In addition to the fundamental flaw of overlooking the possiblity of multiple bottlenecks in one lineage (the Adam/Noah effect noted in one post), the dating techniques are far from precise. I believe the error range on the "Eve" dates makes them uncertain between 0 and a few million years, for example, if all sources of error are taken into consideration. Many molecular clock studies use only one calibration point, if any (some just cite a rate from another study), making the results statistically meaningless.
Dr. David Campbell
"Old Seashells"
Biology Department
Saint Mary's College of Maryland
18952 E. Fisher Road
St. Mary's City, MD 20686-3001 USA
dcampbell@osprey.smcm.edu, 301 862-0372 Fax: 301 862-0996
"Mollusks murmured 'Morning!'. And salmon chanted 'Evening!'."-Frank Muir, Oh My Word!
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "glenn morton" <glenn.morton@btinternet.com>
Reply-To: <glenn.morton@btinternet.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 06:45:32 -0000
>There was a fascinating article in The Times yesterday in which genetics is
>showing that the y-chromosome Adam never met the mtDNA Eve. Adam leved about
>59,000 years ago and Eve 143,000. Now, if one wants to maintain any sort of
>Biblical historicity in the face of this kind of data, one needs to either
>move Adam and Eve back to a time prior to 143,000 years ago (as I suggest)
>or have Adam and Eve NOT be the parents of all people (as Dick Fischer
>advocates). One simply can't have the data-ignoring position of Hugh Ross
>who would say that Adam and Eve were created sometime after 60,000 years
>ago. Genetics simply doesn't allow that possibility any more. Here is part
>of the article.
>
>http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,27713,00.html
>Tuesday October 31,2000
>
>Even early man was late for first date
>
>BY NIGEL HAWKES HEALTH EDITOR
>
>"WOMEN were the complete article long before men, a new study has shown.
>
>Geneticists have found that female genes acquired their modern form 143,000
>years ago but the male version was not up and running for another 84,000
>years.
>
>The result overturns the Biblical description of women being created from a
>spare rib left over from a man, and suggests that if Eve ever did meet Adam
>she was slumming it, genetically speaking.
>
>*The result overturns the Biblical description of women being created from a
>spare rib left over from a man*, and suggests that if Eve ever did meet Adam
>she was slumming it, genetically speaking.
>
>An international team led by Peter Underhill of Stanford University studied
>the Y chromosome, which confers maleness, of more than 1,000 men from 22
>parts of the world. By creating a family tree of genetic variations, it is
>possible to trace it back to a putative ancestor from whom all varieties of
>today's Y chromosome originated.
>Similar studies have been made of mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down
>unchanged through the maternal line. These studies have shown that we are
>all ultimately descended from an "ancestral Eve" who lived in Africa about
>143,000 years ago.
>
>But ancestral Adam, measured by the Y chromosome clock, was alive a mere
>59,000 years ago. So it is clear than ancestral Eve never met ancestral
>Adam, though she must have met some sort of male in order to have begotten
>all those descendants. Dr Underhill and his team report in Nature Genetics
>that the perfect DNA for men simply took longer to emerge. There must have
>been thousands of generations of men whose maleness was provided by
>different, less perfect, versions of the Y chromosome.
>
>
>glenn
>
>see http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
>for lots of creation/evolution information
>
>
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