RE: [asa] Francis Collins

Hi Randy, you wrote:

>>I'd be interested in hearing your opinions of his answer to one of the
Q&A's where he says that consideration of the entire genome indicates a
population of about 10,000 for our ancestral heritage. I felt his answer
was incomplete (necessarily due to the setting) and I didn't fully
understand it. Perhaps some of you have more insight into the work he is
citing and can help explain it. He gave no time frame so I don't know what
that means. I suppose no matter how far back in time we go, we never get to
a population much smaller than that for our ancestral species?<<

We don't have a locked-in-cement set of detailed characteristics that
clearly separates all the noble attributes of modern man from our ape
ancestors that everybody agrees on. And if we did, you can't identify them
all from DNA alone. It may be easy to identify morphological differences
and DNA differences when you compare modern man against modern chimps, but
there is a gradual morphological transition going back in time as human
characteristics become more apelike and we don't have any chimp transitions
in the fossil record.

You can say australopithecines are apes and Homo erectus is human, but which
particular ape crossed the line and was born a human being? How would you
know? Alligators and crocodiles are linked. Which croc became an
alligator, or vice versa? And so it is with all linked species. It isn't
that all 10,000 proto-humans lived concurrently. Some lived consecutively.
In essence and in theory there was a band of precursors who lived in one
area at a particular timeframe, say 1,000,000 to 990,000 years ago, for
example, who started out as "apes" if you could agree on a standard set of
qualifications, and ended up human. Also in theory you should be able to
identify a single individual who crossed the threshold however you define
it, but as a practical measure you couldn't do it.

Dick Fischer

Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association

Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History

 <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org> www.genesisproclaimed.org

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Randy Isaac
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 9:10 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: [asa] Francis Collins

In case you haven't noticed by now, Terry has made Francis Collin's talk at
the ASA meeting available on our website www.asa3.org as well as the
interview on Science Friday with Collins and Owen Gingerich.

I'd be interested in hearing your opinions of his answer to one of the Q&A's
where he says that consideration of the entire genome indicates a population
of about 10,000 for our ancestral heritage. I felt his answer was
incomplete (necessarily due to the setting) and I didn't fully understand
it. Perhaps some of you have more insight into the work he is citing and
can help explain it. He gave no time frame so I don't know what that means.
I suppose no matter how far back in time we go, we never get to a population
much smaller than that for our ancestral species?

Randy

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Received on Wed Aug 9 10:52:00 2006