- Series:Humans, Transcript English
1 Corinthians 15:48-49
“As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.”
It was singer Frank Sinatra who was known as Ol’ Blue Eyes because of the piercing color of his irises. But now evolutionary scientists are suggesting that those, who, like me, share Sinatra’s eye color, might also share a common ancestor. Frank might be my cousin!
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen – where a lot of the local students probably have blue eyes – have suggested that the gene that causes blue eyes originated with a single individual between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago.
“Originally, we all had brown eyes,” said Professor Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. “But a genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a ‘switch,’ which literally ‘turned off’ the ability to produce brown eyes.”
Blue eyes have small amounts of melanin in them, whereas brown eyes are caused by larger amounts of the pigment. As a former high school teacher, I used eye color as a model to explain genetics; in particular, the difference between dominant and recessive genes, because the brown eye gene is dominant over the blue eye gene, so that someone with both genes will have brown eyes, not blue.
How these researchers have determined the timescale for this supposed mutation is not clear. And at least the researchers have not claimed that the change in eye color is any sort of evolutionary advance. From a biblical point of view, however, the timescale makes sense, except that we would say that all humans, of all eye colors, share a common ancestor about 6,000 years ago, and that ancestor is Adam.
Your ways, Lord, are so much higher than our ways. Please give us the wisdom to follow Your word rather than the words of men. Amen.
Author: Paul F. Taylor
Ref: University of Copenhagen. (2008, January 31). Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 2, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.htm. Image: Public Domain (out of copyright, due to date).
