Chapter 2: Story telling or Story Testing: Evolutionary Genetics
In 2015 I was listening to a talk by a leading evolutionary biologist who was criticising those who were misusing genetics by creating stories of history and movements of peoples based on a faulty understanding of genetic evidence that have no basis in recorded accounts and archeology. This scientist commented that “story telling” needs to be “story tested” by science. While agreeing with him on many points, I was rather amused that he did not follow his own advice as he interprets genetics within the greatest fanciful story of our time- Darwinian Evolution.
Applying the evolutionary paradigm on to the evidences of genetics has totally distorted that evidence and led to many of these ridiculous theories. The imagined and unscientific evolutionary understanding of human genetic mutation rates is at odds with the mutation rates based on the germ-line rate, that is actually observed in families. Even with the germline rate, others extrapolate from them false dating methodologies by assuming that the rate is constant throughout history and across haplogroups. It is not. The whole evolutionary based myth of Ice Age refuges, found in genetic literature until recently, led to many of these stories, which became more and more untenable, even to the evolutionary educated scholars, as further research in the field of genetics occurred.
Some genetic scientists told us that that the Gaelic population of the British Isles came from Spain 10,000 years ago from one of these Ice Age refuges. This contradicted the writings of the historians and archaeologists who stated that the Milesian Gaels came to Ireland around 300 -200 BC. In the 1950’s when Velikovsky was writing the evolutionary science of the day claimed that the last Ice Age had ended about fifteen million years ago. Velikovsky challenged this with his own drastically shortened date of 1500 BC or 3,500 years ago, at the time of the events of the Exodus, as recorded in the Bible. Since then, the Evolutionary scientists have also shortened their date for the end of this so-called last Ice Age to between 20,000 - 10,000 years ago, depending on the scientist. My own date for the sudden end of the last Ice Age is 1350 BC, which is my date for the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt during cataclysmic events. Later in this book I will describe the history and movements of the Milesian Gaelic peoples in greater detail. Today, they are the core population of the British Isles belonging to the R1b L21 y-dna haplogroup.
Unfortunately, most of those in academia today interpret their disciplines through the false paradigm of evolution, which is more philosophical opinion than science. Those of us who believe that human, animal and plant life are no more than 10,000 years old are marginalised in the totalitarian world of peer-reviewed academia, even though there are scientists in all fields who reject the evolutionary hypothesis or theory. For example, I have a good friend, who is a geophysicist, who no longer accepts the evolutionary theory. Most scientists who do privately question evolution, keep quiet about it, due to the real outcome, that they will lose their jobs, positions and academic standing.
Genetics is a very useful science when one discards the exaggerated chronological dates imposed by the evolutionary paradigm in which modern evolutionary geneticists place on the genetic evidence. One can test their theories based on archaeology, historical accounts, legends, myths, genealogies, geology, the Scriptures etc. with the genetic dna data and adjust their stories or theories accordingly. To evaluate events based on the evolutionary criteria is not story testing but more like circular storytelling. Evolutionists will often criticise fundamentalist creationists for using the Bible in a literal manner, as their paradigm for interpreting the data, while doing the same themselves with the evolutionary paradigm. As a Catholic I do not have to accept either the literalistic creationist paradigm or the Darwinian paradigm, though I may do so if this is what most convinces me best fits the data. I certainly do not think Genesis 1 is meant to be read as a science textbook, but I am also open to the idea that while its primary purpose is not of a scientific nature, it may give us insights into cosmology and science. It has been noted by others that most modern scientific disciplines were founded by people who were also believers in God and his creation of the world.
Even though I reject the evolutionary dating methodologies, many studies by scientists are very valuable when reinterpreted using a catastrophist creation model. That scientists have found blood collagen in dinosaur bones is not a surprise to me. I date these so-called 70,000,000-year-old bones to be from the period after the Flood to 1850-1654 BC and thus no more than 3900 years old. As blood collagen could not survive even using an evolutionist paradigm for more than 30,000 years, this places the evolutionary scientists in a dilemma. They will not accept a more recent origin for the time of the Dinosaurs, so they must find an explanation that says that blood collagen could have survived in some miraculous way in Dinosaur bones. It is also possible that the large sizes that many Dinosaurs grew to in the so-called Jurassic Period, could have been aided by genetic interference by human scientists as well as favourable environmental conditions. Most of these large Dinosaurs lived in areas in the Americas and Africa that had no or sparse human settlement at this period of time. Before the cataclysmic man-made events of 1654 BC the earth may have been more spheroid in shape and had a different gravity that allowed for giantism in biological life. Present day science assumes that the present conditions have been the same throughout history.
The finding that pigs have closer dna in common with humans than do chimpanzees, has also raised questions. Some scientists even suggest that man descended from a “pig-chimp” a cross between a pig ancestor and a chimpanzee ancestor. Even most evolutionists felt that was going a step too far. However, is this more of a question of their sensibility or sense? If one believes man descended from a chimp-like creature, is it such a huge step to suggest a “pig-chimp” ancestor? The creationist scientist has no problem with man being closer genetically to pigs than apes, as it is a matter of common design and not common biological ancestry. Cannibals in Asia have long known that humans are similar to pigs and refer to Europeans as “long pork” and Mongoloid Asians as “short pork”, due to their similar taste to pig flesh! This makes me grateful that I keep kosher and do not eat pork of any sort.
While I incline to the view that the earth and our solar system is less than 50,000 years old, I am open to the opinion that the 'Heavens' are a lot older than that. But I might be wrong and so might we all. Just as many scientists look at the science of 100 years ago to have been very primitive so the scientists in a further 100 years may look back to our time as very naive and primitive. The evolutionary biologist, I first mentioned, spoke about the importance of further testing of ancient dna in our understandings of the movements of people. I would heartily agree with him. The testing of ancient dna in Europe has demonstrated so far that R1b did not enter Europe until at least the European Bronze Age, thus correcting many previous theories about R1b. Further studies also revealed that R1b was not a Western European phenomenon but that R1b is to be found throughout the Middle East and as far as Western China and Nepal as well as South Asia and Africa.
However we must also be careful of accepting the terms Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age. They may be different periods of time in different parts of the world. They are not necessarily in chronological sequence as all three may exist at the same time as they are a technological level rather than a time piece. For example, Iron Age Europeans lived along side Stone Age Aboriginals in Australia. Also a settlement may be classified as Stone Age because that is all that has survived as the bronze and iron objects may have corroded away into nothing. The so-called Bronze Age peoples may have had Iron but due to the large period of time or differing climatic conditions or flooding, all the iron objects have rusted away.
I obviously, as someone of both Jewish and Irish ancestry, love story telling and would encourage others to be creative in their story telling. However, one should not be dogmatic about our story tellings so that one remains open to new information. Our stories should be rooted in solid research in a holistic manner while recognising the importance of other stories which could also fit the data of our research. The evolutionary biologist, mentioned previously, warns against assuming that because a certain dna type is found in one area today, that this area is its origin. Many assumed and still some believe that R1b originates in Western Europe because it has its highest density in that area today. However, R1b is also found in the Middle East and other places. In order to find out its origin one needs to study the deeper clades of R1b and the history, legends, myths and archaeology of that culture. In fact, due to mass migrations the original homeland of a haplogroup may today have little or no dna of that type. This is where the testing of ancient dna is crucial.
Darwinism and Creationism: My Opinion
Some creationists are old universe creationists and some are young universe creationists. I am open to the idea of an older universe but have not decided at this stage my position. I do accept that there was something like the big bang in which Creation unfolded but I think it was more of an unfolding of a beautiful rose rather than a violent explosion.
I do believe in a young earth and solar system less than 50,000 years old. I also believe man was created 6,000 years ago and that the world-wide flood occurred about 4,000 years ago and was not only a planetary event but effected the entire solar system. Unlike many creationists, I believe in more than one major cataclysmic event over the last 6,000 years and would be more in agreement with Velikovsky, who was not a creationist but evolutionist, who believed in a form of geological catastrophism rather than the utilitarian geology of long gradual change. When I say "I believe" in the context of science and history they are not faith statements but beliefs that I think the scientific or historical evidence are demonstrating or revealing to be true.
I believe many of these events were caused by man and even the natural ones were allowed by God due to our sin. Instead of being the stewards of Creation, we have often been the exploiters and pillagers. We are called to spiritually unite with all creation in the Divine Will and become its voice in order to return the glory and hidden Divine Will in all things to the Creator.
I also think that if God had wanted to, he could have used a process like evolution to create and form life. Nevertheless, I believe the evidence doesn't support that without an elaborate amount of assumptions, that is the house of cards one calls Darwinian evolution. I do believe that life was formed by God from the previously created materials of earth and that all life is connected by a common intelligent design which is the Divine Will hidden in all creation and manifests in animate life through an intelligent design feature we call dna.
I and most Creationists do believe in natural selection and speciation within certain limits. Those limits are known as "kinds" in the Bible. In fact, I believe that at certain times speciation was very rapid after world -wide cataclysmic events and climate extremes. I do not hold with constant rates of mutation over time nor with those scientific assumptions based on constants over time and history. I also hold that cataclysmic events have caused changes in the years length and changes in the position of the earth as proposed by Velikovsky. I also believe that the events of the Flood on both Mars and Earth were caused by man-made events and a war between them involving advanced technological weapons.
What about Adam and Eve? I certainly do believe that Adam and Eve lived in the Divine Will in a paradise before the Fall and that with the Fall the whole of Creation degenerated and that degeneration is increasing. According to Jewish belief, in the time of Noah the aging process as we know it didn't apply and people looked the same age as their grown-up children and grandchildren. The images of an old bearded man for Noah was not the reality of that time. The aging process we see now, according to Jewish sources, did not occur until the time of Abraham and possibly only occurred after events that destroyed Sodom. It was only after this, when Abraham was about 100, that he started to show aging, as did his wife Sarah. This explains why at 75 years of age the Pharoah of Egypt still found Sarah irresistibly attractive
Noah probably looked more like this than the usual images of an old bearded man. The Book of Enoch describes him as blonde and fair-skinned. He came from a highly advanced technological society before the Deluge. He was a space pilot that served the Moon Queen in his earlier days and his wife Emzara was a member of the Moon Queen Royal House. Lebab the wife of Shem also belonged to this Moon Queen Dynasty. Noah's mother Betenos was also a member of this Dynasty.
Lebab the Tzadika (a righteous prophetess) the mother of the daughters of Shem was blonde and blue eyed and was a Princess of the Moon Queen Dynasty. They returned to Earth with Noah in order to build the Ark under God's command. They landed at the space port near Shuruppak on Pangaean Iran. They were met by Methusaleh (Noah's grandfather) who had abdicated as the Priest-King of Uruk in Pangaean Australia. They moved into the wilderness east of Shuruppak in order to build the Ark and to isolate themselves from the corrupt society of their time. Methusaleh's son Lamech may have been the last ruler of Shuruppak known as Ubara-tutu.
5. If anyone examines the state of affairs outside the Christian fold, he will easily discover the principle trends that not a few learned men are following. Some imprudently and indiscreetly hold that evolution, which has not been fully proved even in the domain of natural sciences, explains the origin of all things, and audaciously support the monistic and pantheistic opinion that the world is in continual evolution. Communists gladly subscribe to this opinion so that, when the souls of men have been deprived of every idea of a personal God, they may the more efficaciously defend and propagate their dialectical materialism.One needs to always remain humble and for ultimate questions of faith and morality defer to a religious or spiritual authority who one believes has God's authority. For me that is the Catholic Church. Resting in that obedience one can then explore the rest of the mysteries of the universe in safety and confidence. Some will find my viewpoints highly eccentric and I am fine with that, as I do not write to convince others but to explore my own thoughts and share them with those who are interested.
6. Such fictitious tenets of evolution which repudiate all that is absolute, firm and immutable, have paved the way for the new erroneous philosophy which, rivaling idealism, immanentism and pragmatism, has assumed the name of existentialism, since it concerns itself only with existence of individual things and neglects all consideration of their immutable essences.
7. There is also a certain historicism, which attributing value only to the events of man's life, overthrows the foundation of all truth and absolute law, both on the level of philosophical speculations and especially to Christian dogmas.
8. In all this confusion of opinion it is some consolation to Us to see former adherents of rationalism today frequently desiring to return to the fountain of divinely communicated truth, and to acknowledge and profess the word of God as contained in Sacred Scripture as the foundation of religious teaching. But at the same time it is a matter of regret that not a few of these, the more firmly they accept the word of God, so much the more do they diminish the value of human reason, and the more they exalt the authority of God the Revealer, the more severely do they spurn the teaching office of the Church, which has been instituted by Christ, Our Lord, to preserve and interpret divine revelation. This attitude is not only plainly at variance with Holy Scripture, but is shown to be false by experience also. For often those who disagree with the true Church complain openly of their disagreement in matters of dogma and thus unwillingly bear witness to the necessity of a living Teaching Authority
Pius XII in Humani Generis also states:
36. For these reasons the Teaching Authority of the Church does not forbid that, in conformity with the present state of human sciences and sacred theology, research and discussions, on the part of men experienced in both fields, take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution, in as far as it inquires into the origin of the human body as coming from pre-existent and living matter - for the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God. However, this must be done in such a way that the reasons for both opinions, that is, those favourable and those unfavourable to evolution, be weighed and judged with the necessary seriousness, moderation and measure, and provided that all are prepared to submit to the judgment of the Church, to whom Christ has given the mission of interpreting authentically the Sacred Scriptures and of defending the dogmas of faith. Some however, rashly transgress this liberty of discussion, when they act as if the origin of the human body from pre-existing and living matter were already completely certain and proved by the facts which have been discovered up to now and by reasoning on those facts, and as if there were nothing in the sources of divine revelation which demands the greatest moderation and caution in this question.
37. When, however, there is question of another conjectural opinion, namely polygenism, the children of the Church by no means enjoy such liberty. For the faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.
38. Just as in the biological and anthropological sciences, so also in the historical sciences there are those who boldly transgress the limits and safeguards established by the Church. In a particular way must be deplored a certain too free interpretation of the historical books of the Old Testament. Those who favour this system, in order to defend their cause, wrongly refer to the Letter which was sent not long ago to the Archbishop of Paris by the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Studies. This letter, in fact, clearly points out that the first eleven chapters of Genesis, although properly speaking not conforming to the historical method used by the best Greek and Latin writers or by competent authors of our time, do nevertheless pertain to history in a true sense, which however must be further studied and determined by exegetes; the same chapters, (the Letter points out), in simple and metaphorical language adapted to the mentality of a people but little cultured, both state the principal truths which are fundamental for our salvation, and also give a popular description of the origin of the human race and the chosen people. If, however, the ancient sacred writers have taken anything from popular narrations (and this may be conceded), it must never be forgotten that they did so with the help of divine inspiration, through which they were rendered immune from any error in selecting and evaluating those documents.
Mammoth in the Room: Dna, Genetic Distances and Dating Methodologies
There is a mammoth in the room of genetic results. While using dna along with genealogical research and historical and archaeological evidence can be fruitful and helpful, it is however not as clear cut as many believe. While the actual testing of dna may be mostly accurate and scientific, the interpretation may not be. There are still many question marks in this field of research.
Much in this field is based on speculation and probability, whereas mutations are random and there is no scientifically proven constant rate of mutations. Different companies and researchers use different formula and give different results. This means that I could, for example, have two fourth cousins coming from the same paternal 3x great grandparents but have a totally different number of mutations separating me from them. One I could have a genetic distance of 7, the other a genetic distance of 5 out of 111. Or I could have an 8th cousin whom I only have a genetic distance of 5 out of 111. I would assume just based on the genetic evidence that the two with a genetic distance of 5 were closer related to me than the one with 7 but this may not be the case.
Another example would be two brothers - one who stays in their home location and the other who goes to a far land where he experiences traumatic or cataclysmic or environmental effects that cause him to have sons with a number of new mutations and for the rate of mutations to occur more rapidly. If we then tested the y-dna of the two brother's grandsons, due to the more numerous mutations, we would wrongly assume they are much more distantly related than they actually are related. Or if the mutation rates are much less, then we will assume people are closer to us than they actually are related. In working back even using a germ-line approach we can be greatly deceived, as there is no evidence that there is a constant rate of mutation throughout human history and there may have been periods when it was higher or lower or virtually zero across humanity or among separate groups mutation rates greatly differed. We also don't know how much our autosomal dna can influence y-dna or mt-dna. These are just a few of the questions and question marks. That mammoth gets bigger all the time.
Linking the age of haplogroups to evolutionary theories based on a so-called molecular clock is also highly speculative and problematic. The evolutionists assume a certain age for when chimpanzees separated from humans (five million years ago) that is totally based on arbitrariness and then they try to stretch the dna evidence to fit this timescale and the timescale of the theory of man's origin and coming out of Africa. In fact, some genetic studies show that humans share more dna in common with pigs than with chimpanzees as we have mentioned before. These same evolution-based theories are then used and applied to archaeological discoveries, which then totally distort history and the movements of peoples. Instead of realising that the Beaker culture is the culture of the Gaels arriving in Europe from 300 BC and the Unetice culture is that of the Turkic-Bulgars arriving in central Europe from the 5th century AD, until their Christianisation in the 9th century, with the Iron-culture of the Romans in-between, they back date them to a much too ancient time-frame.
Using the terms of Stone, Bronze and Iron age as a chronological measure is problematic as it is sometimes a level of technology but in others it is a question of age or environment. Iron rusts away more quickly than bronze or stone and it also rusts quicker in certain environments to others. Thus, a civilization we call Bronze or Stone may have had iron or bronze but all traces of it has disappeared. Or we have those who live in a higher level of technology alongside those living in a more simple or primitive levels as we often see today.
This also affects evidence based on the dna of ancient bodies. For example, if one dates the Unetice culture to the 2nd millennium BC instead of 500-800 AD and finds a certain haplogroup such as I1a1 mt-dna among its dead, one then gets the false impression of the age of this subclade. A lot of these datings of cultures are based on the end of the Ice Age in Europe. The end of the Ice Age is believed by many evolutionists to have occurred 15,000 years ago rather than the 3500 years ago proposed by Velikovsky (my own dating is around 1350 BC). We don't even know if the Ice Age in Western Europe was the same one that wiped out the mammoths in Siberia or that it was some later ones, we called the Little and Mini Ice Ages closer to our own times. We should always remember, that in many regards, in the areas of history and science, we are in a realm of hypothesises, theories, speculations and storytelling. In the end we must hold to that which most convinces us as the truth, while remaining open to being wrong and that with further research we may all have to revise our understandings.
A recent study has demonstrated that the lactose tolerant gene was not found among the (Leahite Israelites) Yamna culture (R1b M269) cattle rearers but entered Europe through the Gaelic Beaker culture (R1b-L21) cattle milkers descended from King David. The Israelites of the southern Yamna culture entered Europe after 600 BC whereas the Milesian Gaels entered Europe after 300 BC. The term Kelt or Celt has been used for the European Kelts as well as the British Isles Celts. They are two related peoples but the British Celts do not descend from the European Kelts (who belong mainly to R1b U152 and G y-dna haplogroups). While the study based on evolutionary datings of Yamna and Beaker cultures states that the gene was found in an individual who lived about 4,300 years ago - it was more like around 300 BC. These scientists also seem to be saying that ‘white man’ only appeared 8,000 years ago. This is the time when they also claim that the great civilisations and technology arose, after ‘dark-skinned man’ supposedly had wandered around for 200,000 years doing nothing much but living as simple hunters and gatherers. This view would seem to feed racism and white supremacists’ ideas and reflect the ideas of the occultic theosophists.
Man would seem to have been created with the ability through natural selection to adapt to a wide range of environments (which may have been aided in the past by ancient genetic scientists). This is what some call micro-evolution for which there is a lot of evidence. Macro-evolution of one kind becoming another, as proposed by Darwinists, has very little to support it, other than fanciful storytelling. It is equally ludicrous and ridiculous to think that man descends from an ape or chimpanzee type creature, as it is from a pig or a pig-chimp creature as proposed by some evolutionist scientists.
For a few years the field of genetic research seemed to be challenging the stranglehold of the "Out of Africa" evolutionary views of the scientific atheist elites who control much of academia but once again we see a new control being used to interpret the evidence within the framework of this tired and manipulated system. Citizen-scientists were making rapid progress which the elites could not totally control but now they are trying to put back the shackles. We need the mammoth to burst open the room and lead us to a new academic, historical and scientific grassland of freedom.
see Recent C-14 Dating of Fossils including Dinosaur Bone Collagen.
see
DNA Evidence Debunks the “Out-of-Africa” Theory of Human Evolution