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From: emma@uw-june (Joe Pfeiffer)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: A Common Female Ancestor for Everyone
Message-ID: <746@uw-june>
Date: Mon, 14-Nov-83 16:58:42 EST
Article-I.D.: uw-june.746
Posted: Mon Nov 14 16:58:42 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Nov-83 20:03:18 EST
References: <115@astrovax.UUCP  <118@astrovax.UUCP> <3741@umcp-cs.UUCP> <122@astrovax.UUCP>
Organization: U. Washington, Computer Sci
Lines: 21

That somebody has concluded that we all have a single female ancestor
should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody, and sheds absolutely no
light on the whole creationist/evolutionist controversy.

1:  If creationism were true, we would all have a single female
ancestor named Eve.

2:  If evolution were true, we would expect that at some point a
critical genetic event occurred separating "human" from "nonhuman".  In
fact, we would expect a number of these events to have occurred in the
course of evolutionary progress.  The descendants with this difference
wound up with an advantage in natural selection resulting in our all
being descended from those with the genetic change.

3:  In any event, 50,000 years ago the total human population was
somewhat less than the population of a small town of today (don't have
the estimates with me, sorry).  It strains credulity to suppose that in
the intervening generations we didn't have a complete intermarriage
among the descendants to the extent that all 1,000 (or however many)
people existing at this time period are our ancestors.

-Joe P.