You wrote:
>>Glenn further suggested that Hugh Ross was being dishonest when he said,<<
I would like to point out that I did not use the word dishonest, you did.. A
person can be mistaken without being dishonest. A person can use false
arguments without being dishonest, just mistaken.A person can be stubborn in
not changing his mind in view of new evidence without being dishones Please
do not attribute such words to me unless I actually used them. . In this
case I didn't.
You wrote:
>>So if Dorit et al. are correct and the three types of explanation for non-
variation are 1) selection, 2) statistical aberration and 3) recent common
ancestry, then why does Hammer say that the Zfy intron cannot be used to
infer anything about human population history? His suggestion that a small
divergence between humans and chimps is enough to discard this evidence is
questionable because it amounts to the suggestion that selection has
maintained the monomorphism of the intron. Both Dorit et al and Hammer show
that there is no evidence of this occuring. In fact, Dorit explicitly says
that selection cannot be the reason for the lack of variation because
interspecific divergence of the intron between FOUR primate species shows
significant variation.<<
Let's cut through all this examination of the one small region of the Y
chromosome. Just because a small 729 base pair region of the Y-chromosome
has no variation does not at all mean that there is NO variation on the
Y-chromosome. This simply is not true. That is why I cited G. Lucotte,
"Evidence for the Paternal Ancestry of Modern Humans: Evidence from a
Y-Chromosome Specific Sequence Polymorphic DNA Probe," in Paul Mellars and
Chris Stringer, The Human Revolution, (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1989). In point of fact there is much variation on the Y-chromosome. That
is why it is wrong to say that there is NO evolution on the Y chromosome.
Here is some data.
"Familial segregation studies have shown that variations of these five
fragments are inherited in a medelian fashion, and are strictly Y-linked. A
survey of numerous male individuals indicated tha the five variable Taq I
fragments detected by probes 49f and 49a can be considered as five
independent alleleic series, each series representing the different and
mutally exclusive alleleic forms observed for a single DNA fragment."~G.
Lucotte, "Evidence for the Paternal Ancestry of Modern Humans: Evidence from
a Y-Chromosome Specific Sequence Polymorphic DNA Probe," in Paul Mellars and
Chris Stringer, The Human Revolution, (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1989), p. 39.
**
16 different types of Y-Chromosome among 44 Caucasian unrelated individuals
Locus
Haplotypes A C D F I Frequency
I Ao Co Do F1 I1 2.3
II Ao Co D1 F1 I1 2.3
III A1 Co D1 F1 Io 2.3
IV A1 Co Do F1 I1 2.3
V A2 Co Do F1 I1 4.6
VI A2 Co D1 Fo I1 2.3
VII A2 Co D1 F1 Io 6.8
VIII A2 Co D1 F1 I1 2.3
IX A2 C1 Do F1 I1 2.3
X A3 Co Do F1 Io 4.6
XI A3 Co Do F1 I1 4.6
XII A3 Co D1 F1 Io 18.2
XIII A3 Co D1 F1 I1 6.8
XIV A3 C1 D1 F1 I1 11.4
XV A3 C1 D2 F1 I1 22.7
XVI A4 Co D1 F1 Io 4.6
XVII A2 Co Db F1 I1
"This probe represents the most powerful tool so far developed for the
analysis of patriarchal relationships in human populations. Because of the
numerous mutation events the probe can detect, it is also of special interest
in studying polymorphisms in small ethnic groups. Taq I polymorphism,
revealed with probe 49f, was studied in Papuans of the Baruya tribe, living
in the Wonenara valley. All the individuals screened are identical at the
variable loci A, C, F and I, and fixed for the specific allele Db. The
deduced haplotype, number XVII (A2,Co, Db, F1, I1), is Baruya-specific."~G.
Lucotte, "Evidence for the Paternal Ancestry of Modern Humans: Evidence from
a Y- Chromosome Specific Sequence Polymorphic DNA Probe," in Paul Mellars and
Chris Stringer, The Human Revolution, (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1989), p. 41
The reason that the Baruya tribe is non variable is that they all descended
from the same father. In the table above the A's B's etc represent different
locations on the Y chromosome and the subscripts indicate which allele is in
that location. The interesting thing is that, like the Baruya, I should have
an exact copy of my father's, grandfathers', great-grandfather's Y
chromosome, except for a few mutations which might have come my way. This
applies to my children, my brother, my nephew, and my uncles. Since the Bible
seems to say that all people were derived from Noah, all men should have a
mutated copy of Noah's Y-chromosome. And if you don't like that then all are
descended from Adam. A creation of Adam (or Noah's existence) a few thousand
years ago, should imply a very small variation level in the Y-chromosome.
The fact that there is so much variation implies either that the
Y-chromosome is mutating very rapidly (with the consequence that mutations
are not as harmful as anti-evolutionists believe) or that mankind has been
around for a much longer period than Christians generally believe.
glenn