I just started reading "The Ancestor's Tale" by Dawkins and I'm having a little trouble understanding Eve's Tale. I'm assuming atleast some people on this site have read the book and can help explain this part to me.
Dawkins' discusses how we can produce a gene tree from a group of individuals. You compare a particular locus on different individuals and look for their Most Recent Common Ancestor. Depending on the particular loci, you get different gene trees. No trouble yet.
Here is the part I don't get:
Individual people who are closely related share a large number of gene trees. We share a majority of our genes with our close kin. But some gene trees deliver a 'minority,' placing us closer to our otherwise more distant relatives. We can think of closeness of kinship among people as a kind of majority vote among genes. Some of your gens vote for, say, The Queen, as a close cousin. Others argue that you are closer to seemingly much more distant individuals (as we shall see, even members of other species). When quizzed, each piece of DNA has a different view what history is all about, because each has blazed a different path through the generations. We can hope to gain a comprehensive view only by questioning a large number of genes.
Basically, I don't understand what he means by the first lines. Specifically,
Individual people who are closely related share a large number of gene trees.
This seems to imply that an individual has different unique gene trees, and that these can be compared to another individuals unique gene trees.
But how can
individual make a gene tree, since you only have one data point. Aren't gene trees produced by comparing a particular loci on different individuals and looking for coalescent points all the back to the ultimate coalescent point of the group, the Most Recent Common Ancestor?
It's late and I've been up for a while so this might just be the result of my brain wearing down but I don't get it.
Can anyone explain this to me?
Book Nook, obviously.
Edited by JustinC, : No reason given.
Edited by JustinC, : No reason given.
Edited by JustinC, : No reason given.
Edited by JustinC, : Very clumsy wording
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