Came across this a month ago in the LA Times. Don’t see too much reason to doubt the findings. The basic math seems straightforward (though of course the devil is in the details).
The yahoo link does not mention the fact that the analysis says that an ancestor with 3-5 grandchildren was virtually guaranteed complete future lineage and lower than that was virtually guaranteed extinction - i.e. the genetic lottery is an all or nothing proposition.
I don’t have much of a problem with the finding that one person in 1AD might be the ancestor of all now, but what about everyone 5000-7000 years ago being everyone’s ancestors? What about a hypothetical (maybe real, I haven’t checked) isolated population, isolated for the last 7,001 years in a Pacific island, who just came back into contact with others in the last century? Everyone in that pop can’t be the ancestor of everyone now? Am I missing something? How does the math deal with that?
Yes that’s one of the ‘details’ I was alluding to, the study mentions the following:
The model also had to allow for migration based on what historians, anthropologists and archaeologists know about how frequently past populations moved both within and between continents.
Couple of points here:
For your example, consider the ancestors of this population before it got isolated, say from 7200 years ago. I would venture that those ancestors would indeed be ‘ancestors of the world’, just the branch that got isolated would not be. So the bar moves from 7000 to 7200 years. Would that be a significant change in the basic premise?
If we grant that such a hypothetical population exists - for e.g. that set of villagers who just walked out of the jungle somewhere in South America a few months ago, the general principle for non isolated populations (99.99% of humanity?) should still hold. That in itself (to me) is a perspective altering realization.
The article refer to the ‘children of Abraham’ - another related thing is the prophecy of the Messiah, who is supposed to be descended from the house of David. Of course, Christians consider Jesus to be the Messiah and the Bible traces his ancestry (through two lineages - maternal and paternal) to King David. But in the light of this study, whether you think Jesus was the Messiah or you are Jewish and are still waiting for the Messiah, or you don’t give a shit, this descendency requirement would be completely meaningless, because everyone would be descended from David.
![[Print This Post]](http://www.rantlust.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-print/images/print.gif "[Print This Post]")
Came across this a month ago in the LA Times. Don’t see too much reason to doubt the findings. The basic math seems straightforward (though of course the devil is in the details).
The yahoo link does not mention the fact that the analysis says that an ancestor with 3-5 grandchildren was virtually guaranteed complete future lineage and lower than that was virtually guaranteed extinction - i.e. the genetic lottery is an all or nothing proposition.
I don’t have much of a problem with the finding that one person in 1AD might be the ancestor of all now, but what about everyone 5000-7000 years ago being everyone’s ancestors? What about a hypothetical (maybe real, I haven’t checked) isolated population, isolated for the last 7,001 years in a Pacific island, who just came back into contact with others in the last century? Everyone in that pop can’t be the ancestor of everyone now? Am I missing something? How does the math deal with that?
Yes that’s one of the ‘details’ I was alluding to, the study mentions the following:
Couple of points here:
For your example, consider the ancestors of this population before it got isolated, say from 7200 years ago. I would venture that those ancestors would indeed be ‘ancestors of the world’, just the branch that got isolated would not be. So the bar moves from 7000 to 7200 years. Would that be a significant change in the basic premise?
If we grant that such a hypothetical population exists - for e.g. that set of villagers who just walked out of the jungle somewhere in South America a few months ago, the general principle for non isolated populations (99.99% of humanity?) should still hold. That in itself (to me) is a perspective altering realization.
The article refer to the ‘children of Abraham’ - another related thing is the prophecy of the Messiah, who is supposed to be descended from the house of David. Of course, Christians consider Jesus to be the Messiah and the Bible traces his ancestry (through two lineages - maternal and paternal) to King David. But in the light of this study, whether you think Jesus was the Messiah or you are Jewish and are still waiting for the Messiah, or you don’t give a shit, this descendency requirement would be completely meaningless, because everyone would be descended from David.