Mutations in a “Very Good” Creation?

1. The scientific (or medical) objection: Children produced by people who closely intermarry often have birth defects.
2. The moral (and theological) objection: God’s law says you aren’t allowed to marry a close relative.

In the first article, we explained that the law instituted against close intermarriage came many years after the events being objected to, so there was no prohibition against it in the beginning, and it wouldn’t have been a problem morally or theologically (i.e., you can’t break a law that doesn’t exist). We will now discuss the scientific reasons why close intermarriage is not encouraged today by examining the results of genetic mutations in our DNA. But first, let’s learn a little more about DNA so that we can understand these issues more clearly.

DNA Diagnosis

DNA has been called the language of life. It’s a coded language system made up of four chemical letters, which spell out the genetic information for the construction, operation, and maintenance of our body and all of its functionality in three-letter “words.” DNA functions like a digital code, with the individual letters and words (called codons) making up the paragraphs (genes) and chapters and books (or chromosomes) of information in our genetic library. DNA has been referred to by atheists like Professor Richard Dawkins in this way:

We know that genes themselves, within their minute internal structure, are long strings of pure digital information. What is more, they are truly digital, in the full and strong sense of computers and compact disks. . . . Genes are pure information—information that can be encoded, recoded and decoded, without any degradation or change of meaning. Pure information can be copied and, since it is digital information, the fidelity of the copying can be immense. DNA characters are copied with an accuracy that rivals anything modern engineers can do.1

DNA and its functionality, including its ability to be replicated almost flawlessly, is truly beyond any of our most brilliant human engineers’ capability.

Dawkins’ analysis is correct. DNA and its functionality, including its ability to be replicated almost flawlessly, is truly beyond any of our most brilliant human engineers’ capability. However, we now live in a sin-cursed world, a world where—in the case of DNA—“almost” isn’t good enough.

DNA Downgrade

Unfortunately—no matter how precisely DNA copies its information—mistakes in the form of spelling errors occur from time to time with calculable regularity during a person’s lifetime. On top of that, environmental factors such as UV light, radiation, or damage due to smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs can also cause genetic spelling errors in DNA.

All of these things contribute to the aging process of an individual and are a major factor as to why we all get more saggy, wrinkly, and eventually die. Some of the mutations you collect during your lifetime occur in your germ cells, which means they may get passed on to your offspring who then start off their life with more spelling mistakes than their parents. As a result, these spelling mistakes (mutations) are compounding over time.

Think of it analogously like a digital encyclopedia downloaded onto your computer with a virus that randomly flips letters around now and then, spells words or sentences backward occasionally, or duplicates paragraphs every so often, all of which are then susceptible to even more misspellings over time (these are all analogous to mutations we can observe in DNA).

At first, you would likely be able to read the information in the encyclopedia easily despite the occasional mistake, but given long enough, you would end up with a bunch of nonsensical gibberish, which would hardly be decipherable.

DNA Degeneration

How does this relate to our question of why close intermarriage today can be so damaging? Well, mutations within DNA are mostly random and can occur throughout the entirety of our genetic library. And one scientist discussing our genetics states,

The haploid human genome contains approximately 3 billion base pairs of DNA packaged into 23 chromosomes. Of course, most cells in the body (except for female ova and male sperm) are diploid, with 23 pairs of chromosomes. That makes a total of 6 billion base pairs of DNA per cell.2

Because humans receive their DNA in a paired form from their parents (half from mom and half from dad), it means that there are two bits of information at the same location throughout. If one of those inherited bits is mutated (which could mean the corruption of a specific gene), our biomechanical machinery usually somehow “knows” to choose to express the good gene instead of the corrupted one, resulting in no harm to the person carrying the bad gene.

Now, with billions of DNA letters that can potentially be mutated randomly throughout our genetic library, the chance of any two people having the exact same defect at the exact same location is pretty small. However, with mutations increasing throughout the genome incrementally over time, the statistical probability of it happening will inevitably increase with each generation.

The more closely related you are to someone you procreate with, the higher the probability that you and they will have inherited the exact same mutations, since you both inherited your genetic material from a similar pool of DNA.

And if you inherit the same corrupted gene from both your mother and father (who perhaps themselves each inherited it from a close relative) at the same location in your DNA, the machinery is forced to choose between two defective genes, the results of which can be very harmful indeed. Are you starting to see the problem with close intermarriage these days?

The Effects of Compounding Mutations

Compounding mutations can have seriously negative effects. Chromosomal disorders caused by mutations include Down syndrome, Klinefelter’s syndrome, and Turner’s syndrome, while other disorders such as late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, autism spectrum disorder, spina bifida, and cancer are caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Monogenic (single-gene) disorders such as cystic fibrosis, congenital deafness (that’s people born deaf), muscular dystrophy, and sickle cell anemia are also the result of genetic mutations and can even lead to incredibly rare genetic disorders such as Usher’s syndrome and even mitochondrial diseases.

Fortunately, most mutations are neutral or result in defects that, for all practical purposes, are quite harmless. If one of your ears sits a little lower than the other, one of your legs is slightly longer, or your face is a little asymmetrical, it’s really no big deal, and we are all mutants of a sort.

But the decline in our genetic fitness is inevitable over the long term, which means that, from what we are observing directly in the field of genetic study, we are certainly not evolving and becoming more fit—we are in fact de-evolving. At an increasingly rapid rate.

The Cleveland Clinic (consistently ranked as one of the best hospitals in the US and known around the world for its groundbreaking medical breakthroughs) website states the following when describing genetic disorders.

What is treatment for genetic disorders like?

Most genetic disorders do not have a cure. Some have treatments that may slow disease progression or lessen their impact on your life.

How can I prevent a genetic disorder?

There is often little you can do to prevent a genetic disorder. But genetic counseling and testing can help you learn more about your risk. It can also let you know the likelihood of passing some disorders on to your children.

What is the outlook for people with genetic disorders?

Some conditions, including certain rare and congenital diseases, have a grim prognosis. Children born with anencephaly typically survive only a few days. Other conditions, like an isolated cleft lip, do not affect lifespan. But you may need regular, specialized care to stay comfortable.3

Biblical History and Observational Science Fit Together Perfectly

When people talk about the results of inbreeding or intermarriage, they are really concerned with the exponentially higher probability of negative results from closely related offspring contributing increasing amounts of identically placed corruptive spelling errors in DNA (in the form of genetic mutations) into the gene pool, which will constantly build up over each successive generation. And this is exactly what happened in the case of the Whittaker family discussed in Part 1 (called the US’ most inbred family), as this Daily Record article reports.

The cycle of inbreeding began with identical twin brothers, Henry and John Whittaker. Their children married each other and had over a dozen children.

John had nine kids with his wife, and first cousin, Ada Riggs, including Gracie Irene Whittaker in 1920. Henry had seven children with his wife Sally, including John Emory Whittaker, who was born in 1913.

John Emory and Gracie married in 1935 and had 15 children. The couple were double cousins, sharing both sets of grandparents and their offspring suffered severe physical and mental defects, suspected to be because of their inbreeding.4

So it’s not simply the act of procreating with a close relative that is the cause of these negative effects—the true problem is the increased chance of doubling up mutations at the same location in DNA. But those negative results could come about by random mutations occurring by chance in any two people that produce children around the world, which is why genetic disorders sometimes happen in children with parents that seemingly have no relation to one another whatsoever (even though the Bible would conclude they must be related at some point in history if you analyze their lineage back far enough).

Let’s think this through. If each successive generation of people is getting more and more mutations introduced into the population—what geneticists call genetic load—then if you were to go back in time, there would be presumably fewer and fewer mutations in every previous generation.

This would mean that each generation before us would be better, better, better, until eventually you would arrive at our original parents who, before the fall, would have zero mutations whatsoever. They would be exactly what God called his entire creation following the completion of his works on day six of creation: “very good.” Obviously, corrupt DNA is not very good.

So in light of what we’ve seen from a quick perusal of biblical history combined with a simple examination of what is well-known from the field of genetics, do the two objections that skeptics so often bring against the plain reading of Scripture stand? Well, no.

As mentioned, the first objection was the moral one: God has a law in the Bible that states you should not marry a close relative. But that law was given long after the original, very good creation. Long after sin, corruption, and death had entered the world because of Adam’s rebellion against God.

It would have taken quite a while for mutations to build up to dangerous levels, which was likely why God waited 2,500 years after creation to institute the law against it. But close intermarriage wasn’t prohibited in the beginning stages of human history, no matter how we may feel about it today. After all, God is the one who makes the rules.

As for the second objection, close intermarriage is prohibited today because of the fear of birth defects in the offspring caused by shared genetic mutations in the parents. However, as said, it would have taken quite a while for mutations to permeate human DNA to the point where God had to institute laws against this, so in the beginning, it wouldn’t have been a problem.

So while marrying a close relative may be considered morally wrong today, it wouldn’t have been wrong in any way (physically or morally) in the beginning.

So while marrying a close relative may be considered morally wrong today, it wouldn’t have been wrong in any way (physically or morally) in the beginning. After all, if you are going to populate the earth beginning with just two people, then the first few generations would have had to choose mates from among their immediate family. That doesn’t compare to our present day, where mate selection is infinitely more abundant, the effects of the fall are much more severe, and (likely because of that) God has commanded us not to marry close relatives anymore.

Genetic Entropy

Now, the concepts regarding genomic decay, or what scientists typically refer to as genetic load, are sometimes referred to in creationist circles as genetic entropy—a term coined when Cornell University geneticist Dr. John Sanford wrote a book about the negative effects that the compounding generational mutations are having in the human genome, citing many peer-reviewed studies and the work he himself had done regarding the issue.

However, resistance to the idea of genetic entropy is quite common in secular academia, as it has implications that make it quite incongruous to the story of evolution, despite observational science’s corroboration of it.

So join us for Part 3, where we’ll examine some recent peer-reviewed research from experts in the field of genetics that show operational science supports biblical history and a plain reading of the Genesis text.