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RE: Scientific Adam and Eve
June 15, 2015 at 8:16 pm
Anthropologists like to use the term "mitachondrial Eve" to describe the common female answer
I think surely there must be more than one though. I can't see how "modern humans" just emorged fully formed at one point, it had to be a gradual transition. Therefore, there was no point in history where there was ever a "first human" or a last ancestor who definitely wasn't human. There are probably several humans who all people descend from, if there's just one male and one female that basically means we're all interbred.
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RE: Scientific Adam and Eve
June 15, 2015 at 9:34 pm
(This post was last modified: June 15, 2015 at 9:36 pm by Alex K.)
(June 15, 2015 at 8:16 pm)Yeauxleaux Wrote: Anthropologists like to use the term "mitachondrial Eve" to describe the common female answer
I think surely there must be more than one though. I can't see how "modern humans" just emorged fully formed at one point, it had to be a gradual transition. Therefore, there was no point in history where there was ever a "first human" or a last ancestor who definitely wasn't human. There are probably several humans who all people descend from, if there's just one male and one female that basically means we're all interbred.
That reads a bit confused. She is defined as the unique individual who is the latest common female ancestor of all currently living humans *in a purely maternal line*. And while we are inbred in a certain sense because we probably all originate from some organism 3 billion years ago or so, there were never just 2 humans - as long as we were anything close to humans, the population size never dropped below several thousands. This is what analysis of the human gene pool tells us
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RE: Scientific Adam and Eve
June 16, 2015 at 12:03 am
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 
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RE: Scientific Adam and Eve
June 16, 2015 at 12:04 am
(June 15, 2015 at 3:56 am)robvalue Wrote: When they say "woman" I assume this isn't going to be a human as we know them today, but one of our ancestors, right?
And if you do the same on the male side, you're going to reach one of our ancestors eventually... but it's not going to be one who actually necessarily bred with the woman above.
So this isn't a "couple" who generated all of us as in the bible.
Is it? This is rather over my head at the moment  I need to learn more about this.
I feel good that maybe I stimulated some new knowledge at least 
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RE: Scientific Adam and Eve
June 16, 2015 at 12:07 am
I also wonder if all animals can link their genes back to a single female and male...
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RE: Scientific Adam and Eve
June 16, 2015 at 12:18 am
(June 16, 2015 at 12:07 am)nicanica123 Wrote: I also wonder if all animals can link their genes back to a single female and male...
I would assume so. Ancestral collapse makes that highly probable. You have four grand parents, eight great grand parents, sixteen great great grand parents and so on, yet the number on people on the planet is growing not shrinking. So though your pool of ancestors appears to get larger the further back you go, it can't really because there were fewer people then. This means some of your great great maternal grandparents are likely to also be your paternal great great grandparents. In other words some of the sixteen really hold more than one place in your family tree. Reach your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents and there's going to be a lot of duplication. Eventually there's likely to be someone who is the ancestor of every great grandparent you have. This is just as true of animal populations.
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RE: Scientific Adam and Eve
June 16, 2015 at 2:30 am
(This post was last modified: June 16, 2015 at 2:33 am by robvalue.)
The only way I could see that it's possible not to have one of these ancestors, for whatever animal, is if life originally developed in more than place (abiogenesis) and then they met up and interbred somehow. But even then, the common ancestor is only going to be uncertain for a while; once the interbred species takes off, eventually the ones still alive will be able to be traced back down that line... probably Still working this through in my head. My brain used to be able to think clearly, believe it or not. Now it's an addled mess. But then, wait... if we take the female side each time, then even these distinct groups would get seperated. The problem would be where there stops actually being males and females.
Yeah it's interesting Nic! Good subject I wish they had called them something other than Adam and Eve though, it's just begging for religious confusion...
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RE: Scientific Adam and Eve
June 16, 2015 at 6:45 am
(June 16, 2015 at 2:30 am)robvalue Wrote: I wish they had called them something other than Adam and Eve though, it's just begging for religious confusion...
I know what you're saying, I just think they have to in order to simplify the understanding. When I first learned of them, the show was very clear this wasn't the biblical Adam and Eve. Of course though for someone in my position, it does assist to my theist leanings. But of course, thats why I want to learn more about the topic and truly understand it.
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RE: Scientific Adam and Eve
June 16, 2015 at 6:46 am
(June 16, 2015 at 12:18 am)Jenny A Wrote: (June 16, 2015 at 12:07 am)nicanica123 Wrote: I also wonder if all animals can link their genes back to a single female and male...
I would assume so. Ancestral collapse makes that highly probable. You have four grand parents, eight great grand parents, sixteen great great grand parents and so on, yet the number on people on the planet is growing not shrinking. So though your pool of ancestors appears to get larger the further back you go, it can't really because there were fewer people then. This means some of your great great maternal grandparents are likely to also be your paternal great great grandparents. In other words some of the sixteen really hold more than one place in your family tree. Reach your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents and there's going to be a lot of duplication. Eventually there's likely to be someone who is the ancestor of every great grandparent you have. This is just as true of animal populations.
So there is a raccoon Adam and Eve?
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RE: Scientific Adam and Eve
June 16, 2015 at 7:00 am
(June 15, 2015 at 10:32 am)Clueless Morgan Wrote: (June 15, 2015 at 3:56 am)robvalue Wrote: When they say "woman" I assume this isn't going to be a human as we know them today, but one of our ancestors, right?
Mitochondrial Eve lived between about 100,00 and 200,000 years ago so in the timescale of evolution she was right at the time anthropologists think that Homo Sapiens became its own species. But that's kind of like looking at the electromagnetic spectrum and assigning an exact wavelength to when green ends and blue begins - there is no definite dividing line.
It's the same thing with Y-Chromosomal Adam - he lived more recently that Mitochondrial Eve so he was most definitely a Homo Sapiens.
Quote:And if you do the same on the male side, you're going to reach one of our ancestors eventually... but it's not going to be one who actually necessarily bred with the woman above.
Mito-Eve and Y-Adam lived tens of thousands of years apart. To my understanding, Y-Adam is the paternal ancestor to all males - the one from which every male can trace back his Y-chromosome whereas Mito-Eve is the woman from whom everyone, not just women, can trace their mitochondrial DNA back to (but it must be traced back through the female line only because it's passed down through the egg a woman contributes to an embryo).
Quote:So this isn't a "couple" who generated all of us as in the bible.
No.
I read an article that I linked in a different post on this thread that its plausible that they could have lived at the same time.
And please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that speciation was the point where an evolutionary line did branch out on its own? Wouldn't this be a clear distinction in the space time continuum? ok, I don't know what that last part was supposed to mean, I just want to sound smart too :/
Why are mules for example sterile? I believe the same went for Ligers, which are real! Does evolution have a safety mechanism that keeps us equal but separate?
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