From Adam to You: Genetics Supports a Young Earth

DNA isn’t just the instruction manual for our head, shoulders, fingers, and toes. It’s also a clock—one that marks the passage of one generation after another. Inside you is a record of your genealogical history.

Just like our previous exploration, the strength of this evidence for a young earth goes beyond a simple list of scientific evidences. The manner and sequence in which these discoveries were made intensifies the force of the young-earth conclusion.

Why? Because, for decades, evolutionists have fought the origins debate in the realm of process. Process? Yes, the manner and sequence in which discoveries are made. They even wrote this standard for science into federal court decisions, insisting,

The creationists’ methods do not take data, weigh it against the opposing scientific data, and thereafter reach the conclusions. . . . Instead, they take the literal wording of the Book of Genesis and attempt to find scientific support for it. . . . While anybody is free to approach a scientific inquiry in any fashion they choose, they cannot properly describe the methodology used as scientific, if they start with a conclusion and refuse to change it regardless of the evidence developed during the course of the investigation.1

In other words, evolutionists think that creationists do not follow the standard process of science.

Is this true? I’ll let you decide for yourself. What follows isn’t just evidence from human DNA for a young earth. It’s an account of the process by which these discoveries were made. I’ve also provided full references to technical papers where you can look up the original publications and evaluate the claims below for yourself.

Serendipitous Beginnings

My forays into human origins began 15 years ago. I was tasked with developing a biology research program. Once I identified the outstanding research questions, my next task was to locate data to begin experiments. I quickly discovered that, among species alive today on this planet, humans have one of the biggest publicly available datasets of genetic information.

Specifically, in 2009 and the years following, I found that there were tens of thousands of DNA sequences available for a particular type of human DNA. Most of our DNA comes from both parents. The technical term is autosomal DNA. A small fraction comes only via the mother or only via the father. One of the smallest maternally inherited types of DNA is mitochondrial DNA. I began my experiments there.

Well, I should say that I began my search for experimental results with human mitochondrial DNA. I discovered that other labs had already attempted to measure—multiple times—the rate of mitochondrial DNA change. The mutation rate can be determined in a very straightforward manner: Obtain the mitochondrial DNA sequences from several mothers, then obtain the mitochondrial DNA sequences from several of their offspring. Then count the differences. Voilà! The result is the per-generation mutation rate, or the pedigree-based mutation rate.

Unfortunately, the published results for the per-generation mutation rate contradicted one another. So I amassed all the raw results, pooled them, and recalculated the rate, weighing the studies by their statistical robustness.

The new rate turned out to be much too fast for evolution. But it was in line with the expectations of young-earth creation.2 Sort of. I had calculated the expected number of mutations that would occur at this new rate after 10,000 years. It fit. But 10,000 years is the upper limit of what young-earth creationists typically espouse. We tend to prefer 6,000 years.

Nonetheless, this initial result seemed promising. It was consistent across several animal species and even different animal phyla. I kept digging into the data.

Finding the Flood

Eventually, I reanalyzed all the data—human and animal species’ mitochondrial DNA data—within the framework of a 6,000-year-old earth.3 Again, the results from different species agreed with one another. But the statistical ranges of the predictions barely overlapped with the statistical ranges of the known data—at least for humans.

By this point, I had made another observation. This time, I compared human mitochondrial DNA data from individuals around the globe. I converted the results into a family tree. The diagram seemed to show three major deep (i.e., ancient) branches.4 Interesting.

Biblically, all of us alive today trace our ancestry back to Noah and his family. Genesis 9:18–19 identify our direct ancestors specifically as Noah’s sons. His three sons. Three sons who each had a wife. Three wives total.

Recall that mitochondrial DNA is inherited via the mother. Thus, our mitochondrial DNA sequences would ultimately trace back to the three wives of Noah’s sons. And the global family tree showed three major branches. This seemed like a curious coincidence. I saw this as a genetic echo of the flood.

The overall time frame implied by mitochondrial DNA fit 6,000 years back to the creation of Adam and Eve.

At this point, I felt that I was on a productive path. The overall time frame implied by mitochondrial DNA fit 6,000 years back to the creation of Adam and Eve. Then the structure of the mitochondrial DNA-based family tree was consistent with the biblical anthropology of the flood. So far, so good.

Finding Babel?

After the flood, the next major biblical event with global ramifications was the dispersion at the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9). Surely this would leave a profound genetic signature.

But biblically, the dispersion at Babel had a linguistic cause, not a genetic one:

“Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:7–9)

I was sure this linguistic event would have profound genetic consequences. Yet exploring linguistics and genetics side-by-side seemed like a worthwhile endeavor.

I initiated a collaboration with a professional linguist. I mapped out the major mitochondrial lineages around the globe. He and I then compared the mitochondrial DNA maps to the known linguistic maps of humanity.

The results showed some overlap, but many contradictions.

In retrospect, I guess I should have expected this. Consider: Anyone can change their language. But no one can change their DNA. (At least, not yet.)

For example, consider African Americans. In the United States, they speak English. In Latin America, they speak Spanish or Portuguese. All three of these languages are classified in the Indo-European language family, a grouping that includes many European and Middle Eastern/South Asian languages, but not African ones. African Americans have adapted to the Americas by learning new languages.

Nonetheless, at the genetic level, African Americans are unambiguously African in origin. This has been borne out by many published studies.

You can change your language; you can’t change your DNA. No surprise that history based on linguistics was different from history based on DNA.

Well, this was mostly true. I made two observations that set me on a long and very fruitful path toward explosive discoveries. First, there were a small number of areas where linguistics and DNA overlapped. These areas tended to be regions that have historically been isolated during the history of civilization—e.g., Papua New Guinea.

Second, I noticed that some of the linguistic maps reminded me of historical events that I had learned about in school. One of the most arresting was the map of Afro-Asiatic languages. Their distribution in North Africa and the Middle East bore strong resemblance to the geographic extent of the Arab Muslim empires from the first millennium AD.

Then it finally hit me: Both linguistics and DNA are going to record the history in Genesis 11:1–9. . . . and the history of the thousands of years that followed. My preoccupation with Genesis 11:1–9 had been shortsighted. Even the nation of Israel didn’t trace its genealogy back strictly to Abraham. Joseph had an Egyptian wife (Genesis 41:45), which means that two tribes of Israel (Manasseh and Ephraim) descended from mixed-blood. When Israel left Egypt, a “mixed multitude” left with them (Exodus 12:38). In the promised land, the Israelites freely intermarried with Canaanites (Judges 3:5–6). Eventually, the northern tribes were hauled off to Assyria, and Judah was conquered by Babylon and Persia. And all this transpired before we even get to the New Testament!

If this is how much migration, conquest, and intermixing happened in Israel’s history, imagine how much had happened throughout the rest of the world.

At this point, I reversed my approach to tackling the question of post-flood mitochondrial DNA history. Rather than start with Babel and work forward in time, I decided that the best approach would be to start in the present and work backward in time through the long series of historical events that define our present world.

A Promising Start

By 2016, there were publicly available data for Africans and for African Americans.5 I knew that the transatlantic slave trade was the ugly explanation for the existence of Africans in America. I found precise documentation for when and where the slaves were brought over.6

In theory, genetics should be able to replicate this recent history. If DNA records family trees and if the family trees link African Americans with Africans, then DNA should link African Americans with Africans, and DNA should do so in a clear, precise temporal way. That is, we should be able to see in the DNA tree when the African American and African lineages split.

I worked on this question in collaboration with a fellow geneticist, Rob Carter. We made good progress. The results strongly supported the young-earth timescale and rejected the evolutionary one. Eventually, we presented our findings at a professional research conference.7

But we never published our results in a formal, technical research paper. Why? As I wrote up our results, I kept asking questions of the data in anticipation of criticisms from reviewers. I wanted to make sure that I had preemptively solved scientific issues in the paper before we sent it out for review.

One question kept coming back to me: Let’s say that the reviewers concede that our data on the genetics of the transatlantic slave trade were solid. They would surely ask: What about the rest of the DNA tree? What about the rest of the branches in the rest of the world? If the timescale I espoused was true, there would be massive global implications. I knew it.

So I dove deep into the global DNA family tree.

Y Chromosome DNA

In my collaboration with Rob Carter, I had focused heavily on the female-inherited mitochondrial DNA, and he focused on the male-inherited Y chromosome DNA. It quickly became clear that the statistics for the Y chromosome were superior to the statistics for mitochondrial DNA.8 When I embarked on a rigorous analysis of the global DNA family tree, I focused on the Y chromosome data. I could derive much more precise dates for points in the family tree where branches came together.

Along the way, I had a serendipitous moment—similar to my experience early in the process of studying mitochondrial DNA. I discovered that several published mutation rate studies existed. Two showed slow rates of Y chromosome DNA change. Two showed high rates of Y chromosome DNA change. The former were based on low quality data; the latter, on high quality data.9 The latter directly contradicted the expectations of evolution but confirmed the expectations of young-earth creation.10

Now I had two, independent genetic compartments telling the same story. (I covered the story for the third compartment—autosomal DNA—in my previous article.)

What’s more, because of the robust statistics, I could take the Y chromosome data a step farther. Let’s derive this step from the perspective of a potential critic of my work. The critic might concede that the current rate of Y chromosome DNA change is fast. “But how do you know that the rate of change has always been fast?” The short answer is that we can test this hypothesis.

Specifically, we can compare Y chromosomes from men around the globe. Then we can use the differences to reconstruct a family tree. From the branches, we can reconstruct the history of population growth.

I did exactly that. Then I compared the reconstruction to the known history of human population growth from archaeological and historical records. The data were a strong match—if we did the genetic reconstruction within a young-earth framework.11 Now I was getting very excited!

One of the final steps in this process was analyzing the pre- and post-Columbian histories of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Actually, I had worked out this history first, before I found the Y chromosome DNA mutation rate. But I didn’t publish the result12 until after solving the mutation rate and population growth curve questions.

All these results gave me more confidence that the initial results with Africans and African Americans were valid. But I wasn’t done.

Eventually, I did analyze Y chromosome DNA from men around the globe. In short, the genetic results lined up well with known migrations and population histories from regions around the globe—just as would be expected if humanity is only a few thousand years old. What’s more, I eventually found the Y chromosome stamp of the genealogy in Genesis 10. In other words, my change in approach from several years prior—i.e., working backward in time to Babel rather than forward in time from Babel—worked! I published these results in book form.13

Again, the young-earth time frame was critical to seeing the links across scientific and historical disciplines.

Then I began to explore the deeper histories of specific regions around the globe. I eventually settled on something close to home: North America. Archaeology, linguistics, indigenous histories, and genetics came together to pull back the curtain on one of the biggest mysteries of my life: The pre-European sequence of events and peoples in North America. Again, the young-earth time frame was critical to seeing the links across scientific and historical disciplines. Again, the result was a book-length treatment of the topic.14

Full Circle

But what about mitochondrial DNA? It had produced such tantalizing initial results—results that led to the very productive Y chromosome line of inquiry. Did it have nothing else to offer? It turns out that it did—thanks to the advances in Y chromosome research.

In short, I went back to Y chromosome DNA history for the pre-Columbian Americans. I then attempted to overlay the mitochondrial DNA history with similar methods. A very simple statistical transformation15 brought the Y chromosome history and mitochondrial history in close alignment. In fact, I discovered that mitochondrial DNA acts as an exquisitely sensitive marker of population history—in ways that went beyond what I had done for the Y chromosome.16

Oh, it also turns out that I was wrong about the three ancient lineages in the mitochondrial DNA tree. It was a good guess. But Y chromosome records an even more detailed history, which happens to line up exactly with Genesis 10. And the mitochondrial DNA tree looks very much like the Y chromosome tree—but without the granular temporal detail.

Now does that sound like I “do not take data, weigh it against the opposing scientific data, and thereafter reach the conclusions”? Does it sound like I “start with a conclusion and refuse to change it regardless of the evidence developed during the course of the investigation”? Or does it sound like I follow the evidence wherever it leads?

The Critics

A handful of evolutionists are aware of my research results. But, ironically, in their responses, they do not attempt to test and disprove my scientific predictions. Instead, they . . . fit facts to preconceived conclusions . . . and claim I’m wrong because I disagree with the textbooks . . . taking the literal wording of the textbook and attempting to find scientific support for it . . . as if the textbooks are a type of . . . holy book.

You might think I’m making this up. But I’m not. You can find the documentation here.

In other words, the critics have no answer to this series of discoveries. They can’t. It meets the standards that they’ve upheld for 40 years. To acknowledge that creation scientists are making and fulfilling predictions would be to concede defeat.

Conclusion

You and I have exquisitely sensitive timekeepers in our cells—marking off just a few thousand years of human history, exactly like the Bible says.

It’s not just that the data support this assertion. It’s also the process by which we uncovered the data.

Creation science is working well.