One little, two little, three little inbred generations...

The grand diversity of life. It's something that evolution explains beautifully well. Yet, in full view of the overwhelming evidence, there are still those that subscribe to a literal interpretation of Genesis. However, such an interpretation can not explain the diversity that we see in the world. If the Bible is true, then all life is descended first from initial pairings at the time Adam and Eve. But to make things worse, the reset button of Noah's flood brings the problem closer.

A literal reading of Genesis places the flood about 4,361 years ago. First, the Bible argues that all of humanity (and all other life) multiplied to populate the Earth is just 1,656 years (give or take). That's about sixteen hundred years of incestual relations. Such a history of inbreeding would be far from healthy for a population. But after that, the Bible throws another genetic bottleneck into the works.

The world-wide flood that was supposedly only survived by Noah, his family and the animals on board would have caused a need for inbreeding to populate the Earth a second time. There's the obvious problem with where the multitude of different races came from, and since they tend to deny evolution, they can't use that to save them from their absurd belief. Also, population would be a problem. Assuming mortality rates, and plagues throughout history, there's simply no accounting for the current worldwide population of 7,088,420,000+ (and climbing) from one family a little over 4,000 years ago.

But more importantly, there's the health issues that would result. Inbreeding leads to a far less diverse gene pool. This narrowing of the available genes can and does have adverse health consequences. Without fresh genes, shortcomings go unchecked. If hemophilia runs in a population or family, and they only reproduce between one another then that condition would go unchecked, and spread unabated. This is also why you see common health problems within pure-bred dogs. One species may be predisposed to hip problems. Some almost always develop bad eye-sight. Others are almost guaranteed to go deaf. These are all problems that may have been avoided if the gene pool the offspring were born from were more diverse.

Inbreeding can adversely effect fitness, cause physical deformities, restrict brain development, result in defective immune systems and the passing on of negative traits. If the human population, and the populations of every other species were the result of 4,000 years or inbreeding, the world would be much different than the one we see everyday. It would be a much more sickly world with a much higher mortality rate. So you and I are actually prime examples of the fact that the Biblical account is far from correct. The facts support the case for evolution over great expanses of time. This much is certain. It's also certain that the Bible gets it wrong once again. No surprise there.

-Brain Hulk

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