Re: Recommended PBS TV Program

I just finished watching the show and enjoyed it very much, though at spots it was sensationalized a bit. If I got the story right, this man was the one, out of several hundred in central Asia whose blood was tested, that had the clearest evidence of the Y-chromosome marker indicating the connection with the group migrating out of Africa and also found throughout Europe and Asia and the Americas.

Wells focuses on Y chromosome mutations. If there were no mutations, all Y chromosomes would essentially be the same, passed down from male to male. Clearly defined mutations can be markers for tracking ancestry. But the markers can be lost over time if they get commingled with other mutations. Using this technique, he claims to have traced the migration of humans out of Africa. The first group went to Australia through the coastal path through India. The second group went to central Asia, where he found this gentleman, and from there humans went in several directions, including Europe and over the Bering Strait to the Americas.

I was intrigued by his comment on timing. Until the last ten years, the technology and insight didn't exist to be able to detect and trace these mutations. But he claimed in a few more generations these markers would be too diffuse to trace. The timing is just right to make the discovery now. Sounds close to the anthropic argument to me.

Randy

David Opderbeck wrote:

  Yes I realized how dumb that was after I wrote it. Here's what I think it was: the guy in Mongolia is a direct descendant of the progenitor of the first people to migrate into North America. If I remember this right, Wells argues that the first group to migrate across the land bridge from Asia to North America was a small group of people, and this particular guy in Mongolia can be shown to be genetically related to Navajos in the U.S. and such. I guess his ancestor was married to someone, like my wife, who doesn't ever want to move, even though everyone else is heading for places where housing prices are lower. Honestly, though, I'd have to watch it again. It was something very cool and amazing, and the poor guy was befuddled by all the attention.

  On 1/7/06, gordon brown <gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu> wrote:
    I don't think you said what you meant to say. Isn't any Asian person
    living today a direct descendant of the progenitor of all Asian people
    living today? Perhaps this man is a particularly close genetic copy of the
    progenitor.
Received on Sat Jan 7 18:42:40 2006