Biblical Genetics

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Location: Orphan Brigade Battlefield Park, Dallas, GA

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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

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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.

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