individuals, we can assess how long ago this event was. For example, by comparing the rungs between any two humans, we can estimate how many generations ago two people shared a common relative, like a great-great-great-great-grandfather. It so happens that the vast majority of our DNA rungs are the same, making these comparative analyses straightforward.
For technical reasons that will be explained in a subsequent post, only a small subset of the DNA letters in an individual lend themselves as simple timekeepers.3 In particular, a subset of DNA termed the mitochondrial DNA acts as a very straightforward timekeeper. Mitochondrial DNA encodes some of the most important and basic information for our bodies to function. Without mitochondrial DNA, we would be unable to convert the food we eat into energy usable to our cells. In other words, without mitochondrial DNA, human and animal life largely stops.
Comparing the rungs of the mitochondrial DNA ladder among various species reveals a stunning result. If species have been in existence for millions of years, a large number of the mitochondrial DNA rungs should have a different color. In contrast, the vast majority of these rungs are the same.4 It’s as if species originated recently, in the last few thousand years. In other words, if species originated within the last 6,000 years, very few ticks of the mitochondrial DNA clock would have occurred, and this is exactly what we observe.
Thus, by two independent lines of evidence, species look as if they originated recently. First, by Darwin’s own breed-species comparison and criteria, species must have originated contemporary with intelligent human populations. Second, when we examine the direct genetic record of their origin, we see very few genetic differences—far too few for species to have arisen over millions of years—but just the right amount if they originated within the last few thousand years.
Not surprisingly, evolutionists have tried to rebut this contradictory evidence. But their claims are vacuous.5 For example, in geology, a variety of techniques are used to argue against a 6,000 years age for the earth. From carbon-14 dating, to other forms of radioisotope dating, to ice core formation, to the rates of erosion, geologists see many lines of evidence inconsistent with the biblical view.
However, in order to make their millions-of-years math work, evolutionists have to assume constant rates of change. In carbon-14 dating, they have to assume that the rate of carbon-14 decay has been largely constant.6 When dating ice cores, they have to assume a roughly constant rate of ice layer formation. Erosion rates must be assumed to be constant with time for the argument against the Scriptures to hold any water.
Yet in the field of genetics, constant rates of change produce the opposite result—a tremendously strong argument for the recent origin of species, which, by implication, argues for a recent origin of the earth. How will the evolutionists deal with this conundrum?
For several reasons, invoking changing rates in genetics will not work. First, in light of the evolutionists’ historical rebuttals to young-earth creation geology, changing rates in genetics would be hypocritical. For years, young-earth creationists have argued for variable rates in geology, especially in light of the global Flood that was recorded in Genesis 6–8.7 In response, evolutionists have simply asserted that a global Flood—that changing rates—must simply not be invoked. It would be inconsistent to now suddenly permit changing rates to be arbitrarily invoked in a different field of science.
Second, under the evolutionary timescale, the required rates of genetic change are so low that they amount to a biological miracle.8 Since evolutionists forbid miracles from biological explanations, variable rates of genetic change are a nonstarter.
Despite the rigorous challenge that these data present to the evolutionary model, these two arguments for the recent origin of species leave an element of the young-earth model dangling—they still do not answer the questi