Biblical Genetics

Even though it was completed a quarter century ago, geneticists still struggle to estimate the number of genes in the human genome. They went from ‘hundreds of thousands' to “22 thousand”, then more recently to “about 19,500”. The number, however, has just exploded. Tens of thousands of new genes with important functions were discovered hiding in the ‘junk DNA'. Dr Rob explains what these new findings mean to the creation-evolution debate. Links and notes: Carter 2025 The dark proteome https://creation.com/dark-proteome Carter 2024 The incredible shrinking human genome, https://biblicalgenetics.com/shrinking-genome/ Amaral et al. 2024 The status of the human gene catalogue, Nature 622(7981):41–47; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37794265/ Prensner et al. 2024 What can Ribo-seq and proteomics tell us about the non-canonical proteome? https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.16.541049v1 Pennisi 2024 ‘Dark proteome' survey reveals thousands of new human genes, Science 386(6725):951–952; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39607933/ Podcast: https://biblicalgenetics.com/contra-creation-myths Carter et al. 2004 Cloning of anthozoan fluorescent protein genes, Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part C 138:259–270; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15533784 Matz et al. 1999 Fluorescent proteins from nonbioluminescent Anthozoa species, Nature Biotechnology 17(10):969–973; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10504696/

In a recent presentation on human-chimp similarities to LOGOS Research Associates, I made the (correct) claim that most new mutations are lost. An opponent attempted to make hay of this, claiming it disproves the 'creationist' calculations of the time to Y Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve. What he failed to understand, however, is that the Y and mt chromosomes are haploid and behave very differently to the rest of the genome. In fact, mutations occur in them in a ratchet-like manner and no degree of natural selection can change that. Do you want a lesson in population genetics? Tune in! Notes and links: My presentation to LOGOS Research Associates: "Chimp and Human (Dis)similarities by Dr. Robert Carter" Dan's attempt at a rebuttal: "Professional Creationist Makes Huge Admission" by Creation Myths An older video where I answer the same claims (Creation Myths ignores other people!): Genealogy vs Phylogeny: The War Continues Rupe and Sanford (2013) Using Numerical Simulation to Better Understand Fixation Rates, and Establishment of a New Principle: Haldane's Ratchet Carter (2023) Genealogical vs Phylogenetic Mutation Rates: Answering a Challenge Fixation (population genetics) on Wikipedia A shrinking date for Eve Natural Selection in Paradise The 'two circles' illustration

In a recent Creation magazine article, I talked about an interesting new case study done on one of the world's most favorite cheeses, Brie, and its relatives Camembert and Roquefort. A long time ago, cheesemakers unknowingly selected non-sexually reproducing fungal lines for these cheeses. Now, many decades later, mutations have built up in this lines to the point where they are starting to have trouble reproducing. Rescue efforts are underway, but in the meantime this gives us an object lesson about the impossibility of evolution, specifically the survival of the first organisms, which would not have been able to go through sexual recombination. Links: The Creation magazine paper: creation.com/cheese-verge-of-extinction Signup for Creation magazine here: creation.com/en-us/creation-magazine The original research: Harmi, M., French cheese under threat, news.cnrs.fr, 16 Jan 2024. Additional info on Muller's ratchet: dl0.creation.com/articles/p145/c14588/j29_2_70-77.pdf About Dr. Robert Carter: creation.com/dr-robert-carter-cv

Gregor Mendel was the father of modern genetics. He wrote his most important papers on the topic just a few years after Darwin published the Origin of Species. What people don't realize is that Mendel's papers did not only describe how traits are passed down. He also explained how his ideas of genetics lead directly to an explanation of the origin of species. Was Mendel directly and purposefully contradicting Darwin? Links and notes: Crompton et al. 2024 Mendelian speciation, part 1—what is the abundant source of significant biodiversity, J Creation 37(3):110–120, 2023. Crompton et al. 2024 Mendelian speciation, part 2—latent genetic information, J Creation 38(1):77–86, 2024. Crompton et al. 2024 Mendelian speciation, part 3—fixation and reproductive isolation, J Creation 382):97–104, 2024. Crompton et al. 2024 Mendelian speciation, part 4—adaptive radiations and cis-evolution, J Creation 38(2):105–112, 2024. Gregor Mendel on Wikipedia "They believe in bigger miracles than I do" on YouTube.com Species were designed to change on BiblicalGenetics.com Species were Designed to Change on Creation.com Arguments we think a creationist should not use on creation.com Wort und Wissen

Dr Carter spent some time recently in New Zealand. While there, he stopped by a giant colony of gannets. These sea birds number in the millions but they create a bit of a taxonomic mystery. Are three living species of gannets and the eight living species of booby one 'created kind'? What about the cormorants? Should they also be included? Baraminology has not revealed the limits of the created kinds, so we have much work still to do. Notes and links: Species were designed to change, part 1 God Deliberately Engineered Life to Change, but How Much Change is Allowed? Biblical Biology 101 (my new book!)

It is only natural for people to want to compare the Table of Nations (Genesis 10) to geography, linguistics, ancient history, and/or patterns in human DNA. The solution, however, is harder than most people think. Here, I list multiple reasons why it might actually be impossible to know where Shem, Ham, and Japheth belong even though Genesis is true. Notes and links: Carter, R., Can we place the sons of Noah on the Y chromosome tree? The solution is harder than most people think, 29 Oct 2024. Distribution map of haplogroup R1b in the Old World”, eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml. Carter, R.W., Patriarchal drive in the early post-Flood population, J. Creation 33(1):110–118, 2019; creation.com/patriarchal-drive. Additional references can be found in the main article.

The woolly mammoth is strongly associated with the Ice Age, but they survived until surprisingly recent times in the far north. Recently, the genomes of multiple mammoths from the last surviving population on Wrangel Island were sequenced. The scientists concluded the population was founded by 8 or fewer individuals and only 1 mitochondrial lineage was among them. They also estimated that the population grew to a few hundred before finally going extinct. This, it turns out, is a wonderful natural laboratory for biblical events. Consider that there were only 8 people on the Ark. How much genetic diversity would we expect to lose? Is that population too small to prevent so much inbreeding that humans would have gone into mutational meltdown? Etc. Etc. Dehasque M et al., Temporal dynamics of woolly mammoth genome extension prior to extinction, Cell 187(14):3531–3540.e13, 2024. Carter R, Biblical bottlenecks are not bad, biblicalgenetics.com, 27 May 2020. Carter R, Evolutionary bottlenecks are disastrous, biblicalgenetics.com, 2 Jun 2020. Carter R, Did we evolve from 10,000 people in Africa? biblicalgenetics.com, 19 Jul 2022. Carter R, Evolutionists predict super bottleneck (it would have killed us), biblicalgenetics.com, 9 Nov 2023. Carter R and Powell M, The genetic effects of the population bottleneck associated with the Genesis Flood, Journal of Creation 30(2):102–111, 2018. Carter R, Effective population sizes and loss of diversity during the Flood bottleneck, Journal of Creation 32(2):124–127, 2018. Carter R, Mutations and why you shouldn't marry your cousin, creation.com, 12 Aug 2017. Carter R, How carbon dating works, creation.com, 12 Apr 2022.

Mike Lynch and colleagues published a paper that is devastating to thousands of past studies on natural selection. By sequencing DNA from multiple natural populations over several years, they showed that the net effect of natural selection is "zero" for most genetic variants. They caution that selection pressures in the natural world fluctuate. This cause the chromosomal targets of selection to shift over time, etc., meaning that many thousands of scientific studies that found evidence for natural selection are probably wrong. This paper is a gold mine of quotes, so Dr Rob quotes it extensively. Links: Daphnia: wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphnia Lynch et al., The genome-wide signature of short-term temporal selection, PNAS 121(28):e2307107121, 2024; pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38959040 Darwin's Bluff: the Mystery of the Book Darwin Never Finished by Robert Shedinger, see also amazon.com/Darwins-Bluff-Robert-Shedinger/dp/1637120370

Neanderthals got their name from a valley that was, in turn, named after a beloved pastor and hymnwriter named Joachim Neander. Thus, since their first discovery, they have been associated with Christianity, believe it or not. Problem is, Neanderthals have been consistently used as arguments against the very foundation of Christianity: the Bible. Can we incorporate these enigmatic people into any sort of biblical history? If so, how? Dr Rob gives his solution here. Neanderthals are a post-Flood people group, descendants of Adam and Eve, and descendants of Noah. There were fully human, but also highly mutated. Joachim Neander: wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_Neander Praise to the Lord, the Almighty: wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise_to_the_Lord,_the_Almighty Pettyjohn's Cave: walkercountyga.gov/discover/recreation/crockford-pigeon-mountain-wildlife-management-area/caving/ Virchow: creation.com/african-invasion-of-the-bodysnatchers POGs = People Outside the Garden: creation.com/review-swamidass-the-genealogical-adam-and-eve Questions about Cain: creation.com/cain-chronology Neanderthals POST Flood: creation.com/neanderthals-pre-flood Patriarchal Drive (article): creation.com/patriarchal-drive Patriarchal Drive (video): biblicalgenetics.com/old-fathers-are-genetic-poison/ Long branch attraction: wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_branch_attraction Not the Flintstones—it's the Denisovans: creation.com/denisovan An overview of the Denisovan puzzle: creation.com/denisovan-puzzle Neanderthal the changing picture: creation.com/neandertal-man-the-changing-picture Poznik's claim that most African Ys arose outside of Africa: Poznik, G.D. et al., Punctuated bursts in human male demography inferred from 1,244 worldwide Y-chromosome sequences, Nature 48:593–599, 2016, nature.com/articles/ng.3559. Thumbnail photo by Jakub Hałun  Model of Homo neanderthalensis man in The Natural History Museum, Vienna - via Wikimedia Commons. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homo_Sapiens,_Cro-Magnon_1_The_Natural_History_Museum_Vienna,_20210730_1223_1272.jpg.

There are two conflicting genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament. Anyone can see that the name lists in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are not at all similar. Worse, 1 Chronicles 3 adds a THIRD conflicting genealogy for a pivotal person in these lists, Zerubbabel, the first governor of Judah after they were restored from the Babylonian Captivity. In this episode, Dr. Rob presents a logical answer to the problem that follows Old Testament law and basic logic and that does not have to invoke improbable circumstances. The key is realizing that Matthew is probably not a genealogy. Instead, it is a list of the rightful kings of Judah. Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, was the rightful king and a descendant of David. His kingship and his descent from David are both attested to in the New Testament.

In this, the 7th episode in our series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob takes us deep into the genealogy of the nation of Edom. This was a people/tribe/kingdom that existed south of the Dead Sea and southeast of the kingdom of Judah, which dominated Edom for several centuries. There are several textual mysteries in Edom's data, but they can be solved satisfactorily if we think through the issues carefully.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/OTj_P8P1v6Q   In this, the 6th episode on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains where the nation of Edom came from, how they tie into the main biblical story, and how to handle several tricky textual problems in Genesis 36.      

In this, the 5th episode in our series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains the origins of the nations that surrounded (and still surround) Israel. He explains who the Philistines, the Phoenicians, the Aramaeans, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites were while adding lots of interesting little factoids that help us better understand the Bible. Notes and links: Egyptian mummies and Hebrew perfume Who were the Philistines? The 'Table of Nations' (Genesis 10  and 11) The descendants of Seir, the kings of Edom, and the chiefs of Edom  

In this fourth installment in a series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob works through three challenging details that must be overcome if one is to use those genealogies to build a chronology of biblical history: how to link Genesis 5 and 11, how old Terah was when Abram left Haran, and how old Abram was when God made the "Promise".

In this third installment in our series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains why the data in Genesis 5 and 11 are so important. These are not just lists of names. The added ages allows us to piece together a timeline of biblical history. Problem is, you can't directly connect the two passages. A several-year ambiguity is created when you try. There are other interesting factoids that pop out when one studies the chronogenealogies, so you will enjoy this episode much. Links: SCAPER (a creationist organization in Norway) Undeland Mission farm The biblical minimum and maximum age of the earth Biblical chronogenealogies LXX vs MT articles Length of the Egyptian Sojourn

In this second installment on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains why all those names (or at least most of them) in the Bible are so important. This should be encouraging to anyone who struggles to read the Bible for comprehension.

This is the first in a multi-part series on biblical genealogies. To understand what we are dealing with, we first need to know that there are two completely different types of name lists in the Bible. The first, an ancestor tree is easy. Ancestor trees are balanced and have a known number of people at each level. Even better, nearly all biblical ancestor trees only list fathers, so there is but one person at each level. The second, descendent trees, are the stuff of genealogical nightmares. Dr Rob makes it all easy. Here are some helpful images. Ancestor trees: 2. A descendant tree: 3. A mixed tree:  

Human-chimpanzee similarity is a hotly-debated topic in the evolution-creation wars. Are we 98, 95, 90, or 85% similar? One way to get at the question is to ask what is the longest stretch of DNA that is shared between the two species. This is a very difficult question to answer! But, unperturbed, Dr Rob set out to answer it. Will our fearless hero be able to pull it off? Spoiler alert: not quite, but the path of discovery is still very interesting. LastZ github.com/lastz/lastz LastZ chaining github.com/hillerlab/make_lastz_chains Mummer4 mummer4.github.io/ Blast blast.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Blast.cgi Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium primate projects github.com/marbl/Primates Python python.org/ Standard Bases: A: Adenine C: Cytosine G: Guanine T: Thymine (in DNA) U: Uracil (in RNA) Ambiguous Bases (IUPAC Codes): These codes are used when there is ambiguity in the nucleotide present at a particular position: R: A or G (puRine) Y: C or T (pYrimidine) S: G or C W: A or T (Weak) K: G or T (Keto) M: A or C (aMino) B: C, G, or T (not A) (B comes after A) D: A, G, or T (not C) (D comes after C) H: A, C, or T (not G) (H comes after G) V: A, C, or G (not T) (V comes after U; U is replaced with T in DNA) N: Any base (A, C, G, T) (N for any nucleotide) Silver Comet Trail silvercometga.com/

https://youtu.be/-jpoxCZgZKQ Is the human genome highly functional or mostly junk? This is a question that is not only being asked in the creation-evolution debate; it is a question raging in the ivory tower as well. The 'old guard' is much more likely to resist any claim that large swaths of the genome are useful. The 'young punks' in science is more willing to accept the obvious fact that the genome is highly functional. Who is going to win? In this episode, Dr Rob puts a few more nails in the coffin of junk DNA.. Notes and links:' Carter 2023 What proportion of the human genome is actually functional? And how much variation is tolerable? Chen et al. 2023 A genomic mutational constraint map using variation in 76,156 human genomes Moran 2023 What's in your genomes? 90% of your genome is junk

Is the human genome highly functional or mostly junk? This is a question that is not only being asked in the creation-evolution debate; it is a question raging in the ivory tower as well. The 'old guard' is much more likely to resist any claim that large swaths of the genome are useful. The 'young punks' in science is more willing to accept the obvious fact that the genome is highly functional. Who is going to win? In this episode, Dr Carter highlights four new studies that ratchet the argument toward high function. Notes and links:' Carter 2023 What proportion of the human genome is actually functional? And how much variation is tolerable? Zhang et al. 2023 FOXP3 recognizes microsatellites and bridges DNA through multimerization Walter 2024 Are non-protein coding RNAs junk or treasure? Stepankiw et al. 2023 The human genome contains over a million autonomous exons Chen et al. 2023 A genomic mutational constraint map using variation in 76,156 human genomes Moran 2023 What's in your genomes? 90% of your genome is junk  

No, the size of the genome has not changed, but the number of genes we thought it contains certainly has. After lots of double checking, there are fewer known protein coding genes today (~19,000) than there were when the human genome was first published, and even that count (~23,000) was shockingly small, according to the predictions of the world's top geneticists. The nature of the genome has consistently surprised people, but mostly because they applied Darwinian concepts to it. Instead, the genome is a wonderful testimony to the engineering prowess of God, who built something unexpected. LInks: GeneSweep One-gene-one-enzyme Central dogma of molecular biology Amaral et al. 2014 The status of the human gene catalogue, Nature 622(7981):41-47. What on earth is a ‘gene'? Slicing and dicing the genome The Barrier has been breached: new discoveries are challenging neo-Darwinism

A slew of videos has recently come out arguing for and against the work of Dr Jeffrey Tomkins, who claims humans and chimps are only about 85% similar. His detractors have made some massive blunders and I attempt to document them here. This is not to gloat, however. I understand that all humans are bigoted, biased, myopic, jealous, envious, etc., including all scientists. So, we'll apply James 3:1 ("Not many of you should presume to be teachers...for know that we will be judged more strictly)  and Philippians 2:3... (Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit...) to the situation as we outline multiple lapses of logic and analysis that have been done in an attempt to discredit Tomkins' work. To be fair, though, the main person in my crosshairs has admitted to making these mistakes. I am only documenting things for posterity. Notes and links: James 3:1–2 patternsofevidence.com/patterns-plus The 3rd Commandment Dr Jeffrey Tomkins Blast Gutsick Gibbon, A Professional Creationist Agrees with Me: Tomkins Wrong, 30 Dec 2023. Roohif, Jeffrey Tomkins is allergic to controls, 29 Dec 2023. Note: I made several mistakes when describing Roohif's results. First, he was looking at older trace read datasets, not the contig database I (and Gutsick Gibbon, and Tomikins in his 2018 paper) have been working with, so his conclusions about vector, etc., contamination do not apply here. Second, I stated that he only tested a few of the problematic areas, but he actually performed several thorough tests. Third, I also conflated his analysis on non-aligning subsequences in Blast matches with his analysis of the sequences for which Blast failed to find any alignment at all. After being challenged on a few of these points, and upon re-watching the video, paying attention this time (!) I stand corrected. Yet, that was but a small portion of my presentation and I included it almost as supplementary information, trying to cover all bases. In retrospect, I could easily have left it out entirely. Gutsick Gibbon's Blast program on Github: GGBlast Philippians 2:3–11

Chromosomal recombination is an essential part of the life cycle of all sexually reproducing organisms. Yet, the system is complex, involving hundreds to thousands of proteins and RNAs. It also involves DNA repair pathways, which are themselves incredibly complex. The newest available information on recombination tells us it is mutagenic, meaning that recombination erodes the very places where recombination happens. How did such a system arise by chance? Can we assume the recombination rate has always been the same? What happens when a new allele arises in the protein that controls recombination? What is the mutation burden caused by this important system? Finally, how does this affect the creation-evolution debate? Links and notes: 15 Questions for evolutionists, #8 How did sex originate? Geeking out about DNA damage repair, June 2023. Grey et al. 2018 PRDM9, a driver of the genetic map, PLoS Genet 14(8):e1007479. Altemose et al. 2017 A map of human PRDM9 binding provides evidence for novel behaviors of PRDM9 and other zinc-finger proteins in meiosis, eLife 6:e28383. Robert Carter gets everything wrong?, creation.com, 10 Jul 2021. Hussin et al. 2011 Age-dependent recombination rates in human pedigrees, PloS Genetics 7(9):e1002251. Wang et al. 2012 Genome-wide single-cell analysis of recombination activity and de novo mutation rates in human sperm, Cell 150(2):402–12. African origins and the rise of carnivory, creation.com,19 Dec 2020. Hinch, A.G. et al., The landscape of recombination in African Americans, Nature 476:170–177, 2011. Hinch et al. 2023 Meiotic DNA breaks drive multifaceted mutagenesis in the human germ line, Science 382:eadh2531.

My new video made quite a splash! Apparently, lots of Christians are asking questions about the DNA we can now pull from very old skeletons. How do they do it? What are the data telling us? How is it even there, if the bones are as old as claimed? Without revealing too many details about what is in the main presentation, here I am just talking about ancient DNA and its implications for the creation-evolution debate. I also throw in a few things I was not able to address in the main presentation, including the genetics of ancient Canaanites and Philistines found in and around Israel. Notes and links: You can order Ancient DNA: Illuminating the Tapestry of Biblical Human History at creation.com (physical DVD or streaming format): creation.com/en/landing/ancient-dna How reliable are genomes from ancient DNA? (Creation.com) Patriarchal Drive in the early post-Flood population (Creation.com) Patriarchal Drive (BiblicalGenetics.com) Ancient History vs the Table of Nations (BiblicalGenetics.com) Extensive mixing of Israelites and non-Israelites in biblical history (Creation.com) The genetic history of the Israelite nation (Creation.com) The Israelites: forging of a nation (Creation.com) Genetics of modern Jews (BiblicalGenetics.com) Early Israel was a hotbed of interracial mixing (BiblicalGenetics.com) The Jews, Israel, and false notions of 'race' (BiblicalGenetics.com) Who were the Philistines? (Creation.com) Ötzi Mitochondrial Eve and the Three 'Daughters' of Noah (Creation.com) The High-Tech Cell (Creation.com) Feldman et al. 2019 Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines, Sci Adv 3;5(7):eaax0061, 2019. Haber et al. 2017 Continuity and admixture in the last five millennia of Levantine history from ancient Canaanite and present-day Lebanese genome sequences, Am J Hum Genet 3;101(2):274-282, 2017, Rylands Fragment of the Gospel of John Georgia Institute of Technology

African cichlids are a diverse group of fishes that have frequently been used as evidence for evolution. Yet, now that the genomes of several hundred species have been published, the true history of this group has been revealed. All parties must now acknowledge that the many species arose quickly, from a common stock. In many ways, African cichlids fit beautifully into the biblical model of 'created kinds'. Links: Meier et al. 2023 Cycles of fusion and fission enabled rapid parallel adaptive radiation in African cichlids, Science 381:1428. Carter R 2021 Species were designed to change, creation.com. Carter R 2021 Species were designed to change, biblicalgenetics.com. Common aquatic macroinvertebrates Map of the biodiversity of amphibians, etc., in North America

Darwin's finches have long been considered an icon of evolution. A recent analysis included 40 years of morphological measurements and genealogy tracing among four finch species on a small island in the Galapagos chain. This was coupled to 30 years of DNA sampling, including the recent sequencing of nearly 4,000 finch genomes from the same small island. The results tell us a LOT about biblical views of speciation, natural selection, and 'change over time'. Notes and links: Carter R, Galápagos finches, rapid speciation, and recent creation, Creation.com, 9 Nov 2023. Wieland C, Speciation conference brings good news for creationists, J Creation 11(2):135–136, 1997. Kaloyirou N, The remarkable Captain Robert FitzRoy, Creation 40(1):14–17, 2017. Lightner JK, Identification of a large sparrow-finch monobaramin in perching birds (Aves: Passeriformes), J Creation 24(3):117–121, 2010. Enbody ED et al., Community-wide genome sequencing reveals 30 years of Darwin's finch evolution, Science 381(6665):eadf6218, 2023.

A new paper claims that the pre-human population went through an extremely small and extremely long population bottleneck. Starting about one million years ago, the population was reduced to at most 1,280 "breeding individuals" and this lasted for over 100,000 years. To get there, they examined thousands of human genomes and assumed that all mutations are neutral. What would happen if we applied real-world mutation affects to the data? You know it. We would have gone extinct. The mutation burden would have driven us to extinction. Instead, what they really discovered was the we came from a very small founding population with only a little diversity. This fits perfectly within the Adam and Eve model of human ancestry. Links and notes: Hu et al. 2023 Genomic inference of a severe human bottleneck during the Early to Middle Pleistocene transition, Science 381:979–984. Buggs R, Science moves closer to Adam and Eve?, richardbuggs.com, 1 Sep 2023. Evolutionary bottlenecks are disastrous, Biblical Genetics, 2 Jun 2020. Biblical bottlenecks are not bad, Biblical Genetics, 27 May 2020. Sanford J, Critic ignores reality of Genetic Entropy, Creation.com, 7 Mar 2013. Carter R, A successful decade for Mendel's Accountant, J Creation 33(2):51–56, 2019. Carter R, The Neutral Model of evolution and recent African origins, J Creation 23(1):70–77, 2009.

The opponents of biblical creation have made some glaring errors in their criticisms of prior work on human-chimpanzee genetic differences. Specifically, several of their claims are in conflict with both theory and experiment. I document these here in detail. They have also shown a rudimentary understanding of how scientific data needs to be 'weighted' and they completely misunderstand how BLAST is supposed to work. Despite the high level of vitriol I have received so far, I submit this detailed analysis of their work for your review. Links: As promised, example programs etc. can be found at: https://github.com/BiblicalGenetics/Human-Chimp Creationist research is utter, utter poo, Roohif, 14 Sep 2018; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D117oXq8yT4 “80% Chimpanzee” | The Bogus Creationism of Jeffery Tomkins, Gutsick Gibbon, 26 May 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtTHlqhRQi0 Tomkins Responded to Me (Kinda?), Gutsick Gibon, 7 Jul 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYw9jl5jArE&t=18s Jeffrey Tomkins, The Creationist Who Can't Math: The Movie, Dapper Dinosaur, 24 Aug 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BasDcbzx3AM Human vs Chimp: an honest appraisal of our differences, Biblical Genetics, 15 Aug 2023; https://youtu.be/FHg3LqJI34g The three attempted rebuttal videos: Professional Creationist RESPONDS to my Tomkins Debunk (kinda), 23 Aug 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq1AcyHfLrA; Robert Carter, Liar | Creationists Have a Bad Relationship with Honesty: Part 2, Dapper Dinosaur, 23 Aug 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx91ljv32Yc; Creationists Behaving Badly: Dr. Rob Carter, Creation Myths, 23 Aug 2023; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LrhBnVXks0. Human vs Chimp, part 2: Digging deeper into our roots, Biblical Genetics, 5 Oct 2023; https://youtu.be/_vsGVN21TQU.

This is the second installment in a now multi-part series on human and chimpanzee genetic differences. I had a lot of pushback from my last episode, including negative reviews posted by Gutsick Gibbon, Creation Myths, and Dapper Dinosaur. Unperturbed, I push on. Here, I lay out some of the arguments in more detail and discuss many of the problems people are having when using one particular program, BLAST, to assess similarity between the two species. I will address the results of Gutsick Gibbon specifically in Part 3, but this was filmed before I got most of my experimental results back. Links (many of these are for Part 3 also): Background: Creationist research is utter, utter poo, Roohif, 14 Sep 2018. “80% Chimpanzee” | The Bogus Creationism of Jeffery Tomkins, Gutsick Gibbon, 26 May 2023. Tomkins Responded to Me (Kinda?), Gutsick Gibon, 7 Jul 2023. Jeffrey Tomkins, The Creationist Who Can't Math: The Movie, Dapper Dinosaur, 24 Aug 2023. My first installment: Human vs Chimp: an honest appraisal of our differences, Biblical Genetics, 15 Aug 2023. The three attempted rebuttal videos: Professional Creationist RESPONDS to my Tomkins Debunk (kinda), 23 Aug 2023. Robert Carter, Liar | Creationists Have a Bad Relationship with Honesty: Part 2, Dapper Dinosaur, 23 Aug 2023. Creationists Behaving Badly: Dr. Rob Carter, Creation Myths, 23 Aug 2023.

Several anti-creationists have made a hobby out of attacking creationists. Their best efforts, however, have generally failed. For example, see: Sanford 2013 Critic ignores reality of Genetic Entropy: the author of a landmark book on genomic decay responds to unsustainable criticisms creation.com 7 Mar 2013. Price, Carter, and Sanford 2020, Responding to supposed refutations of genetic entropy from the ‘experts', creation.com, 1 Dec 2020. Unperturbed, "Gutsick Gibbon" has recently tried to discredit Dr Jeffrey Tomkins and his work on human-chimp genetic similarities: "80% Chimpanzee" | The Bogus Creationism of Jeffery Tomkins" 26 May 2023 youtube.com/watch?v=QtTHlqhRQi0. In my analysis of her analysis, I note several flaws in her logic. Note, however, that I deliberately ignored several of her main objections. This was not because I do not have answers, mind you, but because I wanted to focus on the most salient questions. Ignored were questions about why God would have included all the chimp-like non-coding DNA when he made humans and questions about properly weighting samples. The most recent comparison I am aware of claimed 96.6% similarity between humans and chimps: Seaman and Buggs 2020 FluentDNA: nucleotide visualization of whole genomes, annotations, and alignments, Frontiers in Genetics 30;11:292. This comes from the laboratory of Richard Buggs. This is much higher than Tomkins' estimates, that, with one exception, are generally in the 80s. However, I know the first author on that paper, so I called him up to discuss his methods. Sure enough, he used entirely different methodology than earlier work from that same laboratory (which arrived at an estimate of ~85%). To reach the higher percentage similarity, they cut out everything humans and chimps do not share, including the centromeres, telomeres, copy number variations of many annotated genes, and hundreds of thousands of small insertions and deletions that must be included to align the two genomes. This "apples to apples" comparison is fine, as long as everybody acknowledges that the true similarity is necessarily less than 96.6%. Yet, if the percent similarity is much less than 99%, there is no way, mathematically, to explain how so many millions of difference arose in the (imagined) 6.5 million years since our last common ancestor. Additional links: The Waiting Time Problem, BiblicalGenetics.com, 8 Jun 2021. Hierachical clustering complicates baraminiological analysis Carter 2021 Robert Carter gets everything wrong? Responding to even more ridiculous aspersions, creation.com, 10 July 2021. “Dr. Rob Carter Gets Everything Wrong (with Gutsick Gibbon)” 20 May 2021. Sibley and Alquist. 1991. The Phylogeny and Classification of Birds. King and Wilson. 1975. Evolution at two levels in humans and chimpanzees, Science 188(4184):107–116. Moorjani et al. 2016. Variation in the molecular clock of primates, PNAS 113(38):10607–10612. Sibley and Ahlquist. 1984. The phylogeny of the hominoid primates, as indicated by DNA-DNA hybridization, J Mol Evol 20(1):2–15. Sibley, Comstock, and Ahlquist. 1990. DNA hybridization evidence of hominoid phylogeny: a reanalysis of the data, J Mol Evol 30(3):202–36. Wikipedia page on DNA reassociation kinetics. Bergman and Tomkins 2012 Is the human genome nearly identical to chimpanzee?—a reassessment of the literature, Journal of Creation 26(1):54–60, Tomkins and Bergman 2012 Genomic monkey business—estimates of nearly identical human–chimp DNA similarity re-evaluated using omitted data, Journal of Creation 26(1):94–100, Tomkins 2013 Comprehensive analysis of chimpanzee and human chromosomes reveals average DNA similarity of 70%. Answers Research Journal 8:379–390. The version of BLAST he used for this paper had a flaw in the algorithm that only manifested when using extremely large data sets. Tomkins corresponded with the bioinformatics group at the NIH to get the BLAST...

Dr Rob outlines three aspects of genetics that tell us that, scientifically, the human species is doomed to eventual extinction. These include the rate of mutation accumulation in our population over time, the inability of natural selection to remove most of those mutations, and the sheer number of children that would be required to remove the mutations, given perfect selection. These all argue that there is no hope, collectively, in any evolutionary process. Thus, biblically, the only hope for us individually is through belief in Jesus. Links: Genetic entropy Basener et al. 2023 Dynamical systems and fitness maximization in evolutionary biology Fisher's failure and the dramatic end of neo-Darwinism Genealogy vs Phylogeny: The War Continues

Dr Rob discusses a fundamental aspect of neo-Darwinism (Fisher's Theorem of Natural Selection) and how it fails mathematically. First postulated in 1930, Fisher's idea was promoted as something as firm and settled as the 2nd Law. Problem is, he made several incorrect assumptions that invalidate the whole thing. When you add realistic mutations to the scenario (e.g., Basener and Sanford's 'Fisher's Theorem of Natural Selection with Mutations'), you see that the net trajectory of evolution is downward. Why did it take 90 years to figure this out? Links: Basener and Sanford 2017 The fundamental theorem of natural selection with mutations Basener et al. 2021 Dynamical Systems and Fitness Maximization in Evolutionary Biology Keightley and Lynch 2003 Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness Price 1972 Fisher's 'fundamental theorem' made clear Fisher 1930 The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection (Wikipedia page) Carter 2020 A successful decade for Mendel's Accountant

Dr Rob waxes eloquent about some amazing new revelations involving DNA damage repair systems. Researchers recently turned AI onto the human genome, probing the genes and gene systems that are involved in maintaining and repairing DNA. The results shocked everyone. Many more genes that anyone thought are required, and entire new repair systems were discovered. So what came first, DNA or the amazing repair systems required to maintain DNA that are, in turn, coded into DNA? The point is that these systems are absolutely necessary for living things, yet they are also incredibly complicated. They would never be expected to arise without help, but without them the entire DNA system (not just the code, but the DNA itself) could never exist. Evolution, in this case, simply fails to explain much of anything. Links: Kratz et al. 2023. A multi-scale map of protein assemblies in the DNA damage response. Cell Syst 14(6):447-463.e8; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37220749/

Everybody loves genealogy, but we are severely limited in what we can know about our family histories. There are two main reasons for this. First, family records only go back so far. Even the longest family trees can't go back thousands of years. Second, personal genetics testing can only tell you who your closest relatives are. Yes, genetics can tell you what population you came from, but that is a matter of statistics, not documentation. This is not a problem for belief in the Bible. Adam and Eve are still the (sole) ancestors of everyone who has ever lived, it's just that you cannot prove it with what we have available to us today.

Notes and links: Genetic Entropy, by John Sanford Keffer oak RNA: the epicenter of genetic information, by John Mattick and Paulo Amaral (reviewed by Witold Filipowicz)

Science advances in fits and starts, and it sometimes takes a detour onto a dead-end road. Bacteria represent one of those roads. Studying bacteria gave us a sense that we could easily figure out biology, that there was a direct connection between genes and behavior, and that life was simple. Granted, there was no other way to get started, but the study of bacteria slowed down our understanding of higher organisms in many ways. From the 'one gene, one enzyme' hypothesis to the thought that living systems can be reduced to a binary decision tree, many things about bacteria misled us and prevented science from seeing that the majority of the information in the genomes of higher organisms is in the non-coding DNA. C-value paradox G-value paradox Transcription factors Bathybius (on Creation.com) One gene, one enzyme hypothesis Lac operon Boolean data

Genetic engineering is a controversial topic. From vaccines to fetal cells to transhumanism, the debate rages. Yet, there are certain aspects to genetic engineering that are demonstrably good. How are we supposed to make heads or tails of this new technology, especially since it is impacting every aspect of our lives? I thought that a simple explanation (at least, as simple as I could make it!) of the things I did while earning my PhD could help increase our understanding. I, as a conservative Christian, made the 'frankenfish'. I stole the genes for the bright green and red fluorescent proteins in corals, engineered them into bacteria, then into fish. There is nothing inherently difficult in what I did, but there were a LOT of steps. Perhaps, after this explanation, we can have a more civil discussion on the pros and cons. Links and notes: Gibbs PDL, Carter RW, and Schmale MC (2008) Nucleic acid encoding fluorescent proteins from aquatic species. US Patent #7,413,874. Gibbs PDL, Carter RW, and Schmale MC (2007) Fluorescent Proteins from Aquatic Species. US Patent #7,291,711. Carter RW, Schmale MS, and Gibbs PDL (2004) Cloning of anthozoan fluorescent protein genes. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part C 138:259–270. Carter RW (2003) Cnidarian Fluorescent Proteins. PhD Dissertation. University of Miami. Manica A, Carter RW (2000) Morphological and fluorescence analysis of the Montastraea annularis species complex in Florida. Marine Biology 137:899–906. Monkeying around with human embryos? Harnessing God's design to help prevent sickness, but will the new vaccine technology alter our DNA? Unnatural selection: CRISPR on Netflix Gene editing babies? A dangerous, pointless experiment Human/animal hybrids? Human Cloning? Mammoth clones coming to a zoo near you

We are approaching the 100th anniversary of the Scopes "Monkey Trial". Dr Rob was in the neighborhood, so he stopped by the Rhea County Courthouse in Dayton, TN to tell the part of the story most people have never heard. This was the first time evolution was put on 'trial' in a US courtroom and it pitted two of the greatest orators of the 20th century against each other: William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. Bryan, the Christian anti-evolutionist, gave a weak performance. Darrow, the anti-theistic evolutionist, made Bryan, and thus by proxy, cultural Christianity, look foolish. Put yourself in the shoes of person living in 1925. Which side would you have chosen? Notes and links: Carter R, Scopes at 100: The “monkey trial” shaped an entire century, Creation.com, 25 Aug 2020. Carter RW, A long-overdue review of Hunter's A Civic Biology, Creation.com, 1 Sep 2020. Rhea County Courthouse William Jennings Bryan Clarence Darrow Oliver Wendell Holmes Many of the references I made (e.g., to Bryans socialism and Darrow's anti-Christian atheism) were based on facts I have learned over many years. I.e., they were from memory.    

Given the biblical accounts of Creation and the Flood, can we draw any conclusions about what we would expect in genetics? That depends on status of the species in question (e.g., 'clean' vs 'unclean and 'on the Ark' vs 'not on the Ark'), its population history, the amount of created diversity initially engineered into that species/kind, difference in mutation rates and DNA repair systems, and things like that. In the end, no, we cannot make many direct predictions, yet much of the genetic data and observations still point straight to the Bible. The biblical model is expansive enough to take in a range of observations. Notes and links: Tallulah Gorge Orphan Brigade Park Jeanson N. 2015. Mitochondrial DNA clocks imply linear speciation rates within "kinds”. Answers Research Journal 8:273–304. Jeanson N. 2013. Recent, functionally diverse origin for mitochondrial genes from ~2700 metazoan species. Answers Research Journal 6:467–501. Carter R.  How to think (not what to think), Creation.com, 1 Nov 2016. Carter R. 2019. A successful decade for Mendel's Accountant, J Creation 33(2):51–56. Carter R. Species were designed to change, part 3: the tangled web of (intrabaraminic) life, Creation.com, 12 Aug 2021. The Amazing Braided Baramin Concept is Intrinsic to Creation (Species were designed to change, part 4) on BiblicalGenetics.com.

Notes, links, and things to think about: Hinch et al. 2011. The landscape of recombination in African Americans. Nature 476:170–177, 2011. Eberle et al. 2017. A reference dataset of 5.4 million human variants validated by genetic inheritance from sequencing a three-generation 17-member pedigree. Genome Res 27(1):157–164. Altemose et al. 2017. A map of human PRDM9 binding provides evidence for novel behaviors of PRDM9 and other zinc-finger proteins in meiosis. Elife 6:e28383. Grey et al. 2018. PRDM9, a driver of the genetic map. PLoS Genet 14(8):e1007479. Stapley et al. 2017. Recombination: the good, the bad and the variable. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 372(1736):20170279. Protacio et al. 2022 Adaptive control of the meiotic recombination landscape by DNA site-dependent hotspots with implications for evolution. Front Genet 13:947572. International HapMap Project 1000 Genomes Program CEPH panel (note: In the video/audio I said that the DNA is cultured in bacterial artificial chromosomes. This is probably incorrect as there is mention of lymphoblastoid cell lines in this link. It has been a long time since I read any of the documentation on this project! Biblical Genetics episodes mentioned: There is no Y chromosome clock Did we evolve from 10,000 people in Africa? Was Africa the cradle of humanity? Did Eve live in Southern Africa? Modern humans from Adam and Eve? You bet! Patriarchal Drive Images: A diagram of crossing over from Thomas Hunt Morgan, circa 1917. Two consecutive crossings leads to gene conversion (if they are close enough) HapMap data, Europeans, Chr 15 spanning the XXX gene. Each individual is represented by a pair of rows. Each column is a single letter in the genome, but the letters are separated by an average of ~1000 nucleotides, so this is not full sequence data. Same as above, but for West Africans. Two accidental three-generation families in the HapMap and 1,000 Genomes datasets. The dotted lines show where the two-parent-child trios connect. The three-generation, 17-member CEPH panel A recombination map of Chr1 for one child (child #5, if I remember correctly). Blue = letters that came from the paternal grandfather. Red = letters that came from the paternal grandmother. Green = a spacer region to represent the position of the centromere. The number of recombined blocks vs the length of each block among the 11 children in the CEPH panel. Note: I totally messed up the explanation (and my hand motions) when I was describing this. I had something else in mind, but after filming, when I went looking for the image I had in my head, I realized my mistake. Either way, it is still an interesting image. It cannot be known how many of the singletons are sequencing errors of 1-SNP gene conversions, but see the Eberle reference above and how they claim to resolve many of the apparent errors.

Dr Rob spills the beans about several things he no longer believes, including Darwinian evolution, the simplicity of bacteria, Linnean taxonomy, and the thought that the human embryo goes through the stages of evolution as it develops. This is a deep dive into the world of uncertainty and scientific thinking.   Notes and links: My bio God Deliberately Engineered Life to Change, but How Much Change is Allowed? (Species were designed to change, part 1 on BiblicalGenetics.com) Species were designed to change, part 1 (on Creation.com) Origin of Life Smackdown (on BiblicalGenetics.com) Nature vs God? (on BiblicalGenetics.com) What on earth is a ‘gene'? Slicing and dicing the genome (on BiblicalGenetics.com) Carl Linnaeus: the scientist who saw evidence for God in everything in nature (on Creation.com) Ernst Haeckel: Evangelist for evolution and apostle of deceit (on Creation.com) Countering revisionism—part 1: Ernst Haeckel, fraud is proven (on Creation.com) Lewontin's quote about "not allowing a divine foot in the door" For more information on the uniqueness of the Archaea (i.e., the 'extremophiles' I mentioned), start here: Tan and Tomkins. 2015. Information processing differences between Archaea and Eukarya—implications for homologs and the myth of eukaryogenesis, Ans. Res. J. 8:121–141.

There is scant evidence for very old people in the archaeological record, but the Bible claims people once lived for centuries. Is this a major contradiction? Not really. First, regarding the physical evidence, we would not necessarily know what to look for. Second, just because a person can get old does not mean they will. Potential lifespan is not the same as realized lifespan. Third, and this is the focus of this episode, population modeling shows that short-lived people that are the maximum number of generations removed from Noah will quickly dominate. This is a recipe for rapidly collapsing lifespans. Long-lived people would have been quite rare in the early post-Flood world. The biblical data. See my article The rapid decline in biblical lifespans: The actuarial table I used. Data from https://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper09.pdf, WHO LIFE TABLE FOR 1999: AFR D A population pyramid at year 1000 using the default model: The number of generations people are 'removed' from Noah at 100-year intervals in the default model: Realized vs expected lifespans at 100-year intervals in the default model:  

Mutations are known to occur at much higher rates than can be accounted for in evolutionary theory. Given measurable rates, Y Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve would have lived only a few thousand years ago. To answer this, evolutionists generally appeal to natural selection or genetic drift. Yet, selection can only remove 'selectable' mutations, and most mutations are necessarily selectively neutral. Also, drift fails to do anything at all in answering the dilemma. In the end, Adam and Eve are recent and there is little anyone can say about it. Notes and links: Carter 2019 A successful decade for Mendel's Accountant Robert Carter gets everything wrong? Rupe and Sanford 2008 USING NUMERICAL SIMULATION TO BETTER UNDERSTAND FIXATION RATES, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW PRINCIPLE: HALDANE'S RATCHET ReMine 2005 Cost theory and the cost of substitution—a clarification International Conference on Creationism

The genetics of the humble butterfly tells us a lot about the creation-evolution debate, the definition of 'species', the definition of 'junk DNA', and how complex the control systems for things like wing patterns are. The 'unit' of creation is not the species but the baramin (e.g., the 'created kind'), so within the creation model, species can merge, split, and morph to their hearts content. Links and notes: Main paper: Mazo-Vargas et al. 2022. Deep cis-regulatory homology of the butterfly wing pattern ground plan. Science 378(6617):304-308. Carter. 2021. Species were designed to change, part 1.

Egyptian culture is thousands of years old, yet they never maintained perfect isolation from the nations among whom they lived. They have been conquered and they themselves have conquered many times. Invading armies brought hordes of soldiers, who would have left behind children. Given that Egypt is on the African continent, and given that there Egypt was conquered at least once by the their southern neighbors (the Nubians) at least once, why doesn't the average Egyptian have the features of, say, the average person from Sudan? To answer this requires a deep dive into history and biology. There are four factors that have the greatest effect. 1) They are a Mediterranean culture, 2) many phenotypes (e.g., skin, hair, and eye color) are controlled by multiple traits, 3) many lineages peter out over time, and 4) genetic recombination insures that most people will fail to pass on their DNA to their distance descendants even if their line is maintained.

Dr Rob describes the horrible levels of inbreeding within the ancient Egyptian royal family and how this affected them over time. This includes the problems we see in the mummies of King Tut and his father Akhenaten, plus further up the family tree in the time of Hatshepsut (who may have been the princess who drew Moses out of the Nile) and much later in time during the Ptolemies (Cleopatra only had three great-grandparents!). Notes and links: Curse of the Pharaoh's DNA DNA degradation (note, I don't agree with everything said in this article) Y chromosome family tree (figure 2 in this article) Hatshepsut's mummy and DNA Schuenemann et al. 2017 Ancient Egyptian mummy genomes suggest an increase of Sub-Saharan African ancestry in post-Roman periods The Faiyum Ancient History vs the Table of Nations (Biblical Genetics, May 5, 2020) Ptolemaic family tree Family tree of Hatshepsut, Tut, etc. Inbreeding among the Spanish Hapsburgs (Alvarez et al. 2009 The Role of Inbreeding in the Extinction of a European Royal Dynasty) Gad et al. 2021 Insights from ancient DNA analysis of Egyptian DNA  

Dr Rob travels to Egypt to answer some difficult questions about the biblical timeline, population growth, the people of Egypt, and how, on earth, there were enough people to build the pyramids just a few centuries after Babel. Notes and links: Tour Egypt with CMI book Egyptian chronology and the Bible—framing the issues Time fears the pyramids? How they fit into the true biblical history Search Creation.com for articles on the LXX Modelling biblical human population growth

Dr Rob talks about how divisions and disagreements are not only necessary but also productive for scientific progress. Thus, when you see two scientists disagreeing, this does not mean they hate each other or that they are necessarily refuting each other. He talks about the debates within creationism, including the location of the post-Flood boundary, the role of natural selection in the created order of things, the usefulness of molecular clocks, the dating of the Exodus, and the location and timing of the Tower of Babel event. Notes and links: Weeks Bay Pitcher Plant Bog Evolutionists Say the Oddest Things The method of multiple working hypotheses My review of Nathaniel Jeanson's Traced Clarey's geological maps YEHEs Natural selection Feathered dinosaurs?

The 'molecular clock hypothesis' is critical for evolutionary theory. If it fails, many evolutionary speculations will fall as well. Yet, there is abundant evidence that mutations in the Y chromosome have happened at different rates among different people groups. If this is true, nobody an know how long ago 'Y Chromosome Adam' lived. Notes: My Review of Nathaniel Jeanson's Traced Ding et al. 2021. Mutation Rate Variability across Human Y-Chromosome Haplogroups. Mol Biol Evol 38(3):1000-1005.

During the process of protein translation, the cell matches three letters in DNA for each amino acid. But there are 4 x 4 x 4 = 64 possible 3-letter combination and only 20 amino acids. This means that most amino acids have more than one code and that many mutations do not change the amino acids in the resulting protein. For decades, mutations at these sites were seen as 'silent', but this can no longer be accepted. Instead, it is now clearly understood that most mutations in these sites, even if the amino acid sequence in the protein is unchanged, are measurably bad for the organism. There are various reasons for this, as Dr Rob explains, but this creates a giant headache for evolutionary theory. Removing this class of 'irrelevant' mutations means that evolution has even more mathematical difficulties. On the other hand, the new information tells us that life was designed with an amazing degree of exactitude and precision. All quotations and references can be found in my article Carter R, Mutations are more harmful than we thought: silencing the ‘wobble' in the codon table, creation.com/silent-mutations-harmful, 25 August 2022.  

Dr Rob explains an issue in the creation vs. evolution debate: how fast mutations accumulate. The rate we can measure in families (the 'genealogical' rate) is much faster than the rate at which it is claimed mutations accumulate in the population (the 'phylogenetic' rate). There are good reasons why the genealogical rate is closer to the real value we should use to date Adam and Eve, including the fact that most mutations are selectively neutral and, therefore, accumulate at the rate at which the occur. Yes, natural selection can remove some mutations. Thus, the long-term mutation rate is a little slower than the genealogical mutation rate, but the difference is a few percent, not two orders of magnitude. There are several charts shown in this presentation that are part of an ongoing project that Dr Rob is working on. When the paper is published, a link will be added here. In the meantime, here are the charts: Figure 1: Using Mendel's Accountant, the accumulation of neutral (blue), deleterious (red), and beneficial (green) alleles can be tracked over time. These are the results from a model population of 500 individuals with a neutral mutation frequency of 0.5 over 10,000 generations. Figure 2: Using Mendel's Accountant and summarizing over many runs, we can see that the separation between the blue and red lines in Figure 1 is negligible (less than 8% in populations of 10,000 individuals). The size of the population does not appreciably affect the mutation accumulation rate. Figure 3: Using my own population modeling software, I was able to estimate the average lifespan of any new, neutral mutation. I ran each population size model 1,000 times and took an average (orange dots). Since most new alleles are lost to genetic drift very quickly, the size of the population is almost irrelevant. In the video, I say "4" generations, but I said that before I had finished all the models runs. I think "5" is a better estimate. It takes, on average, 5 generations for any new mutation to be lost (btw, this also applies to beneficial mutations, as Sanford has shown in his work with Mendel). Further reading:  Carter, R., A successful decade for Mendel's Accountant, Journal of Creation 33(2):51–56, 2019.