H. erectus genes in us

The popular (but false) Out of Africa theory of human origins postlates that
all humans alive today arose from a group of humans who left Africa around
150,000 years ago. These people were supposed to have replaced all former
hominids outside of Africa with virtually no genetic imput from these
people. This conclusion is based upon mitochondrial DNA studies which show
that we are all descended from one woman who lived around 150,000 years ago.

But this isn't the history of the human race, which is much older than
that. We did come out of Africa but it was much longer ago than 150,000
years. How can we be sure? Well, because it is patently false to claim that
mtDNA can determine the history of a person. I am of European descent. My
wife is Middle Eastern. Our oldest son married a woman of Chinese descent.
To claim that mtDNA can tell the genetic history of a person is like my
future grandkids from my eldest. If you look at their mtDNA they will
appear Chinese, showing no evidence of their Middle Eastern and European
background in their nuclear DNA. If you look at their Y-chromosome, it will
appear European and show no evidence of their Middle Eastern and Chinese
background. Such data shows how silly it is to look at such systems and
deduce the population's history.

I finally got a 2000 Am. J. of Human Genetics article by Rosalind Harding on
the red-headed gene. Harding's team studied the red-headed gene
(melanocortin) which is not always productive of red heads--only two
haplotypes of this gene produces them. They dated the age of the gene based
upon the rates of mutation. Here is what they found:

        “Both African and non-African data suggest that the time to the most recent
common ancestor is ~1 million years and that the age of the global 314
variant is 650,00 years. On this time scale, ages for the
Eurasian-distributed Val60Leu, Val92Met, and Arg163Gln variants are
250,000-100,000 years; the ages for African silent
variants—Leu106Leu,Cys273Cys, and Phe300Phe—are 100,000-40,000 years. For
the European red hair-associated Arg151cys and Arg160Trp variants, we
estimate an age of ~80,000 years; for Asp294His, and Ser316Ser, we estimate
an age of <= 30,000 years. “ Rosalind M. Harding et al, “Evidence for
Variable Selective Pressures at MC1R,” Am. J. Human Genetics,
66(2000):1351-1361, p. 1357

The European red-hair haplotypes are only found in Europe and are 80,000
years old. I have posted this before but to remind people, the only hominids
in Europe at that time were Neanderthals. These genes are probably in us
via interbreeding with neanderthals. And, those two haplotypes are not
found outside of Europe, the former territory of the Neanderthal.

In short, our genetic history is much older than the recent times that many
Christians erroneously claim in attempting to have a relatively recent
creation of humanity. This includes people who are old-earthers but who
believe humanity was created within the past 150,000 years, like Hugh Ross.
The data contradicts those beliefs.
Received on Tue Dec 9 22:54:11 2003