>-----Original Message-----
>From: pruest@pop.dplanet.ch [mailto:pruest@pop.dplanet.ch]
>Sent: Monday, February 19, 2001 8:32 PM
>Glenn Morton [<glenn.morton@btinternet.com> Sun, 18 Feb 2001 16:41:29
>-0000, ASA list V1#2002] quotes Alan R. Rogers, "Order Emerging from
>Chaos in Human Evolutionary Genetics," PNAS, 93(2001), 779-780 in
>support of his argumentation for a very old humanity (>1 million years).
>He continues with other literature, discussing old coalescence data.
>
>Last November [<pruest@dplanet.ch> Thu, 02 Nov 2000 20:30:12 +0100, ASA
>list V1#1859], I drew attention to 2 papers showing that coalescence
>data are (1) very imprecise and (2) cannot be used to argue for an
>equally old origin of the genes concerned. Bergstrom et al., "Recent
>origin of HLA-DRB1 alleles and implications for human evolution", Nature
>Genetics 18 (1998), 237-42 believe "...that most of the alleles at some
>class II loci, such as DRB1 and DPB1, may have a more recent origin
>[than previously believed]".
Of course coalescence times are very imprecise. Wo said they weren't???
Certainly not I. In fact, the Alonso and Armour coalescence times are very,
very broad. Remember the table I posted from the article? I don't think you
really looked at it very closely. Here it is again.
“Table 5. The age (T, 10^3 years) of the MRCA of human sequences
Sequences Ne Tmode Tmean 95% Interval
All samples 10,000 1,288 1,356 712~2,112
12,000 1,104 1,203 605~1,949
15,000 924 1,034 504~1,728
Africans 6,000 1,204 1,256 694~1,882
8,000 1,158 1,203 646~1,843
10,000 1,032 1,105 576~1,752
Non-Africans 6,000 747 806 384~1,330
7,000 678 756 353~1,277
8,000 634 713 333~1,229"
Note the range in the last column. the 333-1,229 is a range of 333,000
years to 1.2 million years. Indeed the entire last column is a listing of
ranges. DO YOU SEE ANY THAT ARE VERY PRCISE??? I don't. None of them are
very precise. But it certainly isn't 6000, 10,000 or even 120,000 years.
Those values we can rule out by the laws of statistics which is what that
last column does.
>
>Alan Rogers (in the above paper quoted by Glenn) concludes that the
>human genetic data are better interpreted as indicating a recent
>population expansion (in the late Pleistocene), rather than natural
>selection of advantageous mutations in a large, stable population.
This is false logic. You are equivocating origination with expansion.
Everyone agrees that the population expanded in the Upper Pleistocene. That
doesn't mean that the population ORIGINATED in the Upper Pleistocene. You
don't seem to be following the argument very well. I am sure that it is my
fault, but origination is not the same thing as expansion.
>The Pleistocene dates from 1,640,000 to 10,000 years ago. Thus, "late
>Pleistocene" may be pretty recently! By this, I am not implying that
>modern humanity does not have any genes older than that.
If they have separate genetic lineages older than 120,000 years, then my
point is made. If you aren't implying that mankind is very recent, then
exactly what are you implying? One can't make a charge and then coyly say,
"I really wasn't making that charge at all".
But a sudden,
>late Pleistocene expansion of the human species may possibly be
>interpreted as the dividing line between pre-Adamites and Adam.
Why does expansion mean a dividing line? The world's population took off in
about 1600 AD. A massive expansion of humanity began then. Does this mean
that we are really humans and the Romans weren't? Expansion means nothing
more than that a lot of sex is taking place and babies are living to
adulthood. Nothing more.
>
>Armin Held and I (PSCF 51 (1999), 231) argued from the Hebrew Genesis
>text that Adam was not the first human being, but elected by God for a
>specific task, and then, after failing, the representative head of the
>fallen race, whereas genuine, created (pre-Adamite) humanity is much
>older (our estimate then: by very roughly 100,000 years). We furthermore
>indicated that we conclude from Gen.1 that biologically and
>psychologically, humans descended from animal ancestors, but that their
>becoming human was caused by God creating their spiritual dimension
>(after God's image). Of course, science is unable to date this spiritual
>event with any certainty.
And God creating their spiritual dimension made them engage in more
procreation than the animal ancestors, thus causing the expansion? Exactly
where did this idea come from?
>
>As an aside to those who emphasize the theological content of Genesis 1,
>as over against any historical information: I fully agree that the main
>thrust of the text is exclusively theological. But why can't it have any
>additional aspects, such as a consistency with real history? Certainly
>God can reveal theological truths through fallible human opinions, if he
>wants to do so. But he certainly is not incapable of revealing more than
>that if he wants to. I don't want to try to press him into a fixed
>scheme of "theology-only".
>
>Glenn favors the multiregional origin of modern mankind, which implies
>that modern humans descend from old Homo erectus populations in Africa,
>Europe, and Asia. Glenn concludes that all forms of Homo back to at
>least 2 million years ago were members of the same human species, and
>that, therefore, Adam must be dated at least that far back (assuming
>Adam was the first human). If the multiregional view is correct (rather
>than the recent-out-of-Africa one), then presumably all members of the
>genus Homo of a given time belonged to the same species. It doesn't
>follow, however, that it was the same species throughout the 2 million
>years: H. sapiens might well have been unable to mate with H.erectus,
>even if he could have used a time machine. We cannot conclude, either,
>that the first (biblically) genuine humans lived >1 million years ago -
>and much less so for Adam.
It always seems strange to me that we do things with humans that we don't do
with other organisms. You are claiming that mankind couldn't interbreed
with H. erectus even if he had a time machine. But wolves and coyotes have
been on a separate path for about 1 million years (the same length of time
we are discussing with H. sapiens-H. erectus) yet somehow what applies to
the wolf and coyote CAN't apply to man (I suspect it is because we don't
want it to apply so we then don't let it apply). Consider this:
"The coyote and wolf have a sequence divergence of 0.07 +/-
0.002 and diverged about one million years ago, as estimated from
the fossil record. "~Carles Vila et al, "Multiple and Ancient Origins of the
Domestic Dog,"
Science, 276(June 13, 1997):1687-1689, p. 1689
Yet we know from observation that wolves and coyotes successfully interbreed
all the time. Sex between them must be very satisfying because they do it a
lot.
"Species, such as wolves and coyotes, that are highly mobile and can
interbreed under some conditions, may form large hybrid zones. Several
hundred years ago, coyotes were numerous only in the southern United States
and wolves were common toward the north. Where wolves are abundant, they
will exclude the much smaller coyote from their territories. After the
arrival of European settlers, agriculture and predator control programs
caused wolf populations to dwindle, while the coyote, a remarkably flexible
and opportunistic species, expanded its geographic range to areas north and
east. Today the coyote is found in an area invaded by coyotes in the last
100 years, several genotypes identical or very similar to those found in
coyotes were discovered in individuals phenotypically identified as gray
wolves(...). Wolves with these 'coyote' genotypes increased in frequency
toward the east, from 50% in Minnesota to 100% in Quebec. The hypothesis
advanced to explain this pattern was that coyotes and wolves had hybridized
in areas of eastern Canada where wolves were rare and coyotes common. The
interspecific transfer of mtDNA was asymmetric; none of the coyotes sampled
had wolf-like genotypes although coyote genotypes were common in gray
wolves. Because mtDNA is maternally inherited without recombination, this
result reflects a mating asymmetry: male wolves mate with female coyotes,
and their offspring backcross to wolves. Either the reverse cross is rare,
or the offspring of such backcrosses to coyotes do not reproduce. This
mating asymmetry may indicate that the smaller male coyotes cannot inspire
the larger female gray wolves to mate with them."~Robert K. Wayne,
"Molecular evolution of the dog family," TRENDS IN GENETICS, 9:6,June 1993,
p 223
**
Red wolf was a hybrid between wolf and coyote. ~Robert K. Wayne, "Molecular
evolution of the dog family," TRENDS IN GENETICS, 9:6,June 1993, p 223
So exactly why is the biology of man so different from that of the coyotes
and wolves? Is it as I suspect, because your theology requires it to be
different?
Dogs and Jackals successfully interbreed and they split apart 3.5 million
years ago. If this can happen with them, then why can't humans of today
interbreed with H. erectus of 2 million years ago? This is written by the
world's leading authority on canid evolution:
"Even the highly endangered Simien jackal is threatened with hybridization
by feral domestic dogs." http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/wayne2.htm
He also wrote that the dog and jackal split 3.5 million years ago (Robert K.
Wane, et al, "Molecular Systematics ofthe Canidae" Syst. Biol.,
46(1997):4:622-653, p. 637
But of course you wouldn't want this type of ability in mankind and H.
erectus would we? Thus you exclude it on theological grounds. But if we
apply what we see in other species, we would have to conclude that we and
the Australopithecines would have been able to interbreed.
Either show that this can't happen at all with any species or admit that it
might be possible in human history.
>
>Furthermore, Takahata N., Lee S.H., Satta Y., "Testing multiregionality
>of modern human origins", Molecular Biology and Evolution 18 (2001),
>172-183 concluded (on the basis of DNA sequence data from 10
>X-chromosomal regions, 5 autosomal regions, 1 Y-chromosomal region, and
>mitochondrial DNA) that the multiregionality theory is probably wrong.
This contradicts what you said above. If multiregionality is wrong, then it
isn't possible to have multiple genetic lineages older than the origin of
our species. Yet you acknowledge that the genetic lineages are probably
older than the origin of humanity. You can't have it both ways. Well,
maybe Christian apologists can, since it has been my observation that many
argue one way when it is convenient and then the other with that is
convenient.
Secondly, it seems apparent to me that most of the support for the recent
origin of humanity is depended upon non-recombining types of DNA.
Mitochondria don't recombine, the Y chromosome doesn't. I don't know about
the autosomal regions they studied, whether they recombine or not, but it
does seem like an awful lot depends upon this to the exclusion of any and
all nuclear (recombining) data.
And as I said, all it takes is for one gene to have multiple lineages prior
to 120,000 years ago for the recent origin of humanity to be false. We have
passed that hurdle now.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>
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