Creationists Cheer Findings in Bear Genome Sequencing Project [Excerpts]

Baby Bear’s big surprise may not be that he found Goldilocks asleep in his bed, it may be that he discovered his parents came from two entirely separate species.

Evolutionists are equally surprised because separate species are not supposed to be able to interbreed. But the new findings come as no shock to creationists, who note the discovery backs the belief that God created types of animals that diversified into what scientists now consider separate species.

Evolutionary scientists in Germany made the discovery after sequencing the genomes of all known bear species for the first time. They were surprised to find that mixed breeds of bears are not nearly as rare as they had assumed.

According to the biological definition of a species, individuals from different species are generally unable to interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Grizzly bears and polar bears apparently didn’t get that memo because they have been known to crossbreed, and the “grolars” they produce are often fertile. Scientists still considered such crossbreeding rare.

The new data analysis not only proves the intermingling is relatively common but reveals crossbreeding even among polar bears and sun bears of Southeast Asia. That finding shocked researchers because these two types of bears live in completely different geographical ares and have never met. The researchers hypothesize an intermediate host, such as a brown bear, passed the genes between the two species.

These findings match other scientific studies that showed gene flow between species in other animals and they cast doubt about evolutionary assumptions regarding how animals diversify into different species.

“We have to ask ourselves: Does the species concept still hold true, given there is evidence of gene flow not only in bears, but also in other animals?” Axel Janke of the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Frankfurt said in a statement.

But this new information fits well with the creationist worldview that God created animals according to their kinds, said Nathaniel Jeanson with Answers in Genesis, which believes the earth is only about 6,000 years old.

(Julie Borg, "Creationists Cheer Findings in Bear Genome Sequencing Project," WORLD News Service, April 28, 2017).