extensive mixing among Israelites and non-Israelites in biblical history, Journal of Creation 31(3):112-118.
Thumbnail credit: Victoria Roman via unsplash.com
Would you like to help support Biblical Genetics? It is easy!
One time: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/BibGenetics Monthly: https://www.Patreon.com/BiblicalGenetics
There are many question that revolve around the Israelites time in Egypt. One of these deals with how long they were there. The Bible gives conflicting numbers and people argue over a "430-year Long Sojourn" and a "215-year Short Sojourn". In this episode, Dr Carter attempts to add to the discussion by introducing the genealogical data given to us in the Bible. The data beautifully and easily span a 215-year window, but cannot span a 430-year.
Notes and links:
Main article: Carter R, Sanders S, How long were the Israelites in Egypt? Using their own family tree to resolve a debate, Creation.com, 14 September 2021.
You can download the original graphics in .jpg format from that link.
Masoretic vs Septuagint debate:
Cosner L, Carter R, Textual traditions and biblical chronology, Journal of Creation, 29(2):99–105, 2015. Cosner L, Carter R, Is the Septuagint a superior text for the Genesis genealogies? Creation.com, 25 September 2018. Cosner L, Carter R, The Masoretic text of Genesis 5 and 11 is still the most reliable, Creation.com, 4 June 2019 Cosner L, Carter R, Iron sharpening iron: the MT-LXX debate as a case study of Christian disagreement, Creation.com, 3 August 2019. Cosner L, Carter R, Bad arguments for the Masoretic Text, Creation.com, 11 February 2020
Sarfati J, Biblical chronogenealogies, Creation.com. Bates G, Egyptian chronology and the Bible—framing the issues, Creation.com, 2 September 2014. The "4,004 BC" date of Archbishop James Ussher, See Sarfati J, Archbishop’s achievement: James Ussher’s great work Annals of the World is now available in English, Creation 26(1):24–27, 2003.
Thumbnail: Color Crescent via Unsplash.com
The origin of the Jewish nation is a fascinating question that is addressed in the Bible, archaeology, and genetics. In this episode, Dr Rob examines the early Israelite family tree and notes the huge amount of inbreeding that occurred as three successive generations intermarried. He compares this to other people from across the world and draws some conclusions about the rise of the various human 'races' that will be surprising to many.
Notes and links:
Carter R. 2013. Inbreeding and the origin of races, Journal of Creation 27(3):8–10. [Original paper, with main graphics] Carter R, Sanders L, How long were the Israelites in Egypt? Using their own family tree to resolve a debate, Creation.com, 21 September 2021. Carter R. 2018. The genetic history of the Israelite nation, Journal of Creation 32(1):114–120. Carter R, Sanders L, The Israelites: Forging of a nation, Creation.com, 2 September 2021. Carter R, Where did the Israelites cross the “Red Sea”? Creation.com, 20 July 2021. Carter R. 2017. Extensive mixing among Israelites and non-Israelites in biblical history, Journal of Creation 31(3):112–118. Ringbauer H, et al. 2021. Parental relatedness through time revealed by runs of homozygosity in ancient DNA, Nature Communications 12:5425; doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-25289-w.
Thumbnail image: Blake Campbell via Unspash.com
Dr Rob reveals several new studies that are challenging the fundamental assumptions that underlie the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Specifically. the 'central dogma of molecular biology' (the thought that information only flows from DNA to RNA to protein) and the Weismann barrier (the thought that only the DNA 'information' in sperm and egg cells is inherited) are both wrong. Recent revelations have shown us that sperm actively absorb and use body-cell-sourced RNA in the epididymis, and one polymerase uses RNA templates in a newly discovered DNA repair system. Neither of these are supposed to be true. Can a vague idea from the 19th century withstand the assault of 21st century knowledge? Hardly. The simplifying assumptions made by Darwin and his contemporaries no longer hold up.
Notes and links:
Main article: Carter R., The barrier has been breached! Making a fool out of Professor Wise-man, Creation.com, 7 September 2021. Wilhelm D, Palmer S, Koopman P, Sex determination and gonadal development in mammals, Physiol. Rev. 87(1):1–28, 2007; doi: 10.1152/physrev.00009.2006. Crow JF, Age and sex differences on human mutation rates: an old problem with new complexities, J. Radiat. Res. 47(Suppl.):B75–B82, 2006; doi: 10.1269/jrr.47.b75. James ER, et al., The role of the epididymis and the contribution of epididymosomes to mammalian reproduction, Int. J. Mol. Sci. 21:5377, 2020; doi: 10.3390/ijms21155377. Chandramouly G, et al., Polθ reverse transcribes RNA and promotes RNA-templated DNA repair. Science Advances 7(24):eabf1771; doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abf1771. See also the press release from Thomas Jefferson University “New discovery shows human cells can write RNA sequences into DNA”, Phys.org, 11 June 2021. King TE, et al., Africans in Yorkshire? The deepest-rooting clade of the Y phylogeny within an English genealogy, Eur J. Hum. Genet. 15:288–293, 2007; doi: 10.1038/sj.ejhg.5201771.
Filming locations: Kennesaw National Battlefield Park and Kennesaw Memorial Park.
People are constantly asking me, "Is Covid-19 evolving?" So I went ahead and recorded my answer. In short, no, there is nothing to suggest that it is on its way to becoming anything but a coronavirus. In fact, it should be picking up enough mutations over time that it slowly degrades. In other words, it is on its way to becoming a decrepit coronavirus, given a decade or two. But this does not mean that it won't find that lucky mutation that makes it spread faster or that makes is more deadly in the meantime.
Links:
Loess Hills, Iowa Preparation Canyon State Park Darwin’s finches: see Lightner J, Finch beaks point to a Creator who provides, Journal of Creation 26(2):8–10, 2012. Tay J, Reclaiming the peppered moth: designed to adapt, Creation 42(3):18–21, 2020. Eacock A, et al., Adaptive colour change and background choice behaviour in peppered moth caterpillars is mediated by extraocular photoreception, Communications Biology 2:286, 2019. Carter RW, More evidence for the reality of genetic entropy, Journal of Creation 28(1):16–17, 2014. [Deals with the extinction of the human H1N1 influenza] Carter RW, Sanford JC, A new look at an old virus: patterns of mutation accumulation in the human H1N1 influenza virus since 1918, Theor Biol Med Model 9:42, 2012. Carter R, Is Covid-19 Evolving? No, but it is changing rapidly, Creation.com, 24 Aug 2021. [also a discussion on APOBEC enzymes] Carter R, RNA vaccines: harnessing God’s design to help prevent sickness, but will the new vaccine technology alter our DNA?, Creation.com, 3 Dec 2020. Sarfati J, CMI, vaccines, and vaccination, Creation.com, 24 Aug 2021 update. Coronavirus videos on Creation.com
Main thumbnail image: Daniel Schludi via Unsplash.com
Dr Rob wraps up his 4-part series Species Were Designed to change by introducing a fascinating, profound, game-changing idea: the 'Braided Baramin Concept'. Species are not the 'created unit'. Baramins are. Species are ephemeral. Baramins are fixed, in that they are a group of organisms designed to reproduce within themselves and not with any member of another baramin. Species, on the other hand, can form, go extinct, remain constant, or merge with other species. Thus, all the data Darwin used for his theory are actually part of Creation.
Notes and links:
Species were designed to change, part 1: How much change is allowed? Species were designed to change, part 2: Speciation and the limits of change Species were designed to change, part 3: The tangled web of (intrabaraminic) life Corals of the World on Amazon Corals in Space and Time on Amazon Dog colour patterns explained by modular promoters of ancient canid origin How to think (not what to think)
This is the third installment in my Species Were Designed to Change series. Here, I take the concept of a baramin (a "created kind") and unpack it so that we can broaden our understanding of the range of possibilities inherent in this concept. God could have created a sexually reproducing baramin with only two individuals (like humans), or baramins with high or low diversity or with many or few individuals. He could have created a single baramin with a wide distribution or one that was broken up into discrete and isolated pockets. In the latter case, when members of those pockets did eventually manage to meet, a burst of speciation due to new gene combinations could have commenced. The possibilities are almost endless, which goes a long way to explain some pretty profound mysteries in paleontology.
Links:
Species Were Designed to Change, part 1, video and podcast on BiblicalGenetics.com, original article on Creation.com Species Were Designed to Change, part 2, video and podcast on BiblicalGenetics.com, original article on Creation.com Species Were Designed to Change, part 3, original article on Creation.com Modern Humans from Adam and Eve? You Bet! Video and podcast on BiblicalGenetics.com
Location: Orphan Brigade Battlefield Park, Dallas, GA
Notes and links:
Species were designed to change, part 1: But how much change is allowed? Species were designed to change, part 2: Speciation and the limits of change Terborg P. 2008. Evidence for the design of life: part 2—Baranomes. J Creation 22(3):68–76. African rift lakes on Wikipedia Cichlids on Wikipedia
Dr Rob puts the smackdown on a tired old meme: the claim that the Bible teaches that God created all species just they appear today. In so doing, he outlines four important mechanisms that allow for 'change over time' within the creation model. This is the first part in a series of videos on the topic. They parallel a series of articles he wrote for Creaton.com. See: Species were designed to change, part 1
Other links:
Fetal Tissue Research Part 1: Human cloning Jacob’s Livestock Breeding Experiment Terborg, P. Evidence for the design of life: part 2—Baranomes, Journal of Creation 22(3):68–76, 2008.
Filming Location: Raven Cliff Falls Trail, near Helen, GA
Location: Champ's Clock Shop, Douglasville, GA
Dr Rob describes a contentious idea: the Waiting Time Problem. Mathematical simulations tells us that the rise of specific new mutations would take a fantastically long time. This is a serious challenge to evolution. Yet, most people misunderstand the problem. We are not talking about the time it takes for a new mutation to appear but the time it takes a new mutation to appear multiple times (because most new mutations are lost to genetic drift) plus the time it takes the lucky surviving mutation to spread through the entire population and completely replace the original variant. The numbers are shocking. Even the simplest 1-letter change would take longer than evolution allows, but 2-letter and longer combinations are orders of magnitude worse.
Notes and links:
Sanford et al. 2015. The waiting time problem in a model hominin population. Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling 12:18. Carter R 2019. A successful decade for Mendel’s Accountant. Journal of Creation 33(2):51–56. The Antikythera Mechanism Harrison' clocks and the Longitude problem Rupe and Sanford. 2013. Using numerical simulation to better understand fixation rates, and establishment of a new principle: Haldane’s Ratchet. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Creationism, Article 32. Batten D. 2005. Haldane's Dilemma has not been solved. Journal of Creation 19(1):20–21. ReMine W. 2010. Cost theory and the cost of substitution—a clarification. Journal of Creation 19(1):113–125.
Location: Creation Research Society HQ at Arizona Christian University
Links and notes:
Creation Research Society membership page Common Rule of 1981 Moore v Regents of University of California Dickey-Wicker Amendment Fetal Tissue Research, part 3: Ethics Fetal Tissue Research, part 2: The early years Fetal Tissue Research, part 1: Human cloning Tanne. 2004. US universities get round regulations on stem cell research. BMJ 328:1094. NIH Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry Historic population size of The Netherlands The Netherlands population pyramid Maylarchuk, et al. 2010. Phylogeography of the Y-chromosome haplogroup C in northern Eurasia. Ann Hum Genet 74:539–546. See Table S4 for the frequencies mitochondrial haplogroups. HEK-293 SNP data: Lin et al. 2014. Genome dynamics of the human embryonic kidney 293 lineage in response to cell biology manipulations. Nat Commun 5:4764. Servick, Biden administration scraps human fetal tissue research restrictions, Sciencemag.org, 16 April 2021. Heipel, Federal government caught buying ‘fresh’ flesh of aborted babies who could have survived as preemies, TheFederalist.com, 15 April 2021. GEDMatch.com
Morality is not always an easy thing to deal with, and the moral implications of using cell lines from aborted babies is one of the more difficult subjects. Dr Rob gets into the meat of the argument, using simple illustrations to help out sort out the problems. Can we, with a good conscience, use medicines that were developed using fetal cells?
Location: Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park
Links and notes:
CMI, vaccines, and vaccination RNA Vaccines: harnessing God’s design to help prevent sickness, but will the new vaccine technology alter our DNA? Slavery's Capitalism: A New History of American Economic Development The Trail of Tears 12 things less remote cooperation in evil than covid vaccines If any drug tested on HEK-293 is immoral, goodbye modern medicine Vaccines and the Christian worldview: principles for Christian thinking in the context of COVID
Are you pro-life? Then this video is a must-watch for you. Are you pro-abortion? Then consider this application of the Christian worldview to a very difficult situation as a direct challenge to you. This is a discussion of the five main strains of human cells, starting in the 1950s, that that were used to develop many different medicines and life-saving vaccines. Questions of ethics, privacy, paperwork (or not), and other things make for a tangled web of information. Dr Rob untangles everything for you.
Notes and links:
Fetal Tissue Research Part 1: Human cloning Recommended reading: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks HeLa cells WI-38 MRC-5 HEK-293 Per.C6 Alex van der Eb Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, News & Views: Why Were Fetal Cells Used to Make Certain Vaccines? 25 Apr 2017; chop.edu/news/news-views-why-were-fetal-cells-used-make-certain-vaccines. Graham, F.L. Cell line transformation. Curr Contents 8:8, 1992; garfield.library.upenn.edu/classics1992/A1992HC31200001.pdf Shaw, G., Morse, S., Ararat, M., and Graham, F.L. Preferential transformation of human neuronal cells by human adenoviruses and the origin of HEK 293 cells. The FASEB Journal 16(8):869–871, 2002; doi: 10.1096/fj.01-0995fje. Funk, W.D. et al. Evaluating the genomic and sequence integrity of human ES cell lines; comparison to normal genomes. Stem Cell Res 8(2):154–164, 2012; doi: 10.1016/j.scr.2011.10.001. van der Eb's testimony: US-FDA Meeting report FDA-CBER Vaccines and Related Products Advisory Committee, fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/01/transcripts/3750t1_01.pdf. See pages pages 77 through 90 plus the Q&A section at the end of the document.
The use of fetal cells in modern medicine and technology is an obscure field. Yet, there are profound moral, theological, and societal issues inherent in their use. Dr Rob starts off this series with a discussion of several new studies, one that took human skin cells and turned them into embryo-like structures, another that used sequencing data to recreate the development of the embryo, and a third where scientists grew mouse embryos in a test tube. He also outlines the biblical issues, clearly documenting the differences between human and non-human life.
Links and show notes
Privacy is Dead (Biblical Genetics, July 15, 2020) Bizzotto et al. 2021 Landmarks of human embryonic development inscribed in somatic mutations. Science 371(6535):1249–1253; DOI: 10.1126/science.abe1544. Fasching et al. 2021 Early developmental asymmetries in cell lineage trees in living individuals. Science 371(6535):1245–1248; DOI: 10.1126/science.abe0981. Aguilera-Castrejon, A. et al. 2021. Ex utero mouse embryogenesis from pre-gastrulation to late organogenesis, Nature; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03416-3. Winter, L. 2021. Lab-grown mouse embryos form limbs and organs; the-scientist.com/news-opinion/lab-grown-mouse-embryos-form-limbs-and-organs-68565. Mannix, L. 2021. Scientists create model embryos in lab, raising major ethical questions, smh.com.au/national/scientists-create-model-embryos-in-lab-raising-major-ethical-questions-20210317-p57bkc.html. Genetic Engineering of Humans? (Biblical Genetics May 12, 2020)
The idea that mutations are random is an important concept for evolutionary theory. Yet, multiple areas of research are telling us that mutation placement and type are not at all random. There is also no reason to believe that mutation rates have remained constant over history. Join Dr Rob and he wades into the deep waters of mutation theory.
Links:
Guiblet WM, et al. 2021. Non-B DNA: a major contributor to small- and large-scale variation in nucleotide substitution frequencies across the genome, Nuc Ac Res 49(3):1497–1516. Sholtis S, Unusual DNA folding increases the rates of mutations, ScienceDaily.com, 9 Feb 2021. Pyne ALB, et al. 2021 Base-pair resolution analysis of the effect of supercoiling on DNA flexibility and major groove recognition by triplex-forming oligonucleotides. Nat Commun 12:1053.
Thumbnail image: Lucas Santos via Unsplash.com
The idea that Africa was where humans originated has been drilled into our heads for decades, but cracks are beginning to appear, and they are being published by well-known scientists in top-level journals. If it is not true, how can we explain the data from a biblical perspective? To do that, we can turn to any number of ideas, including patriarchal drive, inbreeding, differential mutation rates, selective sweeps, differences in starting population sizes among the modern world populations, higher rates of recombination in the sub-Saharan population, and massive waves of migration into Africa (several of which can be documented) later in history. The biblical account fits the data beautifully.
Links:
Carter R, Patriarchal Drive. BiblicalGenetics.com, 8 Jul 2020. BiblicalGenetics.com/patriarchal-drive. Carter RW. 2019. Patriarchal drive in the early post-Flood population, Journal of Creation 33(1):110–118. Creation.com/patriarchal-drive. Carter R, Twisting tales with ancient DNA. BiblicalGenetics.com, 4 Apr 2020. BiblicalGenetics.com/twisting-tales-with-ancient-dna. Wieland C, Carter R. Not the Flintstones—it’s the Denisovans. Creation.com, 25 Jan 2011. Creation.com/denisovan. Early man outside of Africa: Bechly G. Fossil Footprints from Crete Deepen Controversy on Human Origins. Evolution News, 6 Sep 2017. EvolutionNews.org/2017/09/fossil-footprints-from-crete-deepen-controversy-on-human-origins. Bergström A, Stringer C, Hajdinjak M, Scerri EML, Skoglund P. 2021. Origins of modern human ancestry. Nature 590 (7845):229. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03244-5. Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. On the origin of our species. ScienceDaily, 10 Feb 2021. Sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/02/210210133410.htm. Pavid, K. Modern human origins cannot be traced back to a single point in time. Natural History Museum, 10 Feb 2021. nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2021/february/modern-human-origins-cannot-be-traced-back-to-a-single-point.html. Hinch AG, et al. 2011. The landscape of recombination in African Americans. Nature 476(7359):170–5. doi: 10.1038/nature10336.
Should there be a genetic difference between clean and unclean animals after the Flood? The answer will surprise you! Can you trace modern humans back to each of the three sons of Noah? Again, the answer is probably not what you expect! Dr C addresses these frequently asked questions, while delving into a little military history and a discussion of chromosomal recombination.
Filming location: Orphan Brigade Battlefield Park, Dallas, GA
Notes and links:
Genetic Diversity on Noah's Ark (article on Creation.com) The Orphan Brigade The Tollense River Battle
Genetic entropy is controversial. Creationists say it is real. Evolutionists say it is poppycock. But the theory was developed with long-lived, multicellular species with small population sizes and long generation times in mind (e.g., humans). What about the other end of the spectrum? Can bacteria withstand genetic entropy? Dr Rob says yes, maybe. If there are any species that can survive it, it is bacteria. This does not mean bacteria can evolve, only that they can survive long-term, and survival in an an environment that is so hostile to all life forms is a miracle in itself.
Location: High Shoals Falls, Dallas, GA
Links and notes:
Original article: Genetic Entropy and Simple Organisms on Creation.com Natural Selection in Paradise (posted to Biblical Genetics 15 Sep 2020) What on earth is a gene? Splicing and dicing the human genome (posted to Biblical Genetics 31 Mar 2020)
Dr Rob does his best to explain how the new Covid-19 vaccines work, how they're made, and the pros and cons (mostly pro) of the new technology.
Location: Orphan Brigade Battlefield Park, Dallas, GA
Links and notes:
RNA Vaccines: Harnessing God’s design to help prevent sickness, but will the new vaccine technology alter our DNA? (Creation.com/rna-vaccines) CMI, vaccines, and vaccination (Creation.com/cmi-vaccination) How Covid-19 Testing Works (BiblicalGenetics.com/how-covid-19-testing-works)
Location: Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary and CREW Bird Rookery Swamp Trail, near Estero, Florida, USA
We can only understand the size of DNA by comparing it to something else. If you, for example, scaled it up to the length of a major highway, how wide would it be? If you took all the DNA in your body, could you use it to lasso the solar system? Could you wrap it around the sun? How many times? When couched in math like this, the only rational response for the Christian is to praise the Creator of life and the Programmer of that wonderful computer operating system found in all of our cells.
DNA can only withstand so much mutation and breakage before it breaks down. An amazing system of repair enzymes keeps decay in check, mostly. Yet, without the crazy complex system of DNA maintenance and repair, life cannot exist, which brings up questions of how we got here.
Location: Loop Road Scenic Drive, Big Cypress National Preserve, South Florida, USA
Notes and links:
Salisbury DF, Newly discovered DNA repair mechanism, 5 Oct 2010, sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101004112156.htm. Rubinson EH et al. 2010. An unprecedented nucleic acid capture mechanism for excision of DNA damage. Nature, 2010; DOI: 10.1038/nature09428. Sarfati DM. DNA and bone cells found in dinosaur bone, 23 April 2020, creation.com/dino-dna-bone-cells. Chaterjee N, Walker GC. 2017. Mechanisms of DNA damage, repair and mutagenesis. Environ Mol Mutagen. 58(5):235–263; ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5474181/.
Thumbnail: Melani Sosa via Unsplash.com
Notes and links:
Journal of Creation subscription page The ATP synthase motor The 'one gene–one enzyme' hypothesis, Beadle and Tatum, 1941 What on earth is a ‘gene’? Slicing and dicing the genome, Biblical Genetics episode 6 The Genome is Even More Complicated than we Imagined!, Biblical Genetics episode 5 Truman, R., The surprisingly complex tRNA subsystem: part 1–generation and maturation, Journal of Creation 34(3):80–86, 2020. Truman, R., The surprisingly complex tRNA subsystem: part 2–biochemical modifications, Journal of Creation 34(3):87–94, 2020. Machnicka, M.A. et al. 2013. MODOMICS: a database of RNA modification pathways—2013 update, Nucleic Acids Research 41(Database issue):D262–D267; ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3531130. Review of Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution
The idea is that all humans came from a first couple. Many people don't think this is possible, but Dr C demolishes one common argument against Adam and Eve: the thought that you can't get millions of rare variations in the genome if you start with just two people a few thousand years ago. In fact, not only are Adam and Eve an excellent fit for the real-world data, but computer modeling tells us the biblical scenario is a better fit to the data than the evolutionary one.
Links:
Sanford J, Carter R, Brewer W, Baumgardner J, Potter B, and Potter J. 2018. Adam and Eve, designed diversity, and allele frequencies. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, ed. J.H. Whitmore, pp. 200–216. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Creation Science Fellowship. An audio recording of this presentation is also available. The Non-Mythical Adam and Eve! Refuting errors by Francis Collins and BioLogos. Carter RW. 2019. A successful decade for ‘Mendel’s Accountant’, Journal of Creation 33(2):51–56. 1000 Genomes Project
Origin-of-life research got a boost with the recent publication of a massive new computer program that was designed to model early chemical evolution. At least, that's what the headlines say. Dr C explains that things are only getting worse for the evolutionary story of how life arose and how these problems tie into the study of genetics.
Location: Pickett's Mill Battlefield State Historic Site, Dallas, GA.
Links:
Tan, C. and Stadler, R., 2020. The Stairway to Life: an origin-of-life reality check, available on Creation.com. Remember to add "I love Biblical Genetics" to the comment section on your order! Evolution's Achilles' Heels (book and documentary), available on Creation.com. Ditto about the comment! The main paper being discussed: Wolos A, et al. 2020. Synthetic connectivity, emergence, and self-regeneration in the network of prebiotic chemistry, Nature 369(6511):eaaw1955. Popular-level summary from MSN.com: Starr, M. 2020. A New Chemical 'Tree of The Origins of Life' Reveals Our Possible Molecular Evolution. Video: New “Allchemy” Software Helps Chart Chemical Origins of Life Uracil synthesis link: DeGraw, J. 1990. Synthesis and antifolate properties of 10-alkyl-5,10-dideaza analogs of methotrexate and tetrahydrofolic acid, J Med Chem 33:673–677. Grigg, R. 2012. Did Darwin become a Christian before he died? on Creation.com. There is also an audio version of this article available. Jacob's Livestock Breeding Experiment, Biblical Genetics (episode 22) July 1, 2020. You can copy and paste these quotes into any search engine to find the proper reference or the larger context:
Letter from Darwin to Joseph Hooker in 1863: “But I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion & used Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant ‘appeared’ by some wholly unknown process.—It is mere rubbish thinking, at present, of origin of life; one might as well think of origin of matter.” Darwin's Origin of Species last page: “Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.” Darwin's Origin of Species last sentence: “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Darwin's 'warm little pond' quote in another letter to Joseph Hooker, 1871: “But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sort of ammonia and phosphoric salts,—light, heat, electricity present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present such matter would be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed”
Epigenetics deals with those things that control which genes are turned on and off, and at what time, in the cell. It is a serious challenge to the neo-Darwinian idea that evolution occurs via a simple mutation + selection scenario.
Location: Sweetwater Creek State Park, Douglasville, GA
Links:
Darwin’s Lamarckism vindicated? Genetic Diversity on Noah’s Ark Sciamenna, I. et al. The active role of spermatozoa in transgenerational inheritance. Proc. R. Soc. B 286:20191263, 2019; http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.1263. Chen, Q. et al. Epigenetic inheritance of acquired traits through sperm RNAs and sperm RNA modification, Nature Reviews Genetics 17:733–743, 2016; https://www.nature.com/articles/nrg.2016.106 Sabour, D and Schöler, H.R., Reprogramming and the mammalian germline: the Weismann barrier revisited, Current Opinion in Cell Biology 24(6):716-723, 2012; pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22947493/ CMI's Question Evolution campaign, info, articles, and merch
Natural selection is a controversial topic both among creationists and evolutionists and within creationism. No, it is not 'proof' of evolution, and yes it is a real phenomenon. But it was also operational in the world before Adam fell and sin and death entered the world. There are several reasons for this, as I detail in this video and the associated article.
Filming location: Etowah Indian Mounds State Historic Site (Cartersville, GA)
Links and notes:
Main article on Creation.com: Natural Selection in Paradise The Heavenly state, the New Earth Front loaded information? See Terborg, P., Evidence for the design of life: part 2—Baranomes, Journal of Creation 22(3):68–76, 2008. Information article 1: Carter, R.W., Can mutations create new information? Journal of Creation 25(2):95–98, 2011. Information article 2: Carter, R., Can biologically active sequences come from random DNA? Journal of Creation 31(3):82–89, 2017. Retrotransposons Brain cells: Baillie, J.K., et al., Somatic retrotransposition alters the genetic landscape of the human brain, Nature 479:534-537, 2011. Episode 8: What on earth is a ‘gene’? Slicing and dicing the genome. What does the Bible call "alive"? See Nephesh chayyāh Can bunny rabbits be saved? (No, of course not. Read the article!)
There are three different COVID-19 tests in use today, with several variations of each on the market. What, exactly, do they do? How accurate are they? What can they tell us about this virus? Dr. C goes into the details, concluding that education is the best defense against misinformation.
Links:
COVID-19 antibody testing (MayoClinic.org) Antibody Tests for the Coronavirus (ScienceMag.org) Explained: how a covid-19 serology test works and obstacles to its use (ResearchAmerica.org) Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Fact Sheet (Genome.gov) Coronavirus antigen tests: quick and cheap, but too often wrong? (ScienceMag.org) COVID-19 RT-PCR test details (FDA.gov) Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be. (New York Times) Reverse Transcriptase (Wikipedia) Oops: Coronavirus testing at Boston lab suspended after nearly 400 false positives What on earth is a ‘gene’? Slicing and dicing the genome. Biblical Genetics, episode 8, 31 Mar 2020 Proverbs 25:2
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There is a mysterious passage in Genesis chapter 6 about the "sons of God" having children with the "daughters of men". Scholars argue about what this means, and you can find all sorts of views on the subject in the public area. Some say the sons of God are human, some say they were fallen angels, some say they were aliens. Some say the "nepilim" that resulted were giants, some say they were kings, some say they were Neanderthals. Dr C discusses the genetic implications of the ideas. Was "nephilim" DNA on the Ark? Is it in modern humans?
Links:
Who were the 'sons of God' in Genesis 6? How old was Cain when he killed Able? Are Neanderthals pre-Flood people?
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Pandemic viruses are deadly, but over time they should weaken as they pick up mutations. Will this happen with the pandemic coronavirus? We can only hope. But has it ever happen before? Yes, between 1917 and 2009, the human H1N1 virus picked up thousands of mutations and eventually went extinct (twice). Yet if this virus does not get us, something else will! How does this affect our view of eternity?
Links
Genetic entropy information Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome (available on Creation.com) Carter RW, Sanford, JC (2012) A new look at an old virus: mutation accumulation in the human H1N1 influenza virus since 1918. Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling 9:42 | doi:10.1186/1742-4682-9-42. Carter RW, More evidence for the reality of genetic entropy, Journal of Creation 28(1):16–17, 2014. Carter RW, More evidence for the reality of genetic entropy—update, Journal of Creation 33(1):3–4, 2019. Mendel’s Accountant evolution simulation software The 1917 "Spanish flu" may have started in China The Gospel of John on Bible Gateway.com, English Standard Version
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Additional imagery from Pixabay.com (and, no, I don't know what the words in German mean)
There are certain things in genetics that are truly shocking. Complexity (in this case, of the octopus genome), hybridization between species that are not in any way similar, ancient genetic connections between the Polynesians and the South Americans, and the discovery of massive cassettes of DNA that cause huge changes in organisms–without natural selection or mutation driving the changes–are all new ideas that are amazing and fun to learn about. Some of these are hard to deal with in evolutionary theory. Yet, they fit beautifully into a creation context.
Links:
Octopus
Yong E, Octopuses do something really strange to their genes (The Atlantic, April 6, 2017) Sarfati J, Loving God with all your mind: logic and creation (Journal of Creation, 1998)
Paddlefish/sturgeon
Scientists Accidentally Bred the Fish Version of a Liger (NY Times, 2020) Káldy et al. Hybridization of Russian Sturgeon (Acipenser gueldenstaedtii, Brandt and Ratzeberg, 1833) and American Paddlefish (Polyodon spathula, Walbaum 1792) and Evaluation of Their Progeny (Genes 11:7, 2020) Batten D, Ligers and wholphins? What next? (Creation, 2000)
Pacific Islands share DNA with South America
Wade L Polynesians, Native Americans met and mingled long ago (Science, 2020) Skoglund P, et al., Ancient Genomics and the Peopling of the Southwest Pacific (Nature, 2016)
Hemizygosity
Terborg, P. The hemizygosity hypothesis—a novel genetic paradigm for baranomes (Journal of Creation, 2020) Todesco et al. Massive haplotypes underlie ecotypic differentiation in sunflowers (Nature, 2020)
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Privacy is dead. It never existed online, but even more importantly modern genetics has destroyed any sense of privacy. With millions of people in online databases, and with many of those accessible to the public, almost everybody is essentially identifiable. Criminals who perpetrated crimes long ago are being arrested. Family skeletons are no longer in the closet. Worse, or better, depending on your view, we have no privacy before a holy God.
Links:
Nanopore sequencer Ben Affleck's troubles on Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Bobby Darin's sister was actually his mother With genetic testing, I gave my parents the gift of divorce Hans Jonathan, The Man Who Stole Himself. I spoke about him in an earlier episode. Golden State Killer GEDMatch Barbara Rae-Venter Romans 3:22-25
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Patriarchal Drive is a strange phrase with profound implications. Simply put, very old people having children in a population adds many extra mutations per child. In the biblical model, centuries-old people would have been having children within a fairly small population. This creates a recipe for very long early branches on the family tree to form, and the length of these branches does not equal 'time'. Hence, the molecular clock hypothesis is invalidated in the biblical model.
Links:
Patriarchal drive in the early post-Flood population Age and Sex Effects on Human Mutation Rates: An Old Problem With New Complexities Parental Influence on Human Germline De Novo Mutations in 1,548 Trios From Iceland
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Dr C delves into a difficult passage that deals with some improbable breeding experiments done by the Patriarch Jacob in Genesis 30 and 31. Some claim the genetics is all wrong. Others claim Jacob believed in magic. Neither is the case.
Links:
Jacob’s livestock: a biblical example of applied genetics. Aaron, D.K., Basic Sheep Genetics, casey.ca.uky.edu/files/asc220_basic_sheep_genetics.pdf. Norris B.J. and Whan, V.A., A gene duplication affecting expression of the ovine ASIP gene is responsible for white and black sheep, Genome Res. 18(8):1282–93, 2008. Fan, R., et al., Skin transcriptome profiles associated with coat color in sheep, BMC Genomics 14:389, 2013. Peng, Y., et al., Skin transcriptome profiles associated with coat color in goat, biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/028340v1.
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There are massive racial tensions being expressed in the US and around the world today. While I cannot fix centuries of injustice and oppression in a 15-minute YouTube video, there are answers to the theological and scientific questions people are asking. Some of the answers have been around for a long time. Others can only be addressed with modern genetics, which tell us clearly that there is no such things as 'race'. Biblically, all humans are equal in the eyes of God. Therefore, all humans should be equal in the eyes of the law, in education, and in economic opportunity. But, people are still selfish, biased, and bigoted. What we need is a good dose of the Gospel, because none of us deserve Heaven.
Location: Rob's front porch, Hiram, Georgia.
Links:
Recreating the genome of Hans Jonathan (scientific paper), The Man Who Stole Himself (book) Eupeida.com Haplogrpup R1b map About 10 million common variants among humans Simons Genome Diversity Project Hunter gatherers vs farmers in Europe Racial mixing is perfectly biblical! Inbreeding and the origin of races Skin colour surprises "Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all." Col 3:11 This message by Voddie Baucham is well worth listening to.
Intro Music by Xihcsr Intro Graphics by MattWalkerVideo
There are massive racial tensions being expressed in the US and around the world today. While I cannot fix centuries of injustice and oppression in a 15-minute YouTube video, there are answers to the theological and scientific questions people are asking. Some of the answers have been around for a long time. Others can only be addressed with modern genetics, which tell us clearly that there is no such things as 'race'. Biblically, all humans are equal in the eyes of God. Therefore, all humans should be equal in the eyes of the law, in education, and in economic opportunity. But, people are still selfish, biased, and bigoted. What we need is a good dose of the Gospel, because none of us deserve Heaven.
Location: Rob's front porch, Hiram, Georgia.
Links:
The genetic history of the Israelite nation Extensive mixing among Israelites and non-Israelites in biblical history Racial mixing is perfectly biblical! Inbreeding and the origin of races Skin colour surprises Could Adam and Eve have given rise to all the ‘races’? A troubling thesis—Nicholas Wade pushes an old view of the origin of races (review of A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, by Nicholas Wade) Racial reconciliation: where do we begin? Was there a curse of Ham? "Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all." Col 3:11 This message by Voddie Baucham is well worth listening to. I discuss the 'Curse of Ham' in more depth in the episode Ancient History vs. the Table of Nations.
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We all struggle to explain where everything came from. The science of naturalism is the main approach used today, but naturalism, even though it is a great science for the laboratory, is a lousy science for origins. The alternative to naturalism is theism, and within theism is the biblical approach to origins–the idea that God made the universe through non-natural means. In fact, naturalism comes from Christian philosophy. If God created the universe, the universe should reflect the character of that God. Thus, law, constancy, predictability, and grandeur are pretty much guaranteed. So on the one hand, the universe is naturalistic. On the other hand, the universe was created. These two thoughts are not in conflict.
Location: Winding Stair Gap, Cartoogechaye, North Carolina
Links:
Dystopian science: Part 1: Why the Bible enables science to work We are less than dust How to think (not what to think)
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Dr C revisits the idea of a genetic "bottleneck" and explains why the 'out of Africa' bottleneck would have been a disaster for our species.
Location: Silvermine Commercial Take-out #3, Nantahala National Forest, Bryson City, North Carolina
Links:
Why you shouldn't marry your cousin The genetic effects of the population bottleneck associated with the Genesis Flood The Non-Mythical Adam and Eve! The Waiting Time Problem Most new mutations are quickly lost
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First, there was inherently no mutation load at Creation, so there would be no problem with Adam and Eve's children intermarrying. Ditto the grandchildren of Noah.
https://biblicalgenetics.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Trust-me-im-a-scientist-Biblical-Genetics-episode-16.mp3
Location: Saguaro National Park, near Tucson, Arizona
Links:
Richard Dawkins Louis Leakey Information in biology Can random mutations creation biological 'information'? See the Origin of Life section in Evolution's Achilles' Heels The Waiting Time Problem Eventual Loss of almost all new mutations Natural selection
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What's your response going to be the first time you hear that a human has been cloned? How are you going to react the first you hear that a baby has been born that has been genetically modified? What are you going to do when you go to the doctor with something and your doctor says, "Oh! We can fix that using genetic engineering. I ask those questions because they are not for tomorrow. They are not ten years from now. Those are questions that we are going to be facing in the immediate near future because they're already possible to do.
Dr C discusses the famous "Table of Nations" in Genesis chapter 10 and compares it to what we are learning about ancient human history. But most early humans left no trace of their existence and the Bible only explains the origin of people groups within a few hundred miles of Israel.
Dr C talks about what it is like to be a geneticist in today's world. This is the first time in history where we have more 'data' than 'theory'. There is too much data! So be prepared for some of your cherished theories to be contradicted. This is a fun time to be a scientist.
Location: Niagara Falls State Park (NY)
Links:
The four dimensional human genome defies naturalistic explanations (article by Dr C on Creation.com)
The Human Genome Project
The International HapMap Project
The 1000 Genomes Project
The Simon's Genome Diversity Project
The All of Us Program (1 million genomes)
5000 Genomes from Singapore
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Dr C is at a Christian university and takes the opportunity to speak on issues many theologians have with the book of Genesis. He ends with an encouraging call to remain faithful while studying hard.
Dr C discusses recent claims that the mother of every person alive on earth today lived in southern Africa, in what is now a vast desert. He points out several critical assumptions behind the conclusions and a couple of errors made by the researchers as they attempted to pinpoint the geographic location of the earliest humans.
The fact that ancient DNA exists at all is a minor miracle. And now that we have figured out how to extract it efficiently and sequence it accurately (more or less), we are suddenly able to answer many long-standing historical riddles. Dr. C explains how ancient DNA is revolutionizing our understanding of human history.
Dr. C attempts to explain how only 23,000 genes can manufacture hundreds of thousands of unique proteins in the human body.
Dr. C tries to explain the complexity of the human genome. Problem is, nobody understands it because it is too complex! He compares the genome to a computer operating system, but this quickly gets eclipsed by what he calls the four-dimensional genome.
Dr. C gets himself in hot water as he attempts to dispel some of the myths and misinformation surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.
Despite the real threat of coronaviruses, Ebola, and influenza, Dr C explains why most viruses are good for you, and good for the environment.
Dr. C Explains how we figured out the laws of inheritance, that we did not even figure out DNA was the carrier of information until 1952, and that before this people thought proteins were involved.