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." <<<<
Well then, I too stand corrected. One can't remember everything one posts
(I wonder why my search failed to turn it up? Oh yeah, my computer was
stolen in May)
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.
But why would we have to alter the mutation rate? The mutation rate is
measured by 1) observation of mutations, 2) measuring the differences
between chimps and us and using the 5 million years from the chimp-human
split to calculate a mutation rate and 3) the differences between
Australian aborigine DNA and other human DNA given that aborigines have
been isolated for 60,000-80,000 years from the rest of humanity. None of
these rates would be changed if paternal inheritance was included.
>>>>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." >>>
First, I looked at the Nature article you cite. That sentence is an
isolated sentence with no supporting evidence. It appears to be an opinion
or an assumption which is unsupported by data. THe entire paragraph is
"Animal mitochondrial genes undergo more mutation than nuclear homolouges,
and their polymoprhism increases significantly with age. If recombination
occurs in vertebrate mitochondrial DNA at all, it is likely to be very
rare. Taken together, these observations make mitochondria particularly
vulnerable to the accumulation of mutations across generations." Nature
400:125 (July 8. 1999)
>>>>>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. >>>>>
I don't think the Eve supporters will give up easily. They didn't give up
when their first calculations were shown to be wrong, they reformulated and
came back. They seem to have a philosophical need to have Homo sapiens
disconnected from H. erectus and Eve does that for them.
>>>>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.
No doubt. I am trying to sell an idea that I deeply feel allows science to
be true and allows the Bible to be true. But, I do not misrepresent the
data at hand. I do pound the table about data that I feel does falsify the
views of others. And if you hang around long enough you will see me caught
in some doozy of factual errors in which case, I acknowledge the error and
alter my view. But the error must be of a factual nature, not a
philosophical one.
>>>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. >>>
How exactly do you propose to prove Neanderthal speech? There were no
recorders. Of course the debates are still active. Everything in
anthropology is subject of debate. But what you miss is that all people
involved in anthropology are doing the very same thing--they use the data
at hand, interpret it and argue for their position. THat also what is done
in geology and geophysics and as near as I can tell, science and theology
in its entirety. I have seen the most attrocious knockdown drag out fights
over the use of equations in geophysics. Physicists argue about which set
of General Relativistic equations to use to describe the universe. In
geology I have seen people argue whether sequence boundaries have any real
use in oil exploration or not and nearly come to blows about how salt moves
through the sedimentary layers. You are in theology if I recall correctly.
Theology does the same thing. Why do you think we have so many
denominations? What I am doing, arguing for my position is not unusual or
unexpected. Find fault with my facts and I will thank you, but don't think
I have to abandon all positions or be equally supportive of all possible
views of anthropology. Some views I do not believe are supported by the
data and some views won't work with the Bible. I am not a commentator nor
am I an educator, I am an advocate of my position--as should be plainly
evident. And there is nothing wrong with that.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution