SFT: Is Genetic Diversity a Problem for a Literal Adam and Eve? Joshua Swamidass and Biologos Debunked

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I have addressed that argument more times than I can count. It appears you are not up to date on the creationist literature. I was actually just arguing with a Dr. Dan Stern Cardinale on this yesterday. I also debated that same issue last night. Here was my response to your same argument but to Dr. Dan:

"All God has to do is engineer 10M variants into Adam and everything else is easily explained. This actually makes sense considering there are between 10 and 15M common variants worldwide. We each have roughly 3M. Adam would have 10M. Not difficult. Original created genotypes is entirely plausible given the absolute FAILURE of abiogenetics and origins of life research.

Anyways, most of all the world’s variation is 2 alleles, a or c, g or t, with an allele being a flavor of a gene. After creation we have thousands of years for mutations to build up. Therefore many alleles (ones restricted to certain populations) are the result of these mutations over time. For example: blue eyes.

Now, Dr. Dan is right. There are some exceptions to the rule. We have some cases where we have several hundred alleles or variants. One example is the human immune system. There is an extensive amount of variation in the immune system among people worldwide. We have 7 billion people or more today. Think about how many family trees there are. You start with Adam and you begin to branch outwards. We have plenty of time for a mutation to happen in multiple places. Given this fact, with highly mutable genes that we can survive with it turns out we have lots of variation. It also looks like we can inherhit a lot if traits that we acquire while we are alive.

These hypermutable genes used in our immune system, meaning it would be highly profitable to have lots of immune system variants. It is therefore WITHIN the design parameters of this class of genes to be highly mutable with intention.

So no there isn’t a problem with created heterozygosity. That claim would be an Evolution Myth. Actually we addressed this in our rebuttal video the other day (I recommend everybody check that out in order to see both sides of the argument)."

And here is the debate I had last night on that same topic:

If you would like to come onto my channel for a debate on these issues let me know. There are a number of us always willing to do live debates. I recently just had Dr. Kevin Anderson on (a YEC) for a debate and it went great.

Also please checkout the comment section of the original video this post is on for a detailed response to Dr. Swamidass’ above mentioned argument. We have had a detailed discussion there for anybody interested.

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And to what you said above I was quoting Dr. Sanford and Dr. Carter. They are simply saying God COULD HAVE done this. But if you continue reading they make it clear God did not need to do this. All He needed to do was front-load Adam and Eve with the 10-15M commom variants and everything else is explained from there. Here is a phenomenal paper expanding on this:

“Adam and Eve, designed diversity, and allele frequencies”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329767367_Adam_and_Eve_designed_diversity_and_allele_frequencies

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You do realize once you start requiring evidence-free miracles any hopes you had of a scientific explanation go right out the door, right?

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Actually the created heterozygosity hypothesis makes countless testable predictions on mutation rates, speciation rates, and DNA function. I go over a number of these predictions in my recent debate with Dr. Ron Garret found here:

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A maximum of 10 alleles.

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EDIT: I replied to that above. Mutations can add more diversity post-flood.

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Where have you published these predictions and the tests which confirmed them?

We’ve sequenced the DNA of multiple H. sapiens individuals going back over 50,000 years and none show this huge multiple-allele diversity you claim. Why is that?

Do you realize chimps have considerably more genetic diversity than humans? Did God make the original “super chimp” pair with tons of genetic diversity too? Why was that?

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Any evidence that these genes are actually hypermutable?

And I see you’re still ignoring a lot of the inconvenient data clearly pointing to a mutational origin for human genetic diversity rather than design. Human Genetics Confirms Mutations as the Drivers of Diversity and Evolution – EvoGrad

When @swamidass has time I’m sure he’d be happy to explain to you (or direct you to previous threads) explaining how created heterozygosity fails to explain the patterns of extant human diversity, with reference to recombination rates and his own work on TMRC4A.

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God gave animals kinds the greater ability to diversify and adapt. This is why chimpanzees have more diversity within themselves than humans. Chimpanzees have more diversity within themselves than humans and Neanderthals. Remember, God created 2 people, Adam and Eve. Therefore, we should expect low genetic diversity. And this is exactly what we find! God created animal kinds in bulk. He created populations of animals, not just 2 of every kind of course. Therefore, more genetic diversity and more created nuclear heterozygosity would have made it off of the ark. I address a lot of this in my new book. We actually have traces of Babel in our genetics. On pages 22-25 of “The First Couple: Adam and Eve – Independent Origins” I point out:

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.

I hope this helped. God bless.

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Also since I am brand new to this, can somebody teach me how to have the persons comment in my thread when I am replying lol I do like that idea, makes it easier to keep track of who is replying to what. Thanks!

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Highlight the text and click the grey “quote” box that appears.

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Since you’re defining “kinds” around the family level, encompassing many species, it shouldn’t be surprising that each “kind” has more genetic diversity than humanity, a single species. This isn’t some kind of novel prediction of creationism, it’s axiomatic.

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Unsupported claim.

Unsupported claim

Not only unsupported but completely contradicted by the actual genetic evidence.

That makes no sense for the single mating pair of unclean animals the Ark supposedly carried. How did those single mating pairs come to have super-heterozygosity?

Not even a little. Just a mini Gish Gallop of unsupported nonsense.

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Thanks! I appreciate it.

We have a lengthy comment thread in the video that this post was originally on discussing some of these issues.

In a nutshell, I see no issue with recombination rates and his work on TMRC4A in regard to Adam and Eve. What we see in genetics is perfectly consistent with the young earth creation bottlenecks including the Out of Babel event.

On Pages 27-30 of my same book mentioned above I touch on some of this important data:

" 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?

  1. The human genome is young: shared blocks of DNA are large and there has not been enough time to scramble them to randomness.
  2. The human population came from a single source: most blocks are shared among all world populations.
  3. The human genome is falling apart: deletions tend to NOT be shared among populations, but are unique to subpopulations (this is further evidence for the youth of the genome and that we came from a single source population in the recent past).”

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.” "

Population genetics is a complex field, but what we see today fits our model. For example, we start with an incredibly small population. Adam and Eve are front-loaded with pre-existing nuclear heterozygosity. Right from the start we have lots of DNA variety. If a scientist approached Adam and Eve 1 hour after the initial creation event and sequenced their genomes, they would conclude that Adam and Eve are just two people in a long line of ancestors. This is because just like today, they would be assuming all nuclear heterozygosity was the result of mutations over time. If it was Dr. Swamidass as one of these scientists he would still be invoking his work on TMRC4A as a problem for Adam and Eve. We know this would be wrong since Adam and Eve were instantly created. Adam and Eve would the undergo rapid population growth. When there are collapses or declines in the population, they recover very quickly (rapid growth would be the rule). This explains the DNA data that we see today. There is no problem.

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@SFT ( @swamidass )

So you are claiming that additional diversity was contributed to the human genome by means of God adding mutations to selected branches of the growing human population?

Why would He do this, while at the same time leaving hundreds of thousands of fossil-filled sedimentary layers, creating the appearance of evolution over millions of years?

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Nothing in all that text addressed recombination rates or TMR4A, despite you saying they are no problem for your model.

You also conspicuously ignored the link I said you were ignoring, which was just * chef’s kiss * perfection.

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I’ll ask again. How did the single mating pairs (two individuals, one male and one female) of all the unclean “kinds” (swine “kind”, dog “kind”, etc.) which got off the Ark manage to keep the incredibly huge amount of claimed created heterozygosity?

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I supported it with overwhelming evidence in a subsequent comment. Please address the HapMap data I provided. I feel a lot is being ignored in what I have said in my comments.

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I also explained why very little of the original created nuclear heterozygosity would be lost. Please re read the thread. Thanks and God bless!

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God did not add these mutations. Please read what I say in full. I gave a prime example of a case with more than 2 alleles with 1 being the result of mutation.