"According to recent reviews, four main human origins models now.webp)
exist and compete with one another:
RAO (classic): Modern humans first developed in Africa about 100,000 years ago and then migrated throughout the world. Existing archaic human populations (i.e. Neandertal and/or Homo erectus) in various areas of the world were then replaced by the RAO migrating populations, with little to no hybridization between the populations.
RAO With Hybridization: This model is similar to the classic RAO above, but includes a greater level of hybridization taking place between the migrating populations and the indigenous archaic populations being encountered and displaced.
RAO Assimilation: This model, like the other two above, accepts a recent African origin for modern humans. Unlike the previous two models, it includes replacement and/or extensive migration of populations as the major driving factor in the emergence of modern humans. This model focuses on the importance of pervasive gene flow and population admixture in conjunction with changing environmental conditions.
Multiregionalism: This model denies a recent African origin for modern humans, based on biogeographical data that continue to emerge from paleontology and archaeology. This model also promotes the role of broadscale genetic continuity over time and gene flow between populations. The basic premise is that modern humans arose not only in Africa, but also in Europe and Asia from their H. erectus type Pleistocene ancestors.
If this quagmire of competing models was not confusing enough, researchers are at odds concerning the origins of modern human within Africa before the alleged global dispersion(s) ever occurred.
The first is known as African multiregionalism, which maintains that there were multiple points of modern human origins across Africa, with continuing admixture between populations.
Q: So what kind of genetic clock data could be achieved if the evolutionary assumptions were not used and an empirical approach to the analysis was taken?
Evolutionists first noticed a problem with their paradigm in 1997 when human mitochondrial DNA mutation rates were first being analyzed.
Q: While the mitochondrial data has spectacularly confirmed the Biblical timeline for the maternal human lineage, what about the data on the paternal side?
.webp)
RAO (classic): Modern humans first developed in Africa about 100,000 years ago and then migrated throughout the world. Existing archaic human populations (i.e. Neandertal and/or Homo erectus) in various areas of the world were then replaced by the RAO migrating populations, with little to no hybridization between the populations.
RAO With Hybridization: This model is similar to the classic RAO above, but includes a greater level of hybridization taking place between the migrating populations and the indigenous archaic populations being encountered and displaced.
RAO Assimilation: This model, like the other two above, accepts a recent African origin for modern humans. Unlike the previous two models, it includes replacement and/or extensive migration of populations as the major driving factor in the emergence of modern humans. This model focuses on the importance of pervasive gene flow and population admixture in conjunction with changing environmental conditions.
Multiregionalism: This model denies a recent African origin for modern humans, based on biogeographical data that continue to emerge from paleontology and archaeology. This model also promotes the role of broadscale genetic continuity over time and gene flow between populations. The basic premise is that modern humans arose not only in Africa, but also in Europe and Asia from their H. erectus type Pleistocene ancestors.
If this quagmire of competing models was not confusing enough, researchers are at odds concerning the origins of modern human within Africa before the alleged global dispersion(s) ever occurred.
The first is known as African multiregionalism, which maintains that there were multiple points of modern human origins across Africa, with continuing admixture between populations.
The second proposes that there was a single point of origin, with range expansions and local extinctions, but with one line predominating.
The third proposes that there was a single point of origin, with range expansion and one line predominating, but slightly lesser-evolved populations breaking off shortly before the dispersion, and occasional admixing.
The fourth proposes that there was one point of modern human origins, with multiple lines of archaic humans evolving side by side with a small amount of admixture occurring shortly before the dispersal.
Q: So what kind of genetic clock data could be achieved if the evolutionary assumptions were not used and an empirical approach to the analysis was taken?
A: As it turns out, research by both secular and creation scientists indicates a date of modern human origins of not more than 5,000 to 10,000 years (reviewed by Tomkins in 2015).
Evolutionists first noticed a problem with their paradigm in 1997 when human mitochondrial DNA mutation rates were first being analyzed.
As stated in the original paper: “Using our empirical rate to calibrate the mtDNA molecular clock would result in an age of the mtDNA MRCA [most recent common ancestor or the first human woman] of only ~6,500 years.” This study was ridiculed and maligned, not for the methods used, but for the young age of the non-evolutionary conclusions that were reached.
In 2012 and 2013, two major secular papers were published that each analyzed the rare mutational variants in human protein coding exons among ~9,000 individuals of various ethnicities and found that, based on demographic models, as opposed to standard evolution-calibrated models, the rare mutational variation in the human genome could be no older than 5,000 to 10,000 years.
Q: While the mitochondrial data has spectacularly confirmed the Biblical timeline for the maternal human lineage, what about the data on the paternal side?
A: As it turns out, Y-chromosome analyses are just as revealing. In addition to their early creationist work on mitochondrial DNA, Sanford and Carter also analyzed Y-chromosome diversity among modern humans and found there to be only about 300 mutations, on average, that were different from the consensus sequence for a Y chromosome representing the original Adam.
In fact they found that if a normal mutation rate for the Y chromosome of about 1 mutation per generation was assumed, that only about 300 generations corresponding to about six thousand years would be needed to get 300 mutations worth of modern human Y-chromosome diversity."
CMI
