[Salman]

“The amount of genetic variation that has accumulated in humans is just nowhere near compatible with the age” of the species, Wood says. “That means you’ve got to come up with a hypothesis for an event that wiped out the vast majority of that variation.”

Hmmm...
Like a really big flood, maybe?

[John H K]

The slight problem being that there isn't ANY evidence, anywhere, for a global flood event occuring after the appearance of the first humans. (My definition of "evidence" being that that a trained geologist would use, not a young-earth-creationist kookjob that wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.)

There is also no possible geological or meteorological mechanism for such an event.

There is some evidence, probably overhyped by the media, that a sudden flooding of the shores of the Black Sea from the Mediterranean may have been the source of the various Babylonian and Assyrian flood myths that eventually later made into the Bible as the Noah story, but this would still be a very localized event and couldn't possibly account for the human biodiversity bottleneck. Also, it's much too recent to be the bottleneck, anyway.

[reg45]

If a flood wiped out the majority of the human race. Then we must all be descended from the good swimmers. We should all have fins - or big feet like Ian Thorpe.

8-)