Addresses of All Authors
John Sanford, FMS Foundation, 877 Marshall Rd, Waterloo, NY 13165, USA. jsanford@FMSFound.org
Rob Carter, FMS Foundation, 877 Marshall Rd, Waterloo, NY 13165, USA. rcarter@FMSFound.org
Wes Brewer, Computational Solutions LLC, P.O. Box 4752, Jackson, MS 39296, USA. wes@computational.io
John Baumgardner, Logos Research Associates, 24515 Novato Place, Ramona, CA 92065 USA. Johnrbaumgardner@gmail.com
Bruce Potter, FMS Foundation, 877 Marshall Rd, Waterloo, NY 13165, USA. brucemp7@gmail.com
John Potter, FMS Foundation, 877 Marshall Rd, Waterloo, NY 13165, USA. jpotterm@gmail.com
Author's Biography
As a Cornell University professor, John Sanford conducted genetic research for 37 years. This research resulted in more than 100 scientific publications, and several dozen patents. John is presently president of Logos Research Associates, and president of Feed My Sheep Foundation. John’s most significant contributions to science have been: 1) primary inventor of the Biolistic Process (the “Gene Gun”); 2) author of the book Genetic Entropy; 3) co-developer of Mendel’s Accountant (a comprehensive and biologically realistic numerical simulation of the mutation/selection process); 4) lead organizer/editor of the Cornell symposium and subsequently published proceedings entitled Biological Information--New Perspectives; and 5) coauthor of the book Contested Bones.
Dr. Robert W. Carter is a senior scientist and speaker for CMI-USA in Atlanta, Georgia. He is currently researching human genetics and other issues related to biblical creation. He obtained a BS in Applied Biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1992. He then spent four years teaching high school biology, chemistry, physics and electronics before going to the University of Miami to obtain his PhD in Marine Biology.
Dr. Wes Brewer is a consultant for Computational Solutions LLC. He is a graduate of MIT and has a PhD in Computational Engineering. After spending a number of years developing computational hydrodynamic codes for the US Navy, he started his own consulting company in which he has worked with numerous companies and organizations around the world. He has spent almost a decade teaching computer science in both South and North Korea. Furthermore, he has worked on Mendel’s Accountant team since 2005 and also has worked with Larry Vardiman/ICR on post ice age climate modeling.
Dr. John Baumgardner is vice-president of Logos Research Associates. He has a Ph.D. in geophysics and space physics from UCLA and worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory in computational physics research during most of his scientific career. Since the early 1980’s he has undertaken most of the primary research undergirding the concept of catastrophic plate tectonics in connection with Noah’s Flood. Beginning in 1997 he served on the Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (RATE) team that documented multiple independent lines of radioisotope evidence that the earth is thousands, not billions, of years old. Since 2005 he has been part of a small team that has developed Mendel’s Accountant, a computer model for exploring key topics in population genetics relating to the origin and history of life. John currently is a senior research associate with Logos Research Associates based in Santa Ana, California, and teaches science apologetics courses at Southern California Seminary in the San Diego area.
Bruce Potter is a research associate for Feed My Sheep Foundation. He has degrees in computer science and mechanical engineering from Clarkson University. He has worked for IBM as a software engineer for 33 years, first on IBM’s supercomputers, and more recently in cloud and edge computing. He has 2 patents, and 15 years of experience in developing open source code, including contributing to several open source projects.
Jonathan Potter is a research associate for Feed My Sheep Foundation. He has his BS and Masters degrees in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology and has worked as a software engineer for six years. He specializes in web technologies and has contributed to multiple open source projects.
Proposal
Theistic evolutionists present multiple genetic arguments against a literal Adam and Eve. One key argument asserts it would be impossible for a single human couple to give rise to the genetic diversity seen in the modern human population. This implicitly assumes Adam and Eve would have been created without internal genetic diversity. If this were true, all observed variations would have to arise recently via random mutations. This would require incredibly high mutation rates, logically leading to rapid extinction.
Yet, Adam and Eve could have been created massively heterozygous. We have argued for over a decade that they could have been created with “designed diversity”. We have previously shown that a vast amount of genetic variation could have been pre-programmed into their genomes. This could logically provide the genetic basis for: 1) our human gifts and talents; 2) the many forms of human beauty; and 3) the various ways people have rapidly adapted to new habitats.
It is also claimed that the currently observed human allele frequency patterns could not arise from a single couple. The logic here is that, since there were only four sets of chromosomes in Eden, all variants would have had an initial frequency of either 25%, 50%, or 75%. Today, most allelic variants have frequencies in the range of 0–10%. Therefore, it is claimed that observed human diversity disproves a literal Adam and Eve.
In this paper we have critically examined these arguments. Our analyses highlight several genetic mechanisms that can help reconcile a literal Adam and Eve with the human allele frequency distributions seen today. We use numerical simulation to show that two people, if they contain designed alleles, can in fact give rise to allele frequency distributions of the very same type as are now seen in modern man.
We cannot know how God created Adam and Eve, nor exactly how Adam and Eve gave rise to the current human population. However, the genetic argument that there is no way that a literal Adam and Eve could have given rise to the observed human allele frequencies is clearly over-reaching and appears to be theologically reckless. There is no compelling reason to reject Adam and Eve based on modern allele frequencies.
Disciplines
Genetics | Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
Keywords
Human origins, demographic stirring, genetics, mutation, genetic drift, population bottleneck, designed diversity, designed alleles, designed gametes, founder effects, allele frequency distribution, numerical simulation
DOI
https://doi.org/10.15385/jpicc.2018.8.1.20
Print Reference
Pages 200-216
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Recommended Citation
Sanford, J., R. Carter, W. Brewer, J. Baumgardner, B. Potter, and J. Potter. 2018. Adam and Eve, designed diversity, and allele frequencies. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, ed. J.H. Whitmore, pp. 200–216. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Creation Science Fellowship.