Re: [asa] Two questions...Ayala's article

So what is your view on the Adam question Gordon?

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 1:10 PM, gordon brown <Gordon.Brown@colorado.edu>wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Feb 2009, Preston Garrison wrote:
>
> On Wed, 25 Feb 2009, Preston Garrison wrote:
>>>
>>> I don't agree Dick. Any number of studies
>>>>>
>>>>
>> the any number seems to be same as the desired number of ancestors (2) :)
>>
>> have shown that every living person alive today can trace his or her
>>>>> ancestry back to a common ancestor who lived only a few thousand years ago,
>>>>> though obviously this person was not the only person alive at the time, nor
>>>>> will most of us have inherited genes directly from that person. See, e.g.,
>>>>> Rhode, On the Common Ancestors of All Living Humans (<
>>>>> http://tedlab.mit.edu/~dr/Papers/Rohde-MRCA-two.pdf>
>>>>> http://tedlab.mit.edu/~dr/Papers/Rohde-MRCA-two.pdf); Chang, Recent
>>>>> Common Ancestors of All Present-Day Individuals (<
>>>>> http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/Ancestors.pdf>
>>>>> http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/Ancestors.pdf).
>>>>> A focus on "bloodlines," I think, is archaic -- that's a scientifically
>>>>> meaningless term. A focus on the coalescence of genes, I think, is foreign
>>>>> to the Biblical text and unproductive. The focus ought to fall, I think, on
>>>>> geneology, which is what the papers referenced above discuss.
>>>>>
>>>>> David W. Opderbeck
>>>>> Associate Professor of Law
>>>>> Seton Hall University Law School
>>>>> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> There's really supposed to be a common ancestor in the last few thousand
>>>> years for everyone in a remote tribe in the Amazon and for every Australian
>>>> aborigine? Is this a statement about how thoroughly the modern world has
>>>> penetrated every corner of the planet?
>>>>
>>>> Again, am I missing something?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> I first learned about this several years ago from Glenn Morton on this
>>> forum. I haven't taken the time to read the papers, but my impression was
>>> that the conclusion was based on the observation that any individual has a
>>> lot of ancestors only a few generations back. Likewise most individuals who
>>> have descendants have very many after a few generations. Thus even taking
>>> into account that not all the ancestors in such a calculation are distinct
>>> and that descendants may mate with each other, it was concluded that one did
>>> not have to go back to a time when the human population was extremely small
>>> to find a common ancestor. Glenn pointed out that this didn't take into
>>> account that some populations have apparently been isolated from everyone
>>> else until quite recently.
>>>
>>
>>
>> I have to go with Glenn on this. It just seems unreasonable to insist that
>> no population anywhere, no matter how small, has remained isolated the whole
>> time.
>>
>> But, the essential point seems to me to be, so what? What is the
>> implication of a recent common ancestor if most of us don't actually have
>> any DNA from that ancestor? What are we supposed to have inherited, a soul?
>>
>> Again, am I missing something here?
>>
>> Preston
>>
>>
> As far as I know, this is just a curiosity. It probably appeals to trivia
> fans.
>
>
> Gordon Brown (ASA member)
>
>
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Received on Thu Feb 26 13:29:25 2009