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In This Issue

“Entropy of the Human Genome, and Human Reproduction”
“What is Baraminology, Part II”

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Entropy of the Human Genome, and Human Reproduction

by Douglas Roger Dexheimer

Part I: Background

At our July CSAMA meeting, we watched a recorded video presentation by Dr. John Sanford.  He spoke on the subject of genetic enthalpy and the human genome.  Based on his statistical research on mutations in the human genome, he believes that each generation has numerous uncorrected mutations.  Most of those mutations are not expressed visibly, but become latent “time bombs” which may manifest themselves in future generations.

Following are the main points of his presentation:

• The human genome is deteriorating at an alarming rate due to uncorrected random mutations.
• There are multiple copies of genes within our DNA, and there is a means to eliminate harmful mutations.
• Approximately 100 uncorrected new mutations are added to the human genome with each generation.
• The mutations are not normally expressed in recognizable ways.
• The genome’s increasing rate of decay exceeds that of the birth rate.
• Birth defects are becoming more prevalent.
• Human reproduction will soon fail to generate viable offspring.

Some questions come to mind:

1. If a married couple begin having children at a young age, and continue adding to their family over a timespan of many years, will their youngest children have more mutations than their older siblings?
2. How does this square with the Biblical account of the early patriarchs?

Part II: Biblical Insights

(Genesis chapter 5)

1 This is the roll of Adam’s descendants: On the day that God created Adam he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them. He blessed them and gave them the name Man, when they were created. 3 When Adam was a hundred and thirty years old he fathered a son, in his likeness, after his image, and he called him Seth. 4 Adam lived for eight hundred years after the birth of Seth and he fathered sons and daughters. 5 In all, Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty years; then he died. 6 When Seth was a hundred and five years old he fathered Enosh. 7 After the birth of Enosh, Seth lived for eight hundred and seven years, and he fathered sons and daughters. 8 In all, Seth lived for nine hundred and twelve years; then he died. 9  When Enosh was ninety years old he fathered Kenan. 10 After the birth of Kenan, Enosh lived for eight hundred and fifteen years and he fathered sons and daughters. 11 In all, Enosh lived for nine hundred and five years; then he died.¹

Consider the underlined portions of the text above as we continue to ponder...

• Does the genome of a man continue to deteriorate from the time he was conceived until he begins to procreate?
• How many sons did each patriarch have after his first?  Note, for example, that Adam experienced 130 years of mutations before his son Seth was born.  He then aged 800 years more, during which time he had other sons and daughters.  The corresponding numbers for Seth are 105 and 807, for Enosh, 90 and 815, and so on through the chapter.
• Did every son carry the same mutations as his father, or were the older sons genetically more like their father than the younger sons?
• If the patriarchs practiced abstinence between their children's births as directed by scripture, how many sperm would have been available for each child's conception, had every patriarch been approximately 100 years old at the time of his first child’s birth?
• Following the principles of baraminology, if early humans were created with a wide diversity of genes -- with the potential for all the possible variations of size, skin color, facial features, etc. -- how many generations passed before differences between the various people groups became apparent?

Assuming an average of 30 years per generation, and the age of the earth as about 6,000 years, a simple calculation gives us about 200 generations from Adam to us.  If we further assume approximately 100 uncorrected mutations per generation, then you and I should carry a load of about 20,000 mutations that were absent in Adam and Eve.

Let’s take a look at God’s perspective on human reproduction:

3   Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,

     The fruit of the womb is a reward.

4   Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,

     So are the children of one’s youth.

5   Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;²

On close examination, we find that God has created a capacity for procreation that exceeds the desires and/or capabilities of most individual couples. The biological capacity for reproduction, or fecundity, is affected by many factors, including heredity, general health, frequency of ovulation, time intervals between pregnancies, lactation time period after birth, miscarriages, stillbirths, etc.

Fertility, on the other hand, which is defined as the actual frequency of births, is influenced by other factors such as age at marriage, divorce and separation, and so forth. Given the above, we may postulate that a couple marrying in their late teens and suffering from no impairment of fecundity are theoretically capable of producing between twenty and twenty-five offspring during their reproductive years. As the above factors come into play however, the actual number of offspring will decrease accordingly. An example of a population in which actual maximal fertility potential was demonstrated can be found in the Hutterites. The Hutterites are a religious sect similar in beliefs and practices to the Mennonites.  They view fertility regulation by any means as sinful, and high fertility as a blessing. The fertility of this society was studied in the early twentieth century.  The married Hutterite women were found to give birth to an average of ten children each. Given the marked reduction in both the perinatal and maternal mortality rates which have occurred in the last fifty years, today we could reasonably assume an average of thirteen or fourteen children each. These numbers take into account those women who have fewer than the average number of children, or no children at all because of biological impairments.³

Medical Insights

The following “factoids” are based on current medical examinations of modern humans, and includes results of testing done by modern fertility clinics.

Rates of infertility and miscarriage increase with age. A woman's fertility peaks in her late 20’s. It gradually begins to decline in her early 30’s. A more pronounced drop in fertility and an increase in miscarriage risk begin around her mid-30s. This is primarily due to her aging egg supply.  Male fertility also decreases with age but the decline is more gradual.⁴

Similarities between modern man, and original and pre-flood populations, are certainly open to conjecture.

A human female is born with all the eggs that she will ever produce.  This is estimated to be around two million, but by the time she reaches puberty, this number has decreased to about 400,000 eggs stored in her ovaries. From puberty to the menopause, only about 400-500 eggs will reach maturity, be released from the ovary (in a process called ovulation) and possess the potential of imminent fertilization in the fallopian tubes/uterine tube/oviduct of the female reproductive tract.

On the other hand, for males, “[b]oth quantity and quality of the sperm are important determinants of fertility. A man is considered clinically infertile if his [seminal sperm concentration] falls below 20 million/ml.”⁵

However, only one sperm is required for egg fertilization.  This is an awesome reality:  Every child born since Adam and Eve is the result of one of millions of eggs, only one of which is released each month, and perhaps just a single encounter with many millions of sperm.  I suspect the statisticians salivate, when they calculate that each one of us is a “one-in-a-zillion” miraculous combination of mother's egg and father's sperm!

 

The average seminal sperm count fell from 113 million/ml 1940, to 66 million/ml in 1990. Combined with a volumetric decrease, men on average now produce less than half the total as 50 years ago. Furthermore, motility has also dipped. Importantly, the sperm count has not declined in the less polluted areas of the world during the same time period.⁶

A standard fertility evaluation includes physical exams and medical and sexual histories of both partners. Men are evaluated for sperm count and motility. "We look at [percentages and types of motility],” says Dr. Robert G. Brzyski, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. "Often, it's not possible to identify a specific reason for a sperm disorder," he says. "But there is new recognition that very low sperm or no sperm may be related to genetics--an abnormality of the Y chromosome."⁷

This brings us back to Dr. Sanford's original premise: the human genome is undergoing entropy -- i.e., there is an overall genomic deterioration due to an accelerating accumulation of mutations over many generations.⁷

Reader comments?  Questions?  Contact us at via www.csama.org. Watch for a future article on human genetics based on the study of Creation Ministries International scientist, Dr. Robert Carter.

¹ The New Jerusalem Bible (1985). New York: Doubleday.

² ibid., Psalm 127.

³ http://www.faithandreasonforum.com/index.asp?PageID=34&ArticleID=417

⁴ http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/guide/understanding-infertility-basics

⁵ http://www2.oakland.edu/biology/lindemann/spermfacts.htm

⁶ ibid.

⁷ http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/male-fertility-test

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September Monthly Meeting

Tuesday, September 2nd

“Relativity and Creationism”

by Dave Penny

Virtually without exception, scientists assume that Einstein's two theories of relativity -- i.e., special relativity and general relativity -- are true.  Indeed, many creation scientists affirm the validity of these theories and try to accommodate them to a young universe.  The two theories and their postulates will be examined, including (1) the assumed constant speed of light in the universe, (2) the absence of a transport medium for light, (3) the formula, E = mc2, as it applies to the assumed interconvertability of matter and energy, (4) the equivalence of gravitational and accelerating frames of reference, and (5) the effects of gravity on a time-space continuum.  If the speed of light is constant, then the theories of relativity pose serious problems for the young-earth creationist.

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Monthly Meetings

2014

(1st Tuesday of each month; content subject to change; no signup or registration necessary.)

• January 7th: “The Great Debate” DVD, moderated by Bob Farwell.
• February 4th:  (cancelled due to weather).
• March 4th: “The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record” DVD, moderated by Bob Farwell.
• April 1st: “Evolution vs. God” DVD, moderated by Kevin Anderson.
• May 6th: “Noah Extravaganza,” by Kevin Anderson & Bill Cowherd.
• June 3rd: “Radiometric Dating,” by Dave Penny.
• July 1st: “The Mystery of Our Declining Genes” DVD, moderated by Bob Farwell.
• August 5th: “The Ice Age - Only the Bible Explains It” by Michael J. Oard  DVD, moderated by Kevin Anderson.
• September 2nd: “Relativity and Creationism,” by Dave Penny.
• October 7th: “God Created Birds” DVD, moderated by Douglas Roger Dexheimer
• November 4th: “The Great Debate” DVD, moderated by Bob Farwell.
• December 2nd: “Hegelian Implications,” by Dave Penny.

CSA Monthly Meeting Location

Westbrooke Church
9777 Antioch
Overland Park, KS 66121
10 blocks east of 69 Highway (or Switzer) on 95th St. to Antioch, south two blocks on Antioch, on east side of street.
Fellowship & book table: 6:15PM. Meeting: 7:00PM.

For detailed Monthly Meeting information:

www.csama.org

2014 Creation Safaris

• March 28 (Friday, 7:30 PM) – Astronomy Safari (cancelled).
• April 25 (Friday, 8:00 PM) – Astronomy Safari.
• April 26 (Saturday) – Southeast Kansas Fossil and Mineral Safari.
• May 30 (Friday, 8:30 PM) – Astronomy Safari.
• May 24 - 26 (Saturday - Monday) – Western Kansas Safari.
• June 7 (Saturday) – Photo/Nature Hike Safari at Overland Park Arboretum.
• June 28 (Saturday, 8:45 PM) – Astronomy Safari. (cancelled)
• June 19-21 (Thursday - Saturday) – A float trip down the Ozark River. (cancelled)
• July 19 (Saturday) – Kansas University Natural History Museum Safari.
• July 26 (Saturday, 8:45 PM) – Astronomy Safari.
• Rock Bridge / Connor’s Cave Safari (not scheduled this year).
• August 16 (Saturday) – Greater KC Fossil Hunt.
• August 22 (Friday, 8:15) – Astronomy Safari.
• Aug 29 - Sept 1 (Friday - Monday) – Southeast Missouri Safari.
• September 19 (Friday, 7:30 PM) – Astronomy Safari.
• Safari Zoological Park, Caney, Kansas (not scheduled this year).
• October 18 (Saturday) – HaHa Tonka Safari.
• October 24  (Friday,7:15 PM) – Astronomy Safari.
• Bike Safari on the Katy Trail (not scheduled this year).
• November 21 (Friday, 7:15 PM) – Astronomy Safari.
• November 22 (Saturday) – Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge Safari.

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You must register for any safari.

For safari details, and to register please visit:

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or call

(816) 618-3610 or (816) 246-4517

Astronomy safaris only, call:

(913)-515-6421.

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What is Baraminology, Part II

by Douglas Roger Dexheimer

Here’s an overview of where baraminology fits into the scheme of young-Earth creationism:

• Creation Week
• Days versus millennia
• Order of creation: What happened first?
• Extent of the cosmos
• Original sin
• Noah's Flood
• Ark design
• Baraminology
• Climate effects, post flood
• Tower of Babel
• Human migration
• Human genetics

As you can see, baraminology is a small, but commonly recurring theme in current creation-oriented literature.  Its study does not diminish the omnipotency of our Creator.  Rather, it is just as much a miracle that God created all of the plants and animals during creation week, as it is that the ark had to carry very few of each animal kind (either two or seven of each) but that God had created within each one a rich genetic potential for future speciation into the massive numbers of what we recognize today as different varieties of each created "kind."

Last month one of our newsletter articles featured examples of hybrid animals representing four different created kinds: Felines, Camelidae, Bovine, and Ursaid. 

There are many other groupings of animals that baraminologists would consider being of the same kind:

• Equine Hybrids:
• Mule. A cross of a female horse and a male donkey.
• Hinny. A cross between a female donkey and a male horse. Mules and hinnies are examples of reciprocal hybrids.¹

• Canine Hybrids:  In a private conversation with Dr. Robert Carter of Creation Ministries International, I learned that the Y-chromosome of a grey wolf can be found in the genetics of canines worldwide.  This is strong evidence for baraminologists, who suspect that just a single pair of wolves rode with Noah and his family on the ark.  (When I asked Dr. Carter about Y-chromosome comparisons in feline, bovine, etc., he said "they're working on those.")
• Wolves.
• Coyotes.
• Foxes.
• Domesticated dogs

 

• Rodentia: More than just an expletive, rats have been a problem to seagoers ever since man carried provisions on board ships.  Seagoing vessels have always been subject to invasion by stowaway rats.  Have you heard stories of "rats fleeing a sinking ship"? Apparently, their proto-kind DID NOT jump ship, but stayed on board until the ark had landed!

 



A rat eating sunflower seeds.

 

As do all other rodents, the rat spends a great deal of time gnawing, much of which serves simply to wear down the front incisors, which continuously grow at a rapid rate (upward from two millimeters, or 0.08 of an inch, per week). When gnawing, the rat’s lower jaw moves backward and forward, with the upper incisors holding the object while the lower incisors cut against it…..Encyclopædia Britannica describes rodents as being “relatively primitive” in most aspects and “not highly specialized” mammals, yet when discussing the specializations needed for gnawing, it states the gnawing mechanism is “of an efficiency that is not approached by that of any other mammals….”² (Incidentally, there is no fossil evidence for the evolution of any rodent from a non-rodent.³

 

• Rats.
• Black rats:  While the black rat is an excellent climber and jumper, the Norway rat prefers to dig burrows (he is also an adept swimmer).
• Norway rats: When Blacks and Norways live in the same area, they occupy different habitats; in a building, the Norway rat tends to occupy the lower levels while the black rat lives on the upper floors!
• Lab rats: Laboratory rats are domesticated albino strains of the Norway rat.
• Pack rats: The North American pack, or trade rat is attracted by bright and shining objects, which it takes home to its nest. Actually, the reason the rat leaves something behind is simply so it can carry its new "treasure."

 

• Mice.
• Other rodents.

 

• Africanized honey bees, known colloquially as "killer bees,” are a hybrid of the Western honey bee species, produced originally by cross-breeding of the African honey bee, with various European honey bees such as the Italian bee, and the Iberian bee.

   

  

   

  The hybrid African honey bee was first introduced to Brazil in the 1950s in an effort to increase honey production, but in 1957, 26 swarms accidentally escaped quarantine and since then have spread throughout South and Central America, and arriving in North America in 1985.⁵ The fact that these different species of bees were able to hybridize indicates their common proto-kind.

 

• Pachyderms. There are known cases of interbreeding between woolly mammoths and Columbian mammoths.⁶ There have been cases of interbreeding between savannah and forest African elephants.⁷

   

  The woolly mammoth was a smaller furrier beast that lived in the north closer to the glaciers of the Ice Ages, from Alaska through Canada, and east to the Great Lakes and New England. The larger Columbian mammoth lived further south. It inhabited the western and southern portion of the U.S. as far south as Florida, and nearly to Chiapas in Mexico.
• African Elephants.
• Indian Elephants.
• Wooly Mammoths.
• Mastodons. Along with mammoths and modern elephants, Mastodons are members of the order Proboscidea. As adults they stood between 2.5 and 3 meters (8-10 feet) at the shoulder and weighed between 3500 and 5400 kilograms (4-6 tons).⁸ (Did you know that Mastodons roamed across mid-America?  The Missouri Mastodon Park is near St. Louis, Missouri.  Another Mastodon was found in a gravel pit near Haviland, Kansas.)

 



 

• Marine Creatures were created on day 5 of creation week, but they did not spend a moment on Noah's Ark.  As large as the ark was, it had no need for an aquarium big enough for a pair of whales.

  20 God said, “Let the water swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 God created the great sea creatures and every living and moving thing with which the water swarmed, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” 23 There was evening, and there was morning, a fifth day.  Genesis 1, KJV.

   

  Their kinds are just as likely to have disbursed by means of natural speciation as the land plants and animals.  Here are a few notable examples:

 

• SHARKS: A group of about 50 hybrids between Australian blacktip shark and the larger common blacktip shark was found by Australia's East Coast in 2012. This is the only known case of hybridization in sharks.⁹

 

• CETACEANS (WHALES)  These marine mammals did not ride out Noah's flood on the Ark!  However the family of divergent species of whales is an interesting study in Baraminology.  If hybrids between different species of whales are occurring naturally, the common created ancestor of Roquals, or baleen whales, has been swimming the oceans of planet earth since day 5 of creation week.  Hybridization between the different species of Roquals, once again, points to a common proto-kind ancestor.

   

  There is evidence that "hybrid individuals between blue and fin whales with characteristics of both are known to occur with relative frequency in both the North Atlantic and North Pacific."¹⁰ 

   

  A pair of researchers who reported the DNA profile of a sampling of whale meat in the Japanese market found evidence of blue whale / fin whale hybrids.

   

  Recent DNA evidence indicates that the fin whale may be more closely related to the humpback whale, and in at least one study, the gray whale, two whales in different genera, than it is to members of its own genus, such as the minke whales.

 



Fin Whale

• The fin whale is one of the rorquals, a family that includes the humpback whale, blue whale, Bryde's whale, sei whale, and minke whale. Rorquals all have a dorsal fin and throat grooves that expand when the animal is feeding. The fin, or finback whale is second only to the blue whale in size and weight. Among the fastest of the great whales, it is capable of bursts of speed of up to 23 mph (37 km/hr) leading to its description as the "greyhound of the sea." Its most unusual characteristic is the asymmetrical coloring of the lower jaw, which is white or creamy yellow on the right side and mottled black on the left side. Fin whales are found in all oceans of the world, though they seem to prefer temperate and polar waters to tropical seas.¹¹

 



Blue Whale

• The blue whale is one of the rorquals, a family that also includes the humpback whale, fin whale, Bryde's whale, sei whale, and minke whale…The blue whale is the largest mammal, possibly the largest animal, to ever inhabit the earth. Its body is long, somewhat tapered, and streamlined, with the head making up less than one-fourth of its total body length. Its rostrum (upper part of the head) is very broad and flat and almost U-shaped, with a single ridge that extends just forward of the blowholes to the tip of the snout.¹²

 

 



Minke Whale

• The minke (pronounced mink-ey) whale is also known as the Little Piked Whale. Like all the rorquals, the minke is a fast swimmer, capable of reaching speeds of 16-21 knots (18-24 mph). The minke can be curious, and has been known to approach ships, even at times keeping up with moving vessels. Often, however, minkes spend relatively little time at the surface…. The minke whales is the smallest member of the rorqual family of whales (those whales with baleen, a dorsal fin, and throat pleats). One of its most distinctive features is the narrow, triangular rostrum (upper jaw), which is proportionally shorter than in other rorquals.¹³

If you find this brief review of Baraminology interesting, please let us know.  Contact us via www.csama.org. We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions.

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_(biology)

² The Encyclopædia Britannica (15th edition, 1992), 23:401–403, 406.

³ http://creation.com/rats-no-evolution

⁴ ibid.

⁵ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee

⁶ http://news.discovery.com/animals/hybrid-mammoth-mix-breeds-possible-110601.htm

⁷ ibid.

⁸ http://exhibits.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/larson/mammut.html

⁹ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-03/hybrid-sharks-found-off-australia/3757226?section=nsw

¹⁰ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fin_whale

¹¹ http://acsonline.org/fact-sheets/fin-whale/

¹² http://acsonline.org/fact-sheets/blue-whale-2/

¹³ http://acsonline.org/fact-sheets/minke-whale/

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Common Core Update
(YouTube Video)

The following 47-minute video from Freedom Project Education, a John Birch Society affiliate, exposes many of the problems with the "Common Core Curriculum" (CCC) currently being pushed upon our public and private schools.  We urge you to view it.  Share it with others.  If you are not already strongly opposed to CCC, you will be after watching it. DRD.

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