Talk:Mitochondrial Eve/Archive 1

message: Mitochondrial Eve is the last common ancestor of all humans alive today, but this article states that Mitochondrial Eve is the last ancestor of an unbroken line of daughters alive today, and that some of the population does not decend from this Mitochondrial Eve.  This is in error, and should be fixed.
:The claims in the article are correct. Mitochondrial Eve is not the "last common ancestor of all humans alive today", she is the most recent common mitochondrial ancestor. The article does not state that she is "the last ancestor of an unbroken line of daughters alive today", but the most recent common mitochondrial ancestor. The article does not state that "some of the population does not decend from this Mitochondrial Eve", it states that in addition to carrying the mitochondria of Eve, people may carry nuclear DNA from other women alive at the time of Eve. It is possible that all humans have a common female ancestor more recent than Eve, but Eve is the most recent common ancestor in an unbroken line of daughter to daughter. Rmhermen 02:56, 6 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contradiction 

message: This article says that at all points in human existance, there has always been a "large population" of humans. But in the article for "Human", it says that at one point the population of humans was relatively small and that there was a population bottleneck: "Geneticists Lynn Jorde and Henry Harpending of the University of Utah have concluded that the variation in the total stock of human DNA is minute compared to that of other species; and that around 74,000 years ago, human population was reduced to a small number of breeding pairs, possibly as small as 1000, resulting in a very small residual gene pool." While this is well after the time of Mitochondrial Eve, the article still says that there has been a large number of humans for ALL the time we've been here.
: See the newly edited section 'Eve and the Out-of-Africa theory'.  The bottleneck misconception was due to people focusing on only one phylogenetic tree based on mtDNA.  When you compare all trees based on many nuclear genes and mtDNA, no such population bottleneck is found. Fred Hsu 15:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Large population? 

message: Suppose 100 women lived concurrently with mitochondrial Eve.
What if all of us (humans) are descended from several, or all, of these 100 women ? Then they're all our ancestors, and this becomes easier to understand -- it is a simple bottleneck; we're all descended from the people who were alive then. 
Is this idea ruled out by current knowledge ?
::But the "tags" that are formed by the genetic variation in the mitochondria that we all share show that, before those 100 ancestors you're thinking of, we all happen to be descended from one female. She was not the only woman alive in her time of course, just the only one who gave rise to a line of female descendents who didn't die out, line by line. For a male version, compare the genealogy of a house, like Nassau, that eventually didn't have any male descendents.
Question: 
"one woman—possibly one pre-human woman—" a "pre-human" just 100,000 years ago? This bit has been inserted by a fan of Carleton S. Coon I suppose. A last-ditch attempt! Any way to remove it without stirring up a lot of anger?... Wetman 05:48, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Species don't evolve? So every species is intact since they arrived, and they all converge on one ancestor of their own? - Jerryseinfeld 11:26, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: Is it not possible - at least theoretically- that two or more organisms of a species start to evolve  at the same time in the same direction by coincidence? (or because they face the same challenges etc)--Tamas 11:40, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but the chances of that would be insanely low gracefool 02:13, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: The picture isn't great, 150,000 years ago and decorating herself with jewellery. She looks more like a neolithic Asian.
Also there should be some mention that Mitochondrial Eve is not our only, or even a particularly recent common ancestor. Zeimusu 14:52, 2004 Jul 28 (UTC)
:I'm in agreement.  How did this get to featured article standard?  It is useful to have stuff on evolution.  I did an emergency save of the , indicated the picture was an artists impression, and changed family tree (based on birth death and marriage records in history) to phylogeny (based on DNA sequences), and noted that there was a population rather than a single foundress.  I think the present article is up to standard now.  Dunc_Harris|☺ 18:08, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  quibbles 

message: The "Statistics" subsection of the "Challenges to the theory" section seems rather out of place and inadequate for its purpose. First, it isn't a challenge; it's support for the theory based on probability. Second, it asserts that the predicted outcome is "inevitable", making a statement about "a side effect of the dynamics of the system", but doesn't really explain this. (Oh, and "bound to happen inevitably" is redundant.) Third, the phrase "Think about it", as if a moment's thought about complex probability calculations without actual documentation — usually the province of mathematicians — could be expected of the average reader of an evolutionary theory article.
But the worst part is the "Think about it" phrase, followed by an analogy that assumes quite a bit about readers' facility with probability theory. For this analogy to produce results analogous to the "mitochondrial Eve" theory, it appears (to me, at least) that after many generations, we should expect that all the counters would have the same color of only one of the original triangular (female) counters, just by random selection. (The text doesn't state this conclusion; it assumes the reader finds this final state obvious.) "Common sense" might very well lead one to expect that most of the colors would be reproduced into further generations. (It's a race between the expansion of the population, which increases the number of random picks per generation, and the loss of colors in each successive generation, based on the small but finite probability of any given color not being selected in that generation.) Of course, common sense is an unreliable guidepost in probability, which often produces results that defy intuition, but that's exactly why such a terse example provides no real illustration of the point. We need a better illustration, it should go in an appropriate location, and it shouldn't assume probability knowledge that isn't intuitive to anyone but mathematicians. — Jeff Q 09:27, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur.  It is misplaced and poorly explained. I was of half a mind to just delete it, but a discussion is probably more appropriate.  Noisy 11:06, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree and have deleted it. It was all factually correct (a truism even) except for the conclusion "it's not evidence for a single Eve". As Jeff Q said, it actually supported the theory. Nurg 07:32, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry to see it go completely, as I think it's an interesting and relevant point — just not where it was. I was playing with a simulation script that would illustrate the point made, but I hadn't figured out how to make it available for curious readers, nor have I had much bandwidth to devote to it. It still would have needed rewriting, too. Oh, well. — Jeff Q 03:06, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statistics section 

message: Just a note.  I don't have a clear idea yet how to make a clean fix to the following broken sentence in the Mitochondrial Eve page:  "But only Eve produced an unbroken line of daughters that persists today."
The statement is wrong and misleading.  But most importantly that sentence misses an opportunity to make a clear and insightful statement about how Eve relates to the reader.
To see what is wrong and misleading about that statement consider the following counter-example.  "There are necessarily at least two people who produced an unbroken line of daughters that persists today.  For 1) Eve and 2) at least one man with whom she conceived a daughter produced an unbroken line of daughters that persists today."
Furthermore, consider the following counter-example.  "Eve's mother in addition to Eve produced an unbroken line of daughters that persists today."  In fact, the empirical evidence suggests that each and every mother of the mother of the mother . . . of the mother in the unbroken line of mothers of Eve also "produced an unbroken line of daughters that persists today."
I don't have a fix for the broken statement yet, but I am thinking along the following lines.  "Every person alive today has an unbroken maternal line of mothers reaching back into prehistory.  However, the maternal lines of all living persons converge on Eve.  And since every person has only one mother, in the generations before Eve, all persons alive today have the same unbroken maternal line of mothers, back to a mother that looked like a chimpanzee, back to a mother that looked like a tree shrew, and beyond."  ---Rednblu 20:47, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: "Mitochonrial Eve" is merely the most recent common ancestor of us all. Of course we are all descended in the female line from primitive primates, and from Late Permian eucynodonts.  However, since mitochondria are passed down through the female line, we can make no useful statements about the mates of "Mitochondrial Eve". Other females were alive at the time, but their genetic lines died out, by the luck of the draw: "only Eve produced an unbroken line of daughters that persists today." Lots of illuminating links are on the Web. Why not track down the best of them and link them here? As a general rule, it's best to grasp the concept, then make the edits. Wetman 21:06, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Planning a fix to a wrong statement in [[Mitochondrial Eve]] 

message: Was "mitochondrial Eve" neanderthal?
Please email: igigzechnas@msn.com
---
:No. 
:Six of the different Neanderthal remains found by 2004 had enough mitochondrial DNA left in them that analysts could calculate how far back the living humans had a great-great--...grandmother in common with the six different Neanderthals. 
:The results of the DNA study comparing analyzed living humans and analyzed Neanderthal remains showed the following.
** The last mitochondrial ancestor of the analyzed living humans was 150,000 years ago; she would be the Human Mitochondrial Eve.
** The last mitochondrial ancestor among the analyzed Neanderthal remains was 200,000 years ago; she would be the Neanderthal Mitochondrial Eve.  Neanderthal Mitochondrial Eve was a totally different creature from the Human Mitochondrial Eve, though they had a distant common maternal ancestor from whom they both inherited their mitochondrial DNA.
** The last common mitochondrial ancestor of both Neanderthals and humans lived 500,000 years ago; she would be the last common maternal ancestor of Human Mitochondrial Eve and Neanderthal Mitochondrial Eve.  ---Rednblu 00:02, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  mitochondrial Eve 

message: Is it possible to add more precise data and examples to this article? For example, if 100 women had 100% identical mtDNA could they not all be the mothers of future generations? How does it come to be only one person?
How does this one person theory work? 100 women turn into 100,000 women, then every one of those 100,000 descending from 99 of the original women die, and those surviving turn into 6,391,567,079 descending from the one from the first 100?
Do the other Hominids converge on "one" ancestor? Does every species converge on "one" ancestor?
Thanks - Jerryseinfeld 10:05, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elaborate 

message: The mitochondrial Eve for currently living humans was quite possibly not the same individual as the mitochondrial Eve for humans living thousands of years ago or thousands of years from now [1].
I think that statement could use some expansion/clarification by someone more knowlegable than me :)  I take it just to mean that the current mitochondrial eve will always be the ancesor of all homo sapiens (and branches? :) for the rest of time, she just won't be the most recent one, who would get the forward-in-time-moving title of mitochondrial eve. Is that correct?--Fxer 21:58, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
:I believe that is right. But I don't quit understand well enough to expand on that :o)  --Cam 02:14, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
:This sentence has apparently been removed already.  But it is right.  Notice how Most recent common ancestor must always be defined based on a 'group' of organisms.  Normally, the group is the 'currently alive people in year XYZ'.  So, as times marches on, the group of living humans change, and thus the MRCA change. Fred Hsu 04:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eve of the past and future 

message: *we don't need to state the 150,000 figure twice in the intro. 
*The MRCA section is both offtopic and misleading, see my edits to that article. X-Eve is not identical to MRCA, fine, let's stress that in the definition, and move on what she is rather than isn't. 
*the "matrilinear descent" repeated the same point three time, phrased slightly differently. I compacted it, adding emphasis that X-Eve is dependent on time, i.e. X-Eve(CURRENTYEAR).
*I don't know why you removed the two book references; I didn't add those.
dab (ᛏ) 11:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  my edits 

message: Is anyone else bothered by the conversational tone of this piece?  ME is a biological topic, and should be treated in the manner of any other scientific topic. IMO, this article is poorly written.  Ladlergo 15:53, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tone of article 

message: I edited this part which was reverted immediately, but I still have a concern with it:
Starting with the entire human population alive around 150,000 years ago, lineages will become extinct as mothers die childless or only have male children. Eventually, only a single lineage remains, which is the same as before.
The sentence makes no sense - if a mother dies childless - she isn't a mother.  Should this not read "women die childless" Michael Dorosh 23:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mother dies childless 

message: Would she necessarily have been human?  --LakeHMM 23:14, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not an expert, but I believe so. As was mentioned somewhere above, all speciation originally occurs with a single individual (except under extremely unlikely circumstances where two identical and concurrent mutations cause a speciation and both procreate successfully). Therefore, it would be nearly impossible for one earlier non-human organism to trace separate lineages down to two or more humans at the point where humans originally speciated. Perhaps this could be worded better. Doze 18:55, 09 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Genes mutate and species speciate.  These are two different things.  Genes only mutate within the body of an individual, but a species is formed when a population of individuals drifts apart from other populatin sharing same ancestors.  We share many genes with non-human organisms.  The ABO blood group system is one of these.  In The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins describes how the same system is found in apes such as Chimpanzees.  From the perspective of these blood group genes, you may be more closely related to chimps than to your neighbor.  This is because an organism such as human is nothing more than a temporary vehicle to hold a set of genes together.  Genes are the ultimate evolution driver (see The Selfish Gene).  The mitochondrial DNA can be treated like individual nuclear genes, because it is not affected by genetic recombination (see River out of Eden). Therefore, I think Mitochondrial Eve does not necessarily need to be human.  But the current estimate happens to point to a date after the speciation of Homo sapiens.  My two cents. Fred Hsu 14:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human? 

message: Can someone explain this more clearly?
Try reading River out of Eden Fred Hsu 13:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Matrilineal descent section - confusing? 

message: First body paragraph refers to "Wilson," without supplying a given name (or a link to an article about Wilson). Please delete this note once this oversight is corrected. ---Ransom (--69.227.122.50 03:57, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wilson? 

message: I'll shortly be adding an external link to , a chart I made explaining the mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam concepts. I think it will be helpful to those interested in this topic.
I see anexisting external link to , titled "Mitochondrial Eve - An Explanation". The explanation on that page seems to me to be at variance with a lot of the material in the entry here. 
I'm a chartmaker, not a geneticist, so I'm not prepared to argue this in depth. But, that link and this page don't agree.
JoeCasey 14:21, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New external link, and question about existing external link 

message: Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. LuciferMorgan 02:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have cleaned up most of the article, and have added inline references.  I am still working on the last section, 'Eve and the Out-of-Africa theory'.  But the article is now in good shape, I think. Fred Hsu 15:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Re-Review and In-line citations 

message: "Mitochondrial DNA pathway is equivalent to maternal lineage, because Mitochondrial DNA is only passed down from mothers to daughters, but never to sons." I believe this is wrong.  It is passed from mother to all children, never from father to children.  The statement as it stood before I altered it implied that males have no mitochondria! --Nerdvana 13:02, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, my bad.  Thanks for carefully reading my changes and pointing out mistakes.  I am fixing it.  I think you removed the inline reference by mistake though :( Fred Hsu 13:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

text: read again: we can, but she's not most recent, her daughter "Eve" being more recent. This is the entire point of "most recent common ancestor". dab (𒁳) 21:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  After reorganization on Feb 8th, 2007 

message: The article states: No contemporary of Mitochondrial Eve or Y-chromosomal Adam is an ancestor of only a subset of people alive today, because both of them lived much longer ago than the identical ancestors point.
However, this is not possible, as the IAP is necessariy further in the past than the MRCA - as correctly stated in the article on identical ancestors point: In genetic genealogy, the identical ancestors point (IAP) is that point in a given population's past where each individual then alive turned out to be either the ancestor of every individual alive now, or to have no living descendants at all. This point lies further in the past than the population's most recent common ancestor (MRCA).
I have deleted the paragraph, because it is wrong, and I cannot immediately see how to make sense of it.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.72.95.45 (talk) 22:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  MRCA versus IAP 

message: The article states that the MRCA of all humans (not M. Eve or Y. Adam) lived 3000 BP. But the land bridge to the Americas was crossed over 15,000 BP and there was no significant contact between the old and new worlds from atleast a couple thousand years after that until 1492 (vikings contact with northern tribes don't count I don't think). There are Amerindians that have no European descent right? So how can they have a MRCA in common with Europeans AFTER the land bridge was crossed but before 1492?  I can't fathom how that is possible? Brentt 23:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually the Viking influence would be very relevant to the Amerindian / MRCA date question.  It would only take one cross-breed left behind.... --Michael C. Price talk 08:30, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  MRCA lived 3000 BP? 

message: Someone created a new article called Most ancient common ancestor.  Notice that it is ancient, not recent.  It appears to be a new name coined by the author without research backing (i.e. original research).  I nominated that page for deletion.  Please visit Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Most ancient common ancestor if you wish to participate in the discussion.  I am posting this message in this discussion page because  the topic in question is closely related to this article.  Again, please note that I am not nominating the Most Recent Common Ancestor article for deletion; I am nominating the newly created Most Ancient Common Ancestor. Fred Hsu 05:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nominated ''most'' '''ancient''' ''common ancestor'' for deletion 

message: The statement
:Unlike mtDNA, which is outside the nucleus, genes in nuclear DNA become mixed because of genetic recombination, and therefore we can be statistically less certain about their origins.
seems wrong.  Whilst mtDNA is outside the nucleus this has nothing to do with recombination (a single mitochondrian contains multiple copies of mtDNA and undergoes recombination to maintain its integrity).  Thus it is not the recombination that is the source of the mixing but the fact that we inherit two nuclear alleles, one from each parent, whereas we inherit mtDNA from only one parent.--Michael C. Price talk 01:02, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Michael, I see that you have also enhanced Mitochondrion.  As I said in previous comment, the difficulties with tracking nuclear DNA is not only due to the 1/2 chance of inheritance from either parent.  Yes, that makes it more difficult, but you can still infer statistically about what would happen in a long period of time.  But with further recombination, the task becomes exponentially more difficult.  I have read it somewhere, and perhaps I'll find references to it.  I don't think it is wise to simply drop recombination from the article. Fred Hsu 04:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But the tracking difficulty with nDNA can't be due to recombination per se, since mtDNA also recombines.  I've updated the description about recombination at Mitochondrial DNA and mentioned it here. --Michael C. Price talk 10:07, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  mt DNA statement 

message: In Science, 2. January 1998, the article "Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock" refers to evidence that the 140 000 years referred to in this article are not so certain.  Could someone please make this article a bit more balanced on this point?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gubbanoa (talk • contribs) 21:07, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to add the point yourself, but make sure you cite your source.  WLU 21:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right about me not putting the reference in the text and two wrongs do not make a right.  However, I think it is a shame you took out critisism of the weak claim you have left unquoted.  I cannot see why.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.204.181.130 (talk) 10:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you are very motivated, you should edit it with proper citation.  Or at least provide an URL to make it easier for people to help you.  At the moment, Mitochondrial_Eve#Eve_and_the_Out-of-Africa_theory should provide some of the answers.  Yes, mitochondrial DNA alone is not enough to support African origin of 'human race'.  However, it is good enough for the African origin of 'mtEve', as long as you keep in mind that mtEve is nothing special (there are thousands of other ways to trace common ancestry by different gene pathways). I'll try to find the article you are talking about when I have more time. Fred Hsu 03:22, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wanted edit 

message: Someone inserted these (in bold):
[quote]We know about Eve because of mitochondrial organelles that are passed only from mother to offspring. (Strictly speaking, the sperm do bring some mitochondria to the egg, but their contribution amounts to at most about 0.01% of the fertilized egg's total, so is normally ignored.) Each mitochondrion contains Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). [/quote]
This is actually not quite right. One of Sykes book actually talks about how sperm mitochondria are destroyed by the egg or later in the embryo.  I don't have time to look it up right now. But in any case, the main article on Mitochondrial DNA already talks about this.  The section in MtEve actually links to it as 'main article'. There is no need to interrupt the flow of this paragraph with such details, in my view. I reverted the change. Fred Hsu (talk) 23:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it was Sykes', Seven Daughters of Eve, that refutes the notion that some mtDNA comes from the father.  Says that more detailed studies failed to show any such paternal effect. --Michael C. Price talk 20:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mitochondria in sperm 

message: TalkOrigins has an interesting short article on the date of Mitochondrial Eve, with references. - http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB621_1.html "created 2004-2-26" -- 
"Revised studies of all of the mtDNA ... placed the age of the most recent common mitochondrial ancestor at 171,500 +/- 50,000 years ago." 
-- Writtenonsand (talk) 22:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference on date of Mitochondrial Eve 

message: Howdy -- I'm the author of the "concrete example," and I wanted to see if you thought a diagram might be better than a narrative?  I have a sort of love affair (scientifically speaking) w/mitochondria and the whole dynamic of mitochondrial DNA is so fascinating, especially w/r/t "Mitochondrial Eve," that I want badly to make the notion of matrilineal descendence of m. DNA crystal clear, even to the most unscientific-minded.  Sadly, though, and as much as I also love Wikipedia, I think this is one of those instances where words muddy instead of enlighten. I'm thinking about making a simple flow-chart-type thingie (via graphics software) to illustrate both the matrilineal line of mitochondrial DNA *and* how it's possible that Eve could have had contemporaries whose m. DNA was not passed on as Eve's was, but whose regular DNA *was*.  I think that point is probably the basis for most laymen's confusion, and I think that ,as a result, it's at that point where the whole premise might lose its impact.  
So I'll make a little graphic in the next few days & post it and you (and everybody else watching this page) can take a look and tell me what you think, yes?
cheers,  Sugarbat (talk) 17:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope you didn't mind me removing the concrete example you gave, but I found myself getting lost in the details.  Anyway, glad to see that you took it positively: diagrams are always a great idea -- a picture paints a thousand words and all that -- so go right ahead.  The concept definitely creates a lot of misconceptions for the layman, and anything that clarifies this is good.--Michael C. Price talk 20:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note to user: MichaelCPrice 

message: is it so difficult to read fool sentences? I hope the books quoted (whose are in deleted paragraph) are misquoted and not based on this '3000 years' false assumption. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.201.241.2 (talk) 03:10, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  3000 y ago 

message: I took out "yet based on the newly calibrated Mitochondrial clock she is only but 6000 years old." part in the article.  According to 
Calibrating the Mitochrondrial Clock , the 6000 year part is a part that "nobody believes" and that experiments haven't been done in a large enough subset.
This piece of text was cut / paste to try and sneak creationist credibility into the article  --SeventhCycle (talk) 00:03, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock 

message: The variance in physical parameters in the 'races' of the human 'species' clearly indicate parallel evolutions with some very recent hybridizing, as seen in many other animals. For any species except humans, a variation in average height of in excess of 20%, combined with significant difference in physical prowess (consider how the more globalized, less culture-specific Olympic sports clearly dominated by African males and Slavic women - unlike intellect, this is a product of nature, not nurture!), given good nutrition for both populations, is grounds for considering them different. In other words, who ever said our common ancestor was of homo sapiens?! If it indeed exists, Mitochondrial Eve is most likely a higher ape. Political correctness is making us hypocrites. What we are observing with globalization is clearly the mixing of several different Homo species, not the divergence of one, as evidenced by highly mixed-race communities ending up at a mocha-skinned, dark-haired, dark-and-slightly-slanted-eyed, average height common denominator. The human race (Homo sapiens), in the common ancestry with everyone sense propagated by political correctness, as such exists in Cuba or Hawaii, at the convergence point of the different races. The politicized idea of common ancestry and a common human race is great for peace and tolerance, but suffers from being untrue: neither the pale blue-eyed blond Scandinavian, nor the dark-skinned, dark-eyed, dark-haired Congolese are Homo sapiens in the PC sense. Now, if they intermix, their great-grandchildren just might be.  NOTE: this written by someone not matching any common denominator, in appearance, build, or ability, thus not exactly Homo sapiens under his own definition, and therefore clearly not using these views to preach discrimination. Instead, I see this as a time to recognize and celebrate difference, rather than try to continue mixing up the concepts of legal equality and genetic sameness. 83.167.100.243 (talk) 12:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Utter Rot, for Homo sapiens she was not. 

message: The introduction states "[Mitochondrial Eve] necessarily lived at least as long, though likely much longer, ago than the MRCA of all humanity." I don't understand how this can be true, but perhaps it just has to do with the confusing terminology in this article.  
Mitochondrial Eve (ME) is the matrilineal MRCA of all humans ALIVE TODAY.  But the MRCA of ALL HUMANITY would by definition be an ancestor of ME herself (she was human, correct?).  Therefore the MRCA of all humanity must be older than ME, right?
Restated another way: 
1. The MRCA of all humanity is the MRCA of all humans who have ever lived.
2. Mitochondrial Eve was a human.
3. Therefore, the MRCA of all humanity is an ancestor of ME.  
4. Ancestors live before their descendants.
5. Therefore, the MRCA of all humanity is older than ME.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.21.219.163 (talk) 17:18, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No.  Evidently the article is not as clear as it should be. The matrilineal MRCA is "harder" (much harder) title to occupy than just the plain old MRCA because all the lines have to be purely matrilineal for the former. Hence they converge much further back in time. --Michael C. Price talk 19:46, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

text: According to the identical ancestors point article, MRCA existed 2000-5000 years ago. Shashamula (talk) 00:14, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I know, but that is just the result of a simulation, not of any measurement taken in the real world. --dab (𒁳) 15:53, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mitochondrial Eve lived longer ago than the MRCA of ALL HUMANITY? 

message: If you have an opinion on whether the pop culture entries should be maintained as a separate article then I suggest you make your views known here. --Michael C. Price talk 00:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  In Pop Culture AfD 

message: I would be interested in how Newsweek managed to contort this into a "controversy", when all the Cann study did was put a rough estimate on the age of the mt-mrca. That there must be a mt-mrca to any population is clear even without such an estimate, and their estimate wasn't too far out to be controversial in any way, so I really have no idea what the title is referring to. --dab (𒁳) 14:42, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The Cann study did create some controversy, I think it took several years before mitochondrial eve was accepted. There was the controversy relating to Paternal mtDNA transmission such as Paradise lost: Mitochondrial eve refuted . Alan Templeton also disputed Eve, as in this New York Times article.  Critics Batter Proof Of an African Eve Wapondaponda (talk) 16:23, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Scientists Explore a Controversial Theory About Man's Origins" 

message: Substituted at 21:40, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment