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Global DNA Project to Study Human Ancestry

Steve writes "The National Geographic Society and IBM are teaming up to map the history of human migration using DNA. The Genographic Project aims to collect 100,000 genetic samples which will be used trace the movements of humans out of Africa and around the globe. While the most useful samples will come from indiginous populations, members of the general public will be able to mail in their own DNA on special cheek swabs."

325 comments

  1. Polishing the tin foil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Otherwise known as the beginning of Global Big Brother.

    1. Re:Polishing the tin foil by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 3, Funny

      Because we all know how EVIL National Geographic is!

      --
      Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
    2. Re:Polishing the tin foil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah right, have you seen the size of the army of chimps they've organised?

      Bloody huge.

      If they can somehow get them co-ordinated with their giant turtle and albatross divisions, there will be no stopping the buggers.

      So yes, I consider National Geographic very potentially evil.

    3. Re:Polishing the tin foil by Lovesquid · · Score: 1

      Now all they need is to give them all typewriters.

    4. Re:Polishing the tin foil by tanguyr · · Score: 1

      Now all they need is to give them all typewriters.

      Web browsers. And the address of this site.

      --
      #!/usr/bin/english
    5. Re:Polishing the tin foil by Lovesquid · · Score: 1

      That's already been done. Who do you think reads /. these days?

    6. Re:Polishing the tin foil by tanguyr · · Score: 1

      oooook?

      --
      #!/usr/bin/english
  2. Huge DNA repository... by RandoX · · Score: 0

    Hmmm. No thanks.

    1. Re:Huge DNA repository... by avandesande · · Score: 3, Funny

      What's the matter, you dont like Jenna Jamison?

      --
      love is just extroverted narcissism
  3. Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'de like the job of receiving DNA samples in the mail. That sounds healthy.

    1. Re:Great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Excuse me, but can I interest you in this flu testing kit? It only contains a little bit of lethal flu strain, I promise.

    2. Re:Great by SUB7IME · · Score: 3, Funny

      Every time someone uses their hands to touch an envelope or their tongue to seal it, they are probably leaving trace amounts of *gasp* DNA on the envelope. OH NO! There's probably DNA floating around EVERYWHERE by now!

      And what if they sneezed a little virus particle onto the letter that they wrote to you!?

    3. Re:Great by rewinn · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >There's probably DNA floating around EVERYWHERE by now!

      Human skin flakes, a.k.a. dander, is everywhere that humans are. It just flakes off and floats away.

      It's kinda creepy to think that every breathe we take may include a little bit of the person in the next cubicle. Remind me to hand out loofas at the next staff meeting.

    4. Re:Great by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      Sure me two i'll be the one tainting the samples with my spit. :D

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
  4. How many years.... by DeathFlame · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...till we make the Kwisatz Haderach?

    1. Re:How many years.... by DeathFlame · · Score: 1, Insightful

      But on a serious note, this sort of thing could happen. Goverments (not nessacarily the US one) could start forcing certain people to breed together based on their DNA and possible genetic combinations that would happen... sort of like 'natural' genetic modifications.

    2. Re:How many years.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Nazi's actualy DID that!

    3. Re:How many years.... by metlin · · Score: 1

      To quote Teal'C:

      "Many, many years, O'Neill".

    4. Re:How many years.... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, they could.

      They could also ... hmmm, I don't know, let's see ... on the basis of no actual science whatsoever, based on loony racial theories centered on things like hair color and head shape, decide that some groups are superior and others inferior, and start trying to breed the superior ones to create a race of supermen for world conquest, while putting the inferior ones in death camps. Or they could, based on loony economic theories centered on the writings of long-dead philosophers, decide that all property must be owned and distributed by the state, and kill anyone who disagrees with them. Or ... well, you get the idea. Honestly, on the list of Bad Things To Be Scared Of Governments Doing, abuse of genetic data gathered for an anthropology project is way down on the list.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    5. Re:How many years.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait didn't the nazi's do that during WW2? It was a crazy idea then and it's just as crazy an idea now.

    6. Re:How many years.... by kgruscho · · Score: 1

      Why do you assume this has never happened?

      Slavery has existing for thousands of years. Humans have clearly understood enough to selectively breed cats, dogs, and farm animals for at least as long. There are accounts of slave owners in the south putting these two together.

      And did you have some idea that marriage in monarchies was based on love? True, they chose based on politics more often than genetic traits. They certainly did try to marry the best to the best though...

      So nobody has done these together in a highly systematic program for a long enough time in recorded history.. but don't think they never thought of it.

    7. Re:How many years.... by tanguyr · · Score: 1


      The nation that had the second largest eugenics movement was the United States. Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded" from marrying.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Eugenics_and _the_state.2C_1890s-1945

      --
      #!/usr/bin/english
    8. Re:How many years.... by tijnbraun · · Score: 1

      A few years ago there was a big political upheaval about eugenics in a scandinavian country.

      I think it was Sweden... not sure..

      It was about forced sterilization that ended somewhere in the 70's.

      Europe was shocked (especially the netherlands where I'm from, because normally they see the Swedish country as a role model).

      I'm not sure if it is all true (google finds a lot if your query it for "sweden eugenics").

      But still it is quite frighting what a governement can do.

      Maybe a Swede can comment? My memory is probably not really accurate

    9. Re:How many years.... by mbsurf · · Score: 1

      i.e Double bag your tin foil hat!

    10. Re:How many years.... by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 1
      A few years ago there was a big political upheaval about eugenics in a scandinavian country.
      However, one of the upproars over cases of forced sterilisation you are referring to occurred in Sweden.

      Many Western countries used to do forced sterilisation and other "treatments" like electro-convulsive treatment, but there's not been much of a stir.

      --
      Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
  5. DNA sample by super_ogg · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can see it now, spit in an envelope and sending it to DNA department.
    PS. No horking big lugies.

    ogg

    --
    Black cat, searing pain, flames...? I must be in Heaven! - Homer Simpson
  6. Security by MoebiusPT · · Score: 1

    I assume that IBM will have a droll-prof mail box....

    1. Re:Security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I assume you mean drool proof -- most of what arrives at IBM is no doubt rather droll. :)

    2. Re:Security by Flywheels+of+Fire · · Score: 0

      yep, like Lotus Bloats and Don't Bother Too

    3. Re:Security by Frequanaut · · Score: 1

      I once had a droll professor. He didn't have a mail box though he did work at IBM...

  7. Preparing its defense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is really just an attempt by IBM to prepare a defense against SCO that shows that Wookiees do not, in fact, come from Endor.

    1. Re:Preparing its defense by mule007 · · Score: 0
      This is really just an attempt by IBM to prepare a defense against SCO that shows that Wookiees do not, in fact, come from Endor.
      I thought it was already well established that wookies come from Kashyyk.
  8. I wonder... by hcob$ · · Score: 3, Funny

    if they accecpt other swabbing techniques? The "other" dna sources would probably get a huge male bias to the data though.

    --
    Cliff Claven
    K.E.G. Party Chairman
    Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
    1. Re:I wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You failed biology or sex ed. didnt you?

    2. Re:I wonder... by killtherat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I know it's a joke, but it got me thinking about collection techniques, and whether or not it would be best to simply only collect male samples.
      Yes, in our politically correct minds, that sound sexist, but in reality, males have all the genetic information for both genders, they simply only have one copy of the X chromosome. But the statistical information from the male X chromosome should be highly correlated to the female population (every male got his X chromosome from a female, so the statistics in the populations should be highly correlated). But if you only study a male selection, you also have the option studying the Y chromosome ( Y chromosome phylogenetic map ) . And because the transmission of the Y chromosome is not governed by simple mendalian genetics, it provides an interesting method for phylogenetic reconstruction (much like mitochondrial DNA, which you only get from your mother). With female samples, you can only study the mitocondrial lines.

      Is there any reason to believe that genetic statistics are vastly different between men a women? If they are not, would the study be more effective if it only concentrated on men?

      (I'm not actually proposing to exclude women, I'm just asking questions)

    3. Re:I wonder... by pinka · · Score: 1

      "males have all the genetic information for both genders..."

      except, that is, for the genetic info in the mitochondrial DNA. I think doing phylogeny on Y as well as mitochondrial DNA are going to be crucial for our species' history

    4. Re:I wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ok and why dont you just stick the sample swab up your ass (were it seems you got your idea from) and put it in the envelope and send it right off.

    5. Re:I wonder... by Lars+Arvestad · · Score: 1
      First you point out that the Y chromosome does not follow Mendelian genetics, then that neither does mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), but you conclude that one should use male samples. Why?

      I believe the best thing would be to use both Y chromosome and mtDNA to be able to look at differences in the results in order to find weak conclusions.

      A friend of mine has worked with dog populations and has mostly used mtDNA simply because it was the only well understood sequence data for the dog. There are additional advantages with mtDNA over Y chromosome data: It is a small genome and it is relatively easy to sequence large parts of it, or even the whole thing. The best property is though that in a single cell, with only one copy of Y, there are thousands of copies of mtDNA. If you are going to have people to send you data from far away, you will face the challenge of having the DNA degrading. It is then an advantage to have that genomic redundancy in mtDNA.

      --
      Reality or nothing.
  9. Educational Television by TheBrownShow · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    members of the general public will be able to mail in their own DNA on special cheek swabs.

    You want me to voluntarily contribute my DNA so you can keep it on file somewhere? Not a chance! I watch CSI, you know!

    1. Re:Educational Television by hesiod · · Score: 2, Funny

      > I watch CSI, you know!

      I've never heard this on CSI: "We searched CODIS and the National Geographic DNA Database."

    2. Re:Educational Television by xbsd · · Score: 1

      You want me to voluntarily contribute my DNA so you can keep it on file somewhere? Not a chance! I watch CSI, you know!

      You haven't seen anything, there are people willing to pay up to $290 for a DNA test that measure customers' racial ancestry and their ancestral proportions if they are of mixed race.

      Check it out: http://www.racesci.org/in_media/raceanddna/dna_tes t_nyt_Oct2002.htm

    3. Re:Educational Television by TheBrownShow · · Score: 2, Funny

      >> I watch CSI, you know!

      >I've never heard this on CSI: "We searched CODIS and the National Geographic DNA Database."


      No? It was the same episode where they searched Slashdot for people who could take a joke. They didn't find anything.

    4. Re:Educational Television by jacksonj04 · · Score: 1

      Hey, I agree with the guy! After finding the address of the person I wrote a letter to by the digitally zoomed image in a mirror, they could look on the envelope gum for DNA and track me down in seconds.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    5. Re:Educational Television by SomeoneGotMyNick · · Score: 1

      DNA test that measure customers' racial ancestry and their ancestral proportions if they are of mixed race.

      Good... Maybe we'll nearly erase bigotry if most people discover they each have up to 10% blood from other races.

    6. Re:Educational Television by hesiod · · Score: 1

      Hehe, thankfully I can, and noticed that there are no +Funny modifiers (but a +FB one) on it, nor does it bear any resemblance to humor... Either that or it is horribly, horribly redundant. Oh well, doesn't matter.

  10. Interesting by dfn5 · · Score: 5, Funny
    I can't wait for them to discover that humans started their migration 5,000 years ago when they were chased out of eden by the dinosaurs.

    --
    -- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
    1. Re:Interesting by Cyclotron_Boy · · Score: 0

      This was modded up as Interesting, but I like to think the author was intending Funny

    2. Re:Interesting by DeathFlame · · Score: 1

      You need to be modded +0 read again (read the title of his post, then check his score...)

    3. Re: Interesting by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Funny


      > I can't wait for them to discover that humans started their migration 5,000 years ago when they were chased out of eden by the dinosaurs.

      You're on to them! They were going to use the DNA to backtrace the migration and find the flaming sword, which they will sell on ebay for a pretty penny.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    4. Re:Interesting by HrothgarReborn · · Score: 4, Funny

      Quit being silly. We left Eden almost 6,000 years ago. Uneducated clod.

    5. Re:Interesting by brontus3927 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      We left Eden almost 6,000 years ago

      If creationist beliefs of the age of the earth are believed (where the 6000 comes from) then that should be over6000 years ago. The ~6000 year number was determined by the ArchBishop Usser in 1664 that the Earth was created on Oct 26, 4004 B.C. at 9:00 am. Which is just short of 6009 years ago. Man was created on Nov 1, 4004 BC and woman two days later on Nov 3, 4004 BC. So on Nov 4, the serpent tricked Eve into eating fruit from the tree of knowledge, and Adam & Eve were subsequently banished from Eden. All 6008 years, 5 months, and 9 days ago.

    6. Re: Interesting by Verteiron · · Score: 1

      They won't find it. Aziraphale "lost" it right about the time we left.

      --
      End of lesson. You may press the button.
    7. Re:Interesting by operagost · · Score: 1

      And there still is a lot of trickery going on in the first week of November in the United States!

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    8. Re:Interesting by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      Dam thoughs snakes in the government! :D

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
    9. Re:Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait wait wait! I thought eden left us. Now you tell me man and women left eden! What on earth were they thinking jeez! :P

    10. Re:Interesting by mazarin5 · · Score: 2, Funny
      the Earth was created on Oct 26, 4004 B.C. at 9:00 am.

      So the Earth is a Scorpio? No wonder...

      --
      Fnord.
    11. Re: Interesting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was that Gargamel's cat? Mythology is so confusing!

  11. What would be interesting... by jd · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Is to compare the results with Oxford Ancestors, who perform a very similar service and have done for some years now. OA claim to be able to pinpoint a region from which you are ultimately descended on the female line, and to make a good guess of the same on the male line.


    If OA's regions flat-out contradict NG's, then one or both sets of data must be wrong. A fatal flaw exists in an assumption that has been made. Which would be valuable to know, from a scientific standpoint, even if it would hurt sales.


    If the two agree, it isn't proof that they are accurate, but provided the work was independently carried out, it raises the chances that they really are onto something.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    1. Re:What would be interesting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Actually there are a lot of organizations out there that do similar testing (familytreedna.com for one (who NG has teamed up with))... what sets NG's project apart is their ambitions of the amount of samples they expect to get with such a visible call for samples.

      The more samples = better the data.

    2. Re:What would be interesting... by grouchomarxist · · Score: 2, Interesting

      From looking briefly at the Oxford Ancestors site it looks like they and the Genographic Project use the same basic technology and methodology. Oxford appears to be more focused on European genealogy while the Genographic Project has a more worldly focus. They both believe in the same finding we're descended from a man who lived in Africa 60,000 - 80,000 years ago.

      My guess is that they'll have the same conclusions. Oxford Ancestors will probably be assisting in the project.

      By the way, Spencer Wells, head of the Genographic Project wrote a book on his conclusions so far, The Journey of Man.

  12. Man.... by Bananatree3 · · Score: 0

    when they finish all their research, and everything is all said and done, I shall be deeply disappointed if they don't at least consider Atlantis as a possible origin of man.

  13. Re:Hmm by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

    That would be like saying "Ford did buisness with Germany, how long until Fords start killing jews?"

    --
    Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
  14. Is it worth $100.00? by unk1911 · · Score: 5, Informative

    While the most useful samples will come from indiginous populations, members of the general public will be able to mail in their own DNA on special cheek swabs. for only $100.00 plus ship/handling"

    --
    http://unk1911.blogspot.com

    1. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by twiddlingbits · · Score: 3, Insightful

      $100 bucks? You gotta be kidding. I can have my dog DNA typed (same process) for only about $60 and if it is a rarer breed for FREE. And the same kind of historical genetic analysis is going on with the Canine Genome. The process of DNA typing is the same for any animal, so why do hoo-mans cost more than K-9s? Sounds like a nice revenue source for someone. With some research and some dicussion with your relatives you can trace your roots back pretty darn far. I mean who cares that your 1,000 times great grandparents were from some part of Africa? What value does this information add to society?

    2. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Well, nobody is making YOU pay, so why would you ask the general population if its worth it? If someone thinks it is, they'll do it.....

    3. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, sir... the ancestral variation in the dog genome (partly since it is the result of centuries of artificial selection) is less than that in the human genome => fewer sites needed => cheaper. There is also an economy of scale, as I believe all AKC members are required to do this testing. BTW, the fact that the rarer breeds are done for "free" should indicate to you that this cost is being subsidized, perhaps by your AKC membership fees or someone else's (hint: nothing is really free).

      As far as "talking with your relatives", you might keep in mind that a lot of people aren't lucky enough to have living ones / know who they are. At any rate, no one is being forced to take this test.
      The benefit to society of tracking ancestral DNA is partly from these genealogical projects (who are you to say that orphans don't deserve to know why they have dark skin) and partly in setting up an ancestry-sensitive statistical "baseline" for other research. For a simple example, suppose that you're looking for the genes that cause sickle-cell anemia. If you do this without any ancestral knowledge at all, you're going to get thousands of false positives simply because sickle-cell anemia is correlated to African descent and African-descendants have different genetic frequency EVERYWHERE on the genome. A lot of this genetic variation is non-selective "drift" between population and should be ignored if you're looking for coding (or "metacoding") sequences.

      Before projects like this, the only reliable way to compensate for that bias was to do tedious pedigree studies (i.e. find families wherein, up to 2-3 generations back, some members had sickle-cell and some verifiably didn't). Novel statistical methods can take into account the ancestral correlation in ANY samples whatsoever, thus magnifying the power of disease-assays by 1000-fold in some practical cases.

      I'd say that that has "value to society" insofar as anything in biotech does. There are also some applications of these ancestry-sensitive approaches in forensics/law (yes, for both the prosecution and the defense - imho, it's a pretty neutral technology which makes for better information in court all around - the dystopian "GATTACA" stuff is still sci-fi).

      If you have any further questions, post in reply. I do this stuff for a living, though it's a little hard to explain well in a /. comment.

    4. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by SuperBigGulp · · Score: 1

      Don't like the price? Get charged with felony in California and you can get your DNA sampled for free (as in nothing left to lose) .

      --
      Someday a Slashdot ID of 177180 will mean something.
    5. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by operagost · · Score: 1
      adults arrested for or charged with felony sex offenses, murder, or voluntary manslaughter (or the attempt to commit such offenses)
      Wow. They want to violate the right of innocent people to be secure in their persons (emphasis mine). They'd have to take that sample from me forcibly.
      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    6. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by boredman · · Score: 1

      The $100 price tag also keeps (most) yahoos from actually sending their dogs' DNA to this study.

    7. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      Or just peeing on the stick :P

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
    8. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by twiddlingbits · · Score: 1

      Good answer but it still doesn't explain the price difference. The process of DNA typing is the same. AKC requires DNA typing on any dog that sires more than 5 litters a year or is a parent at age 12 or more I think (I just read the rules last weekend at a show but it didn't stick). Many vet's can do this for you or have it done at a lab for $60. The "Free" test is subsidized by a dog food company as part of thier contribution to the Canine Genome Project. DNA typing in law enforcement has been around a while, its nothing new. I seem to recall it was even used in the OJ case, but was poorly described and the jury didn't buy it. I ass-u-me the diseases you are interested in are poly-genic(otherwise Mendel has covered that ground)) and we can Identify the DNA sequence(s) that codes (mis-codes?) that set of genes (which we can't do yet) what usefulness is it to know a disease runs in a population with a certain geography or such? And assuming we FIND the "mistake" in the genome what do we do about it? Far as I know genetic medicine works on the patient but does not alter the Chromonsomes which are passing on the "mistake" genes. Am I missing something here..IANABiologist?

    9. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The police can already fingerprint (not DNA fingerprint, the actual fingertip to inkpad bit) you as part of the arrest processing. The idea is that they are allowed to establish your identity, without your consent.

    10. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good questions - I don't know if you're still reading this.

      1. Dog typing being cheaper: There is no such thing as "DNA typing", which implies that you "get" the entire gene sequence in a data file. Rather, certain sections of the genome are selected (after a very expensive screening process) in advance for being highly variable between the groups of interest, and after these sections are discovered, the test becomes an "intellectual property" commodity. I know very little (practically nothing) about the dog genome specifically. However, an heuristic argument as to why it's easier to design tests (and thus cheaper to pay for the research from proceeds from the tests you buy) is that pure breeds of dogs are WAY more inbred than either Africans or Europeans. Evidence for this is in the many recessive diseases which appear in the latest pure-pure matings (again, I've only heard about this, so bear with me). By contrast, African-African and European-European marriages in humans have no/few problems with offspring (sickle cell is a special case, and a beneficial adaptation in a high-malaria environment) unless they are between 2nd-or-closer cousins. Gene lines as inbred as those in pure-breed canines have VERY striking features, thus more variance in gene loci, thus you get more "total variance" from fewer loci. The DNA test you pay for as a customer includes the cost for all of the research done in designing the test. The obvious /. analogy is software - yes, you can copy the test pretty easily once someone has done the legwork, but Windows or Linux didn't appear magically. (as an aside, I work for a company which performs a similar but more powerful human-origins test - it's over $200 and trust me that this is a VERY reasonable price and basically pays for operating costs of the lab.)

      2. When you get to the actual coding sites for the disease, practically all diseases are polygenic since the proteins are so complicated. Although the concepts of genetics are very thoroughly explained in Mendelian framework, the "holy grail" of designing custom drugs for an individual based on their actual functioning genetics at the lowest level is FAR, FAR more complicated.

      3. As far as the value of knowing ancestral correlations of disease, I think that I explained that fairly clearly. Keep in mind that "genetic medicine" will not for a long time involve directly modifying the genome of the patient, but rather inferring from the genome which proteins are expressed. The production and activity of these proteins can then be increased or decreased by traditional pharmacology. In other words, the "mistake" gene will still be there, but if we know that the mistake gene is present in some group and that it produces the bad protein X, we know to give a medicine (if possible) that inhibits the production of protein X and to avoid giving medicines which might increase the production of protein X. (for a real-world example, some cholesterol drugs are much more dangerous for Africans than for Europeans).

      BTW, the defense (as I understand it) in the OJ case revolved around the idea that ancestral variation could cause a DNA-identification test developed to identify European to be less effective in Africans. A (bad) analogy with a fingerprint test would be like this: suppose that the "whorl" fingerprint occurs in 0.0001% of Europeans (I'm making this up of course). If a European has a whorl print and a whorl print is found at a crime, this might be considered significant evidence against them. However, in Africans the whorl print might occur 50% of the time. If the whorl print is found at a crime, its "evidentiary power" is much stronger against a European than an African. The OJ defense applied to this scenario would be that no one bothered to find out how frequent the whorl is for Africans and thus the fingerprint may or may not be informative and should be discarded since there is reasonable doubt about the test validity.

    11. Re:Is it worth $100.00? by butterwise · · Score: 1

      Does anyone have $100 they can lend me? Better yet, please make a donation.

      --
      If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
  15. Re:Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh, PUHLEEEZE. Want to cite some actual _facts_ here? Given the number of products IBM produced during WWII that were directly involved in aiding the war effort, exactly _how_ were they "one of hte biggest supporters of Germany"????

  16. Cool. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Adam and Eve will spew out lots of kids. The ancestors die out in the flood years later as Noah and his family have to restart the human race and repopulate the planet with the pair of every 10 Million species he had on the Ark.

    Yay!

  17. Sounds great by brontus3927 · · Score: 1

    This sounds like a really good idea. People who volunteer even get an anonymous password to the website to see how their ancestors migrated to their current location. Too bad they will be testing only indigenous peoples. European-based mutts such as myself don't get to participate.

    1. Re:Sounds great by Johnboi+Waltune · · Score: 1
      I just RTFA, and it says:

      "Members of the public will be able to buy a kit that contains all the material needed to add their genetic information to the database."

      I think they are most interested in indigenous people, but they can get good information from any genetic sample, no matter how shuffled the donor's genes are. My genotype is mostly European, but I have some inheritable characteristics that suggest at least one of my ancestors was from some other part of the world. I'd like to find out if that's true.

      --
      "The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
    2. Re:Sounds great by MrKahuna · · Score: 0

      Hmmm Jonboi, Papa Sasquatch trying to get out of the paternity suit again?

    3. Re:Sounds great by EvilTwinSkippy · · Score: 1
      I know how my ancestors migrated.

      It was called a boat.

      --
      "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
      --Dr.W.Edwards Deming
  18. Warning! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    These cheek swabs are not oral! You have been warned.

    1. Re:Warning! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What! You mean i gotta stick it up my ass! Forget it ain't doing it. Although on the other hand.......

  19. Interesting stuff by ites · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Forget all the "big brother" comments.

    There have been some studies of human DNA and these have often produced very interesting results, showing accurately how people migrated across the globe.

    The problem up to now is that these have been relatively small studies confined to specific issues - such as the colonisation of the Pacific islands, which happened from Indonesia, not South America (sorry, Thor).

    A large-scale analysis of human DNA that includes Africa - the richest mix of DNA by far - will be very, very interesting.

    For example, there are theories that modern Africans are largely descended from relatively recent immigrants from the Indian Ocean basin who recolonised from the East coast and mixed with aboriginal Africans - such as the Khoi and San - eventually pushing these into the margins.

    Good stuff.

    --
    Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
    1. Re:Interesting stuff by jotok · · Score: 1

      I think assessments of accuracy (vice precision) are made after taking on faith certain philosophical pillars of empirical science...assuming you accept how science is done, then you can perform an analysis of your experiment and its results to determine how likely you are to have made some humongous error, or if in fact it is "sound" (meaning it plays by the rules we already all agree upon).

    2. Re:Interesting stuff by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      Well i for one welcome our DNA collecting Gene tracing overlords.

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
    3. Re:Interesting stuff by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 1
      Some earlier work almost mentioned at the bottom of the article showed some really interesting patterns regarding the movement of alleles. The The history and geography of human genes byL. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza (1994) took samples from people around the world from smaller areas and that had been at least three generations in that area. One interesting observation is that the separate genes seem to travel separately. In many cases you can see that the distribution pattern of certain alleles follow trade routes, old political boundaries, linguistic regions and even archaelogical trends.

      However, the post-WWII generation in most countries has moved so much that these studies are hard to do at least as far as specific subpopulations go.

      --
      Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
    4. Re:Interesting stuff by KillerDeathRobot · · Score: 1

      Sure, I'm just saying that it is jarring to me for someone to say what amounts to "we've done this study and it's really accurate because, well we've done the study." I don't disagree that the study can be the most accurate thing we've got and very possibly even is quite accurate, though. I don't know why I got modded troll for that.

      --
      Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
  20. Incremental Knowledge by 4of12 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The African exodus I think is pretty well understood. Although, there seems to have been multiple exodi (?) of hominid species that did not survive in the long term (such as the Neanderthal in Europe).

    From what I understand, the story gets harder to piece together in the last part of the European migrations from Central Asia.

    A couple of interesting TV shows on this were The Real Eve (which does the mitochondrial trace through maternal ancestral lines), and Journey of Man, which relates to the more difficult task of tracing mutations in the Y chromosome handed done through paternal lines.

    One of the earlier pioneers in the field, Brian Sykes of Oxford, started up a side business where you can send swabs to obtain information about maternal and paternal markers in your genetic makeup (IIRC, about US$225).

    A few years ago I got the analysis done and sent the results back to Ma 'n Pa for Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts.

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
    1. Re:Incremental Knowledge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not surprisingly, the team lead of this new project is Spencer Wells, who did Journey of Man.

  21. Conspiracy Senses tingling... by Filmwatcher888 · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    So IBM, a HUGE world-wide conglomerate, wants a DNA sample from everyone ion the planet?

    I can see now that all the puzzle pieces fit: their involment with the Nazis, Building large supercomputers, Backing the communist "open-source" movement, and now a DNA database.

    Next we'll discover that IBM has discovered Thule and wants to open "new" corporate offices there.

    1. Re:Conspiracy Senses tingling... by monkeyserver.com · · Score: 0, Flamebait
      This is a little more scary than you think. I'm being serious, IBM played a HUGE part in the holocaust. Using their card sorters they helped to map out who was racially jewish (as well as other 'undesireables'). Check out this book and the corresponding website . a little more than just scary.

      Obviously I don't have too many fears about national geographic, but it's better to know about IBM's past, even if they won't own up to it. BTW, the book is great, I recommend the audio version, the author has an endearing lisp :).

      --
      http://monkeyserver.com --- weeeeee
    2. Re:Conspiracy Senses tingling... by City+Wok · · Score: 1

      Perhaps this will advance their research into effective biometric security systems.

    3. Re:Conspiracy Senses tingling... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, sure - like IBM is *one guy*. So their German offices cooperated with the Nazis. Can't the same be said of the ENTIRE FUCKING GERMAN POPULATION?

      Geezuz freaking crimimey.

      Their IBM offices were making, among other things, machine guns to KILL the Nazis. This is cooperation?

    4. Re:Conspiracy Senses tingling... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      I already posted the response below in another section of this thread, but since your innacurate claims are getting so much notice, here it goes again.

      So the totalitarian regime in power in Germany from 1933 to 1945 used IBM equipment. They also used products from lots of other companies that exist today, does that make them all evil accomplices? From IBM's statement about this book,

      http://www-1.ibm.com/press/PressServletForm.wss? Me nuChoice=pressreleases&TemplateName=ShowPressRelea seTemplate&SelectString=t1.docunid=1388&TableName= DataheadApplicationClass&SESSIONKEY=any&WindowTitl e=Press+Release [ibm.com]

      "It has been known for decades that the Nazis used Hollerith equipment and that IBM's German subsidiary during the 1930s -- Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen GmbH (Dehomag) -- supplied Hollerith equipment. As with hundreds of foreign-owned companies that did business in Germany at that time, Dehomag came under the control of Nazi authorities prior to and during World War II. It is also widely known that Thomas J. Watson, Sr., received and subsequently repudiated and returned a medal presented to him by the German government for his role in global economic relations."

      and a follow-up statement from 2002, a year later:

      http://www-1.ibm.com/press/PressServletForm.wss? Me nuChoice=all&TemplateName=ShowToPrint&SelectString =t1.docunid=828&TableName=DataheadApplicationClass &SESSIONKEY=any&WindowTitle=Press+Release&STATUS=p ublish&ShowContacts=$ShowContacts$ [ibm.com]

      Now let me ask you this: would you buy a vehicle from Volkswagen or Mercedes-Benz? Both were used extensively by the Third Reich. Does that mean we should all hate and boycott these companies 60+ years later?

      After all, the original Volkswagen was designed by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche for use in the Sahara Desert by the German Africakorp. Hitler's army didn't just buy the vehicles off the shelf. Dr. Porsche was specifically instructed by them to design an air-cooled vehicle for the military.

      Times change, people learn. Don't try to make everyone guilty by association, especially when it's so tenuous.

      And for the record I'm proud to work for IBM.

    5. Re:Conspiracy Senses tingling... by monkeyserver.com · · Score: 1

      According to the author the nazi's didn't just use IBM machines, and IBM didn't just do what they were told. IBM went out of there way to provide services, and ANTICIPATE the needs of the nazis. They were trying to corner the market in what the nazis need to kill. There was more to this than just following orders.

      Comparing IBM to VW is just silly, there is a vast difference between the two. VW didn't take a look at how the deathcamps were being run and try to make a car that would allow the germans to exterminate jews and get better gas mileage. That's what Dehomag did, and according to this book, they were well supported by Watson. You paint a great picture of watson, returning his medal. But the author presents the opposite picture. He puts forth that the medal was returned under pressure from public opinion, not his own desire to do good.

      Not all the info may be true, much is contested. But don't attempt to put me down because you want to believe that IBM did no evil. The claims are made that nazis didn't just use IBM machines, they used IBM services, and IBM was Globally supportive of their efforts.

      Just wondering where I suggested that we boycott (I own a thinkpad), or that IBM hasn't changed. Part of that post was in jest, but it was also attempting to be informative. We have to be wary of big companies that may be trying to do good, but if put in a bad situation can be harmful.

      I dunno man, just calm down ;)

      --
      http://monkeyserver.com --- weeeeee
  22. Fun with DNA samples by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'd like too see their reaction if someone sent them the DNA of a chimpanzee... Given the similarity between the two DNAs, it might take them them a while to figure that one out...

    1. Re:Fun with DNA samples by astro-g · · Score: 1

      Im reasonably certain they would notice fairly quickly.
      that 99+% similarity, is mostly saying 'MAMMAL'

      All of the interesting bits that they are looking at are in the human part.

    2. Re:Fun with DNA samples by AndersOSU · · Score: 1

      I bet they wouldn't notice until they begin phase 2.

      the creation of a superman clone army using the finest specimens of the worlds population

    3. Re:Fun with DNA samples by operagost · · Score: 1

      The extra chromosones would tip them off.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    4. Re:Fun with DNA samples by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      Chimpanzee's have more chromozones than humans so they'd figure it out pretty quickly. Humans have 36 chromozones Chimpanzee's have 38 chromozones. Can't mistake that.

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
    5. Re:Fun with DNA samples by h8macs · · Score: 1

      I thought we had 46!?
      http://www.accessexcellence.org/RC/VL/GG/hum an.htm l

      --
      :-( --- argh. Despair, I owe again. :-b
    6. Re:Fun with DNA samples by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd like too see their reaction if someone sent them the DNA of a chimpanzee... Given the similarity between the two DNAs, it might take them them a while to figure that one out...

      -- Liberals, please insert your bad jokes about George W. Bush here. --

  23. Re:Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That must explain all the US Army rifles that were made by the International Business Machines Company.

  24. I wonder what it will cost? by vrimj · · Score: 1
    It looks like non-native populations can contribute only thorugh buying an testing kit and the samples will be sent in ananomously.
    Kits sold to the public contain cheek swabs used to scrape the inside of the mouth for a DNA sample. The swabs can then be mailed to a central laboratory for analysis. After four to six weeks, the results of the analysis will appear on the website behind an anonymous password contained in the kit.
    I would do this, but their is a low limit to how much I would pay for it. It seems like the use is going to be pure population biology
    we are very clear about not trying to exploit their genetic diversity for medical uses
    and I happen to like population biology.
    1. Re:I wonder what it will cost? by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 1

      The cost to IBM employees, according to an e-mail I received this morning, is $77. I'm going to do it, to find out where all the MuthaFucka's in my family came from.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    2. Re:I wonder what it will cost? by MrKahuna · · Score: 0

      In your case, it sounds like you have to look no further than your brother? (Starts humming I'm my own Grandpa)

    3. Re:I wonder what it will cost? by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 1

      I could have saved my $77 if I had just known that song. My DNA is destined to be culled from the dataset as it would both be an outlier and an in-lay-er at the same time.

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
  25. What?!?!?! by Belial6 · · Score: 1

    "While the most useful samples will come from indiginous populations, members of the general public will be able to mail in their own DNA on special cheek swabs."

    So, they want people who immigrated a long time ago, and are not really interested in newer immigration? Because ancestrial migration doesn't count unless your the first to get there? This makes absolutly no sense what so ever.

    1. Re:What?!?!?! by rewinn · · Score: 1

      Perhaps it's because migrations in historical times are somewhat documented via, uh, historical records

    2. Re:What?!?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, they want people who immigrated a long time ago, and are not really interested in newer immigration? Because ancestrial migration doesn't count unless your the first to get there? This makes absolutly no sense what so ever.

      Sure it makes sense. We already know a ton about migrations that have happened recently (last few thousand years). That's all part of recorded history. DNA analysis doesn't add that much information to recorded history. DNA analysis does tell you about what happened in the thousands if years *before* recorded history. If we want to learn about migrations of human populations 10 or 100 thousand years ago, it makes sense to look at aboriginal populations, rather than people who just got off the boat yesterday, relatively speaking.

    3. Re:What?!?!?! by Belial6 · · Score: 1

      A) When the indians settled North America, they did not create "Historical Records" to let us know how and when they did it. When humans first migrated to Europe, they did not write "Historical Records". What we know about these events we have pieced together. So, no, migrations in historical times are NOT well documented with historical records.

      B) Isn't the point of the research to find out the what/when/where of human migration, WITHOUT taking the word of some questionable old stories?

    4. Re:What?!?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Because ancestrial migration doesn't count unless your the first to get there?

      This makes perfect sense to me. For as long as I can remember my mother has been stating, with various degrees of passion, that Britain belongs to the Welsh and the English (such as my father, my brother and myself) are johnny-come-lately's who should pack up their bags and go back to whatever Germanic-Scandinavian-Norman swamp they come from.

      England-Wales rugby matches were wildly exciting telly in our house.

    5. Re:What?!?!?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      When the indians settled North America, they did not create "Historical Records"

      What do you mean? To America, most Indians came on an H-1 visa. All petitions and Notices of Actions must be stored in American databases. To Canada, most have immigrated legally and therefore that too is documented.

    6. Re:What?!?!?! by rewinn · · Score: 1

      Non sequitur.

      As you state and I implied, human migrations to the Americas that occurred before there were historical records of the migrations are not well documented with historical records. Not only is that tautologically, it makes the case in favor of focussing the study on indigenous Americans, because (if the point of the research is to learn about human migrations) it makes sense to devote the most resources to the times about which the least is known: pre-historical migrations.

      Far less new information would be derived from devoting the same amount of effort to studying historical migrations (more precisely: migrations for which we have historical records). For example, the Irish Potato famine migrations to the USA are heavily documented in Ellis Island records; DNA studies might uncover interesting errors in the documentation but doesn't seem likely to reveal that the Irish immigrants actually came from France. Of course, if funds are unlimited, it would be interesting to validate those records via DNA, but we live in a world of limited resources.

    7. Re:What?!?!?! by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah listen to the NOMAD probe he should know his father was James T Kirk....... No wait that was James Roy Kirk. Sorry never mind.

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
  26. Is this really science??? by woodsrunner · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Firstly, the contention that human's originated from Africa is highly debatable.

    Secondly, according to their map, the first man was Adam!? This sounds more like Sunday School rather than science.

    Lastly, if they are trying to trace migrations, and they already have their map made up will they be fitting their data to their preconceived notions?

    1. Re:Is this really science??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "the contention that humans originated from Africa is highly debatable.". is it? I've never heard that challenged or questioned (not by serious scientists anyway). do you have any more info on that?

    2. Re:Is this really science??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Africa as a starting point is relatively unquestioned. Even theories which point to reverse migration back into Africa still acknowledge it as the point of origin.

      The first man being "Adam" is a geneticist convention. Given that the Y-chromosome remains unaltered during reproduction aside from mutation and retrovirus based alterations, and the differences in modern day Y-chromosomes are extremely small within humanity, but (relatively speaking) extremely large with other primates, there have been several theories pointing to either one, or a very small number of males that acted as the progenitors for modern day humans.

      For the last, those maps already exist, based on years of study, they are probably using them as a basis for study to confirm or refute specific branches. It's known as a hypothesis, scientists use them occasionally. ;-)

      -ShadowRanger

    3. Re:Is this really science??? by kebes · · Score: 4, Informative

      For the recrod, this isn't the first study of human migratory patterns. Many migration routes are now well established, whereas others are in debate and should be studied further. This study will help establish better timelines, settle controversies, and maybe even provide fresh theories to be tested. They are not "fitting data to preconceived notions" just because they are using the current body of knowledge as a starting point for their study.

      AFAIK the African origins of humankind are fairly well established. The fact that genetic anthropologists decided to call the oldest known common male ancestor "adam" and the oldest female one "eve" just shows that they have a sense of humour and history, not that what they do is quackery.

      So, yes, it is science.

    4. Re:Is this really science??? by AndersOSU · · Score: 1

      Wow, yes its science

      First the contention that humans originated in Africa is only slightly debatable. The majority of reputable evidence clearly points to Africa as the site of the original man

      Second the first man is referred to as Adam because what else would you call him? Homo Alpha? The name Adam is synonymous with the first man in western culture so there is no reason that they shouldn't use it.

      Third if you had glanced at the article you would have seen that while there is sufficient data to present human migration in broad strokes, it is insufficient to determine finer details of population movement. An example from the article is tracing the genetic trail of Alexander the Great's, army.

    5. Re:Is this really science??? by krich · · Score: 2, Informative

      > Firstly, the contention that human's originated
      > from Africa is highly debatable.


      Uh, no... it's not. Too much evidence from too many disparate fields. Most Creationists still aren't ready to accept it, but I wouldn't call that much of a debate. Linguistics, archeology, paleontology, genetics, etc... all point to the widely established theory that Africa is the orginial home of the hominids, we sapiens included.

    6. Re:Is this really science??? by brontus3927 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Acording to a program on the Discovery Channel, about 60,000 years ago, the population of homo sapiens sapiens was reduced to ~2000. The current hypothesis is that the supervolcano under Yellowstone erupted and caused world-wide havoc on the ecosystem causing mass die-offs in populations. It would be noted that around that time, the North American Interior Seaway is believed to have broken through (possibly because of the eruption) the land seperating it from the Atlantic Ocean. This breka would have caused world sea level to rise about 10 meters. In flat lying areas such as the middle east (considered the birthlace of civilization) this would have caused floods hundreds of miles inland. Correlates roughly to the story of Noah (world gets flooded and only a handful of people left to repopulate the Earth)

    7. Re:Is this really science??? by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes uhuh your sales pitch has convinced me i shall buy your product and or service so how much?

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
    8. Re:Is this really science??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Random drive by insulting Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack! Quack!

    9. Re:Is this really science??? by 4of12 · · Score: 2, Informative

      about 60,000 years ago, the population of homo sapiens sapiens was reduced to ~2000. The current hypothesis is that the supervolcano under Yellowstone erupted and caused world-wide havoc on the ecosystem causing mass die-offs in populations.

      Yes, about 74,000 years ago.

      Yes, there is a supervolcano under Yellowstone. And it could blow anytime on a geological time scale. But it hasn't erupted for about 600,000 years.

      The Toba supervolcano in Indonesia is deemed responsible for the genetic bottleneck observed in human DNA, IIRC.

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
    10. Re:Is this really science??? by brontus3927 · · Score: 1

      Yes, your correct. I'm guilty of mixing up my Discovery Channel shows. Thanks for fixing my mistake

    11. Re:Is this really science??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      This breka would have caused world sea level to rise about 10 meters. In flat lying areas such as the middle east (considered the birthlace of civilization) this would have caused floods hundreds of miles inland. Correlates roughly to the story of Noah

      I've got a hazy memory of a TV documentary in which a geologist linked the Flood legend to the birth of the Black Sea when a rock formation collapsed leaving what is now the entry straits.

    12. Re:Is this really science??? by Bloke+down+the+pub · · Score: 0

      I've heard similar theories, sometimes with even lower numbers. I tnded t discount them, on the grounds that once a population gets below a certain size, you'd see inbreeding effects, mental retardation and suchlike. And then I looked around me...

      --
      It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
  27. How'd that work... by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 2, Funny
    A few years ago I got the analysis done and sent the results back to Ma 'n Pa for Mother's Day and Father's Day gifts.

    ...when it turned out your paternal line came from the mailman? ;)

    1. Re:How'd that work... by radtea · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You laugh, but it's fairly well-established that ~10% of babies are fathered by someone other than their mother's socially pair-bonded mate.

      Here is an extensive summary of studies. As the summary suggests, rates of misattributed paternity vary widely, from about 1% in some areas to over 20% in others, mostly depending on social/economic status. However, the fact is, most of us are almost certain to have some interlopers in our heritage--we are all mongrels under the skin!

      --Tom

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    2. Re:How'd that work... by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 1
      You laugh, but it's fairly well-established that ~10% of babies are fathered by someone other than their mother's socially pair-bonded mate.

      Reminds me of "Don't be a Menace to South Central..." where some old man is hassling a kid, and the kid says "You aren't my daddy!....Are you?"

      :)

    3. Re:How'd that work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey didn't you read the sign "No mongrels allowed"

    4. Re:How'd that work... by 4of12 · · Score: 1

      Something like 6% of males in China share a common Y chromosome that dates back about 600-700 years. The reasoning is Genghis Khan and the customs of the times. [I think something like this existed in West Asian cultures, too, that kings had some right to bed any woman of the realm.]

      Perhaps Wilt Chamberlain's much rumoured progeny will be similarly noticed a century from now.

      --
      "Provided by the management for your protection."
    5. Re:How'd that work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps Wilt Chamberlain's much rumoured progeny will be similarly noticed a century from now.

      That's nothing. Just imagine what a [sufficiently unprincipled] sperm bank scientist could accomplish...

  28. I think this would be a VERY difficult study by erroneus · · Score: 1

    Let's cast asside the paranoia for a moment and glance at the liklihood that they will be able to build some amount of evidence to prove what they are setting out to prove. The world has become much smaller in the last couple of hundred years. People are less often living in their ancestoral regions and it's becoming more and more obfustated by the second.

    And I suppose we should pretty much exclude all but "native americans" from any studies related to the new world. (The Americas) I think this study will just turn out to be a colossal waste of time and money. Who is paying for this?

    1. Re:I think this would be a VERY difficult study by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are (with your $100 sample)

  29. Re:Of the Devil by hesiod · · Score: 1

    > I truly do not understand it, can somebody explain?

    So you are trying to keep all of us ignorant because you wish to remain ignorant and you don't understand??? The guy (you?) said that looking at the way God created the world is "spitting in his face." That's promoting ignorance.

  30. Our Complex History by J05H · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is an interesting project, it will help to fill in the holes in the knowledge of our origins. Most cultures have legends of the journeys that led to settling a new home, with this research we will see much more clearly who went where,

    Here is the map I want to see more fully realized:

    http://www.mitomap.org/WorldMigrations.pdf

    There are interesting legends and recent research that Genographic project might help: were there Austronesian ("aborigine") migrations across the Pacific 40,000 years ago? Are modern Tibetans and Athapaskan speakers (Navaho) related through the so-called Amur River Culture? When and how often have the "X" haplogroups travelled to America, and were these only Neolithic migrations or did they occur throughout the Bronze and Iron ages? Finally, how much back-migration occured from the Americas to the Old World continents? I'm not the one to research it, but a correlation between Am-Indian oral lore and this geno-map could make for an interesting thesis.

    My guess is that the project will show far more migration than previously expected - humans are nothing if not mobile.

    josh

    --
    gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
  31. Re:Of the Devil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think that you will find it's just persecution of religion in general.

    Call it the mocking of a now unpopular theory due to a significant lack of evidence towards its validation.

  32. Cheeky Web Developers use DNA to migrate ... by rewinn · · Score: 2, Funny

    ... from platform to platform.

    But I can't see why the National Geographic cares.

  33. historical linguistics by lovebyte · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just a thought: Linking this DNA study to studies in historical linguistics could give interesting results. There must be some correlation between people's DNA and the language they use.

    --

    I'll do it for cheesy poofs.

    1. Re:historical linguistics by Megasphaera+Elsdenii · · Score: 1

      Has been quite a while ago already by
      Cavalli-Sforza.

      Here 's a link

    2. Re:historical linguistics by jaoswald · · Score: 1

      Yes, that would be an interesting idea. However, people learn (and evolve) new languages much more quickly than they acquire new DNA.

      You don't need to mix genetic material to find it necessary to learn and teach your children some other populations' language. Creoles are a clear sign that languages mix faster than DNA does.

      Trade patterns and migration patterns change languages much more quickly than immigration and inter-breeding mix populations.

    3. Re:historical linguistics by grouchomarxist · · Score: 1

      If you look at the article you'll see that historical linguists are involved in the project. Their research has been involved with similar studies in the past.

      Of course, genetics != language so there is always going to be a gap between the different fields. It is important to keep the genetic results independent of the linguistic results initially and only integrate them later in the research.

    4. Re:historical linguistics by SEE · · Score: 1

      Must?

      Winson Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Benjamin Disraeli, Gandhi, Said Musa, and Cesar Chavez walk into a bar . . .

  34. "IBM and the Holocaust" by Merdalors · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Apparently you have never heard of the book "IBM and the Holocaust" (http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/)

    --
    Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
    1. Re:"IBM and the Holocaust" by Merdalors · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Apparently you can't put parens around a URL: http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/

      --
      Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
    2. Re:"IBM and the Holocaust" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently you have never heard of the book "IBM and the Holocaust"

      So the totalitarian regime in power in Germany from 1933 to 1945 used IBM equipment. They also used products from lots of other companies that exist today, does that make them all evil accomplices? From IBM's statement about this book,

      http://www-1.ibm.com/press/PressServletForm.wss?Me nuChoice=pressreleases&TemplateName=ShowPressRelea seTemplate&SelectString=t1.docunid=1388&TableName= DataheadApplicationClass&SESSIONKEY=any&WindowTitl e=Press+Release

      "It has been known for decades that the Nazis used Hollerith equipment and that IBM's German subsidiary during the 1930s -- Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen GmbH (Dehomag) -- supplied Hollerith equipment. As with hundreds of foreign-owned companies that did business in Germany at that time, Dehomag came under the control of Nazi authorities prior to and during World War II. It is also widely known that Thomas J. Watson, Sr., received and subsequently repudiated and returned a medal presented to him by the German government for his role in global economic relations."

      and a follow-up statement from 2002, a year later:

      http://www-1.ibm.com/press/PressServletForm.wss?Me nuChoice=all&TemplateName=ShowToPrint&SelectString =t1.docunid=828&TableName=DataheadApplicationClass &SESSIONKEY=any&WindowTitle=Press+Release&STATUS=p ublish&ShowContacts=$ShowContacts$

      Now let me ask you this: would you buy a vehicle from Volkswagen or Mercedes-Benz? Both were used extensively by the Third Reich. Does that mean we should all hate and boycott these companies 60+ years later?

      After all, the original Volkswagen was designed by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche for use in the Sahara Desert by the German Africakorp. Hitler's army didn't just buy the vehicles off the shelf. Dr. Porsche was specifically instructed by them to design an air-cooled vehicle for the military.

      Times change, people learn. Don't try to make everyone guilty by association, especially when it's so tenuous.

      And for the record I'm proud to work for IBM.

  35. Re:Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    *That would be like saying "Ford did buisness with Germany, how long until Fords start killing jews?"*

    if he(Ford) had gotten away with it.. probably 1920's.

  36. North and South America by sellin'papes · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I think some of the most interesting data will come out of studying migration of peoples into the americas.

    It is generally agreed that the first humans arrived in the americas around 25-30,000 years ago but their migration from that point on is a mystery.

    One belief is that they migrated south through a northern passage as the polar ice-caps melted. Another is that they migrated down the west coast from the north pole to south America befoer the ice-caps melted. There is a third (more controversial) theory that they migrated by boat from africa and then moved north up the continent.

    It will be interesting to see what conclusions are drawn.

    --
    This is my last post.
    [6th Estate]
    1. Re:North and South America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think some of the most interesting data will come out of studying migration of peoples into the americas.

      Yeah because unknown migration patterns in the rest of the world are much less interesting. You insensitive clod!

    2. Re:North and South America by grouchomarxist · · Score: 1

      If you look at the map at the end of the article you'll see that the conclusions so far are that native Amercians came to the Americas through two different paths, both from Asia. An earlier group came on a costal path while a later group took a more northernly route. There is no evidence that people came directly from Africa to the Americas.

    3. Re:North and South America by sellin'papes · · Score: 1

      The map at the end of the article is problematic. 1) the article infers that results will be released within 4 two 6 weeks. How could they have a map already? 2) the article describes problems they are currently having in collecting data. 3) the map only shows directional arrows and no conclusions can be made about which arrow arrived in the americas earlier.

      --
      This is my last post.
      [6th Estate]
    4. Re:North and South America by grouchomarxist · · Score: 1

      The research has been going on for years already. This is a new project to further the research that has been done. Spencer Wells, the head of the project, wrote a book about his work The Journey of Man.

  37. Re:Of the Devil by Zebadias · · Score: 1

    What punishment would suffice to appease?

  38. /. editor glitch by Chris+Kamel · · Score: 2, Informative

    will come from indigenous populations

    --
    The following statement is true
    The preceding statement is false
  39. Re:Hmm by jcr · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    How many Jews bought Ford Pintos or SUVs with exploding tires?

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  40. It has to be said. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    public will be able to mail in their own DNA on special cheek swabs.

    If crumpled up tissues count as these cheeked swabs then I can meet their 100,000 quota by tonight.

    Don't worry, I wont have to change any of my usual plans.

  41. DNA Study by Starraisin1 · · Score: 1

    Maybe they could use this study to help cure diseases or maybe better yet help the masses of over a billion people in poverty.

    1. Re:DNA Study by Meumeu · · Score: 1

      Sure! they can fight world poverty with DNA, but just a question: how ?

    2. Re:DNA Study by Starraisin1 · · Score: 1

      To study the DNA of 100,000 people would require a very large undertaking. The same recources could used to hit birds with one stone so to speak.

    3. Re:DNA Study by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      Well they could feed them the swab sticks for one. Mmmm that tasty DNA! Just like mama used to make:)

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
  42. Other research by kbahey · · Score: 4, Informative

    Some research on this was done before.

    There was also this fellow, British I think, who did a documentary about early human migration using genetics, he was on TV (PBS?) a few years back. Nice work. He showed that there were two waves out of Africa. One hugged the coastline reaching India then all the way to Australia, and another going to central Asia, then staying there for a while, and then a branch going west to Europe, and another going east to Siberia, Beringia, and eventually to the Americans. Can't remember his name. Rats!

    Some other resources:

    Scientists trace human migration using DNA.

    Wikipedia article on Human migration.

    Stephen Oppenheimer did a genetic map.

    Kurgan Genetics.

    Neanderthaals and mtDNA

    1. Re:Other research by grouchomarxist · · Score: 1

      Yes, he's the one leading the Genographic project.

      The goal of the new research is to answer questions left unanswered by the previous research.

    2. Re:Other research by SecretSqrl · · Score: 0

      Also checkout this audio from Spencer Wells on ITConversations

      Audio of Presentation by Spencer Wells at Pop!Tech 2004

      This site is great - free podcasts on interesting topics.

  43. Re:Hmm by dcsmith · · Score: 1
    Whjile I agree that the parent poster is wearing a 7 3/8 tinfoil hat, he didn't just pull the IBM-Nazi connection out of his ass. Among other sources, the Washington Post reported on this in 2001.

    No, I don't think this means that they were an evil company in the late 30s - early 40s, but I do think it indicates that they were a big business. Global market, don't really care how you use our products - just buy them.

    --
    This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
  44. What's indigenous? by Silver+Sloth · · Score: 3, Insightful

    At the end of the day, unless you live in central Africa, and possibly not then, no one is truly indegenous. We're all immigrants at some point or another.

    OK, I know I'm nitpicking. As far as the spread of mankind etc. then the first arrivals are the indigenous population. Here in the west of Europe peoples have been coming ad going for several thousend years. Exactly who's indigenous is very complex.

    --
    init 11 - for when you need that edge.
    1. Re:What's indigenous? by rewinn · · Score: 1

      The first question should be: "For what purpose do we want to know what 'indigenous' means?"

      If what we are looking for is to sort out migration patterns, land claims, the ownership of ancestorial remains (e.g. Kennewick Man) and the like, then one useful definition of 'indigenous' is "the people in a particular place when history started being recorded in or of that place."

      Once history starts being recorded, we can keep track of land ownership changes, human migrations, etc via those records (...acknowledging recording flaws of course ... .) For the time before records, then this idea of comparing human DNA may provide the best available evidence.

      (Anglo-American common law uses a similar concept in its phrase "time immemorial".)

    2. Re:What's indigenous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which is why the term "indigenous" is usually used to mean "from the beginning of recorded history," and not "from the beginning of time."

    3. Re:What's indigenous? by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      At the end of the day, unless you live in central Africa, and possibly not then, no one is truly indegenous. We're all immigrants at some point or another.

      Hence the point of tracing the comings and goings with DNA.
      I'd guess "indigenous" means "grandma can't remember any mention of immigrating" or something like it. As opposed to "I remember the old country..."

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    4. Re:What's indigenous? by jc42 · · Score: 1

      OK, I know I'm nitpicking. ... Exactly who's indigenous is very complex.

      Yeah, especially when you consider us mongrels. Like maybe 20% of the American population, I'm partly "indigenous", 1/8 Ojibwa. The rest of my ancestors are from all over Europe. So maybe I'm 1/8 "indigene" and 7/8 "invader".

      OTOH, my parents migrated 2000 miles from the Ojibwa area (western Great Lakes) to the West Coast, where I was born. So maybe I'm 100% "invader" from a Chinook or Kwakiutl viewpoint. And now I live 3000 miles from there (but still in the same country ;-).

      It's probably more useful to dismiss such social/political terms as empty of meaning, and just work out the details of the migrations of ancestors. We'll all turn out to be mongrels, even the ones still living in the ancestral homeland of 60K years ago.

      We already know enough to dismiss most of the racial and ethnic classifications as biologically useless. That in itself has social and political uses. As we pin down more and more of the details, it's likely that the usual simpleminded classifications will be shown even less meaningful than they seem now. This can only be bad news for the bigots and racists amongst us.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    5. Re:What's indigenous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh but who's recorded history; the current land owners ?

  45. DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by daperdan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Isn't it amazing that we can convict a suspect of murder with a 99.99% certainty using DNA evidence but the religious reject it if it goes against their beliefs.

    The best case of DNA invalidating a religion is Mormonism. The founder of Mormonism claimed to have translated a book that was written by a people that migrated from the Middle East to the American continent. He claimed that these immigrants were the "priciple ancestors" of the modern day American Indian.

    Well it turns out that DNA proves what science has been saying for years. The American Indian is of Asiatic decent. Any other examples of DNA destroying a religion?

    1. Re:DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sadly when you have people being so brainwashed they believe in people walking on water, rising from the dead, etc... it will take more than DNA evidence to destroy a religion.

    2. Re:DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Isn't it amazing that we can convict a suspect of murder with a 99.99% certainty using DNA evidence but the religious reject it if it goes against their beliefs.

      DNA evidence suggests the possibility of a single
      "mitochondrial Eve" as she is referred to. Exactly how does DNA evidence go against the majority of religious beliefs anyway?

      Or did you just want to trash religion so you could get some free mod points?

    3. Re:DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by krich · · Score: 2, Informative

      > DNA evidence suggests the possibility of a single "mitochondrial Eve" as she is referred to. Exactly how does DNA evidence go against the majority of religious beliefs anyway?

      The failure of the US school system is appalling at times.

      Please go read up on what the term "mitochondrial Eve" actually refers to. Here's a hint: she wasn't the first human.

    4. Re:DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Any other examples of DNA destroying a religion?

      Nope, that's it.

      Perhaps it would have been more intelligent to open your post with the following line:

      Isn't it amazing that we can convict a suspect of murder with a 99.99% certainty using DNA evidence but most Mormons reject it if it goes against their beliefs.

      But, I suppose you were simply pandering to your own anti-religious lusts. Since this is Slashdot, by all means, carry on.

    5. Re:DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought I read that though they call her mitochondrial Eve, what they are really referring to is a small population group, not a single individual.

    6. Re:DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by operon · · Score: 1

      oh please...do not say that you believe in eve. Well, maybe you do not learn evolution in the right way. Eve is a monkey.

      --
      ---- Where is my mind?
    7. Re:DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by Frumious+Wombat · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, No. Eve was a hominid, from after the split between monkeys and the rest of the apes.

      The monkeys are over in aisle three, trying to reproduce Shakespeare.

      --
      the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
    8. Re:DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *Sigh* Ya know it doesn't really take any DNA evidence for many to shoot bullet holes in Mormonism anyway. DNA would just be the latest gun shot fired at the mormans.

    9. Re:DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by lgw · · Score: 1

      No, no, it's not Eve who's the monkey! My bible clearly states that Eve was created from Adam's rib. The wives of Cain and Ables, however: clearly monkeys!

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    10. Re:DNA is the ANTI CHRIST by daperdan · · Score: 1

      But, I suppose you were simply pandering to your own anti-religious lusts.

      Yeah you nailed me there.

      DNA evidence can be used to prove the impossibilty of many Old Testament myths. Take the belief in a global flood. An evolutionary chain can be established for each species found today. Comparing the DNA of ancient preserved DNA can clearly show that a global flood never occured. It can establish the migration and evolution of species. Given the breadth of species and location of various species through-out all continents: one can easily dismiss the Myth called the flood.

  46. Tin Foil cheek coverings by ChaosCube · · Score: 2, Funny

    So, how many out there think this is a government funded plot to genetically tag everyone on the planet, starting with a very innocent looking 100k?

    Prepare to superglue foil inside you entire mouth. You know, just in case of some forced swab penetration.

    --
    BDR Gear
    Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
    1. Re:Tin Foil cheek coverings by Tenebrous · · Score: 1

      It isn't. It can be plainly seen that this is a plot created by Hallmark working in conjunction with AARP. Think happy birthday to your fifth cousin three times removed either way.

    2. Re:Tin Foil cheek coverings by ChaosCube · · Score: 1

      I'd mod that funny...if I had any mod points.

      --
      BDR Gear
      Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
    3. Re:Tin Foil cheek coverings by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      All your foil are belong to us! HAHAHAHAHA!!

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
  47. dangerous by thomasa · · Score: 2, Flamebait

    This dangerous research is bad. We all came from Eve and Adam 5000 years ago. Why do we need to do this?

    On a more serious note (in case you did not guess the above was a joke), I always thought that historical
    linguistics could provide the same answers.

    1. Re:dangerous by Starraisin1 · · Score: 1

      Dangerous because it might effect your faith? There is no where in the bible that says for a fact Adam is five thousand years old but there is evidence that "Adam" (First modern Human we all descend fom) is at least 100,000 years old.

    2. Re:dangerous by vortigern00 · · Score: 1

      You are talking about the mitochondrial DNA research that traced everyone's mitochondrial DNA back to a single "Eve"

      That research has been debunked.

    3. Re:dangerous by thomasa · · Score: 1

      Sorry, It might effect one's faith. Not mine. The origins of humans and their development - especially language is very facinating to me. I believe that the 5000 year estimate came from some 19th century biblical exegesis. I certainly do not believe it!

    4. Re:dangerous by Qzukk · · Score: 1

      But it did make a great video game when the mitochondria takes over the world! ;)

      --
      If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
    5. Re:dangerous by Starraisin1 · · Score: 1

      I wasn't talking about that. I believe in evolution. archeological evidence dates back to 100,000 years of the first modern humans in africa. Much older then previously thought. Meaning we co-existed with other hominids for a long while. You could still trace the DNA back to what the first human was like. Any further then that then you would have to trace DNA back to bacteria.

    6. Re:dangerous by Meumeu · · Score: 1

      If I remember correctly, it's not from the 19th century, more like the middle ages.

    7. Re:dangerous by Meumeu · · Score: 1

      Wasn't that supposed to be funny? (cf. the moderators)

    8. Re:dangerous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly how has this research been dubunked, by who and what did they use to disprove this?

    9. Re:dangerous by Cheerio+Boy · · Score: 1

      Wasn't that supposed to be funny? (cf. the moderators)

      My mistake - I missed the first line. ;-)

      --

      "Bah!" - Dogbert
  48. Don't waste all that time and money! by Luscious868 · · Score: 1

    We all came from Africa, it's just a matter of when .....

    1. Re:Don't waste all that time and money! by SmokeHalo · · Score: 1

      Africa? I was born in East Chicago.

      --
      I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
    2. Re:Don't waste all that time and money! by david614 · · Score: 1

      Well, it is *their* money, not yours! I think that it is interesting, and given the fear and paranoia that the proposal seems to have raised, long overdue! D

      --
      ELITISM: It's always lonely at the top. Uninvited company is rarely welcome.
  49. Re:We all have one parents (Adame and Eve) by RagingChipmunk · · Score: 1

    Better check your bible. my bible clearly shows that Adam and Eve werent the first/only couple on earth.

    Day 6 Genesis Chapter 1:27 - says God made people - lots of them (specifically plural) and then told them to go make babies. God took the next day off.

    Later on, in chapter TWO, we learn about a special deal, Adam and Eve. (If you read through Talmudic/Kabbalah sources you come across the idea that Eve wasnt the first woman either...) So, theologically speaking, Adam was the first man to receive revelation from God, but, not necessarily the 1st man created.

    Anyway, thought I'd clear that up.

    --
    The only PT Boat Journal on the web: http://www.PT171.org
  50. ok by Exter-C · · Score: 1

    And then there was the subpoena that forced the project to hand over all records because of a "thread to national security" all of a sudden we are back to 1939 because my 448th cousin has decided to go and blow himself up in a shopping centre.

    Sounds really good!.. cant wait to join.. just like i cant wait to join some mercenary force in africa run by a bunch of stupid british people!.

    1. Re:ok by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 1

      There's a good chance that your 448th cousin could be your husband or wife. With a connection that close, how could you not investigate? :)

    2. Re:ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I say that this thread is a thread to national security and should be handed over to Homeland Security:)

  51. Re:Of the Devil by Le+Marteau · · Score: 1

    That's probably because Christianity has mythology as part of it's foundation, which tends to offend the sensibilities of many people of an uncompromising scientific mindset.

    --
    Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
  52. Re:Of the Devil by metlin · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Fucking religious nutheads.

  53. That's "indigenous"... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Look it up when not sure.

  54. Re:Christians are the worst of the religions. by eratosthene · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > Any religion that claims to be the 'only religion' is obviously false. You'd have to be a half-wit to miss that logical fallacy.

    This doesn't make sense to me. It seems that if a religion did not claim to be the 'only religion', then why would any of its members cling to it at all? After all, if Christianity was just 'one of many' ways to God, why would people have any incentive to remain Christian? It makes more sense to infer (at least if you believe in a certain religion) that your religion must be the 'only religion', otherwise the central tenets of what 'religion' is fail.

    --
    -- There, everybody likes a gorilla.
  55. Re:Of the Devil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Umm,

    So far organic life has never been created in a labratory setting. This makes the "imperial evidence" part of the theory of evolution and life evolving on earth a bit lacking.

    While I have personal problems with Christians I think demonishing all religion in the name of science is absurd.

    For isn't the scientific mind that says "prove it". You assert god does not exist. I challange you to prove it.

  56. Interested in this subject? by alex_guy_CA · · Score: 1
    Might I recomend:
    • The Journey of Man : A Genetic Odyssey
      • by SPENCER WELLS
      • From Publishers Weekly:

        In this surprisingly accessible book, British geneticist Wells sets out to answer long-standing anthropological questions of where humans came from, how we migrated and when we arrived in such places as Europe and North America. To trace the migration of human beings from our earliest homes in Africa to the farthest reaches of the globe, Wells calls on recent DNA research for support. Clues in the blood of present groups such as eastern Russia's Chukchi, as well as the biological remnants of long-extinct human clans, allow Wells to follow the Y chromosome as a relatively unaltered marker of human heritage. Eventually, working backward through time, he finds that the earliest common "ingredient" in males' genetic soup was found in a man Wells calls the "Eurasian Adam," who lived in Africa between 31,000 and 79,000 years ago. Each subsequent population, isolated from its fellows, gained new genetic markers, creating a map in time and space. Wells writes that the first modern humans "left Africa only 2,000 generations ago" and quickly fanned out across Asia, into Europe, and across the then-extant land bridge into the Americas. Using the same markers, he debunks the notion that Neanderthals were our ancestors, finds odd links between faraway peoples, and-most startlingly-discovers that all Native Americans can be traced to a group of perhaps a dozen people. By explaining his terminology and methods throughout the book, instead of in a chunk, Wells makes following the branches of the human tree seem easy. 44 color photos, 54 halftones and 3 maps.

  57. This is frustrating... by gentlemen_loser · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There are TWO models detailing the origins of our species. One model is the Out-of-Africa model. This effectively states that Homo sapiens left africa and COMPLETELY replaced Home Erectus (found in China) and Homo sapiens neandertalensis in Europe with little to no inter-breeding. This is the current "popular" theory.

    However, there is another model called the multi-regional model that states Homo sapiens evolved sperately on each of the different continents. How could this happen you say? Because enough interbreeding went on to maintain species integrity. Proponents of the Out-of-Africa model tend to ignore fossil evidence from Dali China that shows a skull exhibiting charateristics closer to H. sapiens than H. erectus - pre-dating the earliest evidence from Africa. Or other evidence such as a blending of charateristics in the middle east (mix of Neanderthal/H. Sapiens): EXACTLY where you would expect to find that sort of thing.

    Check out the following link: http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2005/02/more-on-multi regional-model.html

    Or google: Milford Wolpoff http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Milford+Wolpo ff

    The Out-of-Africanists are force fitting a theory on the existing data. Something they are able to get away with because the current "most popular" scientists (D. Johanson, Leekey) push it. Its unfortunate that politics has worked its way into science.

    Remember, you only find what you are looking for.

    1. Re:This is frustrating... by Starraisin1 · · Score: 1

      True I have heard of this but a DNA study of Neanderthal Man showed he was not a direct ancestor of modern man but a distant cousin. Neanderthal and modern humans may have interbred but the ones who did didn't survive to have descendents that live today. So some of the hominids that interbred may have been sterile children(like a mule) or didn't have any living descendents.

    2. Re:This is frustrating... by radtea · · Score: 2, Interesting

      However, there is another model called the multi-regional model that states Homo sapiens evolved sperately on each of the different continents. How could this happen you say? Because enough interbreeding went on to maintain species integrity. (emphasis added)

      If populations are interbreeding sufficiently to maintain genetic homogeneity then they were not separate in the relevant sense, and cannot be characterized as evolving separately. "Evolving simultaneously as one large, well-connected, interbreeding population" would be a more accurate description.

      Such an event is a priori improbable, although that does not mean it is impossible.

      One important prop for the out-of-Africa model is that the most currently plausible models of speciation are based on small, isolated populations. For example, the chromosome fusion that happened at some point in our divergence from our simian ancestors could not have happened successfully in a large, dispersed population.

      Not all speciation depends on such dramatic events, but a small, isolated population will always be more prolific of new species than a large, dispersed one if only because the trend of local selective pressure will consistent across the whole population. It is hard to imagine the same selective pressures acting in a sufficiently consistent manner across a very large geographic area.

      Of course, just because something is hard to imagine doesn't mean it didn't occur.

      Remember, you only find what you are looking for.

      Nonsense. Scientists find stuff all the time that we weren't looking for. Sometimes we ignore it if our preconceived ideas conflict with it, but we do so at our peril, because someone else will notice it, publish it, win the Nobel and get all the hot chicks.

      --Tom

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
    3. Re:This is frustrating... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Can't forget those hobbit people they found some time ago.

    4. Re:This is frustrating... by lgw · · Score: 1

      There's substantial evidence that man did not share ideas across such a large area (different tools, different languages, and so on), so the hypothesis that we shared genetic material across that area is far-fetched to say the least.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  58. TROLL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    from mutation and retrovirus based alterations

    Dude, you play to much resident evil. In the real world there is no such thing as "retro virus based mutation".

  59. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  60. Re:We all have one parents (Adame and Eve) by jaoswald · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually, the chapter 1 story (and 2:1--4a) and chapter 2:4b--3.24 stories in Genesis are *different* stories, combined by a later "redactor." Chapter 1 is commonly called "P" for "Priestly" source, while Chapter 2 is commonly called "J" for "Yahweh".

    Even in translation the styles are starkly different.

  61. Drawing conclusions before the data by Baldrson · · Score: 1, Informative
    If you look at their map it says:
    • Map shows first migratory routes taken by humans, based on surveys of different types of the male Y chromosome. "Adam" represents the common ancestor from which all Y chromosomes descended
    • Research based on DNA testing of 100,000 people from indigenous populations around the world Source: The Genographic Project
    So it is obvious they are publishing a map based on the data they claim they "will" gather. From the first paragraph of the article:
    The Genographic Project will collect DNA samples from over 100,000 people worldwide to help piece together a picture of how the Earth was colonised.

    Doesn't this bother anyone else?

    Usually, when you set out to do research you have alternative hypotheses that you test the same way as the hypothesis you hold dear to your heart -- this is the scientist's way of tricking himself into not lying to himself.

    It's called strong inference. They should use it before the lose it.

    1. Re:Drawing conclusions before the data by ElyseMyers · · Score: 1

      As mentioned upthread several times, there are a number of credible theories out there as to how we migrated from Africa to the four corners of the world. This study will, hopefully, provide conclusive evidence to prove a few of them. I'm all for it -- though I don't know how i feel about BUYING a kit to have someone put my info into their DNA database. That you can keep. Though I know he's not the most popular author, I would recommend that anyone who's interested in this read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. I don't agree with everything that he says, but he makes an interesting case for migration of tribes through the Bering Strait.

    2. Re:Drawing conclusions before the data by grouchomarxist · · Score: 1

      The research has been going on for years already. This is a new project to further the research that has been done. Spencer Wells, the head of the project, wrote a book about his work The Journey of Man.

  62. The film version!! by dreadlocks · · Score: 1

    Please don't start a line at your local IMAX. I strongly suspect any film documentary of this WON'T be coming to an IMAX near you.

  63. Re:Christians are the worst of the religions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Any religion that claims to be the 'only religion' is obviously false. You'd have to be a half-wit to miss that logical fallacy.

    I think you're the half-wit that has his logic backwards.

    The opposite of what you state makes a lot more sense. What good is your religion if you concede that other religions might ALSO be correct?

  64. Dude by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1

    The Autarch totally owns the KH.
    Since when could the KH reboot the sun?
    (shoots KH with HK)

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  65. And I'll form the head! by zerocircle · · Score: 1

    > I can't wait for them to discover that humans started their migration 5,000 years ago when they were chased out of eden by the dinosaurs.

    You're on to them! They were going to use the DNA to backtrace the migration and find the flaming sword, which they will sell on ebay for a pretty penny.

    Dinosaurs with a flaming sword? Oh man, how did I miss it...those Saturday morning shows were documentaries...

  66. Re:Christians are the worst of the religions. by AndersOSU · · Score: 1

    While you would be correct in saying that all Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) claim to be the only religion the same is not true of eastern religions.

    Specifically while Buddhism teaches the path of Buddha it is possible to become independently enlightened. (that's what Siddhartha did anyway) Hinduism wouldn't have a problem accepting God, Yahweh, Thor or anyone else into their extensive pantheon. And Shintoism, Daoism, and Confucianism don't even teach explicitly about any God.

    Furthermore, the trend in modern religion (speaking first hand about catholicism) is to be more tolerant of other religions and not start the conversation with, "Have you accepted Jesus as your LORD and savior."

  67. Are you completely stupid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He said it was a joke! You are dumber than a rock.

  68. Great News Really by eno2001 · · Score: 1

    I can't wait to see idiot racists get pissed when they find out great-great-great-great-great-great-grandma was asian, african or even GASP semite. As much as people don't want to know... the truth needs to be told, we're all mutts. There is no "master race".

    --
    -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
    1. Re:Great News Really by pintpusher · · Score: 1

      In a world full of mutts, the master is the one holding the leash.

      --
      man, I feel like mold.
    2. Re:Great News Really by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      Tell that to the Nazi's :D

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
  69. Re:Of the Devil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    You assert god does not exist. I challange you to prove it.
    I assert that Unicorns do not exist. I challenge you to prove it.
  70. Adam and Eve never met by curlyjunglejake · · Score: 3, Insightful
    There is nothing wrong with the conclusions contradicting eachother. These studies trace the migration of single loci, not entire critters. Loci don't move exactly like critters do; they are fluctuating in frequency and bottlenecking and doing a whole bunch of other fun stuff under the radar. Just because we have a mitochondrial eve and a Y chrome Adam does not at all mean these two mated with eachother. It just means that all other versions of those genes that didn't descend from these two were since snuffed out, by random chance, in the y chromosome case.

    Furthermore, the nomenclature is mischeivious: Adam and Eve never met. They probably didn't even live within 5 thousand years of eachother. All these studies show are that all existing versions of these genes trace back via a given series of mutations to a specific individual, which, usuing geographic data and some assumptions about migratory behavior and mutation rates, you can imply to have existed in a certain place and time. You can do this with any loci, and at some point in the past it fixes. Each gene goes back to a different individual in a different place. HLA genes go back to the earliest vertibrates.

    Don't freak out when you learn the truth about the garden.

  71. already been done by 11_biznatch_11 · · Score: 2, Informative

    This has already been done/started years ago. http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=human+genome+d iversity+project

  72. You fools! by curlyjunglejake · · Score: 1
    Male bias? They only want to study a loci on the Y chromosome!

    How dare these clown polute the slashdot literature!

  73. murrayians aborigines were part erectus? by Cryofan · · Score: 1

    take a look at this photo of the eastern australian aborignes (now wiped out). They were descendants of the Murrayian aborignes. Some say they were part homo erectus. You can still see some aspects of the murrayians in some aborgines today. They may have mixed with erectus on the way down to Australia.

    BTW, most aborigines has visual cortexes that are 25% larger than other humans.

    --
    eat shiat and bark at the moon
    1. Re:murrayians aborigines were part erectus? by Scrameustache · · Score: 2, Insightful

      First of all, your link is broken.

      Secondly, talk of aborigenese being... less human than the rest of humanity is... icky, at best. Google for "Truganini", see the kind of things people have done with the excuse of racial superiority (hint: genocide).

      Some say they were part homo erectus.

      Yeah, er, we're all part homo erectus... on account of descending from them.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

    2. Re:murrayians aborigines were part erectus? by Cryofan · · Score: 1

      The link works fine for me. Play with it some.

      As for the rest of your politically correct() routine, skip it. I ain't white. That threw a wrench into your little program, didn't it? Throw an exception?

      Get back to me when you have read a few hundred books, and maybe we can talk then....

      --
      eat shiat and bark at the moon
    3. Re:murrayians aborigines were part erectus? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since when is acknowledging the evils of genocide something that has to be done only if you are white? Maybe if your few hundred books included books on this and this, you might think about that once or twice before making such an ignorant statement.

    4. Re:murrayians aborigines were part erectus? by Scrameustache · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Get back to me when you have read a few hundred books, and maybe we can talk then....

      Way ahead of you.

      The link works fine for me. Play with it some.

      Sigh, it's hosted on tripod, if someone clicks your link, they get this. However, once I manually copied the link, clicking it brings me to the correct location.

      I ain't white. That threw a wrench into your little program, didn't it?

      Nope, what you said is still crap. And now you just added the stupid notion of "only whites can be racist" on top of your "teehee, aborigenese look different... they must be less evolved" load of BS.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

  74. So, will IBM own my DNA? by jimbro2k · · Score: 1

    So, will IBM own my DNA, If I send mine in?

    While Choicepoint is not mentioned in TFA, If you don't think they and their like-minded competitors are salivating on getting their hands on everyone's DNA, then you have not been paying attention.

    IBM does the collection, Choicepoint could do the harvesting, it all sounds just wonderful, doesn't it?

    I wonder what the going rate for Briteny Spear's DNA is?

    --
    There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
  75. Re:Common Ancestor by arevos · · Score: 1

    Um. A quick question; do you seriously believe the whole Noah's Ark story?

  76. Re:Of the Devil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Umm,.

    You have the basic principal of the challenge incorrect. You make an assertion, other people challenge it, you must prove it to be true or false (depending on your assertion)

    You don't make the assertion and then challenge me to prove it. It is your assertion. The burden of proof lies on you.

  77. Correction: "aren't salivating" by jimbro2k · · Score: 1

    ...are not salivating...

    Must remember... PREVIEW!

    --
    There is not nearly enough love in the world, but there is far too much trust.
  78. Re:We all have one parents (Adame and Eve) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    umm... which Bible is "your" Bible, then? The NAB gives the following for Gen 1:27: "God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them."


    "man", of course, is a collective noun; "him" refers to this collective noun. no implication of how many, there. "them", then, has to refer to two or more.


    Now... where are you getting that this sentence infers "lots" of humans? From what I'm reading, I can only infer that it's more than one...

  79. Re:Of the Devil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You think Christians are persecuted, try running for political office in the U.S. as a declared atheist.

    How persecuted can you be when an eveangelical Christian is the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?

    Puh-leez.

  80. Cytoscape. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    http://www.cytoscape.org/

    "Cytoscape is an open source bioinformatics software platform for visualizing molecular interaction networks and integrating these interactions with gene expression profiles and other state data."

    http://www.geneontology.org/

    "The goal of the Gene Ontology project is to produce a controlled vocabulary that can be applied to all organisms even as knowledge of gene and protein roles in cells is accumulating and changing. GO provides three structured networks of defined terms to describe gene product attributes. GO is one of the controlled vocabularies of the Open Biomedical Ontologies."

  81. Racism and Polygenism by ajnsue · · Score: 4, Insightful

    One concern is that the folks may pervert the finding of this data to support one of two equally corrupt conclusions. One that finding a single lineage of all people (monogenism) endorses the Judeo-Christian beliefs in Adam & Eve. Or two that multiple sources of origin (polyenism) can justify racism - in that some lineages are "less" evolved than others. The dangers of these ideas are well documented by Louis Menand in his wonderful book "The Metaphysical Club"

    1. Re:Racism and Polygenism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh I think that no matter what they determine, there will be plenty of wackos who will be happy to bend the results to whatever twisted agenda they support. But I guess that you can say that about pretty much any sociological or anthropological study.

  82. Re:Christians are the worst of the religions. by Lovesquid · · Score: 1

    I think that the claim to be the "only religion" implies "the only religion for that individual", with the point being to believe whatever you think is true, but let others do the same without trying to force your views on them.

  83. re: origin debate by woodsrunner · · Score: 2, Interesting

    One of the stronger arguements against african origin is called the multiregional model which purports that humans evolved through variety of location.

    So, as the evidence mounts in favour of a recent African origin, one might ask why we continue to speculate about our evolutionary history. Why are we still digging if the roots have been unearthed? The answer is that in spite of the facts, there is still no final answer. None of the deductions made thus far are watertight, and the methods and approaches employed are continually being reassessed. For instance, over recent years the assumption that mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited and thereby free from recombination has been disputed. If sperm mitochondria are found to recombine with mitochondria present in the ovum, the credibility of the mitochondrial evidence may be called into question. Similarly, flaws in the molecular clock technique have been highlighted.

    The story is further complicated by the possibility that neither of the principal models (OAR and Multiregional) is correct. The true explanation may be an amalgamation of the two, which is reflected in the alternate "Hybridisation" and "Assimilation" models. These theories tone down the role of replacement in human evolution by incorporating gene flow and hybridisation yet still allow that Africa has a prime position in human genetic history. The exact importance of Africa, and indeed the full narrative, remains to be told. But with further advances in molecular techniques, and the use of alternate gene systems, we may finally be getting closer to solving the mystery of where we came from...
    Paraminder Dhillon


    There are other arguements against the african origin, just as there are mounting arguments against the land bridge theory. Much of the arguements is that we are finding the oldest humans in Africa because that is where we are looking. It's easy to find things in Africa, as opposed to say the frozen North, which may have older fossil evidence from when those latitudes were much warmer but are now buried beneath snow and ice. Regardless, these theories being held as "law" are making it quite difficult to do real science.

    Proponents of the Land Bridge Migration have made it very difficult to accept dating clovis man, mummies in South America and sites in South Carolina older because they so conflict with their precious theory. In the same manner, evidence that conflicts with the African Origin theory is ruled as wrong rather than as interesting. To me, this doesn't seem like science but rather religion: if data conflicts with a theory, it should call the theory into question rather than the data, particularily when there are many data points that do not support a theory that is based on very little data.

    Look at where these tennents are coming from -- victorian notions. We see our Christian views as central to everything and we try to fit our observations to fit these views. Rather than searching for "Adam & Eve", science should be searching for early humans and try to figure out what it might mean. We have very little data on humans past 100,000 years. It could very likely turn out that humans migrated to Africa for the weather when other regions became too cold. Older human remains than those found in South Africa where "Adam" is placed on the articles map have been found far to the North in Ethiopia.
    --
    don't anthropomorphize ancient people, they don't like it

  84. Re:Of the Devil by metlin · · Score: 1

    No, I don't make an assertion in either direction.

    I say there isn't any proof of a God-like entity existing, but you do. So, prove to me that Jesus H Fucking Christ existed.

  85. Monotheists are the worsts of the religions. by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

    It seems that if a religion did not claim to be the 'only religion', then why would any of its members cling to it at all? After all, if Christianity was just 'one of many' ways to God, why would people have any incentive to remain Christian?

    Gods: Plural.
    When the Romans encountered new religions in their travel, they didn't go "oh noes, other gods! The central tenets of our religion must be false!", they simply went "hey, new gods, what did you say there name was? And what does he do? Thunder, lightning? Oh, we call him Zeus..."
    Much the same way that when early Christians encountered other religious practises, they assimilated them... until they got strong enough to crush them instead, that is.

    I'm sure there's a few Hindus out there who figure that Jesus was simply another avatar of Vishnu.

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

    1. Re:Monotheists are the worsts of the religions. by AndersOSU · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I wouldn't say that the romans were particularly interested in adopting other religions. I think that their take on Judiaism and Christianity bear that out. For the romans religion was a reason to get together and party, and to command respect (the emporor was a god.)

      When pesky ideas like God being more powerful than Ceasar, or eternal rewards sprang up after as a result of their conquest of the middle east they did all that they could to contain (in the case of judiasm) or quash (in the case of Chrisitanity) ideas that did not mesh with their own.

      Religious conflict is almost always a cultural conflict at its root, that is to say it doesn't matter if the waring parties believe in the same thing, they can still manage to fight about religion (see 30 years war)

      As far as christians adopting other practices that is very true (see Christmas/Saturnalia) but becomes more difficult with increasing heirarchy. But when a sect is relatively removed from the chain of command any religion will evolve and merge with native customs, for example voodoo, santa ria (sp?) and other slave island religions. Organizing a religion is really an attempt to preserve the culture in an unaltered state.

      Religion is really only an excuse not to get along, the real reason for almost all religious conflicts is more deeply rooted than a belief system. It just helps make the boots on the ground think they are fighting for something more meaningful. Basically from 1950-1980 capatalism was th US's religion and communism had to be over thrown for the same reason that in the roman times christianity had to be overthrown.

    2. Re:Monotheists are the worsts of the religions. by Scrameustache · · Score: 1

      When pesky ideas like God being more powerful than Ceasar, or eternal rewards sprang up after as a result of their conquest of the middle east they did all that they could to contain (in the case of judiasm) or quash (in the case of Chrisitanity) ideas that did not mesh with their own.

      Pesky ideas like gods being above the emperor? They always thought that gods were above mortals, that's the whole POINT of gods. There's even a name for not thinking that way: Hubris, and a demigodess (Nemesis) who's job it is to make sure things stay that way.

      Now, people refusing to do what they're told because their priest told 'em to, on the other hand, is a different matter.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

  86. Re:Christians are the worst of the religions. by AndersOSU · · Score: 1

    When Chrisitanity (which is what most people think of when they say religion) says they are the only religion what they mean is that if you don't believe in Jesus you will burn in eternal hellfire.

    Well Rev. Jeb what if no one told me about Jesus?
    I'm sorry Timmy thats just plain bad luck, but you will still burn in eternal hellfire.

    Fortunately for you Timmy you live in this comfortable red state where everyone knows that Jesus is the son of the only God, so all you have to do is accept him and you'll be hunkey-dory. Unless of course you do something evil like believe in evolution, fornicate, do drugs, question your pastor, eat meat on Friday in Lent, fail to acknoledge Mary as the Virgin mother of our LORD, worship Mary on par with the LORD, commit suicide, question transsubstaniation, practice homosexuality, fail to kneel befor the Lamb of God, read any of those banned books (including Harry Potter or the Davinci Code), listen to rock and roll, wear a hat in chuch (men), not wear a bonnet in chuch (women), fail to give 10% of your income to the church ...

  87. I would not be so quick to hand out my Bio ID by Telexer · · Score: 1

    50 years ago no one ever dreamed of identity theft and we gave out our social security numbers like candy on Holloween. Fast forward to 2005, ID theft has reached crisis proportions -- and the govt is either unwilling (or unable) to do anything about it. I would not be so quick to hand out my Bio ID (DNA).

  88. Re:Of the Devil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I say there isn't any proof of a God-like entity existing, but you do. So, prove to me that Jesus H Fucking Christ existed.

    Well, first lets get the obvious troll part of your comment out of the way. I have never asserted that god existed. I asserted rather that the scientific explanation of live evolving in via a chemical reaction has never been proved. If you search through wikipedia for "origin of life" you will see that there is no scientific evidence ever published to support the theory of spontaneous carbon based life coming into being.

    Second, I mentioned that I have person qualms with Christianity and you start making blind insult toward "Jesus H Fucking Christ". It takes a truly small and bigoted mind to ignore every other theory about god in the world and focus on the one that you disagree with. For only the truly ignorant reject all forms of god on their rejection of one.

    I would call you a troll but I fear you are just a bigot and idiot so I will refrain and leave you to your blind rage and ignorance.

    Be well.

  89. I used to do something similar by drewzhrodague · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I used to handle amniotic fluid for a major genetic testing facility. I would receive recursively packaged vials of widely color-varied amniotic fluid, and pack them into styrofoam test-tube holders. This was before anyone trusted me to touch their computers.

    Later on the data-entry part, I had changed the screen resolution from 640x480 to 800x600 -- so I could see the whole entry form without scrolling. When someone noticed this, they send out 3 technicians: two to figure out how to change the res back, and one to scold my manager for letting me do this. Afterwards, my manager told me that it makes sense to increase productivity, but not when policies are interfered with.

    Handling biological samples might be a ton of fun, but it's the other associated tasks that may be less than fun.

    --
    Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
  90. Re:Christians are the worst of the religions. by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 1

    While we in the West predominantly hold that view, there are many among us and in other parts of the world that believe otherwise and would gladly force their version of religious 'law' upon everyone.

    This is why I am Buddist/Agnostic - I find it hypocritical on the one hand 'loving thy neighbor', and on the other hand damning him to hell for being Hindu (or whatever - take your pick).

    Thankfully the 1st Amendment grants Americans the freedom to pursue whatever religion they see fit - which is a good thing, given the hare-brained interpretations of religious 'law' I see coming from religeous fundamentalists of many faiths - and the deadly consequences of not following the 'law' in some parts of the world.

    Religious intollerance is just another form of xenophobia.

    --

    Lodragan Draoidh
    The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
  91. Re:You can't PROVE it's the only correct religion! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Like the claim that life on Earth came into being via a chemical process?

    (sorry, but scientists have never been able to recreate this)

  92. Re:Christians are the worst of the religions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When Chrisitanity (which is what most people think of when they say religion)

    Only in the United States buddy, only in the United States.

    Say religion in China, the middle east, Japan, many parts of Europe, South America, and basically everywhere but north america and people think of whatever the dominant religion of the region is. Just becasue the Christians are in the US does not mean they are everywhere.

  93. Re:Of the Devil by hisstory+student · · Score: 1

    That proof has been provided already, but your comment makes it obvious that you wouldn't want to hear it.

    --
    Heard any good sigs lately?
  94. Africa by milesbparty · · Score: 1

    My mom said there's a lot of black people in Africa.

    --
    eMelody Web Directory add your site today!
    1. Re:Africa by What+me+a+Coward · · Score: 1

      Yeah more than enough to Kick both her and your ass around the globe fitty times!

      --
      Coward? Coward! Thems fighten words!!
  95. Multiple interpretations by mveloso · · Score: 1

    I remember reading comments by someone on the original "eve" study that implied that the "Out of Africa" theory of human origin was one possible interpretation of the data. There were other interpretations that were as likely, but not consistent with the current dogma.

    Wonder if this study will clear up the OOA?

  96. code named... by thor · · Score: 1

    ...whosyourdaddy

  97. Re:Christians are the worst of the religions. by AndersOSU · · Score: 1

    Agreed, but since this website is written in English, and mostly concerns American companies I assume that the audience primarily American/European. In this case most people will think Christianity when they hear religion.

  98. Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The described project looks at things from an anthropological timescale. You can also look for ancestors on a genealogical timescale using DNA (depending on the mutation rate of the DNA). The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation are building a huge database to enable genealogists to locate ancestors based on their DNA.

  99. Another project by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 1

    Another project accomplishing similar objectives: the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation.

  100. Re: origin debate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I say the first humans came out of Pangia! :P

  101. Disclosure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The truth about DNA and Humanity's origins can be found here.

    http://www.keysofenoch.com/html/academy_learning _s ession__dna.html

    People need to wake up and realize that we are about to have some major changes on this planet, and that the future is much brighter than the antiquated techologies we toil with daily. ;o)

    Steve Klingsporn
    Extraterrestrial "Invader"

  102. Re:Common Ancestor by Physician · · Score: 0

    Yes I seriously believe it and I also believe that the ark will be discovered in the not too distant future. The book I mentioned tells about the authors' attempts to retrace the footsteps of a man who was taken to Noah's Ark in WW2 by locals that he befriended. The man was even shown artifacts recovered from the ark and passed a lie detector test without so much as flinching. The problem is that the man was driven several days from base camp and went up a long mountain path in subfreezing weather so the effort to find exactly where he went has been difficult. However the authors have confirmed the presence of Noah's Ark with locals. However the locals aren't so interested in showing a White man where the ark is.

    --
    Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
  103. Global DNA Project to Study Human Ancestry by chrisnewbie · · Score: 1

    I say! Lets all take samples from our pets at home and send the data,,,that'll screw them up big time! I can picture it! Science doctor found that we have gecko dna and dies horribly after severing his arms just to see if it could grow back!

  104. If you want to take part... by spungebob · · Score: 1

    members of the general public will be able to mail in their own DNA

    Here's the address:

    Sign Me Up!
    Box TIA^h^h^hDNA
    Dept. of Homeland Security
    Somewhere
    Washington, D.C. 20666

    --
    It takes an idiot to do cool things - that's why it's cool!
  105. Re:Of the Devil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your honeyed language will not hide your ignorance. Your ignorance of evolution is astounding. That, I mean not to provide any respect, but instead to give insult that prompts you to read such as: 4000 million years occurred between the formation of the planet and the earliest date for any organism yet found in the fossil records (compare that to the 500 million years have then from that first known point to the present diversity and you may understand the scale of things more clearly). Amino acids are only chemical chains, the common product of chemical reaction, and that have specifically been demonstrated to be formed from solution of chemical elements. Amino acids are the basis of proteans, and proteans are the basis of every other biological component. Dispute this somehow and you will show that you have never read anything on the subject. I am sincere-meet that with valid response only or leave this aside and tenuously related avenue of discussion. Otherwise will only waste your time.

  106. Re:You can't PROVE it's the only correct religion! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only their own fuzzy (often literally) definitions of life have prevented it from being recognised by those who claim this. Amino acids are the basis of all biochemical processes-they have been demonstrated to form from a solution subject to energy as the sun, radioactive decay, and orbit and rotation produced thermal differential produced static electricity provided to the primordial earth.

  107. Re:Of the Devil by Bullfish · · Score: 1

    Another discussion of a bio-science article degenerating into a spitting match between the mythologists and the scientists. Some things never change.

    Well, at least Wodin's Day is almost done, Thor's Day and Frigga's Day to go and I'll spend Saturn's Day and the Sun's Day pondering this, or not. I could just sit around and drink beer.

    You'll all be sorry when Ragarok comes!

  108. Re:Hmm by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 1

    Ford actually did do buisness with Germany. I wasn't pulling that out of my ass, either.

    Hitler and Henry Ford had also written each other a few letters.

    --
    Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
  109. Re:Of the Devil by lgw · · Score: 1

    "Abiotic genesis", or life from non-life, isn't really a part of the theory of evolution. As has been pointed out, there's no evidence yet for this. It's more than just a conjecture, as some testing has been done and it certainly seems plausible, but that's about it.

    Feel free to attack the abiotic genesis hypothesis, but don't confuse it with attacking what any scientist means by "evolution".

    Like the hypothesis that extraterrestrial life exists, this is in the "there's no reason to think it's false" bucket, awaiting further work before becoming an accepted theory.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  110. You're too kind. by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 1

    Not to mention the first forced sterilization, before the Nazi party even came to power. See Buck v. Bell.

    --grendel drago

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
  111. Doubtful. by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 1

    Wilt had a day job, and his... adventures... took place after the advent of birth control. I doubt he'll end up with the same sort of advantage. I suppose a particularly prolific raping soldier might be singularly responsible for an influx of a particular trait into a neighboring region. Perhaps more likely?

    --grendel drago

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
  112. Re:Common Ancestor by lgw · · Score: 1

    Wow, this is *exactly* the same evidence that the Yeti exists. Cool, I always liked Yeti.

    OTOH, it seems pretty likely there was some sort of historical basis for the "crazy survivalist who says he talks to god builds boat, only to get the last laugh when it actually does flood" story, given how often it shows up. To assert that that somehow demonstrates the truth of the biblical story is quite a reach, however, given other stories are older.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  113. Hmmm... by Oryxa · · Score: 1

    Well, honestly, i'm very sick of this subject. While i am not a creationist, and do not belive in the whole "god created everything" , But honestly, I hate the theory of "we came from Africa" Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the fact that we spent 5 months on it in History class. I think instead of focusing on Africa, we should be compairing it with other cultures, and not just the major ones. not just Asian, white black. But with the minorities also. But thats me, and who cares.

    --
    I am French, and terribably sorry for my spelling.
  114. Actual link to project by MartinB · · Score: 1

    Genographic project site, rather than BBC reporting of it. Like I put in my submission of this story, earlier than this one. Winge moan. And this one should have an IBM tag.

    How to Participate

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    The only thing you can accurately describe as "Scotch" is a sticky tape made by 3M. And it's

  115. But my Law will live FOREVER!! by chipset · · Score: 1

    McQuitty's Law States: No matter how fast the computer, it's always too slow.

  116. Callibrating their clocks by ynotds · · Score: 1

    While DNA may provide a much more accessible accurate trace than the fossil record of the details of the HSS diaspora, the method used to extrapolate dates from the genetic data is much less precise than geological techinques.

    So it should be a fairly safe assumption that the bottleneck around the time of y-Adam was due to Toba and that date should be -74K rather than -60K.

    This is pretty much consistent with the correction needed to match their -40K "out of Africa" date with recent best estimates of earlier than -50K for Australian megafaunal extinction, though those dates have more margin for error than the Toba date.

    Given the accumulation evidence that much of the diaspora was likely coastal with short sea legs and the suggestion that most of the modern population of Africa was reseeded by returnees from the Indian Ocean basin, Tim Flannery's hypothesis in The Future Eaters that the opportunity the first arrivals in Australia found to overexploit the megafauna had a species-wide cultural impact.

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    -- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
  117. Re:Christians are the worst of the religions. by bw5353 · · Score: 1
    why would people have any incentive to remain Christian?

    An answer to that question was given years ago by Richard Dawkins.

    Follow the link. It's worth it. If you are too lazy a very short (and somewhat distorted) summary is:

    * Religions cannot be mainly about truth, as the vast majority of people keep their parents' religion. If it had been about truth, religions would have spread more easily without the help of tradition.

    * Religions are ideas that propagate through contact, as viruses. A stronger "virus" in this sense, is one which claims to be the only way to salvation, because it frightens people into not choosing other alternatives.

  118. Funny but... by CupBeEmpty · · Score: 1

    These samples are generally going to mitochondrial DNA, which isn't much use in identifying you as you and not someone else.

  119. The Phoenician Project by sasha328 · · Score: 1

    There is an interesting project being run using the same techniques to determine the extent of the Phoenicians' expansion across the Mediterannean.
    National Geographic had a feature about it alst year.
    Interesting reading.

  120. Re:Common Ancestor by Physician · · Score: 0

    The guy who saw Noah's Ark was not a Christian. He pretty much kept the story to himself and a few close friends for 40 years. Give the book a try. You would be surprised at how well NW Iran parallels with what is spoken of in Genesis. There is even a giant vineyard there called Noah's vineyard. There's an incident described in the Bible involving Noah and wine not too long after the flood. I'm very confident the ark will be discovered in our lifetime. Of course the search has been put on hold since 2001 but as soon as some semblance of stability returns to that region, the search will resume.

    --
    Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
  121. A worthy study... by CupBeEmpty · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is one of the really amazong stories to come out of modern genetics. There is an excellent book (for all people not just scientists) called The Seven Daughters of Eve which guides you thorugh the basics of the science. (The title despite its religious overtone is really about the 7 women that 95% of all Europeans can trace their ancestry to).

    There are also technical papers (there are tons but these are good places to start) here and here (this one discusses the long unknown origins of Pacific Islanders which was one of the early successes of this technique).

    This study is an incredible combination of biologic science and social science, which could has the possibility to answer questions that are not able to be answered by traditional archaelogy and anthropology. It is quite amazing to think that our ancestry has been preserved, not in rock and artifact, but in our own living bodies.

  122. Heh, this'll throw them off. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would they be able to tell if the DNA were nonhuman? Here, kitty, kitty kitty.

  123. In Oz for 160000 years by DABANSHEE · · Score: 1

    Archelogical evidence seems to show that they've been in Oz for at least 160,000 years. Mind you he could be right, that could be evidence of earlier Hominoid immigrants & the current aboriginal population might be descended from a later immigration within the last 60'000 years.

  124. And the Universe will implode... by werewolf1031 · · Score: 1

    ...when Liberals and Conservatives discover they share a common ancestry. [shudder]

  125. Hmmmmmm...... by Stonan · · Score: 1

    Who says it has to be a cheek swab sample?
    (squats over an envelope)

    --
    The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
  126. Re:Christians are the worst of the religions. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, a lot of the old-time-religion types in the red states are also anti-Catholic.

    So believing in transubstantiation, venerating Mary, or not eating meat on Lent, and genuflection, are either not required or would mark you as different enough to go to hell.

    Also, believing in evolution does not contradict Catholic doctrine.

  127. Re:Common Ancestor by lgw · · Score: 1

    I remember a TV special on it. I also rememebr it came out it was all faked. :) Good luck, but I'm betting on the Yeti.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  128. In the end... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What they will find out is that we are all a product of indiscrimate breeding.

  129. Re:Common Ancestor by Physician · · Score: 0

    No, there has never been a TV special on the Zagaros Mountains being the mountains of Noah. The only reference to Noah's Ark you will find on TV refers to searches on Mt. Ararat in Turkey. You heard it from he first, 1gw. Don't be surprised once the search can begin once more in Iran.

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  130. Ask /.-Designing a human eugenics program? by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 2, Interesting
    But on a serious note, this sort of thing could happen. Goverments (not nessacarily the US one) could start forcing certain people to breed together based on their DNA and possible genetic combinations that would happen... sort of like 'natural' genetic modifications.
    Or alternately, they could encourage people to choose from certain subsets of population as determined on an individual basis. Even an extreme, like arranged marriages, if they are a superset of the personal selection criteria for the individuals involved, can work well. Why does everything have to be forced? Is it more fun to think about that way? Or is it just simpler for simple minds?

    There must be countless ways of planning such a program, many of them pleasant and or humane. Though two problems remain, how to identify benefitial traits (and just what is benefitial) and how these are to be increased in frequency. So, a question for Ask Slashdot could be:

    • What characteristics would a benefitial and humane eugenics program have? How would it be humanely and ethically rolled out?
    Science fiction authors and films have brought up the topic in both the foreground (Gattacca, Boys from Brazil, Brave New World ) and background (Niven's Ringworld novels or StarTreck corp.'s Space Seed & Wrath of Kahn) But how would a program improve the species and remain humane? How would improvement be defined?

    Most tribes used to have ordeals which one must pass in order to achieve adult status and privileges, e.g. voting and marriage. Some still do. One of the First Nations in the US modified theirs to conform to US law and substituted part of the ordeal with an enlistment in the Marine Corps infantry, sending a whole platoon through once every two years.

    Others have dropped the requirements. Finland, for example, used to require that people could only marry if they could read. Given the stigma and other problems back then of out of wedlock children, this gave a huge reproductive advantage to those that could read.

    Others never had requirements and actually penalize stronger, healthier, or smarter individuals:

    • successful athletes are pushed harder until they are crippled or begin to break down organs and tissues or take enhancement drugs, some of which have negative long term side effects.
    • successful professionals (doctors, lawyers and other highload jobs) must usually postpone or de-prioritize personal development and even family responsibilities for their careers. stress and work load often contributes to shortened involvment in child rearing
    • military personell (statistically stronger and smarter than median) are put in harms way, exposed to stress and environmental pathogens which can cause physical or mental damage. death is an indefinitely, but wating until after the enlistment or going to school after adds delay, too. having kids during an enlistment has disadvantages which may or may not be significant
    • academics generally have to postpone or de-prioritize personal development and even family responsibilities for their careers. The sedenatary lifestyle can also cause health problems. New faculty gunning for tenure must work a minimum 80-90 hours per week or face uprooting and relocating
    • etc.
    Anything that delays and/or reduces reproduction reduces the frequency of those traits in the population. Anything that shortens the useful length of life also reduces the grandparent benefit, which is a key advantage in primates like homo sapiens sapiens. So nowadays, most nations are effectively culling healthy, strong, or smart individuals.
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  131. Fatherhood is opinion, motherhood is fact by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 1

    Hence the expression,
    Fatherhood is opinion, motherhood is fact.

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  132. Re:Common Ancestor by arevos · · Score: 1

    Just to double-check, this is the Ark as in the actual story of Noah's Ark? i.e. the one that carried animals whilst the world was entirely submerged, and not just evidence of a large ship/localised flooding that would be the basis for a Noah's Ark mythology to grow around.

    In other words, are we talking about a standard historical basis for flood mythology, or a supernatural event that happened in the past?

  133. Oh please.... by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    The "Middle East" is actually called East Asia by many Asians themselves.

    Science debunks many religious myths, but this interjection of yours is nonsense.

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
    1. Re:Oh please.... by dltallan · · Score: 1

      I find it very surprising that the Middle East would be called "East Asia" by many Asians themselves, since it is *west* of by far the largest Asian populations (e.g., China, India)!

      Respectfully,
      David Tallan

      --
      Respectfully, David Tallan
    2. Re:Oh please.... by daperdan · · Score: 1

      Science debunks many religious myths, but this interjection of yours is nonsense.

      Actually it completely debunks the migration of people from the middle east to the Americas. The "Lamanite" people of the Book of Mormon are claimed to be "direct decendants" of the Nephi and his family. The mitochondral DNA clearly shows that Native Americans or (Lamanites as you call them) are of Mongolian decent. I'd say that pretty well debunks Mormonism.

      Any other conclusion would requires ignorance to the laws of science.

  134. Re:Common Ancestor by Physician · · Score: 0

    A local flood would not require a large ship when one could just have the animals walk to another region. A large ship would not have been built either because the inhabitants of said region would have been unprepared. No, I'm talking about a worldwide flood. It is no coincidence that cultures across the planet have their own flood story. From the book: (Ed Davis has been led far up a mountain path) An angular object, strangely out of place among ice-polished boulders, emerged like a sleepy leviathan floating up from the abyss. And suddenly there it stood! A huge, rectangular structure lying on its side, like a battleship stuck on a sandbar. Oh, my God! thought Davis. It's enormous! A few seconds more and he could see its full form and detail. It's bow, partially covered by a talus of snow and ice, appeared blunt and battered, yet suggested a rugged, majestic symmetry. There could be no doubt about it; this had to be a wodden ship, somehow marooned high on an ice-capped mountain. Davis blinked his eyes, then realized he was looking into the craft, its dark, yawning maw easily stretching one hundred feet into the cleft of ice. Twisted, gnarled timbers, splintered up and out where the hull had split apart, framed the hole. "Look down here," Abas instructed, pointing at another object further down the gorge. Davis turned to see, about a half-mile from the main section, another massive structure settled in among the boulders, its timbers ripped and protruding at one end, exactly as the first. Both pieces had the same freezer-burned look of antiquity. They had clearly once been connected. Further down the gorge lay still more pieces of the ship, some sections wedged between rocks, some bathed in a torrent of glacial snowmelt. The rare July heat wave had shaved the ice back just enough to expose what had lain entombed for the better part of the centry. "For ten, twenty years at a time," Abas said, "the ark lies invisible under the ice. Then suddenly it appears." Davis rubbed his eyes, gazingi deeper still into the cross-section cutaway of the main hull. He wondered at the craft's intricate interior design, comprising three distinct floors, stacked one on top of another. Between floors lay a dense gridwork of frail-looking partitions and narrowed walkways, some of which seemed to have collapsed. Atop the upper deck sat a sort of raised roof, an elongated ridge running the better part of the ship's length. This contained the crew's living quarter, Abas said-about forty-eight compartments in all. Years earlier, during another unseasonably warm summer, Abas said he and his family had explored the ark and probed its bowels, disocvering a mesmerizing array of primitive wooden stalls and cages. Interestingly, he recalled, the wood both within and without exhibited scant decay. In most cases it felt hard as rock.

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  135. Male cells have mtDNA too by Anders+Andersson · · Score: 2, Informative
    First you point out that the Y chromosome does not follow Mendelian genetics, then that neither does mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), but you conclude that one should use male samples. Why?

    Because cell samples from male participants contain Y chromosomes as well as mitochondrial DNA (the latter which they inherited from their mothers). The point being, male participants provide more of the genetic material used in these tests than females do. Actually, for each male participant, the testing of one woman (his biological mother) becomes redundant.

    Still, I think there are other factors in favor of having both males and females participate:

    • The more people you get involved, the more representative a sample (of the entire population) you will get. Ten men and ten women will be more representative than just ten men. Limiting the project to men only will not automatically double the number of men available for participation.
    • While both tests themselves cost money to perform, the $100 paid for each test kit appearantly covers more than just the testing procedure, such as partial funding for the research done. A married couple may be more inclined to spend $200 on having both of them tested, than just one of them, even if the woman will learn nothing about her father's ancestry in this way.
    • This is not only about research, but also about public education and involvement. Excluding half of humanity from this effort ("you may read the results of your husband's or your brother's important contribution to science in five years") wouldn't exactly be good PR for either IBM or the National Geographic Society...

    According to the Genographic project FAQ, male samples will be subject to the Y-DNA test only, which looks like a wasted opportunity to me. However, it could be that male participants will be suggested to upgrade their tests with Family Tree DNA if they want the mtDNA test too. I have sent mail to National Geographic asking them to clarify that particular answer.

  136. Re:Common Ancestor by arevos · · Score: 1
    It is no coincidence that cultures across the planet have their own flood story.
    An alternative explanation is simply that floods are common natural disasters. It doesn't take much imagination to scale it up.
    A local flood would not require a large ship when one could just have the animals walk to another region. A large ship would not have been built either because the inhabitants of said region would have been unprepared. No, I'm talking about a worldwide flood.
    Sorry, I'm not really one of the believers. A global flood and Noah's Ark takes too much divine intervention to explain away. Doubtless an omnipotent God could manipulate reality enough to make it possible, but it seems an overly complicated explanation.

    Furthermore, as I understand it, God is meant to be all-good, as well as all-powerful and all-knowing. Worldwide genocide doesn't particularly strike me as something a moral God would do.
  137. Re:Common Ancestor by Physician · · Score: 0

    Every human on the planet had an opportunity to get on board the ship. Noah preached for 120 years. Not a single person took God up on His offer. These weren't men who lived relatively good lives but rejected God. These were men who thought evil continually. I don't want to imagine the horrors these people inflicted on one another.

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  138. Re:Common Ancestor by arevos · · Score: 1

    One wonders why God decided to create such evil people in the first place. And that leads to some interesting questions; one might except the possibility that all men were evil, but what about newborns? Unless all these evil people were sterile, God decided to drown babies and unborn children as well.

    And if God knew that the way he set up the Universe would later require him to wipe out the majority of humanity later on, why did create the Universe that way?

    For instance, what if God created the entire Universe after the Great Flood. What if Noah and his families recollections of what happened were false memories, implanted by God. What would be more moral? Creating the world and humanity knowing that you would have to commit genocide later on, or simply lying to Noah about what occured. The outcome would be the same; the question is whether you believe it would be more moral for God to falsify the evidence, or to create millions of people in such a way that you knew you'd be forced to kill them later on.

  139. Re:Common Ancestor by Physician · · Score: 0

    Firstly, mankind was not always evil. Secondly, God does not only create beings that He knows will worship Him. True worship can only come from beings that have the choice of whether or not to worship. I believe there is ample evidence for a worldwide flood.

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  140. Re:Common Ancestor by arevos · · Score: 1
    Firstly, mankind was not always evil. Secondly, God does not only create beings that He knows will worship Him. True worship can only come from beings that have the choice of whether or not to worship. I believe there is ample evidence for a worldwide flood.
    So you're saying that evil is a choice that human beings make. Now I'm not familiar with the bible myself, but I assume that some years before the flood, all the evil people in the world were made sterile. Otherwise God would have deliberately murdered innocent children, too young to have had the chance to choose an evil path in life.

    Secondly, you seem to have missed my point. When God started the Universe with Adam and Eve, he knew that he'd wind up having to kill most of the world's population. If God started the Universe with Noah's family instead, and lied to Noah about the past, then there would be no need to kill many many people. I ask again; what would be more moral, creating people knowing you'd have to slaughter most of their descendants years down the line, or lying about the past.