#65 Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosome Adam

Genetic scientists seem to be in general agreement that we are all descendants of one woman and one man. This research was fairly recent, starting about 1978. They, of course, do not believe in the creation story of Adam and Eve in the Bible, but their conclusions are getting closer and closer.

In case you have not heard about this, it makes very interesting reading. But I think it raises a number of profound challenges to the Theory of Evolution.

The scientists base the above conclusions on the known facts of human reproduction, specifically on properties of the sperm and egg.

Mitochondrial Eve

What are mitochondria? They are membrane-bound organelles found in the cells of all plants, animals, fungi, and many other forms of life. [1]

“These structures are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), used as a source of chemical energy. In addition to supplying cellular energy, mitochondria are involved in other tasks such as signaling, cellular differentiation, cell death, as well as the control of the cell cycle and cell growth.“[2]

Every person inherits his or her mitochondria for every cell in their body exclusively from their mother. The father contributes only a sperm cell to the developing fetus. But a sperm has only a small amount of mitochondria in the tail that gets used up in propulsion or else destroyed after fertilizing the egg.

Researchers sampled the DNA from the mitochondria in 147 people from all the major racial groups of the world. From this DNA they concluded that we all descended from a single woman. They think she must have lived between 99,000 and about 200,000 years ago in Africa.[3] It’s a theory and has its opponents, but it has gained a lot of support. The theory is interesting, but a little complicated. I encourage you to read up on it if you would like to. Scientists believe there were other women alive at the same time, but their line of descendants died out or does not include all living humans today.

This common female ancestor of all anatomically modern humans alive today was nicknamed "Mitochondrial Eve".

Y-Chromosome Adam

What is the Y-Chromosome? Probably you learned about it in school.

“The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes in mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or absence of Y that determines male or female sex.” [4]

Females do not have a Y-Chromosome in their cells. Only males inherit Y-Chromosomes and they always come from the father only. Therefore researchers can study the Y-chromosomes of men all over the world and can then theorize that all men are related and in fact descended from one man long ago. This is based on certain changes to the DNA in the Y-Chromosomes. By theorizing about the rate of mutations or types of changes to the DNA itself, they can make predictions about a common male ancestor. It is believed that many generations ago the ancestor of all men came from the same tribe, and finally a single great-great-…..-great-grandfather.

The conclusion is thus that we are all descendants of one male ancestor and he has received the nickname of "Y-Chromosome Adam". [5] He lived by various estimates between 120,000 and 338,000 years ago. And by analyzing the divergence of DNA in earthly populations, it was determined that he also likely lived in Africa.

This is a nice coincidence because most religious groups also believe that all humans are descendants of one man and one woman. Scientists have not concluded that they mated with each other, but they do put them in Africa and within a few 1000 years of each other. Religious people believe that God miraculously created the first man and woman. Secularists and evolutionists believe that there were many other humans around at the same time as Mitochondrial Eve or Y-Chromosome Adam, but their lineages did not result in an unbroken line to all humans alive today.

So let’s now look at some of the contradictions and challenges that the evolutionists have to deal with.

First off, scientists say that roughly 200,000 years ago (plus or minus 100K) a male and a female existed that were anatomically JUST LIKE US. Over the 200,000 years until today, although there have been mutations in their genes, they are still humans just like us.

This means there has been no evolution or species change for 200,000 years. There is no slow and gradual change that Darwin predicted! Think about that for a minute. If there has been no observable change in the last 200,000 years, how can we be so sure that there was any change the previous 200,000 years? Or how about the 200,000 years before that? If there has been no evidence in genetic research of evolution in 200,000 years, why assume evolution is true at all. They are building their case on faith.

Secondly, 200,000 years is a long time without significant change. The human body is extremely complicated and the time frame is just too short for evolution to be true. Current scientific belief is that humans diverged from apes about 5 to 7,000,000 years ago.

“A new study of genes in humans and chimpanzees pins down with greater accuracy when the two species split from one. The evolutionary divergence occurred between 5 million and 7 million years ago, an estimate that improves on the previous range of 3 million to 13 million years in the past. Modern chimps are the closest animal relative to humans.” [6]

There are some very major changes that had to take place in the body structure of apes to turn them into humans. Remember also that both female humans and male humans had to evolve from ape-like creatures. Presumably both the male and the female had to evolve thousands of similar changes at nearly same time for Natural Selection to be working. Imagine if women evolved but men didn't. Then the men would still walk around and be shaped like chimpanzees.

Very little if anything has actually changed in human bodies in the last 200,000 years according to genetic scientists. Where is the slow and gradual change predicted by Darwin? 5 million is only 25 times 200,000. If almost nothing changes in 200,000 years, then how could there be millions of dramatic changes in the previous 4,800,000?

It doesn't make sense. How could there be rapid change from an ape shape to a human shape and then no change? The Theory of Evolution predicts slow and gradual change. Scientists say there is no difference between humans today and 200,000 years. In order to get humans from monkeys in 4,800,000 years there has to be a lot of rapid changes and that violates the Theory of Evolution.

Thirdly, genetic scientists are accepting that we all are descendants of one man and one woman. This makes sense because it’s not likely that mutation could have produced identical advances or genetic advantages in 2 different and distinct lineages. All of us have 3 billion codes in our DNA makeup, so random mutation will never produce the same human beings in two different locations.

But if we are all descendants of one male and one female, how could a supposed evolutionary change take place in one individual and then that new trait be spread throughout the whole population of humans? The only way that can work is if all descendants WITHOUT the new trait die off and only descendants WITH the new trait survive. A new common ancestor would be needed every time a new trait emerged. And it would take not just a new Eve, but it would require a new Adam.

Let’s try to think of how we humans could evolve from today. Then I think you’ll see this is impossible. I would maintain that it would be equally impossible to have happened in all the populations in the past.

Let’s just suppose that someone was born who had mutated hugely in one generation (not the Darwinian slow and gradual) so that this person would clearly be the fittest to survive. (Think of the X-Men movie.) Just to pick an example, let’s say this person has a super-Einstein brain. You can make up your own mutated trait if you like for your own example.

Let’s call him NewMan for reference purposes. (Also NewWoman would also be fine.) Our goal is that all human beings at some point in the future have this new mutated trait, super-Einstein brain. That would mean that NewMan must become the ancestor at some point in the distant future of all the humans alive on the planet. Those without the new trait must become extinct. What would have to happen?  How long would it take?

This mutated characteristic (super-Einstein brain) would have to able to be passed on to NewMan’s children. Not all mutations can be inherited so the odds are challenging. Also NewMan would have to accidentally marry a spouse who is compatible with his mutation being inherited. He might not mate at all of course. Not all spouses would necessarily reproduce the mutated trait with him even if they mated. The odds of all this are not good. But let’s keep going. Suppose all of their children had super-brains. Still they would also have to intermarry with “normal” humans without super-brains. The genes for super-brains would have to be dominant or they would die out quickly.

There are 7 billion people in the world having children. How long would it take, if ever, before all people in the world would have a super-brain? That would mean that all people were descendants of NewMan. We would also have to get to the point that all children being born would have super-brains and the genes for non-super-brains are totally gone. Otherwise, some children might be from parents that still carried the non-super genes and the result could be that their children might have ordinary brains.

One other major problem is that the human race is spread all over the globe. Look at the picture above again of the spread of humans out of Africa. If another change occurred to our species in Africa say, how could it possibly spread all over the glove to all the other human groups? 

This seems so absurdly complicated to me that it is impossible. And this is just for one change. If we came from monkeys, we had to go through thousands of changes if not millions. (Please read my Proof for God #12, Chimpanzees, for more information on the millions of DNA differences between apes and humans. [7])

Fourthly, the idea behind Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest is that EACH time there is an advance, then it somehow becomes universal among all members of that species in later generations. So for every small advance through evolution, and there have been thousands of them, there would have to be a NewMan and NewWoman to start the species all over again with the new trait. The corollary of course is that all the other members of the species without the new advantage are going to die out and leave no descendants. Once there are millions of members of a species, how could there be continuing evolutionary changes that spread to the entire population and don't leave out a single individual? We know that the DNA of every individual of a species is basically identical. Evolutionists want you to believe that the DNA of some advantageous mutation can be spread exactly as it is to the DNA of every individual in a species at some point in the future.

If mutations were that powerful (which they aren't), there would be total chaos in the DNA of every species. Millions of individuals would mean millions of mutations all vying to change the DNA of the whole species.

Fifthly, as we can see it becomes impossible to explain how such a process (super Einstein brains) could evolve new humans. Evolution has a tremendously bigger problem. Evolution is supposed to apply to every other one of the 800,000 species (insects, birds, fish, plants, animals, and even bacteria). Because evolution works magically only when there is reproduction, therefore new traits have to start with an original male and female. So once any significant change takes place, you would have to start all over again with another original male and female who mate with each other or at least somehow become of common ancestor of the whole species later on. 

There are so many major changes between species that this process of starting over with a new couple would have to be repeated hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. (See Missing Links, Proof #64 [8]) All birds, fish, animals, and all living beings would have to follow this process. That doesn’t make sense. There is not enough time in history. There is no such fossil record.

The only theory that is workable is that God created each species, a male and female, as unique originals at a point in time and from there came many variations within the species but not between species.

There must be God.   

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[1] Mitochondrion, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion

[2] Mitochondrion, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion

[3] Clark, Josh, Are we all descended from a common female ancestor? http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/evolution/female-ancestor.htm

[4] Y-Chromosome, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_chromosome

[5] Y-Chromosome Adam, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosome_Adam

[6] LiveScience Staff, When Humans and Chimps Split, Dec. 19, 2005, http://www.livescience.com/3996-humans-chimps-split.html

[7] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #12, Chimpanzees. http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2012/07/12-chimpanzees.html 

[8] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #64, Missing Links, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2014/07/64-missing-links.html

#64 Missing Links

I’m sure you have heard of the term “Missing Link” and understand that it refers to missing fossils in the fossil record that would show the transitional stages between certain species according to the Theory of Evolution. The theory predicts which species are the ancestors of other species and that there was a slow and gradual transition with intermediate generations.

Did you ever stop to think deeply about how many Missing Links there truly must be? Even just a rough guess? If you look at the imaginative drawings of evolutionists, you might suppose that there are just one or two Missing Links. But that could not be further from the truth. I intend to show you in this article that there would necessarily be billions of Missing Links if evolution were true. Thus it isn't true and God is behind the creation of each species.

There are so many Missing Links that honest scientists should have discarded the Theory of Evolution a hundred years ago for that reason alone. But they have clung to a God denying ideology while still claiming to be scientific against all the evidence.

Take a look at this Wikipedia page of Missing Links which they call Transitional Fossils. [1] Many of the so-called missing links are drawings. A drawing is not a missing link and it is not scientific. They base these drawings mostly on their imaginations because all they have are a few bones and no complete skeletons. Go down the page of so-called missing links and count how many are incomplete, inconclusive, speculative, or controversial. That is not good science.

Let’s take a simple example of “evolving” from a monkey foot to a man’s foot. Evolution is supposed to take place by slow gradual mutations over many generations and Natural Selection acts on the results to weed out the new species or feature that is "fittest". I previously wrote articles on the Truth about Mutation [2] and Natural Selection [3] and showed these processes are a FAIL and will not work. But let’s just suppose for the sake of this article that they did work as theorized. What would you get? I contend there would have to be millions upon millions of fossils we don't have and therefore these are Missing Links. There are too many Missing Links to call evolution a reasonable theory.

Using a slow and gradual transition, exactly how many intermediate foot shapes are needed to get from an ape foot to a human foot? The exact number is certainly higher than 10 or 20, don’t you think? Note that the shape of the feet are different. The toes are different (especially the big toe). The heels are different. And the ankle has changed a lot necessarily because a human walks upright. For each small change in the foot according to evolution theory there was a living being with that type of foot who produced descendants. Probably, in fact, there had to be more than one generation for each small change. Therefore, that living being with a transitional foot could have been fossilized like any ape or human that was. None have been found. Therefore, they must all be considered Missing Links.

Just considering the foot alone, there have to be many generations of Missing Links. Now think about other parts of the ape body transitioning to the human body. Consider the pelvis. [4][5] There are many, many changes to transition through in the pelvic area to be able to walk upright. This is also true for the neck. There are major changes to the skull, the chest, the arms, the hands, the spine, and just about every other part. For an ape ancestor body to be modified into that of a human, there are going to be thousands upon thousands of changes. Therefore, there are thousands upon thousands of generations of Missing Links, not just one or two individuals.

Here’s another equally important point to consider. According to evolution, mutation produces many variations of a given species and then Natural Selection weeds out the fittest one to survive. Think about how many variations existed but did not advance as the “chosen” one. Random mutation by definition must have produced hundreds if not thousands of “mistakes” or “mutants” that lived and died but were not on the direct line from ape to human. These beings lived and died but they were not part of the “fittest” which eventually resulted in humans.

All those mutants lived. Maybe they didn't reproduce much, but they could have been fossilized. Where are they in the fossil record? These beings are all Missing Links also. So how many more Missing Links should be added to our estimate? Well, don’t we have to assume that for every mutation that “got it right”, the Theory of Evolution predicts that many, many would have “got it wrong” and thus have died out.

So for each and every direct-line transitional step (Missing Link) from apes to humans, there must have been tens or hundreds of mutations off the direct line. These beings were just as likely to have been fossilized just like the apes or men that did get fossilized. Let’s call these Missing NON-Links. They are definitely missing, but they are not on the “direct chain or lineage” from apes to humans. A wild guess would be that there are thousands upon thousands of these Missing NON-Links, just going from apes to humans.

So far I have talked about Missing Links and Missing Non-Links between apes and humans. But evolution supposedly explains the transition from every species to every other species. Because there are something like 800,000 species, we have to conclude that there are hundreds or thousands of Missing Links and Missing Non-Links for every one of those other species of plants, insects, birds, fish, amphibians, mammals, etc. Otherwise evolution is not true.

How many Missing Links are there? I originally said billions. Can you see where I got that estimate?

Darwin thought the problem of Missing Links would be solved once they discovered more and better fossils. But his problem has only gotten worse. Of all the known fossils today, 99.9% of them have been discovered since Darwin. In other words, we have 1,000 times more fossils today than at Darwin’s time. The more fossils that are discovered and the better preserved they are, the less Darwin’s theory is supported. Missing Links are not being found. Claims of Missing Links exist but in a tiny fraction of the number compared to predictions.

Another problem concerning Missing Links is that there have been many fakes. Unscrupulous scientists wanting fame and fortune have trumpeted their “discoveries” of the Missing Link to prove evolution. Either they were unscrupulous or they had to be totally incompetent, which is unlikely.

As an example, the Nebraska Man was “reconstructed” from a single tooth. In the end it was discovered to be the tooth of an extinct pig. The Piltdown Man was falsified with a human skull and an apelike jaw.

Here’s another argument that should be considered. Suppose someone someday does claim to have dig up another Missing Link. How can they prove it is our ancestor? All you have are some bones. If I went to a cemetery and dug up some bones, what could be proven from looking at those bones? We could know if it was human, if it was a male or female, its size and approximate weight. We could guess at its age and maybe a bunch of other things. But how do you know he/she had any children? You could get DNA off of real bones, but not off of a fossil. You don’t know if this was the ancestor of anybody. You don’t know if their descendants reproduced. Could a fossil woman in Africa really be the great-great grandmother of a fossil woman in China?

All of the so called Missing Links from apes to humans really are only pieces of a skeleton. Look at the famous "Lucy" above. In the left picture are the actual bones and the right is someone's imagination. We don’t have full skeletons. Lucy had no hands or foot bones.

One individual can’t be our ancestor because there had to be male and female and many generations. There should be a whole lot of a particular group of beings, even whole tribes. One very isolated individual can’t logically be an ancestor.

If all they have is pieces of a skeleton, how do you know for sure what the rest of it looked like? How do they know all the pieces belong to the same individual being? They are only guessing. And we know we can’t trust that because of all the hoaxes that have already be passed off as real. If these pieces were really human fragments and they truly survived for millions of years, how come there are not thousands of other pieces that also survived those millions of years. The earth should be covered with human remains and Missing Links. Bones found in England, China, and Indonesia are supposedly millions of years old. However, they were found in damp earth, which is scientifically controversial because they should have decayed.

Look at these human skulls. They are very different, yet they are all human. Can you tell if one is the ancestor of another one? Impossible.

Something else, also, evolutionists are guilty of confusing differentiation within a species with transition between two different species. Some of the fossils in the Wikipedia category of Transitional Fossils (Missing Links) [1] are not intermediates between two different species. They are simply developments within the same species. 

Horses have changed over time. Dogs have changed over time as have most species. But this is NOT evolution between species. No creation scientist or proponent of Intelligent Design denies that there has been differentiation within species. Horses have changed. But they deny that one species becomes another species, which is the essence of the Theory of Evolution. Apes are not the ancestors of humans.

If you take out the faked Missing Links and then the controversial ones between apes and humans, all you really have left are apes and humans with nothing in between but someone’s imagination.

The Theory of Evolution has so many “holes” in it (to coin a phrase) that it should have been debunked 100 years ago. In claiming to follow the “evidence” they have refused to accept the obvious and denied its implications.

One final point. Let’s imagine way,way in the future that you go to a fossil bed and dig up a whole lot of rather simple fossils. Then you arrange them in an order that makes sense to you, putting them in two rational sequences. See the picture below.

The objects in the pictures are much, much less complicated than living animals. Absolutely no respected scientist would claim that these rather simple “fossils” evolved by random mutation and Natural Selection (although I can see Intelligent Selection at work). Therefore, it makes no rational, scientific, or even logical sense for someone to decide that there was no intelligence involved in the creation of all the formerly living beings which became the actual historical fossils that we have today .

There must be God.

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[1] List of Transitional Fossils, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

[2] Proof #27, The Truth About Mutation, Jim Stephens, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/02/27-truth-about-mutation.html

[3] Proof #35, Natural Selection, Jim Stephens, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/05/35-natural-selection.html

[4] Sherwin, Frank, Paleontology's Pelvic Puzzle, http://www.icr.org/article/7399/

[5] Pelvic Anatomy, Upright Posture and Health, http://www.upright-health.com/pelvic-anatomy.html