Tuesday, June 7, 2011
By Brian Thomas, M.S.
Special to ASSIST News Service

DALLAS, TX-- A team of geneticists recently analyzed 6,529 individual genomes, representing 107 different human populations. :"( :"(Moorjani, P. et al. 2011. The History of African Gene Flow into Southern Europeans, Levantines, and Jews. PLoS Genetics. 7, 4: e1001373)":)": They found genetic traces of African ancestry in various people groups and estimated the timing of the ancient African/non-African intermarriages. The results of their analysis of Jewish populations will come as no surprise to those who believe in the literal history of Genesis. Despite their extensive statistical analyses of reams of genetic data, the researchers relied on traditional historical sources to anchor their results to actual time. And along the way, what the authors termed a "striking finding" would actually have been anticipated by a more biblically literate investigation.

The team, led by researchers from Harvard Medical School, compared differences in DNA sequences between the individuals and processed the data with several focused analyses. For example, one algorithm called the 3 Population Test compared three populations at a time to detect whether or not one of them was ancestral to the other two.

The study results published in the online journal PLoS Genetics included the virtual absence of evidence for African genetic mixing among Northern Europeans. This makes sense, given their geographic distance. However, Southern Europeans appeared to have experienced a measure of mixing with Africans 55 generations ago, equivalent to approximately 1,600 years, assuming a generation time of 29 years and a constant mutation rate. :"(More specifically, the team measured single nucleotide polymorphisms, which may be the result of random mutation or non-random cellular DNA alterations.)":

But for all their ingenuity and labor, the authors still required written historical sources to anchor their results in real history. They even wrote that this result "needs to be placed in historical context."1 They then recounted a "period of Roman occupation of North Africa that lasted until the early 5th century AD, and indeed tomb inscriptions and literary references suggest that trade relations continued even after that time." :"(Moorjani, P. et al. 2011. The History of African Gene Flow into Southern Europeans, Levantines, and Jews. PLoS Genetics. 7, 4: e1001373)":

So-called "molecular clock" data are always calibrated with secondary historical sources where possible, and the time-related results from this analysis are no exception. This is why molecular clocks, which were promising when first introduced, were soon recognized for their unreliability and are most often correlated with evolutionary "dates" given to fossils. :"(See, for example, Thomas, B. New Study Contradicts Flower Fossil Dates. ICR News. Posted on icr.org April 9, 2010, accessed May 25, 2011. And Thomas, B. Frozen Penguin DNA Casts Doubt on DNA-Based Dates. ICR News. Posted on icr.org November 25, 2009, accessed May 25, 2011.
4. Genesis 41:45.)":

The genetic analysis also discovered that all eight Jewish populations in the PLoS study contained three to five percent African DNA sequence patterns. This was "striking" because the individual Jewish populations were known, through secular historical records, to have been separated from each other for hundreds of years. African DNA was even found in modern descendants of Ashkenazi Jews, who have inhabited Northern Europe since the 1100s A.D.

The study authors said: "A parsimonious explanation for these observations is that they reflect a history in which many of the Jewish groups descend from a common ancestral population which was itself admixed with Africans, prior to the beginning of the Jewish diaspora that occurred in 8th to 6th century BC". :"(Moorjani, P. et al. 2011. The History of African Gene Flow into Southern Europeans, Levantines, and Jews. PLoS Genetics. 7, 4: e1001373)":

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