Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!uoft02.utoledo.edu!desire.wright.edu!sbishop From: sbishop@desire.wright.edu Newsgroups: sci.bio Subject: Re: We've got Eve. Now what about Adam? Message-ID: <1990Dec21.090558.2107@desire.wright.edu> Date: 21 Dec 90 14:05:58 GMT References: <15461@cs.utexas.edu> <0bLsVz600Vpb0ftUp_@andrew.cmu.edu> Organization: University Computing Services, Wright State University Lines: 17 In article , schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) writes: > In <1990Dec11.105612.2009@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes: >> BTW, the main complaint is that using >>The Eve Theory, all other lines of humans around the world at that time >>are considered to have gone extinct. > > This is a common misunderstanding. The "Eve theory" means only that there > are no unbroken matrilineal lines going back to other females alive at the > time of "Eve". Certainly any number of the other females alive at that time > could have lving descendents, but only through a male descendent at some > point so that their mitochondria were not passed along. That's right. I was not making myself clear. (A common failing__ ;) ) The best explanation is the one in _The Search For Eve_. Does a much better job of the arguments on both side than I ever could. There was some discussion in the book along these lines, but the main problem was that so very few matrilineal lines had survived.