Summary: Part 3 concludes Tim Mahoney’s interview with Dr. Rob Carter about genetic evidence for the creation account in Genesis, plus Neanderthals.
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? – Job 38:4-7 (ESV)
Darwin and Evolution
If you missed the previous articles in the series with Rob Carter, you can find Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Timothy Mahoney:
These questions have been going on through the last several hundred years about origin. We’re not talking about Darwin specifically, but he was the one who started the theory of evolution, correct?
Dr. Rob Carter:
No, he popularized it. His family believed in evolution and his grandfather wrote a book on it. The intellectuals of Europe believed in evolution but it wasn’t common knowledge. Darwin was a popularizer. He believed that his people group, Western Europeans, were the most evolved. One of his big popularizers in Europe was Ernst Hale who wrote some really horrible things about non-European peoples.
People were saying that we don’t have common origins, something like Europeans evolved from chimpanzees, Africans evolved from gorillas, and Chinese from orangutans. Literally, people were teaching that. It’s just a horrible thought, because that means we’re very different and don’t have common origins. It means we aren’t equal in intelligence and maybe some people have different abilities to create culture and things like that.
But no, we came from Adam and Eve. We’re related to them only. There’s no other genetic input from anything else other than Adam and Eve. So even Neanderthals, which we know are human, have to be descendants of Adam and Eve. In fact, they’re descendants of Noah because they lived on the earth after the flood. They’re not pre-flood peoples. They’re post-flood descendants of Noah.
Neanderthals
Timothy Mahoney:
Help me understand this. Are you saying that Neanderthals are human?
Dr. Rob Carter:
They’re not just human, you are part Neanderthal. I’m part Neanderthal. Some 60 or 70% of the Neanderthal genome is floating around in people today. They are our ancestors. They are a people group who spread out, after the Tower of Babel, up into Europe and Asia. They lived there for a couple hundred years during the ice age, which happened right after Noah’s flood when there were terrible conditions. Over time Neanderthals became very inbred. They picked up a lot of bad mutations. Then, when a larger group of people, we call them modern Europeans or modern humans started spreading into the Neanderthal territory they intermarried many, many times, which is why the Neanderthal genome is still with us today. It is just broke it up into little pieces spread out amongst people around the world.
Timothy Mahoney:
Once again, this is territory that I have not done any research on, and I had no idea. I never thought I’d be talking about Neanderthals. I’ve been fascinated by a lot of things, but this is a new one. Tell me more about it.
Dr. Rob Carter:
Neanderthals descended from Noah. As people spread across the earth, the people that went the furthest the fastest tend to be really inbred. That would be Neanderthals. A lot of times when you look at their skulls, they are asymmetrical. Asymmetry is an indication of a birth anomaly.
Timothy Mahoney:
Are you suggesting that the Neanderthal skeletal features show that they are humans that went genetically off?
Dr. Rob Carter:
No, not that much genetically. Neanderthals are an incredibly inbred people. They have long, long runs of DNA that are just shared amongst lots of people because they inbred with homoerectus.
Timothy Mahoney:
If we think about what happened at the Tower Babel, after the flood, God wanted people to go out and multiply and cover the face of the earth, and they didn’t. Instead, they gathered, built a city and turned away from God. So, God confused their languages. But if we go back to Neanderthals, is this a common understanding within creation organizations or is this unique to you, Rob?
Dr. Rob Carter:
Most of the people in the creationist community would consider Neanderthals humans. Not everyone, but almost. And it’s even more powerful when you consider the archeological evidence, because different paleoanthropologists will tell you that Neanderthals painted in caves, made musical instruments, buried their dead ceremonially, hunted the landscape and collected a lot of different types of animals and plants. They sailed across the Mediterranean to remote islands that can’t even be seen from the shore. They would dive down 20 feet or more and collect clams that only live deep down and have a clam bake on the shore. That’s all signs of human cognition. The archeological evidence is changing fast.
Timothy Mahoney:
So, are Neanderthals the same as cavemen? Did Neanderthals have a language?
Dr. Rob Carter:
The environment that they lived in was extremely harsh and yet they survived anyway. They were tough and resourceful people. People have suggested that the scratchings on caves constitute a language, and we see similar symbology across the Neanderthals from Spain to Siberia. So, I suspect that they had language that might not have been written, but that’s true for most people. If you think about this black hole of history after the flood, before civilization starts, most places in the world take 500 to 1000 years or more before they start writing. So, most civilizations didn’t have writing for a long time. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Neanderthals didn’t have, as far as we can tell, a writing system, but they would’ve had an oral tradition. They would’ve had language. They probably sang because they made musical instruments.
Timothy Mahoney:
So there was a group at the Tower of Babel that eventually became the Neanderthals? What happened to them?
Dr. Rob Carter:
The first people that pushed up into Europe and Asia after the flood were the Neanderthals. But the earliest Neanderthals didn’t look like what we think of as Neanderthals. Later, on account of inbreeding, as they inbred amongst themselves over time, they became what we call a racial group, if you like. They were more distinct but not radically different, just different enough that you would notice.
Over time Neanderthals disappeared because they integrated with a larger population as modern people moved up into their territory. They probably fought a lot, but they also left behind a lot of babies. Because you have a smaller population integrating into a larger migrating population, it would be entirely unlikely for a person today to be born looking like a Neanderthal. That is because the Neanderthal genome is broken up into thousands of pieces that are spread out amongst all people. Their genome is still there because they are our ancestors, but just a small part of our ancestral pool compared to other people.
Resources
Dr. Rob Carter:
All we can do is encourage people that the answers are out there. Sometimes people are happy just with that, knowing the answers are there. But for those people who want to know the answers, we can point them toward sources such as creation.com where we have tons of articles on these subjects. I would point them to my YouTube channel, Biblical Genetics. In fact, I just had a brand new DVD that came out that was extremely well received. It’s called Ancient DNA. I’m very proud of this because most have avoided this subject saying that the ancient DNA that we find in Neanderthals is all decrepit or something like that. Well, yeah, it’s got problems, but it doesn’t mean you can’t tell a lot of history from the DNA we’re pulling up out of ancient individuals, and this history is pointing squarely at Biblical history.
The subject of ancient DNA doesn’t contradict the Bible, Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood, or the Tower of Babel, but you wouldn’t know it if you just listen to National Geographic or watch a documentary or anything on YouTube. The information is there, but it’s hard to find. So I put it into one place on Ancient DNA. It’s not just a DVD. There’s also a digital download you can get on creation.com.
Timothy Mahoney:
Absolutely. This really helps. I think what happens is that a young person goes off to college and hears only about evolution. That’s why it’s important for people to see this film, Ancient DNA. It helps us understand that genetics does not conflict with creation but actually aligns with the Biblical narrative.
Dr. Rob Carter:
The starting point of the discussion of ancient DNA should always be: why is there ancient DNA? Because it is a fragile molecule, it breaks down really, really quickly in the ground. So, how on earth is there still DNA in Neanderthal bones? The answer is because they’re not as old as the evolutionists say.
Timothy Mahoney:
Yes, because if they were that old, it wouldn’t be around. How long does it take for DNA to decay?
Dr. Rob Carter:
Not very long, but we don’t actually know exactly. But there is no way you’re going to find ancient DNA in a Siberian tiger or Mastodon or Neanderthal if they’re really hundreds of thousands of years old like the evolutionists claim.
Conclusion
Timothy Mahoney:
Thank you, Rob and we want to thank Creation Ministries International. I really appreciate your passion, Rob. There is a lot more to learn about this. You can find more information by going to creation.com and typing in “Carter” to see his articles and a lot more. Once again, thank you for being a part of this podcast – and keep on thinking.
To hear the full podcast episodes these articles summarize, check out this link and click “Load more episodes” until you see the 4-part series on Biblical Genetics.
TOP PHOTO: From The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo. (public domain)
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