CHAPTER 1 – HUMAN ORIGINS Dismantling the Critics (Overwhelming Evidence For Adam and Eve)

What is the true history of the universe? Are the statements made in the Bible concerning special creation just ordinary stories? Or do they reflect true history? These are all exceptionally important questions and the answers may surprise you. The answers to these key questions have significant consequences to the individuals who choose not to accept them. Most people would agree that Genesis is a very comprehensive account of God’s creative acts. Many people may not agree that this account is truly historical, but they would at least agree it is an account, nonetheless. Genesis claims God has created all things. The book of Genesis even tells us how long ago the initial creation event was. You do not have to go too far into the Bible before you begin reading claims about how things came to be. Genesis 1 tells us that God created the heaven and the earth. We also read about the special creation of man and woman. God created the first couple, Adam, and Eve. This would indicate that every single human being who has ever lived and ever will live have descended from these two people. The Bible tells us that we all descend from one common male ancestor and one common female ancestor. Did this have to be true for deep-time evolution to be true? No. But this did have to be true for Biblical creation to be true. Modern scientific data has confirmed Adam and Eve! This was not a requirement for universal common ancestry. There is every reason to believe that according to universal common ancestry, there would have been multiple mitochondrial lines and multiple Y chromosomal lines. Why is the data so consistent with the claims of Genesis? Guess what? It was the evolutionists themselves that discovered this data that confirms we all descend from one male ancestor and one female ancestor! They decided to call the male common ancestor “Y Chromosome Adam” and they decided to call the female common ancestor “Mitochondrial Eve”. They were wrong on one thing. The most recent common Y chromosome ancestor is Y chromosome Noah! The empirical scientific data suggests that the human Y chromosomes have accumulated only 4500-year worth of mutations. This is how we know that the most recent Y chromosome ancestor is indeed Noah. This genetic related data is strong confirmation that we do not share a relationship with chimpanzees. As a matter of fact, every single male Y chromosome on the planet is nearly identical. There is extraordinarily little variation in the Y chromosome. The evolutionary community say we share a most recent common ancestor with the chimpanzee. The chimpanzee is our closest cousin according to the proponents of evolution. It turns out that when the chimpanzee Y chromosome was sequenced, it was discovered to be less than 70% like the human Y chromosome! The Y chromosome is uni-parentally inherited DNA. It is nearly immune to recombination. The Y chromosome should have been vastly more similar between humans and chimpanzees. Even with the fast mutation rate in the Y chromosome, 70% dissimilarity is far too much for humans and chimpanzees to be related. Since the empirical data suggests we have all descended essentially from Noah’s family just 4500 years ago, the critic may scoff at this by suggesting it is impossible to get 7 billion people today from just 3 couples 4500 years ago. Is this impossible? Absolutely not! As Dr. Robert Carter has pointed out, getting 7 billion people in just a few thousand years is incredibly simple. All you would need to do is double the population every 150 years. We know human populations double much faster than 150 years. 150 years after the flood, there are 12 people.  300 years after the flood, you have got 24 people. 450 years after the flood, there are 48 people. Clearly, we can easily get 7 billion people. Evolutionists would have to invoke massive extinction events to account for the numbers of people on the planet today. Let us look at their model. If we assume their model and propose there were approximately a million Homo erectus on the planet for about a million years, and their average generation time is about 20 years. This would be billions of dead bodies within the timeframe experts in evolution propose Homo erectus existed. Where are all the dead bodies? As a matter of fact, we can fit all the fossils associated with Homo erectus in the trunk of a car. Where are the billions of dead bodies? It looks as if they never existed. This is because evolution has never occurred! Humans did not descend from an ape-like ancestor. As you can see, the book of Genesis makes profoundly serious claims about our origins. The claims made in Genesis have incredibly significant implications regarding genetics, and other fields of science. These claims can be tested scientifically. Anybody familiar with the Bible, and more specifically, the book of Genesis, knows that approximately 1600 years after the creation of Adam and Eve, a global flood took place that nearly wiped out all of humanity. All that was left remaining was 8 people. These were the people on board Noah’s Ark. The Bible also claims that just a few generations after Noah’s great flood, there was a moment in time where all people were dispersed from a central location. This location was called Babel. This indicates 3 starting points. Scripture tells us we originated with Adam and Eve, followed by a global flood where we re-started with Noah’s 3 sons and their wives. And then eventually we finally disperse as people groups during the tower of Babel event. All these events occur in the book of Genesis. This is where we find the history of the universe and the history of humanity laid out for us nice and clear. But once again, the question is asked, are these real historical events? Is this the true history of the universe? As I iterated earlier, these claims found in scripture can be tested to the scientific data. We should be able to make accurate retrodictions and predictions. According to the Babel story, a location in the Middle East, all peoples migrated away from this central area. This would lead to an expected pattern if it were true. Modern scientific data has confirmed this pattern. Unfortunately, the evolutionary community has assumptions about deep time evolutionary history. Therefore, they have invented the Out of Africa theory that suggests people have migrated out of a central area somewhere in Africa. Experts in evolution have moved this central location away from the Middle East and positioned it just a bit further away in Africa. The data is just too uncomfortable for proponents of evolution. One could even say it's just too close for comfort. 

We can detect the Babel event in our genetics. Dr. Robert Carter makes an incredible observation in his article from The Journal of Creation 25 (2) titled “Can mutations create new information?” (References can also be found at the end of the book)

“I do not believe all current human genetic differences are due to mutation. We have to make a distinction between mutation and ‘designed variation’. There are a huge number of single letter differences between people, and these are mostly shared among all people groups.2 This indicates that much of the diversity found among people was designed: Adam and Eve carried a significant amount of diversity; this diversity was well-represented on the Ark and in the Babel population immediately after the Flood, and the post-Babel people groups were large enough to carry away most of the variation present at Babel. Most deletions (~90%), however, are not shared among the various human subpopulations.3. This indicates that a significant number of deletions have occurred in the human genome, but after Babel. Deletions are apparently not designed variation and are an example of rapid genomic decay. The same can be said of DNA insertions, but they are about 1/3 as common as the same-size deletion. The ubiquity of large, unique deletions in the various human subpopulations worldwide is evidence for rapid erosion or corruption of genetic information, through mutation.”

Another common objection made by critics who misunderstand the biblical model of ancestry has to do with alleles. Critics have put forth the argument that the highly variable positions found within the genome is a contradiction to the created heterozygosity hypothesis. Dr. Robert Carter addresses this objection in his article titled “Adam, Eve, and Noah vs Modern Genetics”:

“Most variable places in the genome come in two versions and these versions are spread out across the world. There are some highly variable places that seem to contradict this, but most of these are due to mutations that occurred in the different subpopulations after Babel.

There are indications, however, that Eve may not have been a clone. The ABO blood group is a textbook example of a gene with more than two versions.3 There are three main versions of the blood type gene (A, B, and O). However, many, but not all, people with type O blood carry something that looks very much like a mutant A (the mutation prevents the manufacturing of the type A trait on the outside of cells). So here is a gene with more than two versions, but one of the main versions is clearly a mutation. This is true for many other genes, although, as usual, there are exceptions. The important take home point is that essentially all of the genetic variation among people today could have been carried within two people, if you discount mutations that occurred after our dispersion across the globe. This is a surprise to many.”

Source: Robert W. Carter , “Adam, Eve and Noah vs Modern Genetics,” Creation Ministries (May 11, 2010), www.creation.com/noah-and-genetics.

As we can see, mutations can clearly occur after the flood and after Babel. These mutations would create additional versions of the original created alleles. There is no contradiction to the hypothesis that suggests God would have encoded Adam and Eve with front-loaded DNA diversity. What we see in terms of allele frequencies is exactly what one would expect if the biblical model of ancestry were true. This is all a reflection of the Babel dispersal. 

In the same article (Adam, Eve and Noah vs Modern Genetics), Dr. Robert Carter points to some fascinating observations regarding X chromosomes as well as the Y chromosome.

“How many X chromosome lineages were on the Ark? That depends. If you count it all up, you get eight. If, by chance, Noah’s wife passed on the same X chromosome to each of her three sons (25% probability), then there were seven. If Noah had a daughter after the Flood (not expected, but possible), there could be as many as nine X chromosome lineages. Either way, this is a considerable amount of genetic material. And since X chromosomes recombine (in females), we are potentially looking at a huge amount of genetic diversity within the X chromosomes of the world.

Does this fit the evidence? Absolutely! It turns out that Y chromosomes are similar worldwide. According to the evolutionists, no “ancient” (i.e., highly mutated or highly divergent) Y chromosomes have been found.5 This serves as a bit of a puzzle to the evolutionist, and they have had to resort to calling for a higher “reproductive variance” among men than women, high rates of “gene conversion” in the Y chromosome, or perhaps a “selective sweep” that wiped out the other male lines.6 For the biblical model, it is a beautiful correlation and we can take it as is.”

Not only do the critics attack the biblical model of ancestry by misrepresenting it, they’ve also attacked it using non-scientific arguments that reflect a very poor understanding of basic genetics. Many critics that I have personally engaged with have challenged my arguments by asserting there is no possible way for Adam and Eve to carry as much genetic diversity that would be necessary to explain the genetic diversity we see in humans today. I have already addressed the fact that genetic diversity does not need to arise through millions of years of mutation accumulation since genetic diversity could be built in at creation. Once again, Dr. Robert Carter gives a phenomenal and very technical answer to this apparent problem and challenge to biblical creation and the model of independent origins. Dr. Carter presents this argument in his article titled “The Non-Mythical Adam and Eve! Refuting errors by Francis Collins and Biologos”. Please read this entire article for an amazing refutation of Francis Collins and Biologos. Here is the specific excerpt on created diversity and allele frequencies:

“Is it possible for a single person to carry this much diversity? I ran an analysis of the HapMap data to measure the amount of heterozygosity within the HapMap individuals. Population-level differences were slight, with a global average of 4.33 ± 0.234 × 105 (±SD) heterozygous alleles per person. Thus, approximately 30% of all HapMap alleles are heterozygous within each person. If there are 10 million common variants, a single individual would be expected to carry upwards of three or four million heterozygous alleles! Because most people are phenotypically normal, there is no reduction in fitness associated with these high levels of heterozygosity. Why should there be if most of this variation was created by God and engineered into the original genome? I expect Adam had about 10 million or more heterozygous loci and that each of his children had half that much.

Some alleles, however, have been added to the population through mutation. How much genetic diversity is due to mutation? Given the 10 million common variations in the human genome, there are many more ‘private’ and very rare variants that occur in one or a few individuals in specific populations. These should be mutations that have occurred since the Flood and Babel. With an average (modern) generation time of 30 years, there have only been about 150, perhaps as many 200, generations in all of human history. Assuming a conservative modern estimate of 100 new mutations per person per generation, that gives us between 15 and 20 thousand mutations per person. This is a huge number when added up across the world population, and most of these should be unique (perhaps even totaling more than the amount initially created). Yet, on the individual level, it might be expected that only a small fraction (less than 0.01%) of heterozygosity is due to mutation.”

Source: Robert W. Carter, “The Non-Mythical Adam and Eve! Refuting errors by Francis Collins and BioLogos,” August 20, 2011, www. creation.com/historical-adam-biologos.

Dr. Robert Carter has spent considerable time analyzing the HapMaP data and has come to some intriguing conclusions. In his article “Does Genetics Point to a Single Primal Couple? A response to claims to the contrary from BioLogos”, we find these intriguing conclusions. Does the data fit the biblical model of origins? Have a look for yourself:

“The HapMap Project3 was designed to catalog a significant fraction of human genetic diversity. They analyzed millions of variants in thousands of people from around the world and made the data freely available. One might wonder, if the HapMap is so unfriendly to the creation model, why do I have much of that data stored on my hard drive? In fact, I am quite happy with what we learned from the project (I am even happier with the 1000 genomes project, which is a step above HapMap, but which is not yet complete). What have we learned?

Source: Robert W. Carter, ““Does Genetics Point to a Single Primal Couple? A response to claims to the contrary from BioLogos” August 20, 2011, https://creation.com/historical-adam-biologos

As we know from scripture, there are a few events that would be considered bottlenecks. This would be the creation event, the flood, and Babel. I have personally engaged in well over 50 live debates and an incredibly common objection to the biblical model of ancestry has to do with these bottlenecks. They have made the argument that the flood bottleneck would have reduced levels of heterozygosity to a point that speciation and adaptation post-flood and post-Babel would have been implausible. This is an argument that I have dealt with in my previous books. If you have read these books, or seen my debates, you would know that the bottleneck at the flood was only one generation and it was followed up by rapid and exponential population growth. Extraordinarily little of the original created heterozygosity would have been lost based on these facts. Dr. Robert Carter has also addressed this argument in the same article that was previously cited (“Does Genetics Point to a Single Primal Couple? A response to claims to the contrary from BioLogos”). 

“Another part of their error comes from the fact that the authors substitute an evolutionary bottleneck for the biblical one. In evolutionary mathematics and theory, one rarely considers a single-generation bottleneck. Rather, a “bottleneck” is defined as a restriction in the population size that lasts long enough to have an effect. A single-generation event (e.g., Noah’s Flood), with a rapid expansion of the population afterward (prior to and after Babel), will lead to a negligible loss of diversity.”

We can see here why there would have been minimal loss of heterozygosity. In the same article, Dr. Robert Carter states:

“The three founding Ark couples could have carried a huge percentage of the pre-Flood genetic variation (Adam and Eve’s diversity + pre-Flood mutations), with the exception of the Y chromosome (total loss of all but one line) and mtDNA (restricted to three lines). Hence, the biblical model fits the available data nicely and the data do not serve as an easy refutation of Adam and Eve.”

If you have engaged the proponents of evolution as much as I have, you will be familiar with their arguments against the so-called “races”. Before I answer this question, I want to point out that modern scientific data has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is one race, the human race! Let us get to the arguments made by the critics. Where did all the races come from and how do we account for them in just a few thousand years? The answer to this can be found in our genetics. This all goes back to Gregor Mendel. Mendel lived at the same time as Charles Darwin. Looking at basic genetics and basic genetic principles, we can look at it in terms of capital and lower-case letters (Big A, little a, big B, little b). These letters represent unique features and traits. For example, if you have a capital A for dark skin and a lower-case a for light skin, and if you have a couple such as Adam and Eve, we can then ask the question: what were Adam and Eve according to their skin tone? Let us figure this out together. If Adam and Eve were Capital A, capital A, capital B, capital B, then both have dark skin. This means all they can produce is dark skin. The same thing would be true if they were all lower-case letters, which would mean they can only produce light skin people. Since we look to the idea of front-loaded genetic diversity (created heterozygosity), we know that Adam and Eve would have had pre-existing DNA differences. It would make no sense scientifically, and theologically, for God to create Adam and Eve homogeneous. It is doubtful that God would have wanted Adam and Eve to produce clones. God did say to be fruitful and multiply. Would this command really have made any sense if God intended Adam and Eve to produce offspring exactly like themselves? Of course not. Pre-existing DNA differences is what makes sense. This model even leads to testable and falsifiable predictions. A few of these predictions involve speciation rates, mutation rates, and DNA function. We will touch on more of this later. And so, if Adam and Eve are a mix of capital and lowercase letters, capital A, lower case a, capital B, lower case b, and were a middle brown skin tone, they would have the potential to produce every shade of skin that exists on this planet. And this is all simply basic genetics! Adam and Eve would have had within their DNA the genetic potential to produce every shade of skin that exists on this planet or known to man. Essentially, there are no races. There is one race: the human race. The “races” all come from the genetic potential that exists within Adam and Eve. The reason why these genetic differences were sorted out and these groups were isolated goes back ultimately to Babel. This is where they would have been one language and mixed features. The spreading out from Babel explains the particular set of genetic features seen around the globe and these sets of genes are unique markers of their past lineages. We have literal traces of Babel in our genetics! This all comes back to the origin of genetic diversity. Critics of biblical creation have often pointed to the levels of genetic diversity in humans today as an objection to a literal Adam and Eve. I touched on this earlier in the chapter. But since this is such a common objection, I want to demolish it to the point where the critics may finally stop using arguments that have been addressed so thoroughly. It should make the creationist wonder if the critics are even paying attention. Are they truly looking for an answer? Well, I have also addressed this in my first book “Universal or Separate Ancestry? The Biblical Model of Origins Made Easy” on pages 53 and 54:

“Skeptics of the biblical creation model will often point to current human genetic diversity as an objection to a literal Adam and Eve. What they will say is that there is no feasible way scientifically for only two people to have the potential to generate all the genetic diversity and DNA differences we see in the world today. This argument reflects both a limited understanding of theology and a limited understanding of science. 

God commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Would it have made any sense for God to have created the first people genetically homogenous with absolutely no DNA diversity? God did not say be fruitful and clone yourselves. He said be fruitful and multiply. What makes the most sense biblically and scientifically is that God created Adam and Eve with front-loaded DNA differences. This is the concept of created heterozygosity (a state of DNA diversity or DNA differences). This hypothesis also makes testable predictions. The funny thing is that geneticists have attacked Adam and Eve using this unfounded argument. What does basic genetics tell us?

 A man and a woman today could have thousands, even millions of children and no two children would be 100 percent identical. This is because they are heterozygous (a state of being genetically different). There exists built in diversity in millions of sites within the genome of the average person. 

We propose that God created Adam and Eve to be heterozygous (millions of DNA differences in chromosome pairs), and this would in fact be optimal design. With this as a basic starting point, you could have as much human diversity and more than we have today in their first family. Time is not required for the diversity today, because diversity can be designed and built into Adam and Eve.”

Another objection thrown at biblical creation and independent origins is the claim that there is no way we could account for all the species we see today in just a few thousand years. Once again this comes down to the basic misunderstanding of the biblical creation model. Do biblical creationists propose mutations are the source for all genetic diversity? As you have seen, the answer to this question is no. Biblical creationists invoke created genetic diversity and front-loaded DNA differences. I also address this overused objection on pages 66-67 in “Universal or Separate Ancestry? The Biblical Model of Origins Made Easy”:

“These basic assumptions preclude the evolutionist from even considering the possibility that there was front-loaded genetic variety and created functional DNA differences from the start. They have overlooked this remarkable explanation for how millions of species and incredible variety could have come about in just a few thousand years. With front-loaded genetic diversity that applies not only to Adam and Eve, but also to the created biblical kinds, generating thousands of species after the flood is easy. All it would take is genetic processes such as recombination, gene conversion to create new chromosomal combinations and genetic variety in even a single generation. This is because the differences are already built in and we do not need millions of years to generate all the DNA differences by mutation. Other speciation related processes such as population breakaways, inbreeding, isolation, and shifts from heterozygosity to homozygosity would be all that is necessary to produce new species.”

If the differences are built in from the start, generating new species is easy. As a matter of fact, the numbers of species on the planet today are far better explained by the young earth creation model. 

Before we conclude this chapter, I want to note that many critics of the front-loaded DNA diversity model have used an argument that reflects a poor understanding on how to best define allele. Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson has had an extensive written debate with Dr. Stefan Frello that can be found on the Answers In Genesis website in the Answers Research Journal section. Dr. Stefan Frello has also chosen to utilize this poor argument against the created heterozygosity hypothesis. Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson addresses the argument by first pointing to where Dr. Frello has accurately represented his model:

“Let’s start by identifying where Frello’s claims and representations of Replacing Darwin are correct. In these paragraphs, he clearly and unambiguously states the genetic compartment to which he refers—the nucleus (“15 nuclear genes”). He also correctly identified my explanation for the origin of the DNA differences in this nuclear DNA compartment as, “the majority of genetic variation within families is due to original created variation.”

But then Frello’s argument commits a common genetic mistake. In his endnote, he (correctly) defines an allele as “One of two or more versions of a particular DNA position” (emphasis mine). But then he contradicts himself in the paragraph above: “a maximum of four alleles1 of each gene could be present in this original pair” (emphasis mine). By definition, genes consist of more than one DNA position. So which is it? Is an allele a version of a particular DNA position? Or a version of a gene that contains hundreds to thousands of DNA positions? Frello can’t have it both ways.” (Most italics in this book have been added by this author)

Next, Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson points out that this argument that Dr. Stefan Frello has employed has been addressed in a prior published paper. This again goes to show that these militant critics of biblical creation fail to read the relevant literature before making an argument. 

“In fact, his argument rests on his (erroneous) adoption of the second definition—that alleles are different versions of genes. Under this definition, he misrepresents my explanation for nuclear DNA differences. In fact, in one of my published papers (Jeanson and Lisle 2016) that I refer to at least 15 times in Replacing Darwin, I explicitly addressed Frello’s error:

If an allele is defined in terms of a gene unit, then generating “allelic” diversity by mutating just one gene per mutational event produces little diversity. Instead, if an allele is defined as a single genomic position, independent of its relationship to a gene, then enormous allelic diversity can be generated by mutation . . . As an aside, allelic diversity need not arise via mutation. Again, if we use the genomic position definition of an allele rather than the gene unit definition, other mechanisms besides mutation can generate allelic diversity. For example, a single gene typically spans thousands of nucleotides, and SNVs [SNVs = Single Nucleotide Variants] might be distributed throughout the gene—for example, at 90 of the nucleotides within the gene. If we allow for the genomic position definition of alleles, every single one of these 90 SNVs may have existed in a heterozygous state in each of the individuals of the pairs brought on board the Ark.

Expanding this single gene example across the entire genome reveals a tremendous potential for allelic diversity on the Ark. In just two diploid individuals, four genome copies exist. Since only four DNA base-pairs exist, virtually every possible genomic position allele (i.e., far more than 4–28 gene unit alleles) could have been present at the time of the Flood, if the individuals were heterozygous. (Jeanson and Lisle 2016, 99) [emphases in original paper]

In other words, every single one of the nuclear DNA differences in Frello’s graph could have existed in a heterozygous state in the felid ancestor on board the Ark—because my model defines alleles in terms of DNA position, not individual genes. Thus, Frello’s (apparent) claim—that a maximum of four versions of each gene could be present in this original pair—is incorrect.

Conversely, my model has no need for the mutation rates that Frello claims; in fact, in theory, it has no need for mutations in this example at all. Frello has made a common genetic error, which nullifies his conclusion.” Source: Jeanson, Nathaniel T. 2018. “Response to ‘No Replacement of Darwin: A Review of Replacing Darwin—The New Origin of Species’.” Answers Research Journal 11: 63–83.

I encourage the reader to analyze both sides of the written exchange between Dr. Stefan Frello and Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson. I genuinely believe it is a prime example as to why the evolutionary community is only capable of grasping at straws. As I have stated before, the critics of biblical creation have nothing left to offer. 

Written exchanges found here:

Jeanson, Nathaniel T. 2017a. “Response to ‘On the Creationist View on mtDNA’.” Answers Research Journal 10: 183–186.

Jeanson, Nathaniel T. 2017b. Response to “Reply to ‘Response to ‘On the Creationist View on mtDNA’.” Answers Research Journal 10: 239–240.

Replacing Darwin book found here - Jeanson, Nathaniel T. 2017c. Replacing Darwin: The New Origin of Species. Green Forest, Arkansas: Master Books.

Jeanson, Nathaniel T. 2018. “Response to ‘No Replacement of Darwin: A Review of Replacing Darwin—The New Origin of Species’.” Answers Research Journal 11: 63–83.

Frello, Stefan. 2018a. “No Replacement of Darwin: A Review of Replacing Darwin—The New Origin of Species.” Answers Research Journal 11: 57–62.

Frello, Stefan. 2018b. “Still No Replacement of Darwin: A Reply to Nathaniel Jeanson’s Response to my Review of Replacing Darwin—The New Origin of Species.” Answers Research Journal 11: 275–284.

Response to “Still No Replacement of Darwin: A Reply to Nathaniel Jeanson’s Response to My Review of Replacing Darwin—The New Origin of Species” - https://answersingenesis.org/theory-of-evolution/still-no-replacement-darwin-response/