The Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism (2018)

couples (Carter and Powell 2016). Therefore, there is no problem with the Flood scenario in terms of preserving most of the originally designed variants, even though there would be some loss of diversity. For example, if Noah’s three daughters-in-law were distantly related, the Ark-borne population could have carried up to 80% of the pre-Flood diversity (Carter and Powell 2016). Even in a worst-case scenario (where Shem, Ham and Japheth married their sisters), nearly 60% of the pre-Flood diversity would still have been retained (Carter 2018). Thus, while some created diversity would be lost at the Flood, Noah’s family could have easily carried millions of polymorphic alleles. In addition to the 8 million common alleles (most of which may be designed alleles), the 1000 Genomes Project identified another 64 million rare SNPs (most of which can be assumed to be mutational alleles). How many generations would it take for 64 million mutations to accumulate? Given a mutation rate of roughly 100 mutations per person per generation, and assuming our current population of over 7 billion people, it would require less than one generation to accumulate 64 million mutations in the human population. Even for a human population of just 10,000, it would only take about 80 generations. While most new mutational alleles usually drift out of a population, the rate of loss of mutational alleles would be greatly reduced in a population that is continuously growing rapidly. In light of all this, the blanket claim, “There is no way Adam and Eve could have given rise to so much diversity,” is not reasonable. While Adam and Eve could clearly have given rise to the currently observed amount of human genetic diversity, a more technical objection can still be raised. It deals with the specific distribution of the variant alleles observed in the human population. The narrower claim becomes, “Adam and Eve could not possibly account for the specific patterns of allele frequencies that we see in the modern human population.” This more technical objection is not easily dismissed and calls for careful consideration. To address these challenges, we developed a modified version of the Mendel program (version 2.7.2), and also a completely redesigned version of Mendel (“Mendel-Go”) written in the state-of-the-art computer language “Go”. We included a new dynamic population size function, so that special experiments could be conducted where population size was continuously dynamic (changing). We improved older features that enabled such things as tracking initially created alleles, studying normal mutation accumulation, and examining the effects of small founder populations, mid-run population bottlenecks, and subsequent population re-growth. Modifications were made so that the changing allele frequencies in the dynamic population could still be tracked across generations. At the end of each experiment, the final allele frequency distribution could be plotted and could be compared to actual allele frequency distributions seen in today’s human population. In this paper we will use logic and numerical simulation to show that the claim that “there is no possible way…” is overreaching. There are multiple genetic mechanisms that can reconcile the biblical Adam and Eve with the observed human allele distribution data. METHODS Our working hypothesis is that God miraculously created Adam and Eve with a vast amount of internal genetic diversity, such that there were millions of designed SNPs in Eden. We have used simple logic and numerical simulations to examine genetic mechanisms whereby a miraculously created first couple might give rise to an allele frequency distribution similar to that now seen in the human population. 1. Plotting Actual Allele Frequency Distributions In order to observe the actual allele frequencies of the current human population, we employed the latest sequence data for the Y chromosome, the mitochondrial chromosome (see Diroma et al. 2014), and chromosome 22 sequence data from the 1000 Genomes Project page (accessed 17 Apr 2015). Allele frequency data were tabulated from the VCF-formatted data using custom Perl scripts. The data were plotted using standard Minor Allele Frequency (MAF) plots. These plots reflect the actual allele frequency distributions for the current human population. These plots are very informative in themselves and provide controls (templates) for comparisons with our numerical simulation results. 2. Analysis of Theoretical Allelic Distributions Based Upon Numerical Simulations We tested various historical models and their expected allele frequency patterns using Mendel version 2.7.2 and Mendel-Go. As stated in the introduction, Mendel tracks the coming and going of virtual alleles that exist in a virtual population, accounts for enormous numbers of genetic transactions that take place over many generations, and tallies and plots final outcomes, including allele frequency distributions. The modified Mendel program (version 2.7.2) required a new dynamic population size function, so that special experiments could be conducted where population size was dynamically changing. At the same time, an entirely restructured program (Mendel-Go) was developed. This was used to validate the output of the original Mendel simulator. These improvements enabled such things as initially created alleles, normal mutation accumulation, a small founder population, population growth, a population bottleneck, and population re-growth. Modifications were made so that the changing allele frequencies in the dynamic population could still be tracked across generations. At the end of the experiment, the final allele frequency distribution could be plotted and compared to actual allele frequency distributions seen in today’s human population. The model population grows each generation according to the following formula: where i is the generation number, i b is the generation number when the bottleneck occurs, R A and R B are the average reproductive rates before and after the bottleneck, and P c is the carrying capacity of the population. 3. Examining the Heterozygous Adam and Eve Model We tested the Heterozygous Adam and Eve Model using a series of numerical simulations. We used Mendel simulations to Sanford et al. ◀ Designed genetic diversity in Adam and Eve ▶ 2018 ICC 202