Scientific Adam and Eve

[Won2blv]

Anybody have some good explanations for how scientist claim that every man and women derives their genes from a single man and a single woman. I understand that its not an acknowledgment of the biblical Adam and Eve. I just found that interesting when I read about it the other day.

[SteelCurtain]

Source?

[Jenny A]

The answer is just a google away.

[T]he name Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA), in a direct, unbroken, maternal line, of all currently living humans, who is estimated to have lived approximately 100,000–200,000 years ago. This is the most recent woman from whom all living humans today descend, in an unbroken line, on their mother’s side, and through the mothers of those mothers, and so on, back until all lines converge on one person. Because all mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) generally (but see paternal mtDNA transmission) is passed from mother to offspring without recombination, all mtDNA in every living person is directly descended from hers by definition, differing only by the mutations that over generations have occurred in the germ cell mtDNA since the conception of the original "Mitochondrial Eve".

. . .

Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived between 99,000 and 200,000 years ago,[3][4][5] most likely in East Africa,[6] when Homo sapiens sapiens (anatomically modern humans) were developing as a population distinct from other human sub-species.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

In human genetics, Y-chromosomal most recent common ancestor (Y-MRCA; informally also known as Y-chromosomal Adam) refers to the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) from whom all currently living people are descended patrilineally. The term Y-MRCA reflects the fact that the Y chromosomes of all currently living males are directly derived from the Y chromosome of this remote ancestor. The analogous concept of the matrilineal most recent common ancestor is known as "Mitochondrial Eve" (mt-MRCA, named for the matrilineal transmission of mtDNA), the woman from whom all living humans are descended matrilineally.
By the nature of the concept of most recent common ancestors, these estimates can only represent a terminus ante quem ("limit before which"), until the genome of the entire population has been examined (in this case, the genome of all living humans). In 2013, the discovery of a previously unknown Y-chromosomal haplogroup was announced,[1] which resulted in a slight adjustment of the estimated age of the human Y-MRCA.[2]
Current estimates of the Y-MRCA range around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, consistent with the emergence of anatomically modern humans and overlapping with age estimates for the mt-MRCA (matrilinear MRCA).[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

[Exian]

But don't mistake this as meaning she was the only woman in existence at the time.

[Aroura]

I think it says there was a bottleneck of human populations at both times, diminishing the human population to under 10,000 individuals.

How we all stem from one woman from that period, and one man from a different period, I admit I don't entirely understand. Perhaps a biologist could pop in here and explain it in laymans terms for those of us who could use it. ??

[ignoramus]

I'm just real happy she wasn't frigid!

[Cyberman]

Yeah, it's not that there was ever one man and one woman but that we can trace our genetic lineage to common ancestors. Which shouldn't be surprising.

[Longhorn]

ONE MAN ONE WOMAN ONCE!!!!1!1!1


Oh. Nvm.

[Minimalist]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory

The Toba supereruption was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred some time between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba (Sumatra, Indonesia). It is one of the Earth's largest known eruptions. The Toba catastrophe hypothesis holds that this event caused a global volcanic winter of 6–10 years and possibly a 1,000-year-long cooling episode.

The Toba event is the most closely studied super-eruption.[2][3][4] In 1993, science journalist Ann Gibbons suggested a link between the eruption and a population bottleneck in human evolution, and Michael R. Rampino of New York University and Stephen Self of the University of Hawaii at Manoa gave support to the idea. In 1998, the bottleneck theory was further developed by Stanley H. Ambrose of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The problem though is that for a volcano, Toba was highly selective.  We are asked to accept that it blasted humanity all the way from SE Asia back to a small group in Africa.  However, Neanderthal does not seem to have noticed the climatic changes and other species were not wiped out.

[ignoramus]

Yeah, and there were snakes around, and yeah, they probably ate apples ...

Hey guys, is it possible to make up some weird ass story about this that we can benefit friom!
Nah, come to think of it, no-ones that stupid to fall for it anyway... carry on.