God’s Proof (www.godsproof.com) Volume: 2 Issue: 2
If we descended from Adam and Eve, why
do we have so many different races of people?
How is that possible?
(Large portions taken from the book “One Blood” by Ken Ham, Dr. Carl Wieland,
and Dr. Don Batten)
According to the Bible, all humans on earth today are descended from Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives and before that from Adam and Eve (Genesis 1-11). But today we have many different groups, often called "races," with what seem to be greatly differing features. The most obvious of these is skin color. Many see this as a reason to doubt the Bible's record of history. They believe that the various groups could have arisen only by evolving separately over tens of thousands of years. However, as we shall see, this does not follow from the biological evidence.
The Bible tells us how the population that descended from Noah's family had one language and by living in one place were disobeying God's command to "fill the earth" (Genesis 9:1, 11:4). God confused their language, causing a break-up of the population into smaller groups which scattered over the earth (Genesis 11:8-9). Modern genetics show how, following such a break-up of a population, variations in skin color, for example, can develop in only a few generations. There is good evidence that the various people groups we have today have not been separated for huge periods of time.
There is really only one race --
the human race. The Bible teaches us that God has "made of one blood all
nations of men" (Acts
All peoples can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. This shows that the biological differences between the "races" are not very great. In fact, the DNA differences are trivial. The DNA of any two people in the world would typically differ by just 0.2 percent. Of that .2 percent, only 6 percent can be linked to racial categories; the rest is "within race" variation.
Virtually all evolutionists would now say that the various people groups did not have separate origins. That is, different people groups did not each evolve from a different group of animals. So they would agree with the biblical creationist that all people groups have come from the same original population. Of course, they believe that such groups as the Aborigines and the Chinese have had many tens of thousands of years of separation. Most believe that there are such vast differences between the groups that there had to be many years for these differences to develop.
One reason for this is that many people believe that the observable differences arise from some people having unique features in their hereditary make-up which others lack. This is an understandable but incorrect idea. Let's look at skin color, for instance.
It is easy to think that since different groups of people have "yellow" skin, "red" skin, "black" skin, "white" skin, and "brown" skin, there must be many different skin pigments or colorings. And since different chemicals for coloring would mean a different genetic recipe or code in the hereditary blueprint in each people group, it appears to be a real problem. How could all those differences develop within a short time?
However, we all have the same coloring pigment in our skin -- melanin. This is a dark-brownish pigment that is produced in different amounts in special cells in our skin. If we had none (as do people called albinos, who inherit a mutation-caused defect, and cannot produce melanin), then we would have a very white or pink skin coloring. If we produced a little melanin, we would be European white. If our skin produced a great deal of melanin, we would be a very dark black. And in between, of course, are all shades of brown. There are no other significant skin pigments. In summary, from currently available information, the really important factor in determining skin color is melanin -- the amount produced.
This situation is true not only for
skin color. Generally, whatever feature we may look at, no people group has
anything that is essentially different from that possessed by any other. For
example, the Asian, or almond, eye differs from a typical Caucasian eye in
having more fat around them. Both Asian and Caucasian eyes have fat -- the
latter simply have less.
Melanin protects the skin against damage by ultraviolet light from the sun. If you have too little melanin in a very sunny environment, you will easily suffer sunburn and skin cancer. If you have a great deal of melanin, and you live in a country where there is little sunshine, it will be harder for you to get enough vitamin D (which needs sunshine for its production in your body). You may then suffer from vitamin D deficiency, which could cause a bone disorder such as rickets.
We also need to be aware that we are not born with a genetically fixed amount of melanin. Rather, we have a genetically fixed potential to produce a certain amount, and the amount increases in response to sunlight. For example, you may have noticed that when your Caucasian friends (who spent their time indoors during winter) headed for the beach at the beginning of summer they all had more or less the same pale white skin color. As the summer went on, however, some became much darker than others.
How is it that many different skin colors can arise in a short time? Remember, whenever we speak of different "colors" we are referring to different shades of the one color, melanin.
If a person from a very dark-skinned group marries someone from a very light-skinned group, their offspring (called mulattos) are mid-brown. It has long been known that when mulattos marry each other, their offspring may be virtually any "color," ranging from very dark to very light. Understanding this gives us the clues we need to answer our question.
To sum it all up, Adam
and Eve possessed all the possible combinations we see in the various groups of
people throughout the world today.
Contrary to many children’s books, Adam and Eve, genetically speaking,
probably were more of a mid-brown skin color rather than white. The various groups we see today began their
divergence at the
Evolution didn’t invent racism, however, it did provide the rationalization for believing that one person is better than another. We have all fallen short of the glory of God. No one is good; NO ONE. When we look at people through God’s eye’s we will no longer see race, creed, or color; we will see sinners that need to be saved.