The flood and Ancient Chinese Documents

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As for the origins of man in Mesopotamia, secular anthropologists are divided over whether humanity was started by multiple couples in different locations or one couple somewhere in Northern Africa. To those who believe the latter this could be the source of Adam and Eve.

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No anthropologist believes that humans started with ONE couple.------------------
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Just last year I took a biological anthropology class my professor told us that there were different views on man's origin within anthropology and that the one I described was one of them.

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You mis-read, mis-heard, or misunderstood something.What you wrote was close to being accurate. There are two main theories for the emergence of homo sapiens. Those two theories are multi-regionalism and the out-of-africa theory. The first case you presented is multi-regionalism. The second case would be the out-of-africa theory except for the part about our descending from ONE couple. Think about it.1) One couple is not enough genetic diversity. A species that hits this level is as good as gone.2) How would you know? There is no way in our current toolkit to make this determination.What I think has happened is that you have confused the mitochondrial eve idea with the out-of-africa idea and came up with 'we descended from one couple.' It doesn't work that way. Sometime around 200,000 years ago a woman lived who is the matrilineal ancestor of everyone alive today. This does not mean we all descended form one couple. Mitochondrial DNA is passed along the mother's line, and the mother's line alone. It says nothing about the males in the tree.Imagine. One woman moves away from her home and onto an island. An unrelated man soon moves onto the island as well. Sparks fly. Tummies swell. Feet pitter and patter. Hmm... one couple??? Yes. Or not. There could be any number of men involved. We can't tell. Men could move to the island to marry the young girls. Assuming no women move to the island any children born are matrilineally related to the one woman who first settled there. This is a bit of an artificial example, but it is intended only to show that one female ancestor does not mean only one couple.Read all about it. What, if anything, is a Mitochondrial Eve?------------------
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I also thought a common ancestor for man was also determined using the y chromosone instead of mitochondria.

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It has been. That calculation is mentioned in the article I cited. However, notice that the dates diverge by tens of thousands of years. Adam and Eve could not have been A couple in any sense of the term. They were seperated by hundreds of individuals.

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Also, if people had inbreeded why could we not have descended from a single couple?

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Because, in practice, long term inbreeding of this order is a death sentence for the species. Incest brings out the worst in DNA. Try looking into endangered species conservation. Such species have very small gene pools and the side effects of incest are always a concern. Look into animal breeding as well. Breeding close relatives is risky business, even when breeding within a population of twenty or thirty. Start with two and the game is practically over.------------------
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It takes a few generations, but not that many. By five generations or so you'd see some adverse effects. Incest doesn't actually cause any genetic damage, it concentrates such damage. Assuming an undamaged genome-- whatever that means-- I suppose there would be no problem. This assumption would not be made by an anthropologist, so it isn't relevant to the discussion. Someone also pointed out that we'd notice a distinct genetic bottleneck if the species had been reduced to two individuals.------------------
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Eight closely related people... that isn't too much better.This is the first mention you've made of the flood. Are you sure this is what you meant? It sure seemed like you were talking about the origin of humanity-- like when you said, in post #16, "As for the origins of man in Mesopotamia, secular anthropologists are divided over whether humanity was started by multiple couples in different locations or one couple somewhere in Northern Africa."------------------
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Also the women wouldn't be that closely related had the time passed that I am talking about between Eden and the flood.

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Even so, you still have a very closely related group. The sons are very closely related to mom and dad-- you can't get much closer. So 5/8-ths of the group are as close as you can get-- Mom, Dad, and sons 1,2 and 3. Assume distantly related wives for the sons and we get 8 people. But the very next generation would have to marry first cousins at best. That doubles the chances of offspring being born with genetic defects-- from 3-4 percent, to 6-8 percent. I found an article that I'm sure you will find interesting.

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http://www.rickross.com/reference/polygamy/polygamy25.html

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Just for arguments sake, if people for some reason were able to live 900 years(bear with me), could it be possible that whatever population started out as could have increased exponentially over time to give us a population diverse enough genetically to justify what we observe today.

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Long lifespans will not give you genetic diversity. What it will give you is hundreds, perhaps, of brothers and sisters. They are ALL very closely related.------------------
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If it were true however, this would account for genetis diversity.

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No it wouldn't.------------------
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It wouldn't solve the problem for the same reasons that long life spans wouldn't solve it-- you need time for variations to accumulate. In other words, you are making the same mistake you've made before. But now I see you've invoked magic to alter the tower refugee's genomes...------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by John, 09-06-2003]

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Jan Klein (Max Planck Institute, Tbingen, Germany) and Dr. Francisco Ayala (University of California, Irvine) say that a population of 10,000 does not represent a bottleneck, since this is the standard breeding population of many species.

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Sounds like a semantic objection to me. One group says the evidence points to our having been reduced to around 10,000 and calls this a bottleneck. Another group replies that 'you didn't use the word "bottleneck" correctly.' What I don't see is an objection to the point-- we were once, and for a long time, reduced to a few thousand individuals.Additionally, our growth rates over the last 10,000 years or so have been astronomical for creatures our size. I'm not sure we should be comparing our mutation rates/numbers with species that did not have such rapid population explosions.------------------
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