SimplyAtheistic

I was arguing with a christian and he stated that new DNA evidence shows that modern mankind evolved from one set of parents. Has anyone heard about this? Is it bogus?
Jake

faust

He might be referring to "mitochondrial eve" which the fundies warp into thinking "scientists prove humans came from one set of parents."

That's totally a misrepresentation. It merely means that humans either originated from a very small group, with all the women having the same mitochondrial sequences (not uncommon in small groups); OR that humans passed through a bottleneck somewhere in history (also highly highly likely).

No way anyone can say from that data that we came from one couple. The data just doesn't support that, it doesn't even suggest that.

Or possibly this guy is passing on some bogus soundbyte he heard from his preacher. Ask him for the peer-reviewed journal article that shows him this "scientist DNA proof." He can put up or shut up.

Undercurrent

I don't think it even requires that. All "mitochrondiral eve" says is that everyone has a mother's mother's mother's mother's ... mother in common. This is no more earthshattering a conclusion than asserting that in a single-elimination tourniment, exactly one team must win every single match they play in.

Most notibly, it is not nescessarily (and probably not) true that at any point in time the entire human population comprised this woman and her mate, or even a small cabal containing this woman. Other women alive at the same time as this human contributed DNA to the current human gene pool -- just not by an unbroken like of female descendents.

sakrilege

Plus if the xian happens to be a young earth creationist, mitrochrodrial Eve is a problem because she lived hundreds of thousands of years ago.

ps418

All of my brothers and I share a common mitochondrial ancestor that lived in the 20th century. Therefore, all humans are descended from my mother, and she was the only woman alive in the 20th century. Or something like that. I may have made a faulty assumption in the argument somewhere.

Patrick

Misso

Last thing I heard about that stuff was that there was a total of seven "mothers" of which we all descended. I've never bothered to verify this claim, but the person who told me this is always right.

Did the christian actually said mankind "evolved" from one set of parents? If so, what happened to the whole "evolution is nonsense" attitude?

faust

Misso, I believe I read the bit about the minimum 7 founding females. I don't recall where, but it was something rather scholarly.

The creationists prefer to use the term "descended" instead of "evolved" from one set of parents
To them every generation is a step down in our fallen world. I hear echoes of "These kids these days!!!!" Fuddy-duddies.

I can look up the 7 females thing if you're interested in finding the source.

Risiko

TalkOrigins

The so-called Mitochondrial Eve lived ~200.000 years ago; the so-called Y-chromosome Adam lived several tens of thousands of years later, causing Eve to beat Methusalem with a factor of at least 10, and making Adam the first true gerontophile

Howay the Toon

I think you are referring to "7 Daughters of Eve" by Prof Bryan Sykes (who happens to be an aquaintance of mine because he also used to be an international croquet player). He is just referrring to European descent rather than worldwide though.

The book is an excellent account of archaeological genetics particularly about the tracing of Polynesian migrations. Typical Bryan! Proposing a research project which involves spending 6 months in Tahiti.

However the actual 7 Daughters stuff gets a bit speculative for my tastes.