Hello Glenn,
The post I was refering to was dated 10 FEB 1999, and the subject
heading was
"Is Eve dying or dead."
I stand corrected, you did not actually say in the body of your text
that "Eve" was dead. But I think the implication of your subject
heading, as well as the text of your argument, was pretty strong: "Eve
is dying or dead."
The Response to the Eyre-Walker and Hagelberg articles is in the June
25, 1999 issue of Science, page 2090.
You also just wrote "Eve was twice as old as a result of the
studies..." I am afraid I must dispute this. I have also read esewhere
that if there is indeed a paternal contribution to mtDNA, we would have
to modify our assumption about mutation rates, basing our mtDNA studies
on a much faster mutation rate, and would result not in making Eve
older, but actually much younger. In fact, the date I recall seeing in
the article was about 6,000 ago.
Hmmmmm. Eve is being dated to 6,000 years ago. Something to think
about. (Sorry, I again do not have the reference at my fingertips, and
may be more difficult to locate than the science reference above. I am
in the middle of mid-terms right now. Perhaps you know the article I am
referring to? I believe it was in Science or Nature, and had a
photograph of the Grand Duke on the first page.)
I am well aware of the the Grand Duke's heteroplamy condition, as well
as the other instances of heteroplasmy you bring up. I will check with
my biochmist acquaintences; I suspect that this heteroplamic state is
not due to recombination. I may of course, be absolutely wrong on this
point.
I would refer you also to Nature 400:125 (July 8. 1999) Krakauer and
Mira write..."If recombination occurs in vertebrate mitochondrial DNA at
all, it is likely to be very rare."
I stand by my post. While not specifically stating that "Eve is dead",
and acknowledging "counter arguments of course from the Out of Africa
People" ( from your 10 FEB 1999 post) there was the strong implication
that the case for Mitochondrial Eve was washed up. I will get back to
you regarding the heteroplasmic situation, but for now, based on my
reading of the literature I still view the Eyre-Walker and Hagelberg
papers as equivocal.
Bottom line Glenn, most of the people on this list are not as versed in
the Anthropological literature as you are, and I just want to indicate
that the situation is not as cut and dried as you sometimes present on
this list. The Out of Africa vs. Multiregional evolution debate is
still very active. Even the case for Neanderthal speech, and cultural
capabilities is far from proven. The alleged Neanderthal hybrid is
still the subject of debate.
Blaine
mortongr@flash.net wrote:
> Actually I don't think I said Eve was dead. I searched my letters back
> to
> 1998 and couldn't find where I said Eve was dead but I did get a
> computer
> stolen and I have lost a few posts during the move to Houston. What I
> said
> (or at least remember saying) was that Eve was twice as old as a
> result of
> the studies and to use mitochondrial Eve as a way to delimit humanity
> to
> only modern mankind is wrong. And in the report that you cite, I did
> not
> use the word 'dead'. I do want the record corrected.
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Hello Glenn,
The post I was refering to was dated 10 FEB 1999, and the subject heading was
"Is Eve dying or dead."
I stand corrected, you did not actually say in the body of your text that "Eve" was dead. But I think the implication of your subject heading, as well as the text of your argument, was pretty strong: "Eve is dying or dead."
The Response to the Eyre-Walker and Hagelberg articles is in the June 25, 1999 issue of Science, page 2090.
You also just wrote "Eve was twice as old as a result of the studies..." I am afraid I must dispute this. I have also read esewhere that if there is indeed a paternal contribution to mtDNA, we would have to modify our assumption about mutation rates, basing our mtDNA studies on a much faster mutation rate, and would result not in making Eve older, but actually much younger. In fact, the date I recall seeing in the article was about 6,000 ago.
Hmmmmm. Eve is being dated to 6,000 years ago. Something to think about. (Sorry, I again do not have the reference at my fingertips, and may be more difficult to locate than the science reference above. I am in the middle of mid-terms right now. Perhaps you know the article I am referring to? I believe it was in Science or Nature, and had a photograph of the Grand Duke on the first page.)
I am well aware of the the Grand Duke's heteroplamy condition, as well as the other instances of heteroplasmy you bring up. I will check with my biochmist acquaintences; I suspect that this heteroplamic state is not due to recombination. I may of course, be absolutely wrong on this point.
I would refer you also to Nature 400:125 (July 8. 1999) Krakauer and Mira write..."If recombination occurs in vertebrate mitochondrial DNA at all, it is likely to be very rare."
I stand by my post. While not specifically stating that "Eve is dead", and acknowledging "counter arguments of course from the Out of Africa People" ( from your 10 FEB 1999 post) there was the strong implication that the case for Mitochondrial Eve was washed up. I will get back to you regarding the heteroplasmic situation, but for now, based on my reading of the literature I still view the Eyre-Walker and Hagelberg papers as equivocal.
Bottom line Glenn, most of the people on this list are not as versed in the Anthropological literature as you are, and I just want to indicate that the situation is not as cut and dried as you sometimes present on this list. The Out of Africa vs. Multiregional evolution debate is still very active. Even the case for Neanderthal speech, and cultural capabilities is far from proven. The alleged Neanderthal hybrid is still the subject of debate.
Blaine
mortongr@flash.net wrote:
Actually I don't think I said Eve was dead. I searched my letters back to
1998 and couldn't find where I said Eve was dead but I did get a computer
stolen and I have lost a few posts during the move to Houston. What I said
(or at least remember saying) was that Eve was twice as old as a result of
the studies and to use mitochondrial Eve as a way to delimit humanity to
only modern mankind is wrong. And in the report that you cite, I did not
use the word 'dead'. I do want the record corrected.
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