Re: [asa] Fw: What Darwin Didn't Know article by Dr. Fuz Rana

True, except that Rana is a microbiologist, has read the relevant
literature, and knows better.

David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Murray Hogg <muzhogg@netspace.net.au>wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> I was reflecting about this overnight and it struck me that scientists
> probably only have themeselves to blame when they choose to engage in
> fanciful comments about "mitochondrial Eve".
> Personally, I'd have thought the potential for misunderstanding and
> misrepresentation would be obvious.
>
> It's probably one for filing under "What on earth were they thinking!"
>
> Blessings,
> Murray.
>
> David Opderbeck wrote:
>
>> It's truly disappointing and frustrating that Rana continues to popularize
>> the notion that mitochondrial DNA studies "attest[] to" what Rana would
>> offer as the Biblical notion of Adam and Eve. He knows better. He knows
>> that mDNA studies don't establish a single Adam or Eve who were contemporary
>> with each other, he knows that both mitchondrial Eve certainly lived among a
>> population of many other breeding pairs, and he knows of Ayala's "Myth of
>> Mitochondrial Eve" paper and other similar population genetics studies. Any
>> popular article or talk that makes such claims and doesn't address the
>> foregoing is simply misleading.
>> David W. Opderbeck
>> Associate Professor of Law
>> Seton Hall University Law School
>> Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 5:13 PM, D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com<mailto:
>> dfsiemensjr@juno.com>> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 27 Jan 2009 18:07:01 -0800 (PST) John Walley
>> <john_walley@yahoo.com <mailto:john_walley@yahoo.com>> writes:
>> >
>> > FYI..
>> >
>> > >
>> > > Dr. Fuz Rana has a very good article in the latest Charisma
>> > > magazine entitled What Darwin Didn't
>> > > Know. Here is the link to it.
>> > >
>> > > http://charismamag.com/issues/index.php/cm209
>> > >
>> There are two matters that I didn't note having comments. The first:
>> "But some of the most recent advances related to hominid-human
>> relationships raise questions about evolution's validity. In 1997
>> fragments of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA from a 40,000- to
>> 100,000-year-old skeleton were found in West Germany. When scientists
>> compared them with the corresponding fragment of human DNA, the
>> researchers discovered that Neanderthals made no contribution to human
>> genetics."
>>
>> What does a lack of contribution from contemporaries have to do with
>> evolution? The claim is that Homo sapiens, H. neanderthalensis and
>> now H.
>> floresiensis (?) all share ancestry, not that one is the ancestor of
>> the
>> others. Since H.s. and H.n. had overlapping ranges, I suggest that some
>> modern Europeans could still have Neanderthal inheritance.
>> Mitochondrial
>> DNA is inherited only though the mother. So, if a H.s. male fathered a
>> son with a H.n. female, and the son fathered offspring with a H.s.
>> female, there would be no evidence in the mitochondria of the H.n.
>> genetics, though the chromosomal inheritence might be retained.
>>
>> The second:
>> "Scientific consensus confirms that humanity originated about 100,000
>> years ago in east Africa near the location ascribed to the Garden of
>> Eden."
>>
>> I'll not use the vulgar but appropriate term to describe the claim that
>> East Africa is the Near East.
>> Dave (ASA)
>> ____________________________________________________________
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Received on Wed Jan 28 17:53:25 2009