Biblical Genetics

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:

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:

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 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:

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:

Some background reading:

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:

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:

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:

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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.

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