Unraveling the Chromosome 2 Connection

Rhett and Link, the best-friend
duo behind the wildly popular
YouTube series Good Mythical
Morning, announced in 2020 that they’d
left the Christian faith of their childhood.
In a nearly two-hour-long podcast
episode, Rhett detailed his “spiritual
deconstruction,” explaining how his
faith was slowly splintered by doubts.
He said, it “all came down to uncovering
the truth,” including uncovering
evidence for evolution.

Rhett mentioned grappling with the
chromosome 2 fusion argument. The
supposedly fused human chromosome
2 is frequently trotted out as proof of
a shared evolutionary ancestor with
great apes such as chimpanzees and
gorillas.

Far from merely an overly technical
argument contemplated by only
geneticists or science nerds, this
much-touted genetic smoking gun
has convinced skeptics, like Rhett
and Link, that evolution is true and
therefore Scripture is wrong. But when
you look closely, this whole chromosome
2 argument falls apart, revealing
a flawed worldview bias—not a
water-tight scientific proof.

The Argument Begins to Unravel

At first glance, this argument seems
convincing. From an evolutionary perspective,
since we presumably share a
common ancestor with the great apes,
it’s very likely that we would have the
same number of chromosomes. But
we don’t. Great apes have 48 (24 pairs)
chromosomes, and humans have only
46 (23 pairs). To explain this dissimilarity,
evolutionists predicted an ancient
end-to-end fusion “event” in evolutionary
history when two chromosomes
became one. So as the human ancestor
and ape ancestor diverged from the
common ancestor, a fusion occurred
in the branch that eventually became
Homo sapiens sapiens—us—but not in
the branch that became the great apes.

When scientists compared human
and chimp chromosomes, they found
remarkable similarity in banding (the
patterns developed by a DNA stain
when a dye is applied by researchers)
between our chromosome 2 and chimp
chromosomes 12 and 13. Could this be
evidence of an ancestral fusion event?
Evolutionists certainly believed it was—so much so that they renamed chimp
chromosomes 12 and 13, 2a and 2b.

While the banding patterns are
indeed visually similar, if chromosomes
2a and 2b did fuse to form a new chromosome,
human chromosome 2 should
be haunted by the ghostly remains of
chromosomal structures known as telomeres
and centromeres.

At the end of each chromosome are
repetitive DNA sequences known as
telomeres. Dr. Georgia Purdom, a geneticist
at Answers in Genesis, has described
these sequences as aglets, the little plastic
bits on the ends of shoelaces.1 Just
like the aglets help keep the shoelaces
intact, these telomeres keep the DNA
between them “safe” (since DNA shortens
every time it makes a copy of itself).
If two chromosomes fused end-to-end,
our chromosome 2 should contain many
telomere sequences in the middle of the
chromosome. And evolutionists believe
they’ve found them.

But there’s a problem. As one group
of evolutionary researchers wrote,
“Why are the [telomere sequences] at the fusion site so degenerate?”2 In
other words, where did all the DNA
letters (bases) go? Thousands of repetitive
telomere sequences should exist,
but just a scant few hundred are found
at this supposed fusion site. And those
few hundred are not “degenerate,” nonfunctional
vestiges; they play a necessary
role and are found in other chromosomes,
not just chromosome 2.3

The problem gets worse for evolutionists.
Not only is the alleged fusion
site missing the expected telomeres,
but there’s a gene at the fusion site.
Genes do not exist in telomeres, and
this gene is expressed in at least 255
different cell and tissue types. To make
matters worse, the supposed ghost telomere
is actually a switch for controlling
gene activity. According to Dr. Jeffery
Tomkins, the creation scientist behind
much of this groundbreaking research,
these DNA sequences “are not accidents
of evolution but purposefully and
intelligently designed functional code.”4

But What About the Centromere?

The telomeres didn’t pan out for the
evolutionists. But each chromosome also
has a centromere, which is specific, repetitive
DNA sequences typically found
near the center of the chromosome.
During cell division, chromosomes are
pulled in half by rope-like microtubules.
These “ropes” anchor to proteins that
are positioned around a centromere. If
two chromosomes fused to become one,
we should find two centromeres (one
functional and one useless) in our chromosome
2. And evolutionists believe
they’ve found the useless one.

One centromere is fully functioning.
The other ghostly centromere is 90%
smaller than a functioning centromere,
contains sequences that are not unique
to centromeres, and has a gene inside
it. Just like the telomeres, genes do not
exist in centromeres. As Tomkins puts
it, “The fact that the so-called fossil
or cryptic centromere is a functional
region inside an important protein-coding
gene completely refutes the idea
that it’s a defunct centromere.”5

Evolutionary Slam Dunk?

At first glance, the chromosome 2
fusion argument seems like a slam dunk
for evolution. But with more research,
the evolutionary story is unraveling.
According to Tomkins, far from being
the smoking gun of a human and ape
shared ancestry, the actual evidence “is
an undeniable double whammy against
the whole mythical fusion idea, utterly
destroying its validity. The overwhelming
scientific conclusion is that the
fusion never happened.”6

This isn’t the first time, and it won’t
be the last, that evolutionary scientists’
interpretations have contradicted God’s
Word, seemingly in a very convincing
way. But eventually, science always confirms
God’s Word because God’s Word
is true.

Scripture clearly teaches that humans
are a unique creation of God. Man was
created from dust and woman from his
side. We didn’t descend from an ape-like
ancestor, and we do not share a family
tree with the apes. Like all our DNA, our
chromosome 2 bears and confirms the
hallmarks of design, not a happy evolutionary
accident.

Like all so-called evidences for
evolution, the alleged chromosome
fusion event is an interpretation
imposed on the evidence.

Rhett alleges that he abandoned the
faith he once professed because creationist
data didn’t “seem like an adequate
explanation for why [evolution] definitely feels like and looks like and
seems to be very conclusive.” But it’s
not really about the evidence at all. Like
all so-called evidences for evolution,
the alleged chromosome fusion event
is an interpretation imposed on the
evidence. It’s not a battle over the evidence.
It’s really a battle over two different
worldviews, one starting with God’s
Word, one starting with man’s word.
Ultimately, ideas based on the sandy
foundation of man’s word will erode
with time. But “the Word of our God
will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8).

SourceThis article originally appeared on answersingenesis.org

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