Let’s look at some of the investigators conclusions:
ninety percent of all animal species alive today come from parents that all began giving birth at roughly the same time, less than 250 thousand years ago
We’re also surprisingly similar to not just every other human, but every other species.
At least for mitochondrial DNA, humans turn out to be low to average in genetic diversity.
What we find in the vast variety of animals today is great phenotypic variety, reflected in their nuclear DNA. At the same time the mitochondrial DNA is surprising similar.
One conclusion is that what drives the “mutations” in the genetic code that determines the physical make up of the organism is not present in mitochondrial DNA. As to why this is, let’s go back to a previous post:
Where do you think that mutations occur? In a fully grown organism? So that it causes ‘a rearrangement of existing elements’?
It happens generally when the cell is dividing after conception. That is the only time a mutation can be passed on. Else if the mutation occurs in the testes or ovaries before conception.
So the mutation (which can itself be an addition to the genome) causes either a rearrangement of the organisms make-up, or it deletes something (a tail gets shorter) or it adds something (a tusk gets longer). In the case of something being added, something new is being created that would not have been created otherwise.
There are recombinations that occur by epigenetic factors within the cells. These factors, which are responsible for the construction of the body, utilizing the code that is DNA, include those involved in the triggering adaptive reactions within the organism resulting from its involvement with its environment. The NASA twin study points to these differences, which can be quite significant as a result of space travel. They not only influence the immediate expression of the creature’s DNA, which does not apparently change, but also affect its offspring. Since a woman is born with all the eggs that could potentially lead to children, but a man continuously produces sperm, the sort of diversity that is involved in the capacity to best participate in one’s environment, adaptation, would be passed on by the male. I believe that it is what has been found. This all is built into what is a living being, having a given physical nature.
We interpret the science through the lens of what we consider to be real. Some of us try to think, “How would Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, through whom all this was brought into existence, how would He say this universe was created?” Others wonder as did the author of the original paper:
If a Martian landed on Earth and met a flock of pigeons and a crowd of humans . . .
