Abstract
The mechanism of speciation remains one of the most contested scientific questions among both evolutionists and creationists. The tight linkage between this question and the question of the timing of speciation suggests that answers to the latter may aid the investigation of the former. To date within the young-earth community, no comprehensive studies on the relationship between genetics and the timing of speciation have been performed. In this study, I show that mitochondrial DNA relationships within extant families depict linear rates of speciation, a finding consistent with a mechanism of speciation that involves an originally created heterozygous allele pool fractionated by genetic drift.