Agemegos

No, there has not.

So-called 'Mitochondrial Eve' is the most recent female who is the common ancestor in the female line of all living people. It is logically obvious that there must have been such a female (although it in not logically obvious that she must have been Homo sapiens sapiens). All that the mitochodrial DNA evidence does is to allow an estimate of when she lived: about 140,000 years ago.

So-called 'Y-chromosomal Adam' is the most recent male who is the common ancestor in the male line of all living men. It is logically obvious that there must have been such a male (although it in not logically obvious that he must have been Homo sapiens sapiens). All that the Y-chromosomal DNA evidence does is to allow an estimate of when he lived: about 60,000 years ago.

So-called Eve was not the only female human of her time. She was not the only female of her time who has living descendants: it is just that all the others' descendants are descended from them through a man in at least one generation. So-called Adam was not the only male human of his time. He was not the only male of his time who has living male descendants: it is just that all the others' living male descendants are descended from them through a woman in at least one generation. So-called Adam and so-called Eve were not a couple. They never met. They weren't even alive at the same time. Neither of them is necessarily the most recent common ancestor of all living people: it my be possible for every to trace their ancestry back to some more recent person using a free combination of mother's lines and fathers lines.

I know that this is hard to understand, but consider my maternal grandfather: he had three daughters by his first marriage and two daughters and a son by his second marriage. Of the six, only my uncle John carries Papa's Y-chromosome. My mother and aunts between them produced fifteen children, about half of us carry his X chromosome, but none carry his Y-chromosome even though eight of us are male. Uncle John has a son Angus who carries Papa's Y-chromosome. Angus has only one child, a daughter. Unless Angus and his wife go on to have a son now, Papa's Y-chromosome will die out in the fourth generation even though he has two dozen descendants in that generation.

Mitochondrial Eve had contemporaries, some of whom are in a case analogous to Papa's. They have lots of descendants. But perhaps they had only sons. Or all their daughters had only sons. Or all their daughters' daughters' had only sons.

Why is Eve special? She isn't, not very. She is, for example, only temporary. Some of her grand-daughters established branches of her lineage that are very numerous and make up large proportions of the human race. Others established lineages that have almost petered out in death and sons. Every now and again, a small but old branch will peter out. Occasionally the last twig on some great ancestral bough will put forth only sons. One by one the separate branches of the tree of lineage leading from Eve will die off until only one is left. Then, suddenly, some more recent woman (a female-line descendant of Eve to be sure) will retrospectively become Eve, and our present Eve will become merely one of the unremarkable millions of female-line ancestors stretching back from Temporary Eve to the original of sex.

Mitochondrial lines are easy to understand because they pass only through mothers. Y-chomosomal lines are easy to understand because they pass only through fathers and to sons. In a rather less obvious way, there are also branching trees of lineage for any particular gene. Not for whole chromosomes: those lose their identity in crossing-over at meiosis. And each person is somewhat bafflingly two branches on each gene tree (though each of their children is a branch of only one branch of each parent). We had better abandon the tree analogy at this point because it is getting strained. Nevertheless, people's genes may be sorted into lineages of any particular gene. And according to each classification separately lineages can branch and die out but not merge. Consequently, we have a different most recent common ancestor for each locus in our genome. The really remarkable thing is that some of those MRCAs antedate the separation of our species from the chimpanzees and gorillas.

Cnsider for example the genes for blood type in the ABO (transfusion) system. I am an A heterozygote: I have one 'gene for type O' and one gene for type either A1 or A2 (I haven't determined which). That means that the common ancestor of both my genes for blood type (let alone anyone else's) is no more recent that the appearance of separate blood types. Gorillas and chimpanzees have the same different blood types that humans do, a polymorphism that is vanishingly unlikely to have evolved separately in each species. It follows that according to the blood-type-gene lineage I am more closely related to some gorillas than I am to any of you who happen to be B homozygotes. And you, of course, are more closely related on that little patch of chormosome to some chimpanzees than you are to me.

Agemegos

Why does it seem likely to you that God created a race who would be forced to make a choice between incest and extinction? Or (recognising that this is a myth) that the mythmakers would conceive themselves such a god when they were afflicted with an incest prohibition?

Anat

Not ArvelJoffi, but giving my opinion - as a myth, there is a message about common ancestry of all humans, common traits shared by all, equal value of each human (OK, each person with others of the same sex).

deltin7

your fourth paragraph gave me an understanding that A&E were not specifically the first man & woman, and also they did not live at the same period of time. So is the Gen in the bible a false journalism? :huh:

Agemegos

Well, it is. But not because of that.

So-called "mitochondrial Eve" has got absolutely nothing to do with Eve in the Bible, and was in no sense the first woman. "Mitochondrial Eve" was a silly choice of term, bound to cause confusion. And indeed it has caused confusion.

So-called "Y-chromosomal Adam" has got absolutely nothing to do with Adam in the Bible. "Y-chromosomal Adam" was a silly choice of term, bound to cause confusion. And indeed it has caused confusion.

That Genesis is myth with no foundation in reality has got nothing to do withthe fact that these particular common ancestors lived at different times. There names were not Adam or Eve, they were not the first man or the first woman, and even if they had lived at the same time it would not make Genesis true. Forget about their being termed 'Adam' and 'Eve': it is a silly, confusing joke.

Anat

The various stories in Genesis are myths composed by people with little knowledge of science as we know it and a very different view of history than most of us. The stories in the first few chapters of Genesis rely on myths from Sumer that were preserved in the later Mesopotamian cultures. The adapted versions of those more ancient myths that ended up in Genesis do not tell us much about the origins of humanity but about how the authors viewed the nature of humans and their place in the universe.

deltin7

So we all agree that Gen is false documentation. :banghead:
which makes me to question the rest of the bible.

exile

That is a little unfair on the writers of Genesis. They were intelligent enough to work out that if all human beings are of the same species they must have common ancestors. The rest of the myth is based on the idea that the earth was created for man's benefit, but tries to explain why nevertheless human beings have to struggle to survive, and whatever individual humans do they die in the end (explanation - the original humans broke the rules). I'm not sure I could have come up with a better story in the absence of 21st century knowledge.

GenEric2

Thanks for speaking on everyone’s behalf, but no we do not all agree.

Thanks to everyone that responded with the information and for giving me a clearer picture of the possibilities.

I agree, this in and of itself does not confirm the Biblical account. However, it seems to me that it does not repudiate it either, as many here seem to claim. Let's then hypothetically say that what the Bible claimed was so with respect to Adam & Eve and then later Noah's sons (all from the same father) and their wives (all having different parents), how would what we observe now necessarily be different?

BTW, I believe there is some study recently that has effectively divided the time of the most recent common ancestors dates by 3. However, I can't find it at the moment (and no it is not a creationist source).


Obviously, some did not read my post and just want to voice their opinion, whether or not it accurately represents what is being said.

Calzaer

The Bible doesn't say that Jesus DIDN'T engage in consentual sodomy with Peter on numerous occasions, so it's ok to assume he did, yes?