Animals 1st appeared alongside 1st humans, expert explains

A new scientific study that concludes the human race sprang from a single adult couple, as the Bible records, also aligns with the Bible's account of animals appearing at the same time.

WND reported over the weekend the sweeping survey of the genetic code by the Rockefeller University and the University of Basel, Switzerland.

"This conclusion is very surprising," said David Thaler, a research associate from the University of Basel, who did the study with Mark Stoeckle. "And I fought against it as hard as I could."

Nathaniel T. Jeanson, an expert in cell and developmental biology who works with Answers in Genesis, pointed out the research revealed "the vast majority of animal species arose contemporary with modern humans."

Jeanson, who holds a Ph.D. from Harvard, contends the research, which focuses on mitochondrial DNA, conflicts with evolutionary theory, which posits animal forms preceded humans, because humans developed from animal forms.

In an online report, Jeanson explained that "DNA barcoding" is being used in the field of classification of life. In short, DNA barcoding uses a genetic marker in an organism's DNA to identify it as belonging to a particular species

The new study, he said, found that "explaining the origin of the pattern of DNA barcodes would be in large part explaining the origin of species.

The researchers concluded there is "a single sequence" of genetics for humans.

"The simple hypothesis," the researchers said, "is that the same explanation offered for the sequence variation found among modern humans applies equally to the modern populations of essentially all other animal species."

"Namely that the extant population, no matter what its current size or similarity to fossils of any age, has expanded from mitochondrial uniformity within the past 200,000 years."

Stoeckle and Thaler claim "the vast majority of species have originated contemporary with modern humans."

Jeanson believes the Bible suggests a time span of 6,000 years, not 200,000.

"We now have two decades’ worth of direct measurements of the rate at which human mtDNA mutates, and it matches exactly the 6,000-year timescale and rejects the evolutionary timescale (see 'Genetics Confirms the Recent, Supernatural Creation of Adam and Eve' and references therein)," he wrote. "Thus, taking Stoeckle and Thaler's results to their logical conclusion, we can revise their statement to 'Modern human [mitochondrial DNA] originated from conditions that imposed a single sequence on these genetic elements' about 6,000 years ago."

Meanwhile, a scientific study reported by WND last week affirms the biblical account of the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed by fire and brimstone from the heavens.

The book of Genesis tells the story of God sending two angels to save Lot and his family from a city where men demanded to "be intimate" with visiting men, one of the clearest biblical condemnations of homosexuality. In response, God "rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulfurous fire ... out of heaven."

It would be hundreds of years before life returned to the region.

And now scientists have found evidence of a cataclysmic event in that area, even if they do not attribute it to God.

Science News reported archaeologist Phillip Silvia of Trinity Southwest University in Albuquerque has concluded a "superheated blast from the skies ... obliterated cities and farming settlements north of the Dead Sea around 3,700 years ago."

Siliva found "radiocarbon dating and unearthed minerals that instantly crystallized at high temperatures indicate a massive airburst caused by a meteor that exploded in the atmosphere instantaneously destroyed civilization in a 25-kilometer-wide circular plain called Middle Ghor."

Science News said the event "also pushed a bubbling brine of Dead Sea salts over once-fertile farm land, Silvia and his colleagues suspect."

The report said outer layers of many pieces of pottery from same time period show signs of having melted into glass. Zircon crystals in those glassy coats formed within one second at extremely high temperatures, perhaps as hot as the surface of the sun."