Many of you have seen headlines like this on social media recently. What is the origin of this flurry of excited claims? Do they have any merit?
Did Stoeckel and Thaler conclude that “90% of animal species appeared at same time as humans”?
The answer is No. Here is the relevant quote from the published paper:
the extant population, no matter what its current size or similarity to fossils of any age, has expanded from mitochondrial uniformity within the past 200,000 years.
In other words, the genetic diversity observed in mitochondrial genomes of most species alive today can be attributed to the accumulation of mutations from an ancestral genome within the past 200,000 years.
Their conclusions are interesting (and to some extent unexpected) but they are not shocking, nor do they defy evolutionary theory. To see why, let’s unpack what the authors have claimed. First, it is important to note that the authors never claim that most “species” came into existence within the past 200,000 years. Rather, what has come into existence within that time frame is the genetic variation observed in one gene in the mitochondrial genome. By tracing the mutations in that one gene, we can trace the origin of the gene back to the last common female ancestor of all living members of a certain species (the so-called “mitochondrial Eve”). But this discovery, at best, tells us the
minimum age of the species. It tells us little to nothing about the
maximum age of a species.
In summary: Do Stoeckle and Thaler’s findings undermine evolutionary theory and prove that most animals were created recently? Definitely not.
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