Genetic Clues from the Tower of Babel

"The Tower of Babel .....like the Creation and Flood accounts, there

are only a couple of verses that apply to our model of genetics. 

But, like the others, these verses are as profound as they are simple.
“Now the whole earth had one language and one speech.” 

Genesis 11:1
“And they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’” 

Genesis 11:4
It sounds like they were in a homogenous culture, but what do people in that situation do? 

Q: Would you expect them to mix freely?

Note in Genesis 11:4 that they knew about the potential for spreading
out and getting separated from one another and intentionally did the opposite! However, this was against the express command of God, who had ordered them to spread out (to populate the earth). So, He took matters into His own hands.
“’Come, let Us go down and confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.’ So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.” Genesis 11:7–8

From a Biblical perspective, the current human population easily fits

into the standard model of population growth using very conservative parameters. In fact, starting with 6 people and doubling the population every 150 years more than accounts for the current human population (a growth rate of less than 0.5% per year!). Population size would have increased quickly given the rate at which the post-Flood population reestablished agriculture, animal husbandry, industry and civilization.

Q: So, we must ask the question, -- Why are there so few people in the world today?
A: The answer is that the world is young and we have not been here many thousands of years.
Q: When did the dispersion occur?

A: Our best clue about the timing of the event comes from Genesis 10:25. In referencing the 5th generation descendent of Shem, a man named Peleg, it says, “in his days the earth was divided.”
Q: To what is this referring?
A: ....this passage is referring to the division of people at Babel.
There are 16 named sons born to the three brothers, Shem, Ham and
Japheth. If we assume about the same number of daughters, Noah had on the order of 30 grandchildren. At that rate of growth, there would have been about 150 children in Salah’s generation, about 750 in Eber’s generation, and about 3,750 in Peleg’s generation. 

Of course, these generations overlap, etc., so let’s say there were between 1,000 and 10,000 people alive at the time of Babel. This fits nicely with the available data. It is a high rate of growth, but wars and disease had yet to start taking their toll.

There is one more verse in this section that we need to discuss:
“These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, in their nations; and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood.” Genesis 10:32
---At Babel, God did not separate the nations according to language. ---He used language to separate them according to paternal (male) ancestry!
---Paternal sorting would lead to specific Y chromosome lineages in different geographical locations. Since males and females from the three main families should have been freely intermixing prior to this, it also leads to a mixing of the mitochondrial lines.
*It is as if God put all the people into a giant spreadsheet and hit a button called “Sort According to Father.” He then took that list and used it to divide up and separate the nations.

We already saw that Y chromosomes have little variation among

them. We now add the fact that this little bit of variation is almost always geographically specific. That is, after the nations were separated according to Y chromosome, mutations occurred in the various lines. 

*Since the lines were sent to specific geographical areas, the mutations are geographically specific. The current distribution of Y chromosome lines is a tremendous confirmation of the Biblical model.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) adds another confirmation. We have
already learned that there are three main lineages of mtDNA. We now add the fact that these three lineages are more or less randomly distributed across the world. Also, the various mutations within each of the three main families of mtDNA are geographically specific as well.

---In other words, as the three mixed mitochondrial lines were carried along with the Y chromosome dispersal, each line in each area began to pick up new mutations, just like we would predict." 

CMI

M,N,R Genetics support Bible

"It comes as a surprise to most people to hear that there is abundant evidence that the entire human race came from two people just a few thousand years ago (Adam and Eve), that there was a serious population crash (bottleneck) in the recent past (at the time of the Flood), and that there was a single dispersal of people across the world after that (the Tower of Babel). It surprises them even more to learn that much of this evidence comes from evolutionary scientists.

...I...

Y chromosome (which is only found in males and which is passed on directly from father to son) and in the mitochondrial DNA (a small loop of DNA that we nearly always inherit from our mothers only; males do not pass it on to their children). These two pieces of DNA record some startling facts about our past.

And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 

Genesis 2:7
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 

Genesis 2:21–22

*These simple statements have profound implications.
They put a limit on the amount of diversity we should find in people living today. 

The Bible clearly says the human race started out with two people only. 

Q: But how different were these two people? 

There is an intriguing possibility that Eve was a clone of Adam. 

The science of cloning involves taking DNA from an organism and

using it to manufacture an almost perfect copy of the original. Here, God is taking a piece of flesh, with cells, organelles, and, importantly, Adam’s DNA, and using it to manufacture a woman. Of course, she could not be a perfect clone, because she was a girl! But what if God had taken Adam’s genome and used it to manufacture Eve? All he would have had to do was to leave out Adam’s Y chromosome and double his X chromosome and, voilá, instant woman!

Your genome is like an encyclopedia (almost literally). 

And, like an encyclopedia, the genome is broken down into volumes, called chromosomes, but you have two copies of each volume (with the exception of the X and Y chromosomes; women have two Xs but men have one X and one Y). 

Imagine comparing two duplicate volumes side by side and finding that one word in a particular sentence is spelled differently in each volume (perhaps “color” vs “colour”). 

Can you see that if Eve was a clone of Adam, there would have been, at most, two possible variants at any point in the genome? If Eve was not a clone, however, there would have been, at most, four possible variants at any point in the genome (because each of the original chromosomes came in four copies). This still allows for a lot of diversity overall, but it restricts the variation at any one spot to 2, 3, or 4 original readings.
Q: Does this fit the evidence? 

A: Absolutely! Most variable places in the genome come in two versions and these versions are spread out across the world. There are some highly variable places that seem to contradict this, but most of these are due to mutations that occurred in the different subpopulations after Babel.

There are indications, however, that Eve may not have been a clone. The ABO blood group is a textbook example of a gene with more than two versions. There are three main versions of the blood type gene (A, B, and O). However, many, but not all, people with type O blood carry something that looks very much like a mutant A (the mutation prevents the manufacturing of the type A trait on the outside of cells). So here is a gene with more than two versions, but one of the main versions is clearly a mutation. This is true for many other genes, although, as usual, there are exceptions. The important take home point is that essentially all of the genetic variation among people today could have been carried within two people, if you discount mutations that occurred after our dispersion across the globe. This is a surprise to many.

...II...

About 10 generations after Creation, a severe, short bottleneck occurred in the human population. From untold numbers of people, the entire world population was reduced to eight souls with only three reproducing couples.

So Noah, with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives, went into the ark because of the waters of the flood. 

Genesis 7:7
Now the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth… These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated. 

Genesis 9:18–19

We can draw many important deductions from these statements. 

Q: For instance, based on Genesis 7 and 9, how many Y chromosomes were on the Ark? 

A: One. 

Yes, there were four men, but Noah gave his Y chromosome to each of his sons. Unless there was a mutation (entirely possible), each of

the sons carried the exact same Y chromosome. We do not know how much mutation occurred prior to the flood. With the long life spans of the antediluvian patriarchs, it may be reasonable to assume little mutation had taken place, ...The amount of mutation may be a moot point, however, for, if it occurred, the Flood should have wiped out most traces of it (all of it in the case of the Y chromosome).

Q: How many mitochondrial DNA lineages were on the Ark? 

A: Three. 

Yes, there were four women, but the Bible does not record Noah’s wife as having any children after the Flood (in this case, girl children). And notice the claim in Gen 9:19, “These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.”

...III...

The evidence from mitochondrial DNA fits our model just as neatly as the Y chromosome data. As it turns out, there are three main mitochondrial DNA lineages found across the world. 

The evolutionists have labeled these lines “M”, “N”, and “R”, so we’ll refer to them by the same names. They would not say these came off the Ark. It also turns out that M, N, and R differ by only a few mutations. This gives us some indication of the amount of mutation that occurred in the generations prior to the Flood.

Let’s assume ten female generations from Eve to the ladies on the

Ark. M and N are separated by about 8 mutations (a small fraction of the 16,500 letters in the mitochondrial genome). R is only 1 mutation away from N. This is an indication of the mutational load that occurred before the Flood. Given the assumption that mutations occur at equal rates in all lines, about four mutations separate M and N each from Eve (maybe four mutations in each line in ten generations). 

Q: But what about R? 

A: It is very similar to N. Were N and R sisters, or perhaps more closely related to each other than they were to M? We’ll never know, but it sure is fascinating to think about.

One more line of evidence crops up in the amount of genetic diversity that has been found within people worldwide. Essentially, much less has been found than most (i.e., evolutionists!) predicted. *However, the reason for this lack of diversity is..... 

First, the human race started out with only two people. 

Second, the human race is not that old and has not accumulated a lot of mutations, despite the high mutation rate. 

Third, there actually was a bottleneck event, Noah’s Flood!

...IV...

There is one more verse in this section that we need to discuss:
These were the families of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, in their nations; and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood. 

Genesis 10:32

At Babel, God did not separate the nations according to language. He used language to separate them according to paternal (male) ancestry! This has monumental significance and is the key to understanding human genetic history. 

Paternal sorting would lead to specific Y chromosome lineages in different geographical locations. Since males and females from the three main families should have been freely intermixing prior to this, it also leads to a mixing of the mitochondrial lines. 

It is as if God put all the people into a giant spreadsheet and hit a button called “Sort According to Father.” He then took that list and used it to divide up and separate the nations.

We already saw that Y chromosomes have little variation among them. 

We now add the fact that this little bit of variation is almost always geographically specific. 

That is, after the nations were separated according to Y chromosome, mutations occurred in the various lines. 

Since the lines were sent to specific geographical areas, the mutations are geographically specific. 

The current distribution of Y chromosome lines is a tremendous confirmation of the Biblical model.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) adds another confirmation. We have already learned that there are three main lineages of mtDNA. We now add the fact that these three lineages are more or less randomly distributed across the world. Also, the various mutations within each of the three main families of mtDNA are geographically specific as well. 

In other words, as the three mixed mitochondrial lines were carried along with the Y chromosome dispersal, each line in each area began to pick up new mutations, just like we would predict." CMI/Dr. Robert Carter

Skin "color" points to Babel Dispersion

Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
Genesis 11:9

"People over the ages have placed great emphasis on race and skin color. Eugenicist-minded Darwinists have used it as the basis for much ill-conceived mischief. Even Darwin himself proposed that darker-skinned human populations were more primitive. 

*However, we now know that all people groups share the same basic genome comprised of a well-documented set of common genetic variants. Darwin was mistaken—no people group is more primitive than another.

Up until now, most of what scientists understood about skin-color genetics came from research using European people groups. Researchers originally discovered that variations in a gene called SLC24A5 influenced skin cells to produce less pigment. This appeared to provide a basis for pale skin.

To more fully explain the genetic basis of human skin color variation, a group of researchers recently went to Africa—the most genetically diverse continent on Earth. 

*Contrary to conventional thought, Africa contains a huge amount of variation in human skin color across its different people groups. 

To scientifically measure the variation in skin color, the researchers measured light reflectance from the skin on the underside of the wrists of 2,092 people in the countries of Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Botswana. This area’s skin is largely protected from sunlight and these readings provide a good indirect estimate of pigmentation levels (skin color). Then the researchers analyzed the DNA of 1,570 of these individuals for genetic variation in their genomes related to skin color.

The scientists identified four major regions of the human genome that contained six different genes. Together, these genes accounted for about 30% of the observed skin color variation. 

The study reported on DNA variants associated with light skin and variants causing dark skin, both of which are abundant in the African populations. The genetic variant causing light skin is commonly present in East Africans, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they will have light skin, because multiple genes interact with each other to determine skin color. These results countered the long-held evolutionary belief that the original ancestral humans in Africa were all once dark-skinned.

This research has even broader global implications. 

For example, it shows that other dark-skinned people in southern India, Australia, and New Guinea did not somehow separately develop their skin color because the mystical forces of evolution favored it. They simply inherited the already existing ancestral dark variants as people groups dispersed around the world. 

And while evolutionists are constantly debating where and how humans actually dispersed after they supposedly evolved, the Bible indicates that human global migration happened shortly after the global flood at the tower of Babel when God confused their languages and forced them to disperse.

Once again, human genetics confirms

 the Bible’s account of history and befuddles imaginary evolutionary speculations about mankind’s origins." 

ICR