Age of Our Ancestors-How Our Genetic Adam Is Much Younger than Genetic Eve

abcnews.go.com ^

[cajun-jack]

Adam created first and then Eve..not eve wandering around in Africa for years and years and then stumbled up on Adam and got him drunk and then all that "begatting" began.

[Old Professer]

Math aside, why then don't we see a piece of the progenitors of either?

[Old Professer]

What did his father contribute, nothing?

Darwin, speaking on pigeons, mused that all pigeons descended from a single, mated-pair.

[Ichneumon]

Math aside, why then don't we see a piece of the progenitors of either?

We do. Here, for example.

There are a lot more "pieces" of DNA which can be traced than just the mitochondrial or Y-chromosome DNA, and each one gives different views into the big picture.

[Old Professer]

nor was there ever any time where there was just one pair of humans on the planet.

So several specimens sprang at once?

[CobaltBlue]

But the story isn't about the Biblical Adam and Eve. They just call them that as a metaphor.

Look, you believe in DNA testing, right? If someone tested your DNA and it turned out that you weren't related to your mother's husband, you'd think there was something funny going on, wouldn't you? And if your kids had different DNA from yours, you'd probably want a divorce, right?

Well, the story is about DNA. Everybody on earth today is descended from the DNA of one woman who lived 120,000 years ago, and one man who lived 60,000 years ago, probably in Africa.

So if God created Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, it was at least 120,000 years ago, and probably in Africa. But of all the generations between 120,000 years ago and 60,000 years ago, none of the males survived to pass on their genes. Something happened to kill off all but a very few people, from whom we are all descended, is the most logical explanation. Maybe it was the climate, maybe a disease, who knows?

[PatrickHenry]

I was assuming that the 60,000 year ago man was descended from the 120,000 year ago woman. It's a reasonable assumption, under the circumstances, but just an assumption on my part.

Oh no ... incest!!

[bayourod]

"The Catholic Church has lots of bones of "saints" who were stolen and moved to places for worship! "

The head of John the Baptist is being held captive in a mosque in Damascus. Good excuse for us to invade Syria.

[Old Professer]

If I'm to believe your link then I must believe that we are but one in a chain of many changes in ME and that there is still no known first person, correct?

[CobaltBlue]

why then don't we see a piece of the progenitors of either?

How long have there been human beings, homo sapiens sapiens?

[Old Professer]

I worked with a guy in California who swore that he saw half-men, half-apes in Guyana just after WWII when he was being brought back to the States.

[Old Professer]

That is the question.

[Ichneumon]

Darwin, speaking on pigeons, mused that all pigeons descended from a single, mated-pair.

No, he didn't.

Great as the differences are between the breeds of pigeons, I am fully convinced that the common opinion of naturalists is correct, namely, that all have descended from the rock-pigeon (Columba livia), including under this term several geographical races or sub-species, which differ from each other in the most trifling respects.

[...]

from these several reasons, taken together, I can feel no doubt that all our domestic breeds have descended from the Columba livia with its geographical sub-species.

[...]

Fourthly, pigeons have been watched, and tended with the utmost care, and loved by many people. They have been domesticated for thousands of years in several quarters of the world; the earliest known record of pigeons is in the fifth Ægyptian dynasty, about 3000 B.C., as was pointed out to me by Professor Lepsius; but Mr. Birch informs me that pigeons are given in a bill of fare in the previous dynasty.

-- Charles Darwin, "On the Origin of Species", 1859

The confusion may have arisen from this passage:

I have discussed the probable origin of domestic pigeons at some, yet quite insufficient, length; because when I first kept pigeons and watched the several kinds, knowing well how true they bred, I felt fully as much difficulty in believing that they could ever have descended from a common parent, as any naturalist could in coming to a similar conclusion in regard to the many species of finches, or other large groups of birds, in nature.

However, in the context of the rest of the discussion surrounding this passage, it's entirely clear that he's talking about a common parent *species*, not a common parent individual, since the chapter concerns itself with whether different breeds of domesticated animals (e.g., all domesticated pigeon breeds) were derived from different wild species, or the same wild species.

[Ichneumon]

If I'm to believe your link then I must believe that we are but one in a chain of many changes in ME and that there is still no known first person, correct?

"ME"?

In any case, the answer to the question depends on how precisely one chooses to define "first person". It's not as simple a term as it first seems.

[CobaltBlue]

The "first persons" are inferred from the DNA. All the chains that have been traced go back to one person, or a small group of people.

[CobaltBlue]

Oh, what the hey, it's a big image but a good one.

[longtermmemmory]

I understood that. It seems the article is written with a bend to politics rather than science. There is more spin by omission than hard science.

Just because certain parts are older than other parts means nothing.

Remember its all a matter of who gets killed off vs who does not.

DNA is DNA, so the sequence which forms mitochondria is older than the DNA which forms the other parts of the cell are 60 million years old. All parts of the cell are made of DNA. The descriptions in this article are sloppy and not to be taken seriously.

Hence my (s). It can be spun any which way.

[CobaltBlue]

DNA is DNA

No. Mitochondrial DNA comes only from your mother. Cellular DNA comes half from your mother, half from your father.

[longtermmemmory]

That is the purpose of the article, spin. They want to create such confusion. Remember who watches the most network television. Liberal women. This "spin" feeds feminsts.

The article mischaracterizes DNA and inheritance.

It is all DNA. It is all who lived long enough to have babies. This is PC to make "eve" come before "adam" so to speak. This is just to annoy people. In the end this will be re-re-re-re-re-re-revised. But that will be published in a science journal nobody reads. By then ABC will not be interested.

[Heatseeker]

Nice threads for 120,000 years ago. Polyester?

"#$%$#@!! This what I get for buying a PDA running an OS from Microsoft! Maybe those homo sapiens sapiens guys will let me borrow a PalmPilot."