Glenn writes:
>Let's cut through all this examination of the one small region of the Y
>chromosome. Just because a small 729 base pair region of the Y-chromosome
>has no variation does not at all mean that there is NO variation on the
>Y-chromosome. This simply is not true. That is why I cited G. Lucotte,
>"Evidence for the Paternal Ancestry of Modern Humans: Evidence from a
>Y-Chromosome Specific Sequence Polymorphic DNA Probe," in Paul Mellars and
>Chris Stringer, The Human Revolution, (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
>1989). In point of fact there is much variation on the Y-chromosome. That
>is why it is wrong to say that there is NO evolution on the Y chromosome.
Remember that when evolutionists like Dorit et al. talk about "accelerated
rates of diversification" on the Y chromosome, what they are really saying
is that there are larger differences between human Y chromosomes and
chimp Y chromosomes than between other segments of DNA exhibited by the
two species. So if we get rid of the extrapolated rates of mutation,
what do we have left? Data that indicate diversity on the Y chromosome
like that which you cited.
So what does this diversity mean? Consider the following:
In fact, Wolpoff is an entrenched critic of Eve and has been
giving her last rites ever since biologists admitted in Science
a year ago that there were serious flaws in the statistical
evidence supporting the Eve hypothesis. (Ann Gibbons, Science
vol 259, 26 February 1993)
Now in my files at home, I have another article by Gibbons which talks
about the nature of this flaw. She says that the tree constructed by
Eve hypothesis supporters showed that two KUNG! tribes women were
separated by the largest genetic distance on the tree. (i.e. The data
said that these two women were not as closely related as one of them
and the caucasian women looked at in the study.) Eve hypothesis supporters
are currently scrambling to generate a tree that minimizes these differences
(they are, in fact, generating trees by the thousands via a new computer
program)
If you look at Hammers data (Table 1 p. 376 Science as cited in my last post)
you see the same kind of pattern. Of the two Mbuti tribesmen, one of them
has the Y alu polymorphic insert and another doesn't. Similarly, one of the
Australian Aborigines has the YAP insert and the other doesn't.
What does this data tell us? I don't know, but it seems difficult to reconcile
with the theory of neutral evolution.
In Christ,
robert van de water
associate researcher
UCLA