Male vs. Female Divergence

Age of Coalescence Y (Male)  mtDNA (Female)
Minimum 37,000  120,000 
Maximum 49,000  474,000

Whitfield, L.S., J.E. Suston, and P.N. Goodfellow. 1995. Sequence variation of the human Y chromosome. Nature 378: 379-380.

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Slide 32 of 109


In 1995, the Whitfield study examined both mtDNA and Y chromosome genetics to compare the divergence times for each. To their surprise, the dates did not match - males diverged much later than females. The "discrepancy" can be explain through the biblical creation model. The Bible describes a genetic bottleneck event that occurred during the Genesis flood. Since all males on the ark were genetically descended from Noah, but the females were genetically diverse, we would expect that female genetic diversity would be greater than male genetic diversity. This biblical model is confirmed through an examination of mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) compared to Y-chromosome genetic diversity.


Last Modified June 21, 2006