Studies > Science & Bible
All Human DNA Traces to Noah
by Marshall Beeber
Introduction
Scientists have been comparing the genetic differences between every major people group around the globe. How did those differences arise? Assuming that God placed the ideal mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) sequence into Eve, all those differences arose by mutations since the Genesis 3 curse, about 6,000 years ago. Other scientists measured the rate at which these copying errors occur. Though very slow—we acquire about one mutation every 6 generations—a few dozen mutations could appear after several millennia.
Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson downloaded publicly available human mitochondrial genome sequence data to do exactly that. Publishing in Answers Research Journal, his results show that the number of today's mtDNA differences exactly matches the number predicted by the Bible's 6,000 years of human history. Mitochondrial DNA from around the world shows no trace of the 200,000 or so years' worth of mutations that the evolution model predicts. (click reference)
Evidence of Three Branches of mtDNA Common For All Humanity
Geneticists construct tree diagrams using software that places the most similar genetic sequences near one another, and the most dissimilar sequences on the longest branches. Jeanson found at least two distinct patterns in the human mtDNA tree diagram that confirm Genesis. The center of the diagram shows three main trunks. Each reflects a specific mtDNA sequence with only a handful of differences from the other two.
Could these three trunks represent the unique mtDNA from the wives of Shem, Ham, and Japheth?
A second pattern emerges that also fits the three wives explanation. Assuming longer times between each generation, according to the biblical record of lifespans before the Flood, and using today's slow mutation rate, the 1,656 years between Adam and Noah would have produced the small number of differences that the short lines between each trunk represent. Jeanson compared the small number of mtDNA differences between each trunk, or central node, with the relatively large number of differences in the branches. He wrote, "About 1,660 years passed from Creation to the Flood, whereas 4,365 years passed from the Flood to the present—a ~2.6:1 time ratio. Consistent with this, the branches connecting the nodes to one another were much shorter than the branches spraying out from the nodes—as if the short branches represented pre-Flood mutations, and the long branches represented post-Flood mutations."1 It appears that modern genetics confirms Genesis, which says, "So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him." (click reference)