Adam and Eve

[Steven_Merten]

Hello iceman,

I agree with those talking about mitochondrial Eve.

During reproduction, all chromisomes split and you get half of your genes from your mother and half from your father, except for your mitochondrial genes. Your mitochondrial genes are an exact clone of your mother’s mitochondrial genes.

Through mutation, different liniages have different mitochondrial gene modifications. By examining the differences of liniages mitochondrial genes and calculating how often mutations happen, science has put the original mitochondrial Eve as living 60,000 years ago. Science believing that one common ansestor mother of all mankind, lived 60,000 years ago is a far cry from the millions of years science used to think man, as we understand man, has been around. 60,000 years ago is a whole lot closer to a biblical account than what science used to think of man as millions of years in existance.

There are no common mitochondrial mothers in animals.

 

[Ammonius_Saccus]

Through mutation, different liniages have different mitochondrial gene modifications. By examining the differences of liniages mitochondrial genes and calculating how often mutations happen, science has put the original mitochondrial Eve as living 60,000 years ago. Science believing that one common ansestor mother of all mankind, lived 60,000 years ago is a far cry from the millions of years science used to think man, as we understand man, has been around. 60,000 years ago is a whole lot closer to a biblical account than what science used to think of man as millions of years in existance.

There are no common mitochondrial mothers in animals.

Do you have citations for this information?

 

[Steven_Merten]

Do you have citations for this information?

Hello Ammonius,

It was 2003 when I studied Mitochondrial Eve in microbiology. In my post, I was only trying to give a rough idea of the concept of mitochondrial Eve.

Have you googled mitochondrial Eve? Google brings up about 200,000 related hits.

Here are a few links which put the possibility of mitochondrial Eve at 6500 years due to the finding that mtDNA mutates/evolves at a much faster rate. This is new information to me.
mhrc.net/mitochondria.htm
creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ13.html
answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i1/eve.asp

 

[hecd2]

The confidence with which you assert these things is matched only by the multiple errors in your assertion.

During reproduction, all chromisomes split…

No, chromosomes don’t ‘split’. In fact, in meiosis, the process that produces germ cells, after the duplication of interphase, sister chromosomes (consisting of four chromatids) join at the centromere, and after crossing over at prophase 1, the chromosomes separate to form a diploid arrangement. In anaphase 2, sister chromatids separate to form a haploid sperm or egg cell. Each haploid germ cell contains, randomly, some genetic material from the grandmother and some from the grandfather (not necessarily half) through this random assortment of chromosomes.

and you get half of your genes from your mother and half from your father, except for your mitochondrial genes. Your mitochondrial genes are an exact clone of your mother’s mitochondrial genes.

Through mutation, different liniages have different mitochondrial gene modifications. By examining the differences of liniages mitochondrial genes and calculating how often mutations happen, science has put the original mitochondrial Eve as living 60,000 years ago.

Wrong - the current estimate for the Most Recent Common Ancestor in the maternal line is 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. See, for example:
Ingman et al, Mitochondrial genome variation and the origin of modern humans, Nature 408, 708 - 713

The concept of an MRCA (an element of a science called coalescent theory) for a genomic unit like the mitochondrion (Mitochondrial Eve is the MRCA of all extant humans in the strictly maternal line), does not mean that the MRCA is the only maternal ancestor of of extant humans. The MRCA is the common ancestor of extant humans in the strictly maternal line, but other women in the same generation will also be ancestors of some or all extant humans - however their lineage will have passed through the male line at some point. Other evidence shows that the lineage leading to modern humans has not dropped below 10,000 individuals since the divergence from the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.

Science believing that one common ansestor mother of all mankind, lived 60,000 years ago is a far cry from the millions of years science used to think man, as we understand man, has been around.

Well, as we have seen, Mitochondrial Eve is currently dated to 175,000 years, but in any case the concept of mitochondrial Eve does not mean ‘the one common ancestor mother of all mankind’. It is also egregiously wrong to suggest that we think modern man has been around for millions of years - the oldest example of archaic Homo sapiens are Omo I and Omo II from Kibish in southern Ethiopia dated at 195,000 years: these are the oldest anatomically modern humans known.
McDougall et al, Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia, Nature 433, 733 - 736.

60,000 years ago is a whole lot closer to a biblical account than what science used to think of man as millions of years in existance.

Well, as we have seen, anatomically modern man has been in existence for no more than 200,000 years, but older Homo species date back to Homo habilis at 2.5 million years. The concept of the Mitochondrial Eve at 175,000 years in no way disagrees with this.

There are no common mitochondrial mothers in animals.

Really??!! One wonders where you got that false notion. Of course Mitochondrial Eve is an MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor in a specified lineage). The existence of an MRCA for any genomic unit in an arbitrary population of living things is a given from coalescent theory. See, for example:
Introduction to Coalescent Theory, available on-line here:
Norborg, Coalescent Theory, March 2000, available on-line here: walnut.usc.edu/~magnus/papers/wiley.pdf

As for your bizarre idea that mitochondrial common ancestry does not exist in non-human animals, see for example:
Morell, The Origin of Dogs, Science 276. no. 5319, 1647 - 1648
Johnson et al, The Late Miocene Radiation of Modern Felidae: A Genetic Assessment, Science 311. no. 5757, 73 - 77

In my article on this subject I predicted:
“It is my confident prediction that both ill-informed creationists and those who should know better will be using this discredited argument 20 years from now. They will be as wrong then as they are now.”

You are falling into that trap.

Alec
evolutionpages.com/Mitochondrial%20Eve.htm

 

[hecd2]

Hello Ammonius,

It was 2003 when I studied Mitochondrial Eve in microbiology. In my post, I was only trying to give a rough idea of the concept of mitochondrial Eve.

So rough that it is riddled with error.

Here are a few links which put the possibility of mitochondrial Eve at 6500 years due to the finding that mtDNA mutates/evolves at a much faster rate. This is new information to me.
mhrc.net/mitochondria.htm
creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ13.html
answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i1/eve.asp

It might be new to you, but it’s old news from the 1990s.

Parsons TJ et al, A high observed substitution rate in the human mitochondrial control region, Nat Genet 15, 363-368 found an anomalous date for the matrilineal MRCA, and that was resolved in subsequent studies and particularly by
Hasegawa, Cao and Yang, Preponderance of Slightly Deleterious Polymorphisms in Mitochondrial DNA: Nonsynonymous/Synonymous Rate Ratio is Much Higher within Species than Between Species, Mol Biol Evol 15, 1499 -1505
and by
Ingman et al, *Mitochondrial genome variation and the origin of modern humans, Nature 408, 708 - 713 (2000)
*
See for example:
evolutionpages.com/Mitochondrial%20Eve.htm
and
evolutionpages.com/Mteve_not_biblical_eve.htm

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[awalt]

Here are two interesting articles by our very own Jimmy Akin.

He seems to say:

1. that scientific evidence seems to make monogenism difficult to accept, more scientific evidence of polygenism.
2. the Church has been silent on that aspect of *Humani Generis - *and all Pius XII really said was we can’t reconcile polygenism with faith doctrine, he didn’t say it’s wrong (“it is no no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin” (HG 37)"). And he didn’t state it infallibly either.
3. no formal teaching has yet come out to reconcile polygenism with the faith. (Doesn’t say it couldn’t be one day, just that it isn’t today.)
4. The Catechism of the Catholic Church continues to speak of Adam and Eve in monogenistic terms, and there has been no Vatican declaration on any level (so far as I know) that polygenism is compatible, but there is a greater degree of reserve shown by the pope on this subject in recent years, and the Vatican has let pass local magisterial statements–like that of the German conference of bishops’ catechism–that displayed openness to polygenism.

The two Jimmy Akin articles:
jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2006/10/monogenism_scie.html
jimmyakin.org/2006/01/a_reader_writes.html

 

[Lady_Cygnus]

The confidence with which you assert these things is matched only by the multiple errors in your assertion.

No, chromosomes don’t ‘split’. In fact, in meiosis, the process that produces germ cells, after the duplication of interphase, sister chromosomes (consisting of four chromatids) join at the centromere, and after crossing over at prophase 1, the chromosomes separate to form a diploid arrangement. In anaphase 2, sister chromatids separate to form a haploid sperm or egg cell. Each haploid germ cell contains, randomly, some genetic material from the grandmother and some from the grandfather (not necessarily half) through this random assortment of chromosomes.
Wrong - the current estimate for the Most Recent Common Ancestor in the maternal line is 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. See, for example:
Ingman et al, Mitochondrial genome variation and the origin of modern humans, Nature 408, 708 - 713

The concept of an MRCA (an element of a science called coalescent theory) for a genomic unit like the mitochondrion (Mitochondrial Eve is the MRCA of all extant humans in the strictly maternal line), does not mean that the MRCA is the only maternal ancestor of of extant humans. The MRCA is the common ancestor of extant humans in the strictly maternal line, but other women in the same generation will also be ancestors of some or all extant humans - however their lineage will have passed through the male line at some point. Other evidence shows that the lineage leading to modern humans has not dropped below 10,000 individuals since the divergence from the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.

Well, as we have seen, Mitochondrial Eve is currently dated to 175,000 years, but in any case the concept of mitochondrial Eve does not mean ‘the one common ancestor mother of all mankind’. It is also egregiously wrong to suggest that we think modern man has been around for millions of years - the oldest example of archaic Homo sapiens are Omo I and Omo II from Kibish in southern Ethiopia dated at 195,000 years: these are the oldest anatomically modern humans known.
McDougall et al, Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia, Nature 433, 733 - 736.

Well, as we have seen, anatomically modern man has been in existence for no more than 200,000 years, but older Homo species date back to Homo habilis at 2.5 million years. The concept of the Mitochondrial Eve at 175,000 years in no way disagrees with this.

Really??!! One wonders where you got that false notion. Of course Mitochondrial Eve is an MRCA (Most Recent Common Ancestor in a specified lineage). The existence of an MRCA for any genomic unit in an arbitrary population of living things is a given from coalescent theory. See, for example:
Introduction to Coalescent Theory, available on-line here:
Norborg, Coalescent Theory, March 2000, available on-line here: walnut.usc.edu/~magnus/papers/wiley.pdf

As for your bizarre idea that mitochondrial common ancestry does not exist in non-human animals, see for example:
Morell, The Origin of Dogs, Science 276. no. 5319, 1647 - 1648
Johnson et al, The Late Miocene Radiation of Modern Felidae: A Genetic Assessment, Science 311. no. 5757, 73 - 77

In my article on this subject I predicted:
“It is my confident prediction that both ill-informed creationists and those who should know better will be using this discredited argument 20 years from now. They will be as wrong then as they are now.”

You are falling into that trap.

Alec
evolutionpages.com/Mitochondrial%20Eve.htm

This reply seems a bit rude for what you are addressing. He didn’t give a scientific treatise on biology and genetics, he just gave a very brief overview. Not being in biology (or caring to take the time) most of what you said went “whoosh” over my head, as I’m sure it did for others.

What I got out of it is instead of the chromosomes splitting…they separated. Instead of 60,000 it’s 175,000 (give or take 100,000). And all this generally means that there may not be only one “eve”, but there might be others.

Ok

 

[steveandersen]

This reply seems a bit rude for what you are addressing. He didn’t give a scientific treatise on biology and genetics, he just gave a very brief overview. Not being in biology (or caring to take the time) most of what you said went “whoosh” over my head, as I’m sure it did for others.

What I got out of it is instead of the chromosomes splitting…they separated. Instead of 60,000 it’s 175,000 (give or take 100,000). And all this generally means that there may not be only one “eve”, but there might be others.

Ok

I don’t think he was trying to be rude.
he was just trying to be correct.

I’m sure the scientist who coined the name “Mitochondrial Eve” was having his regrets the monument the words left his mouth.

The Most Recent Common Ancestor (for any trait) is just that, the most recent one.

But once again this highlights that both the Church and science tells us that we all have a common origin.

 

[Steven_Merten]

So rough that it is riddled with error.

It might be new to you, but it’s old news from the 1990s.

Hello hecd2,

I am glad to hear that science now has factual solid error-free evidence, rather than the eroneous theories of the 90’s, as to when Adam and Mitochondrial Eve walked the earth.

I am not a micro biologist. I am just a simple guy making a comment on some interesting information I read four years ago.

 

[hecd2]

This reply seems a bit rude for what you are addressing.

Not meant to be rude, but if someone adopts a didactic tone while at the same time knowing next to nothing about the subject, one is entitled to point that out. Which I did.

He didn’t give a scientific treatise on biology and genetics, he just gave a very brief overview.

…which was mostly wrong.

Not being in biology (or caring to take the time) most of what you said went “whoosh” over my head, as I’m sure it did for others.

That’s fine - if you have neither expertise nor interest in a subject, there is no need to take the trouble to understand it. If on the other hand, someone makes confident statements in a magisterial tone of voice, we can at least expect that they have done their homework. Steve Merten clearly hadn’t.

What I got out of it is instead of the chromosomes splitting…they separated.

Which is fundamentally different.

Instead of 60,000 it’s 175,000 (give or take 100,000).

175,000 give or take 25,000 and it was never 60,000

And all this generally means that there may not be only one “eve”, but there might be others.

What else was there? His idea about the meaning of an Most Recent Common Ancestor (Mitochondrial Eve is the MRCA of extant humans in the strictly matrilineal line) that she is the “one common ansestor mother of all mankind” is wrong. His statement that scientists hold that modern humans have existed for millions of years is wrong. His assertion that mitochondrial MRCAs do not exist in non-human animals is wrong, not just empirically, but by virtue of the very concept of an MRCA.

Oh, and yes, the concept of Mitochrondrial Eve provides no evidence whatsoever for the existence of a biblical Eve. Only those who don’t know enough science to understand the concept of the MRCA of a genetic element, make that claim. It is a claim that is rife amongst believers in a literal Genesis and it is wrong.

Ok

OK
Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[noma]

I have just finished reading Ann Coulter’s book “The Church of Liberalism: Godless” which effectively argues that there has been virtually no evidence for cross species evolution found in any fossil remains and that the theory of evolution has no substantial basis if fact at all, in spite of what is being taught in schools and reported by our very controlledmedia. I personally am not knowledgeable enough to argue scientifically one way or the other but I have to admit that if what she argue is true, teaching the theory of evolution of species as fact is at best junk science. Any thoughts on Ann Coulter’s book?

She is a non-scientist who reaches far beyond her abilities. Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. To deny evolution is to deny the field of biology. She could be right in her conclusion (all of biology may be mistaken), but her argument does nothing to substantiate this.

 

[hecd2]

Hello hecd2,

Hello Steven

I am glad to hear that science now has factual solid error-free evidence, rather than the eroneous theories of the 90’s, as to when Adam and Mitochondrial Eve walked the earth.

Well, actually, there were no ‘erroneous’ theories. There were some results that were clearly anomalous given other data (Parsons et al) which have now been fully explained (Ingman et al). That is teh way science works.

I am not a micro biologist

.
Accepted.

I am just a simple guy making a comment on some interesting information I read four years ago.

No - what you did was to make a number of very confident, didactic, but fundamentally erroneous statements, which is why I reacted as I did.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

I have just finished reading Ann Coulter’s book “The Church of Liberalism: Godless” which effectively argues that there has been virtually no evidence for cross species evolution found in any fossil remains and that the theory of evolution has no substantial basis if fact at all, in spite of what is being taught in schools and reported by our very controlledmedia. I personally am not knowledgeable enough to argue scientifically one way or the other but I have to admit that if what she argue is true, teaching the theory of evolution of species as fact is at best junk science. Any thoughts on Ann Coulter’s book?

It is scientifically worthless.

Anyone who argues that there is little evidence for the Theory of Evolution has not studied the subject thoroughly. The evidence for common ancestry is overwhelming, is overwhelmingly accepted by working scientists (as opposed to religiously motivated pseudoscientists) and is based on huge volumes of evidence based on mutiple disciplines. All of these scientific disciplines support common ancestry:
anatomical homology, molecular homology, anatomical phylogeny, biochemical phylogeny, molecular phylogeny. developmental biology, evodevo, vestigial characters, ribosomal science, chirality, population science, theoretical evolutionary biology, palaeontology, comparative biology, palaeo-climatology, coalescence theory, genetics, genomics, speciation theory, cladistics, systematics, biogeography, and so on.

The junk science is actually found in the work of the Intelligent Design community and especially in the absurd claims of Young Earth Creationists.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[NotWorthy]

She is a non-scientist who reaches far beyond her abilities. Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. To deny evolution is to deny the field of biology. She could be right in her conclusion (all of biology may be mistaken), but her argument does nothing to substantiate this.

I"m certainly no expert on this, but isn’t it called the “**Theory **of Evolution”? To deny it is not to deny a “science” at all.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

The Catholc Church teaches De Fide that Adam and Eve are the common ancestors of all of us.

Anyone who maintains otherwise is at Odds with the Catholic Faith.

It would be possible for evolution to be true but for Adam and Eve to have been specially created and to in fact be the first homo sapiens.

 

[noma]

I"m certainly no expert on this, but isn’t it called the “**Theory **of Evolution”? To deny it is not to deny a “science” at all.

I mean no disrespect in this, but you do not understand what scientists mean by “theory”. An theory is an hypothesis of mechanism that has been established over and over again. Examples of theories would be gravitation and electron theory.

Taking the example of electron theory: all of chemistry rests on a theory called electron theory. If electrons didn’t exist, or didn’t work they way people think they do, the whole field of chemistry would be wrong.

Evolution is to biology as electron theory is to chemistry.

 

[hecd2]

I"m certainly no expert on this, but isn’t it called the “**Theory **of Evolution”? To deny it is not to deny a “science” at all.

So to deny the Theory of Gravity or the Theory of Quantum Mechanics or the Theory of General Relativity or the Theory of Electromagnetism or the Atomic theory or Nuclear Theory or the Theory of Ideal Gases or Communication Theory or the Theory of Thermodynamics or the Cosmological concordance Theory or the Theory of Plate Tectonics or the Theory of Aerodynamics is not to deny a “science” at all?

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of the word theory in science - you are, indeed, as you said, no expert in this.

noma is correct - evolution, as Dobzhansky famously pointed out, is the foundational framework of biology.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

The Catholc Church teaches De Fide that Adam and Eve are the common ancestors of all of us.

All ancestors of the Most Recent Common Ancestor of extant humans are themselves common ancestors. There are thousands, tens of thousands, millions of common ancestors of humans. The concept of a couple who are the exclusive common ancestors of modern humans is scientifically untenable.

Anyone who maintains otherwise is at Odds with the Catholic Faith.

So be it.

It would be possible for evolution to be true but for Adam and Eve to have been specially created and to in fact be the first homo sapiens.

Except for all those pesky retrotransposons and ancestral pseudogenes that we share with other primates. Except for the syntenic homology we share with other primates. Except for the broken vitamin C synthesis. Except for the fact the human Chromosome 2 is clearly a fusion of two chromosomes that remain separate in non-human apes.

The ‘evolution is true but humans lie outside it’ hypothesis is refuted by the evidence.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[Valke2]

I have just finished reading Ann Coulter’s book “The Church of Liberalism: Godless” which effectively argues that there has been virtually no evidence for cross species evolution found in any fossil remains and that the theory of evolution has no substantial basis if fact at all, in spite of what is being taught in schools and reported by our very controlledmedia. I personally am not knowledgeable enough to argue scientifically one way or the other but I have to admit that if what she argue is true, teaching the theory of evolution of species as fact is at best junk science. Any thoughts on Ann Coulter’s book?

You’d be better off reading an asprin bottle. It makes more sense, is factually accurate and doesn’t waste nearly as much time as an Ann Coulter book.

 

[noma]

You’d be better off reading an asprin bottle. It makes more sense, is factually accurate and doesn’t waste nearly as much time as an Ann Coulter book.

It also is better on blood pressure.