#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