Creation, Evolution, and DNA

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. — Psalms 139:14

James Parkinson

Two efforts have recently been published on DNA comparisons of the world’s women and men. The conclusion is that all women in the world have descended from a single female ancestor, and that all men in the world have descended from a single male ancestor. Moreover, the common male ancestor was more recent than the common female ancestor. [In Genesis, Noah is about 25% more recent than Eve.] The attempts at dating seem to yield conflicting results. Part of the attempt at dating these common ancestors is consistent with the Genesis account of Creation, while the other part is too ancient for Genesis and too recent for any known evolution views.

With a diminishing number of scientific ways to distinguish between creation and a continually changing evolution, DNA sequencing is a new arbiter.

In order to discuss evolution, pro or con, it is necessary to recognize that there have been three successive theories of evolution, thus far:

(1) Variation Theory (Darwin, lasted into the 20th century; now dead)

(2) Mutation Theory (DeVries, lasted into the late 20th century; dying out)

(3) Calamity Theory (Gould, beginning in the 1970s)

Darwin postulated that genetic characteristics came from every part of the body, that each succeeding generation had a progressively wider variability potential, and that nature selected out those variations which were best able to compete for scarce food. Mendel’s discovery of genetic laws, even before discovery of DNA (deoxy ribonucleic acid), undermined the first two assumptions. DeVries’ discovery of mutations, just after the turn of the century, was its death knell, though mutations were later invoked as the mechanism of a not-quite-so-uniform evolution (Theory 2). Failure of Mutation Theory to lead to the production of new and viable species, plus the failure to find much suggestion of any transitional forms, weighed down upon it also. Thus, Stephen Jay Gould and others hypothesized that there is no progressive evolution, but that a punctuated equilibrium ("punc eq") resulted from some great cataclysm, which by its enormous stress produced a broad spectrum of genetic freaks, of which only a tiny minority could survive: these few then expanded into a food-rich environment. Gone are all three fundamental assumptions of Darwin: (1) All things have proceeded at a constant rate (including the geologic deposition rate, by which time has been estimated), (2) evolution is progressive from generation to generation, and (3) the species competed in a food-rich environment.

To the paleontologist in the field, the predictions from Calamity Theory (Theory 3) are now about the same as from Creation Theory (using the Day-Age theory for Genesis 1–2). Thus, the creationist will exult that evolutionists have been compelled to change their theory to look like Creation Theory. However, there is now an opportunity to distinguish between these two: DNA.

In 1987 a UC Berkeley group reported that DNA studies of a larger number of women worldwide show that they are all descended from a common female ancestor.1 Molecular filaments extending from the DNA nucleus — called mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) — are inherited maternally. Of ~1016 mtDNA molecules within a typical human, they are usually identical. Mutations of mtDNA occur several times faster than those in the nucleus, so that there are sufficient differences in the global population to be statistically significant (even though a majority of code sites still show no variation).

In 1995 Dorit, et al., reported that paternally-inherited DNA studies of a representative cross section of the world’s male population show no variation, and hence that all men are descended from a single male ancestor.2 Special care was taken to assure a representative distribution throughout the world’s ethnic population. They express surprise, as the finding is inconsistent with expectations from evolution theories. Using a mean mutation rate deduced from an evolutionary framework, they calculate that the common male ancestor was less than 800,000 years ago (95% confidence) and probably less than 27,000 years ago, assuming a rapidly diverging population (the star model). Because the mutation rate is much more likely to have been underestimated than overestimated, these ages are likely to be reduced further.3

Along a parallel line, the incompatibility of a monogenesis of humanity and an assumed polygenesis of language is in process of being resolved by a monogenesis of language also.4 Roger Wescott discusses the paradox (BPX 33, p. 56), while V.M. Illic-Svityc has reconstructed nearly seven hundred Nostratic words (the root language for about 60% of the present world’s people). Václav Blazek has traced twelve world roots ("Materials for Global Etymologies," BPX 20, pp. 37–40), while John Bengtson expands on them ("Eve’s Dictionary," and "Global Etymologies and Linguistic Prehistory," BPX 33, pp. 474, 480). Of five thousand languages in the world, Ruhlen lists fewer than a dozen isolates that do not apparently fit into one of about a dozen major proto-language groups. (One of these, Sumerian, or Old Babylonian, is probably referred to in Genesis 11, from which it might be inferred that it was invented.)

The deduced existence of a single female ancestor, and also of a probably-later single male ancestor, is easily understood in terms of the Genesis account of (Adam and) Eve and then Noah. The dating of the common female ancestor is not now concordant with the Genesis chronology, though redating the colonizations of Australia and New Guinea consistent with Genesis chronology presently comes within a factor of two for Eve; the upper-limit dating of the male ancestor is consistent with both Adam and Noah. The evidence for a common origin also of language is consistent with Genesis 11:1, "And the whole earth was of one language and of one speech." (ASV)

While the last word has yet to be spoken on the DNA evidence, as of now challenging the Genesis account has been, and still is, fraught with risk.5

1. Rebecca L. Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Allen C. Wilson, "Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution," Nature, 325, pp. 31–36 (1 January 1987).

2. Robert L. Dorit, Hirashi Akashi, and Walter Gilbert, "Absence of Polymorphism at the ZFY Locus on the Human Y Chromosome," Science, 268, pp. 1183–1185 (26 May 1995).

3. Dorit, et al., consider four possibilities: (1) A recent origin for modern Homo sapiens, (2) A recent selective sweep, (3) Recurrent male population bottlenecks, or (4) Historically small effective male population sizes (which they dismiss in footnote 15 as implausible for a 300,000 year period). The first would suggest Adam, the second and third would suggest Noah, and the fourth lacks credibility.

4. First International Interdisciplinary Symposium on Language and Prehistory, Ann Arbor, 1988, November 8–12, ed. Vitaly Shevoroshkin, 5 volumes (BPX 20, 23, 25, 32 and 33); Bochum, Germany: Studienverlag Dr. Norbert Brockmeyer. See also Merritt Ruhlen, A Guide to the World’s Languages, Volume 1: Classification, Stanford University Press, 1987.

5. The risk is to some extent dependent upon the understanding of what is meant by the Genesis record. If the creative days are understood as long epochs of time, the difficulties are minimal, with human creation somewhat before BC 4100, the Flood about BC 2472, and the seventh creative day not yet complete. The solar-day creative-week concept is difficult to harmonize with anything happening before about BC 4129. The gap theory (of an earlier human creation destroyed before the creation of Adam, based on a translation "The earth became without form and void") allows broad possibilities before BC 4129, but the theory seems to be losing its advocates.