Re: Blue-eyed Humans Have A Single, Common Ancestor

Padmar Mushkin wrote:
On Thu, 31 Jan 2008 09:42:59 -0800, John Harshman
<jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Padmar Mushkin wrote:
On 31 Jan 2008 04:58:19 -0800, TomS <TomS_member@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Blue-eyed Humans Have A Single, Common Ancestor
"ScienceDaily (Jan. 31, 2008) — New research shows that people with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor. A team at the University of Copenhagen have tracked down a genetic mutation which took place 6-10,000 years ago and is the cause of the eye colour of all blue-eyed humans alive on the planet today."

<http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.htm>

-or-

<http://snipurl.com/1ynxh>
Cue Harshman with his science journalism rant.


Actually, this seems remarkably restrained. No claims that "Darwin was wrong" or "this revolutionizes biology". Just a simple and fairly obvious finding. What's the problem?

I guess I could be being overly pedantic, but "single common
ancestor" is a weak description. Everybody has a common ancestor; in
fact many common ancestors.

I took it merely as a claim that the mutation happened just once, and that everyone with the blue-eyed allele can trace it back to that one instance. Just as there's a mitochondrial Eve, there's a blue-eyed Steve (or Stephanie).

.

Relevant Pages

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