Two Studies May Indicate Problems for Vast Ages
Two articles in secular science literature point to possible upsets in long-age assumptions for the earth and mankind.
Most Human Mutations Are Recent
A press release from the University of Washington states, “Harmful protein-coding mutations in people arose largely in the past 5,000 to 10,000 years.” The Exome Sequencing Project, a consortium of evolutionary geneticists, surveyed a million single-letter changes in the human “exome” (protein-coding genes) for 6,515 people. “Overall, the researchers predicted that about 81 percent of the single-nucleotide variants in their European samples, and 58 percent in their African samples, arose in the past 5,000 years.”
The researchers were able to fit this surprise into the “out-of-Africa” hypothesis by claiming that mutations became fixed more rapidly among Europeans after they migrated. “The Out of Africa bottleneck led to inefficient purging of the less-harmful mutations,” one explained. Still, if 150 mutations are passed from parent to offspring on average, it would seem that rate of damage could not go on for many tens or hundreds of thousands of years. See also the Science Daily article on this, that states, “The researchers pointed out that the results illustrate the profound effect recent human evolutionary history has had on the burden of damaging mutations in contemporary populations.”
The consortium agrees that their results indicate most harmful mutations in the human gene pool are “of recent origin, evolutionarily speaking.” Without supporting evidence, though, the researchers used standard Darwinian talking points to hope for a positive outcome, hoping that the large number of recent mutations “may have created a new repository of advantageous genetic variants that adaptive evolution may act upon in future generations.” Whatever the meaning, Science Daily said that the researchers stated, “The recent dramatic increase in human population size, resulting in a deluge of rare functionally important variation, has important implications for understanding and predicting current and future patterns of human disease and evolution.”
Tree Rings Point to a Recent Cosmic Ray Event
What on earth happened in 768 A.D.? Charlemagne was busy building his empire, unaware of something happening over his head. The “Charlemagne Event” was not caused by him; something beyond earth sent a shower of cosmic rays our way. PhysOrg asks some pointed questions:
Until recently, the years 774 and 775 were best known for Charlemagne’s victory over the Lombards. But earlier this year, a team of scientists in Japan discovered a baffling spike in carbon-14 deposits within the rings of cedar trees that matched those same years. Because cosmic rays are tied to carbon-14 concentrations, scientists around the world have wondered about the cause: a nearby supernova, a gamma ray burst in the Milky Way or an intense superflare emanating from the Sun?
In the article, Adrian Melott (U of Kansas) presents his argument that the spike came from a coronal mass ejection from the sun. This CME could have been 10-20 times larger than the largest spike observed in recent times (1859), called the Carrington Event. Stars beyond our sun have been observed to have very large flares. Other cosmic sources might include a gamma ray burst or nearby supernova, though the latter would have been observable in the sky.
If an extra-large CME occurred during Charlemagne’s battles, it might not have been noticed. It might have caused a slightly higher risk of skin cancer. But today if one that size occurred, it would disrupt the world’s power grid and blow out transformers over a wide area. We’d only have a few minutes warning before our civilization would become seriously disrupted.
We offer these findings as stimulations for further research by asking some questions. If a CME or other cosmic source could dramatically increase carbon-14 production in the atmosphere, what does that do to the calibration profile for radiocarbon dating? What could be the impact of a large shower of cosmic rays on the atomic clocks used for radiometric dating in general? Could a cosmic event stimulate accelerated nuclear decay, lowering the activation threshold to give a false reading of longer ages (e.g., more fission tracks) than actually occurred? If not, how would we know? Open-minded physicists may want to look into this.
Regarding the mutation rate, the finding appears to add more impetus to Dr. John Sanford’s theory of genetic entropy, that the human race could not purge harmful or nearly-neutral mutations fast enough to avoid extinction in very many thousands of years, let alone tens of thousands. The evolution-talk in the article seems concocted to rescue Darwin’s long ages rather than face the clear implication that humans have not been evolving for hundreds of thousands of years. Even with lower population sizes, genetic entropy takes its toll. And if you think bullets to the genome provide a pool of variants that natural selection may act upon in future generations, good luck outrunning extinction while the bad ones add up.
Comments
5000 to 10000 years? Where have we heard those numbers before? Imagine if there was a document that said the human race didn’t devolve because it didn’t exist before that…
With examples like this adding up, we see that Uniformitarianism is merely a faith claim and not reflective of reality. Despite claims that it is an assumption necessary to do science, it is only necessary as a means of defending the materialist model, and for discounting the Genesis account of creation.
The standard age given for the earth is 4.6 billion years so over the past 4.6 billion years, how would one ever know how many of these CMEs took place? If recent history gives any clues, it would seem that these events must have happened many many times. Their influence would surely add up.
One would think that this new information should cause havoc for the radiocarbon dating technique and place all current dates calibrated with that technique into extreme uncertainty.
My my, evolutionists say the darnedest things
“The large number of recent mutations “may have created a new repository of advantageous genetic variants that adaptive evolution may act upon in future generations.” ”
That’s something like the best joke I’ve heard all week! Thanks so much for this – I needed a laugh.
Evolution theory is so hard to pin down.. I mean, mutations are bad, the scientists even agree to this, stating it in multiple sentences in this very article. Words like “harmful protein-coding mutations”, “the burden of damaging mutations”, Mutations are MISTAKES. DNA is skillfully made to error correct – because nature knows that it can’t improve on it. Why would DNA take such great pains to preserve the sequence if the greatest stroke of luck in it’s existence is when it screws-up? What a confusing mess this evolution is. The vehicle that it uses to progress is the very thing it’s trying to prevent. I guess you could say it’s conflicted. But scientists themselves readily admit that mutations are exactly that – mistakes – and just like in this article, they repeat over and over how difficult it is for a genome to persist with a certain level of mistakes. We all know mistakes are bad things… but yes, rarely a mistake can be good. If your DNA mutates and you lose a gene that is linked to a given disease then you won’t get that disease – although that still doesn’t mean the loss of the gene was an improvement. It was just a happy accident. The only ‘improvements’ I’ve seen by mutation have been deleterious in nature – and we have no idea what possible damaging effects those improvements could also bring.
A mutation is a mistake.. not some guiding force of evolution. What this article shows is exactly what the good book told us: Man is a fallen creature – created perfect and rapidly descending into a chaotic state. These mutations build up and accumulate in our genes until eventually we have higher and higher levels of disease and illness. The species were stocked on the earth – and they are rapidly dying out… even as scientists divide species into smaller and smaller groups to appear as if we have ‘new’ ones. Man also is amassing more and more flaws.. and he too will eventually die out – in the same way that eventually the stars and the planets will fling apart hopelessly adrift in space’s vacuum if given enough time – never to assemble into nice perfectly orbiting bodies again. The universe was created in a perfect state.. and each day falls a bit further away from grace.
I would also like to add one good thing about scientists..
I believe that some day… that is if they have enough time.. the truth will inescapably lead scientists to believe in God. They can only hide from it so long, although they are craftier at it than I would have thought. For example, this very article pointing out that the ‘vast majority’ of mutations occurred in the last 5000-10000 years, of course scientists will work double time to point to how this in no way gives any credence to creationism – same as they did when they regretfully agreed the universe started with a big bang. Same as their “out of africa” theory which sounds a heck of a lot like “out of eden” to me… except with apes as the supporting characters. They keep getting undesirable results.. some they shove under the rug, others they reassure the community of scientists with “don’t worry, it’s ok, we’re probably wrong about those dates”… but I figure eventually they just won’t be able to hide from the truth – a truth people have been aware of since the first Hebrews.
But.. I figure the curtain will close before then. God’s given them enough hints.
5,000 years – sounds awful close to the time of the tower of Babel? Maybe Bible is history is right after all. When are the Big Bang Christian believers going to get out of the science of the 1800’s?