by
Charles Creager Jr.
The Bible clearly states that all mankind is descended from one man and woman; Adam and Eve. In recent years genetic studies have shown this to be the case. One interesting outcome of these studies is support for the fact that our most recent female ancestor ( Eve ) is actually older than our most recent common male ancestor. ( Noah )
Of the two lines of study the one pointing to Eve is the most
interesting. Not only does it provide compelling evidence for
Biblical history, it also stands as an example, of how
evolutionary interpretation actually obscures evidence in support
of the Biblical account, and the lengths evolutionists will go to
dismiss such evidence.
In 1987, a team at the University of California at Berkeley compared the mitochondrial DNA ( mtDNA ) of several groups of people from different geographic locations. They concluded that all of these people had the same female ancestor and called her "Mitochondrial Eve." They then proceeded to calculate the mutations rate based on such evolutionary assumptions as the time of our alleged divergence from a supposed common ancestor with chimps. They concluded based on this estimated mutation rate that Mitochondrial Eve lived 100,000 - 200,000 years ago
In 1997 a paper entitled A High Observed Substitution Rate in the Human Mitochondrial DNA Control Region by Parsons, Thomas J., et al. was published in Nature Genetics. They compared the mtDNA of many mother child pairs and found that mutations in mtDNA occur about 20 times more rapidly than previously thought. Based on these measurements they calculated Mitochondrial Eve lived only about 6,500 years ago.
When I first read about the 1997 study, I was intrigued by the fact that the new date fit the Biblical account so well, but the story has proven more interesting than I ever imagined. Several months later I got into an e-mail discussion about mitochondrial eve, with an evolutionist. He was insistent that only the 100,000-200,000 year date was valid. I also noticed that the 6,500 year date was largely ignored by evolutionist web sites.
The evolutionist I was having the discussion with claimed that the 6,500 year date was invalid because the Berkeley team had used substitution rates, while Parsons’ study had measured mutation rates. I was also informed that Parsons could not have measured substitution rates, because substitutions take many generations for Natural Selection to select the genes to become fixed in the genome. It turns out that this was the key unraveling the plot. I soon began to realize that the whole substitution vs. mutation issue was just an evolutionist word game, being used to excuse the dismissal of the 6,500 year date.
What this all boils down to is that real empirical data is supposed to give way to evolutionary estimates, solely because the empirical data goes contrary to evolution. The fact is that when you stripped away all the evolutionary terminology and assumptions you get:
When these two sets of empirical data are put together, they yield a date for Mitochondrial Eve of about 6500 years. This is about the time the Bible gives for when the real Eve lived. The only real reason this figure is rejected is because it agrees with the Bible, while being contrary to evolution.
Now it is possible that mitochondrial eve is not actually Eve herself but one of her female descendants. She would be the last common ancestor of Noah's three sons. wives. Eve could have been the last common ancestor of these three woman but that ancestor could have been one of Eve's pre Flood female descendants.
The following paper was presented to me by an evolutionist as
more accurate because it used a new method: Max Ingman et al,
Nature 408, 708 - 713, Mitochondrial genome variation and the
origin of modern humans (published in 2000) \
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v408/n6813/full/408708a0_fs.html
Note the following quote:
From the mean genetic distance between all the humans and the one chimpanzee sequence (0.17 substitutions per site) and the assumption, based on palaeontological and genetic evidence, of a divergence time between humans and chimpanzees of 5 Myr, the mutation rate (
) for the mitochondrial molecule, excluding the D-loop, is estimated to be 1.70
10 -8 substitutions per site per year.
Note that they are still calculating the rates based on the assumption that we have a common ancestor with chimps. This is a new method? It's nothing but a reworking of the same method used at Berkeley. The fact is that they are still assuming evolution, to get the old dates.
We still have the one case where it is known that they actually measured the rate of change in human mitochondria DNA, It resulted in a date of 6,500 years.
This is proving to be an excellent case study in how evolutionists assume evolution in calculating dates while ignoring dates that are contrary to it.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4055.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3778.asp
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/mitochondria.html
http://www.mhrc.net/mitochondria.htm
http://www.med.unc.edu/wrkunits/syllabus/yr4/gen/medhist/publish/mitochnotes.htm