On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Walter Hicks wrote:
> Take just the male Y-chromosome. As I understand it, there are small
> differences in each male due to mutations which occur at a somewhat
> known rate. So if we trace backwards, we arrive at the most recent male
> "father of us all" and call him "Adam". Forgetting about those who have
> preceded him, this says that all other male humanoids living at that
> time have failed to contribute to the line of male humans existing at
> this time -- because each man can only have one father. Does this mean
> that all the other men had lines of male children who eventually became
> extinct? If not, what is the alternative?
That is true only for the genes in the Y chromosome. You have to
remember that the Y chromosome is just part of the story. All
the other chromosomes get shuffled every generation, and the gene that's
in a male today might be in a female in the next generation.
You might find this website interesting:
http://zoology.byu.edu/zool610/lecture_3.htm
(go to: Phylogenetic Estimators: But First a Digression into Coalescent
Theory)
Marcio
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