Mysterious Melissa brought this interesting new study to my attention. It was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science. It was reported on Science Daily.
Excerpt:
More than 7 billion people live on this planet — members of a single species that originated in one place and migrated all over Earth over tens of thousands of years.
But even though we all trace our family lineage to a few common ancestors, scientists still don’t know exactly when and how those few ancestors started to give rise to the incredible diversity of today’s population.
A brand-new finding, made using advanced analysis of DNA from all over the world, sheds new light on this mystery. By studying the DNA sequence of Y chromosomes of men from many different populations, scientists have determined that their male most recent common ancestor (MRCA) lived sometime between 120,000 and 156,000 years ago.
It’s the first time the human ancestry has been traced back through the male line by sequencing the DNA of many entire Y chromosomes.
And, it agrees reasonably well with previous findings about our female most recent common ancestor, made by studying DNA carried down through the human race’s female line. Such studies used DNA from mitochrondria — structures inside cells — and placed that time of the most recent common ancestor between 99,000 and 148,000 years ago.
[…]The reconciliation of the timing of “Adam” and “Eve,” however, may be this study’s most important immediate implication.
“This has been a conundrum in human genetics for a long time,” said Carlos D. Bustamante, PhD, a professor of genetics at Stanford and senior author of the study. “Previous research has indicated that the male MRCA lived much more recently than the female MRCA. But now our research shows that there’s no discrepancy. In fact, if anything, the Y chromosome may be a bit older.”
So the new dates for Adam and Eve would allow them to actually date. Ha ha!
Now those dates are still too far in the past to satisfy an old-Earth creationist like me, but it solves that problem about them existing durring completely different dates. I’ve been waiting for that one to be solves for a decade! It’s progress.
On this episode of ID The Future, Casey Luskin discusses how the recent complete sequencing of the gorilla genome has challenged conventional thinking about human ancestry and explains what neo-Darwinists are doing to try to minimize the impact of this new information. Says Luskin: “There is not a clear signal of ancestral relationships that is coming out of the gorilla genome once you add it into the mix.” Tune in to hear about this interesting development!
Rather than summarize this short 10-minute podcast, I wanted to excerpt a post of Evolution News about it.
Excerpt: (links removed)
A whopping 30% of the gorilla genome — amounting to hundreds of millions of base pairs of gorilla DNA — contradicts the standard supposed evolutionary phylogeny of great apes and humans. That’s the big news revealed last week with the publication of the sequence of the full gorilla genome. But there’s a lot more to this story.
Eugenie Scott once taught us that when some evolutionary scientist claims some discovery “sheds light” on some aspect of evolution, we might suspect that’s evolution-speak for ‘this find really messed up our evolutionary theory.’ That seems to be the case here. Aylwyn Scally, the lead author of the gorilla genome report, was quoted saying, “The gorilla genome is important because it sheds light on the time when our ancestors diverged from our closest evolutionary cousins around six to 10 million years ago.” NPR titled its story similarly: “Gorilla Genome Sheds Light On Human Evolution.” What evolutionary hypothesis did the gorilla genome mess up?
The standard evolutionary phylogeny of primates holds that humans and chimps are more closely related to one-another than to other great apes like gorillas. In practice, all that really means is that when we sequence human, chimp, and gorilla genes, human and chimp genes have a DNA sequence that is more similar to one-another’s genes than to the gorilla’s genes. But huge portions of the gorilla genome contradict that nice, neat tidy phylogeny. That’s because these gorilla genes are more similar to the human or chimp version than the human or chimp versions are to one-another. In fact, it seems that some 30% of the gorilla genome contradicts the standard primate phylogeny in this manner.
The Evolution News post then cites New Scientist and Nature’s comments on the study.
Scott Klusendorf is the director of the excellent Life Training Institute, and he’s been interviewed by Brian Auten on Apologetics 315.
Details of the interview:
Today’s interview is with Scott Klusendorf, president of Life Training Institute. LTI is the first place to look for excellent resources to get better equipped to defend the pro-life position. Scott talks about defining abortion and its terms, the issue of the debate, the legal history of abortion, defending the pro-life view using science and philosophy, the four pillars of the pro-life argument, answering a litany of objections to the pro-life position, the right and wrong use of emotional appeals, taking on the right tone in the debate, how to get better equipped, and more.
BA: Great stuff. Now I want you to go into these pillars if you will of defending the pro-life position with science and philosophy, and in your web site prolifetraining.com one of the things that you provide is sort of a four point acronym, some would say sled S-L-E-D. Can you lay out what those main pillars are and their relevance to the issue?
SK: Well as I mentioned a moment ago, pro-life advocates argue that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a developing human being, and we defend that claim using science and philosophy. We use science to determine what kind of thing the unborn is, and we use philosophy to show that there’s no relevant deference between the embryos we once were and the adults we are today that would justify killing us at that earlier stage of development. Scientifically, as I mentioned just moments ago embryology text books worldwide indicate that from the very beginning you and I were distinct living whole human beings. You can’t see that I’m doing this right now, Brian, but at the moment I’m picking cells off the back of my hand. These cells, which we call somatic cells, contain my entire DNA and coding. But you don’t thing I just committed mass murder by sending a couple hundred of those puppies hurling to their deaths on the floor in front of me. And the reason is, you know that these cells though they contain my DNA and coding are merely part of a larger human being, me. They are not distinct whole living organisms the way that you were when you were an embryo. The way I was when I was an embryo. In other words, there is a difference in kind between each of our bodily cells and the embryonic human beings we once were. That’s what science teaches us; that’s what the science of embryology lays down for us.Philosophically, we argue using that SLED acronym that you mentioned a moment ago that there’s no difference between that embryo we once were and the adult we are today. The adults we are today that justify killing us at that earlier stage of development and as Steven Schwarz points out, the differences between that embryo and the adult that you are today are one of size, level of development, environment and degree of dependency. Think of the acronym SLED and you will remember those four differences. Size, yeah you were smaller as an embryo, but since when does body size determine the rights that you have. Shaquille O’Neal, the seven foot two basketball star with the Boston Celtics, is a foot taller than I am, but he doesn’t have a greater right to life simply because he’s bigger.
Level development? Sure, we were less developed as embryos but since when is a matter of principal does that mean we can kill you? Two-year-old girls are less developed than twenty-year-old young women. We don’t think though the two year old girl has less to a right to life simply because she can’t function at the level that the twenty year old can. Level of size, I should say level of development. What about environment; where you are located there is the letter “E” in that SLED acronym. You were once in the womb now you’re out but sense when does were you are determine what you are? When you walk from your living room into the studio to do this interview. You changed location but you didn’t stop being you. When I jump on an airplane and fly from Atlanta to London’s Heathrow airport. I get off the plane I’m in a new location, but I’m the same being as I was when I left Atlanta. If that’s true how does a journey of eight inches down the birth canal suddenly change me from non-human, non-valuable thing that we can kill? To a valuable human being that we can’t kill. And the answer is, if I wasn’t already human and valuable I’m not going to get there by changing my address. And then finally, degree of dependency—yes we depended on our mother for survival but sense when does dependency on another human being mean we can kill you? Conjoined twins depend on each other for survival and unless one of the twins is killing its partner we don’t go ahead and slit the throat of both twins simply because they can’t live independent of each other. Size, level of development, environment, degree of dependency, think “SLED” those are the only four differences between that embryo you once were and the adult you are today. And the pro-lifer would argue that not one of those four differences justifies killing you at that earlier stage.
And if you like that interview, I have some more things for you to read from Dr. Francis Beckwith.
Learn more by reading
Frank Beckwith is the author of “Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice“. He wrote that book for Cambridge University Press, a top academic press. But before Cambridge University Press, Beckwith wrote easy-to-understand essays for the Christian Research Journal.
Here are four essays that answer common arguments in favor of legalized abortion.
WINTERY KNIGHT 