dweinste@gnu.ai.mit.edu (David Weinstein) (03/20/91)
Thomas Blake writes: >I find it strange that the controversial cover story from Newsweek a >year or more ago has not been mentioned in this thread. The story dealt >with the research of a team of geneticists which claim that gene >matching shows us to have all descended from a single woman. (Who some >have labled "Eve".) The major thrust of their conclusion was not that >Genesis is correct, but that theories of parralel development of a >number of protomen which mingled to produce Homo Sapiens appear to be >mistaken. (Someone please correct me if I have mis-remembered). The >story was also given play by NPR. It is unfortunate that the name "Eve" was attached to the hypothetical direct female line ancestor, as this has led many people to read more into the study than is actually there (much along the lines of the people who read the Second Law of Thermodynamics to prevent any increase in order anywhere). The human Mitochondria contain DNA. This DNA is inherited entirely from the mother, with no genes inherited from the father. What the study uncovered was that, insofar as they have been able to find, all humans (with the possible exception of the Australian aborigines) are descended in an unbroken _female_ line from one woman living approximately a quarter of a million years ago. To understand why this is _not_ a biblical Eve, we merely have to look at a simple case. Two couples, one with a female child, the other with a male child. The children marry, and have children. These children will have the Mitochondrial DNA of the maternal grandmother _only_. This does not mean, however, that they are not descended from the paternal grandmother. After this report was released, another analysis trickled down the net, showing that this sort of unbroken female descent will occur every n generations. So, in short, while interesting, the findings on Mitochondrial DNA don't really have much to do with Christian theology (although the notion of a single unbroken line of female descent for most or all of humanity could do interesting things for Jewish theological debates :-) ). --Dave -- Dave Weinstein Internet: dweinste@isis.cs.du.edu Disclaimer: You aren't serious, are you? dweinste@gnu.ai.mit.edu In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, "Let there be Light." And there was still nothing. But, you could see it. [This discussion is coming very close to creationism. Let me note again that I do not regard that as an appropriate topic for this group, because there's a specialized group for it: talk.origins. --clh]