Scientific Adam and Eve

[Anomalocaris]

I hope no one thinks that I would try to sneak in some kind of backwards reasoning for Adam and Eve. When I learned about it, I was just shocked that scientist can link our genes back to a single man and woman. Not saying that the theory is that they were the only man and woman. And that they even lived together. However this article http://www.nature.com/news/genetic-adam-...me-1.13478 says that they could have lived concurrently. And Its interesting to me that Adam (according to the article) more than likely lived farther back than Eve. The scientific Adam and Eve that is. Could someone just explain how at one point the genes were only from a single man and a single woman? I have read the wiki pages but they're just above me  

The key is your genes are NOT from a single man or a single woman at the point when the supposed adam or eve lived.    All of us have at least some genes that derive that single man or that single woman.   But none of us, tracing our genetic history all the way back to the time of the suppsed adam or eve, can trace ALL of our genes to them.

Think of the primordial Adam and Eve as your great grand father on your father's father's side, and your great grand mother on your mother's mother's side.   You and your siblings, and many of your cousins and neices and nephews, and many of your more extended family would all share these same Adam and Eve as you.   but they are not your only male and female ancestors at their respective generations.

So they are each the last common ancester to us all, but not the only ancester to us for their generation.   What is more interesting is there must have been earlier common ancestors.   But the last common ancester does not even need to have been a direct descendant of some of the earlier common ancestors.

So Adam and Eve analogy, while cute, fails miserably at every level.