Scientific Adam and Eve

[robvalue]

Ah, that's so cool! Thanks

And if you keep on tracing back, who knows where you might end up...

[Secular Elf]

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.

Fascinating discussion. Thinking about this, trying to picture this in my mind, thinking of it not as a tree but as a flow of a river, from one mountain side mitochondrial adam is from river flow and from another nearby mountain side is another river flow where mitochondrial eve is. These two separate rivers eventually come together and form one main river, which eventually flows downstream towards the coast, which then immediately breaks apart into several rivulets that forms a delta, all the human descendants.

As an aside, I have a problem with assigning Biblical names or themes to scientific terminology. It really bothers me. Like when I watch a documentary about how the Earth was formed and the narrator says "created." Let's not give the Creationists something to jack off about. The Universe and our Earth was not "created," it was formed, came together, there was a formation process. This is science we are talking about, not damn religion. We should not be eroding the distinction with religious terminology. Like "the God Particle," but I do realize that was the brain-child of reporters and the Media.

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@CM,

So are you saying I'm not completely wrong then? I'm not sure whether you quote me to disagree on a specific point or to elaborate further

Concerning human chimp hybrids, my unevidenced gut feeling is that it would eventually work because of what you say. I am so curious about the result of that, but at the same time know that it would not be a good idea.

I have come across speculations that human-chimp hybridization has occurred, but I think it is mostly pseudo-science crap. Not saying it is not possible if you did it in a lab, or some sex crazed freak would do a chimp; but since chimps are twice as strong as humans, I do not see how that is possible without the chimp objecting and ripping your ear (or your dick) off. Ooh, don't see that one ending well.

The History Channel had a documentary investigating a claim that the Soviets experimented with crossing the genes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ka-uGNOZS0

[Alex K]

Secular Elf

Ooh that's right down my alley. But seriously, most ppl I ask speculate that some soviet scientists have tried it

[Anomalocaris]

Secular Elf

Ooh that's right down my alley. But seriously, most ppl I ask speculate that some soviet scientists have tried it

IIRC, during late 1920s and 1930s some soviet societists expressed interest in exploring possible benefits of such interbreeding, without such expressions of interest meeting any immediate official disapprobation.  Given the atmosphere in the Soviet Union at the time, things don't get expressed without serious consequences unless they conform to certain official view.

In the late 1930s these expressions were suppressed.  Perhaps the official view changed.

Be it as it may, from 1930s through the 1950s, soviet official doctrine supported a contra-scientific view of genetics espoused by a few cranks and outright frauds who were feted at the Kremlin.    The works of these cranks set soviet biological science back by decades.  The damage was so great the Soviet Union was never able to catch up to the west in the field after these crank fell from favor.

[Alex K]

Chuck, I'm not sure what your upshot is - that they wouldn't have tried?

[Anomalocaris]

There is no proof, or strong evidence, that they actually did try inter-species cross breeding with humans.   But they did make a lot of noise about eugenics not only through selective breeding, but though unspecified "scientific" altering of human genome from the late 1920s to early 1950s.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say I want to know what the creationists on the board think? >_>

[robvalue]

I think calling them "Adam and Eve" is enough to keep the creationists happy and not worry about it So maybe the naming was pragmatic...

[Cyberman]

I think we can pretty much guess what the cretinists think.

(Damn autocorrect.)

[Homeless Nutter]

I have come across speculations that human-chimp hybridization has occurred, but I think it is mostly pseudo-science crap. Not saying it is not possible if you did it in a lab, or some sex crazed freak would do a chimp; but since chimps are twice as strong as humans, I do not see how that is possible without the chimp objecting and ripping your ear (or your dick) off. [...]

Rohypnol...