mom's dna

the guy who invented the system we used (for 200 years) to name plants and animals was linnaeus. now this system called "taxonomy" has been modified several times. nevertheless, according to this naming system, including kingdom, phylum, class, order, family... i think one of the big annoyances for non scientists is that system puts humans (h. sapiens) and chimpanzees in the same "family." i have never really liked this system, because a lot of things are named for practical purposes before they are understood (rheumatoid arthritis must be one of the worst cases) i think there is a fundamental misunderstanding about what we call "scientific knowledge" that deserves scrutiny, and particular scrutiny is needed for the concepts of evolution.

here is an article the likes of which is commonplace in scientific literature: "the Hominidae family, along with gorillas, humans, and orangutans... Chimpanzees split from the human branch of the family about four to six million years ago." (wiki) and of course this induces rage in the religious.

non scientists, whether christian or muslim do not like the idea of thinking they are in the same "family" with chimps and other apes. but, as you know, the word "family" has a completely different meaning here. but there is an interesting twist in this naming business...

talking about darwin and people evolving from apes in the year 2013 is like talking about thomas flowers or allan turing in a discussion about the latest computer systems (these are people who had ideas which were seminal but which are now antiquated.) christians would find the work of craig venter more relevant to the modern discussion of evolution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter

what people misunderstand about evolution involves the "last common ancestor" and the "most recent common ancestor." it has nothing to do with god or lack of god. it's no different than talking about your grandparents, or your lineage.

in humans, mitochondrial dna always comes from the mother. and this is the second trick.... unfortunately, women change their names to their husband's last names, which destroys the information we could easily preserve about the most recent common ancestor if the husband would retain his mother's name, and the wife would retain her mother's name as well (meaning a matriarchal family naming system. to the extent that people would follow this plan, we would all know our lineage without any difficulty back to the "matriarchal eve" (except where lines are broken or overlap.) but as you know, men screw everything up. not a pun. if you want to trace your true lineage now you have to get mitochondrial dna samples of every human and start putting them into lines of descent to find the mrca. i think venter might be doing this even now!

here is the promised surprise: regarding the identical common ancestor, " In a letter to the editor of Nature, Rohde et al stated that under their computer model and assumptions, the identical ancestors point for Homo sapiens would be between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago." (wiki)

now, if you wouldn't mind subtracting a thousand years from that second number, you would have the approximate age of the earth according to the lineage in genisys. (pun.) i don't mind adding or subtracting a millennium or two. i just want to promote the idea for the sake of discussion that perhaps god did not make everything, but perhaps instead he/she breathed spiritual life into everything. maybe the identical ancestors point is the moment when humans were imbued with the holy spirit, darkness turned to light, self-awareness dawned, and guilty feelings were installed in people. perhaps "life" in the strict biological sense was just the stratum, scaffold, or canvas, upon which god painted the souls. up till then it was just a big machine.

one thing i have never heard a christian complain about is this quote, "The MRCA of living humans may have had many companions of both sexes." omg. i don't see how christians can avoid jumping up and down about this. but maybe this was the "original sin!"

the guy who hired me to teach physics here calls himself an "old earth scientific creationist." i had never heard that one. that gives me some insight into why various articles claim there are up to 41,000 different types of christianity now.

ok, the rest of this is optional but i assure you, if you look at it carefully, you will find some interesting stuff:

start with mammals:

now look at primates:

primates are three orders of life more specific than mammals.

now compare apes (with people, three charts below:)

first, apes, which contain the last common ancestor (lca) of homo sapiens and chimpanzee: