remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289
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posted 21 February 2008 11:34 AM
Ursa Minor linked to this article in another thread about media bias, and I wanted to address this article outside the framework of media bias, and indeed outside any FN's component to the story, and rather address only the DNA research activity, and so did not want to derail said thread.Huge amounts of money are going towards DNA research. How many here believe that they should be doing this DNA mapping for Global historical purposes? quote:
When humans procreate, genes are passed down to their offspring from mother and father. Wells and his team look for specific mutations: unique markers in an individual's DNA. If a mutation from thousands of years ago tracks back to a particular geographic region, then those genetic markers can be used to trace the routes early people travelled to reach the four corners of the earth. So far, the DNA evidence suggests the first humans left Africa between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. One branch travelled up through the Middle East, along the coast of India, and reached Australia. Another branch settled in the Middle East, and then went to Europe and Asia. From there, the dominant theory is that a major migration to North America took place between 15,000 to 20,000 years ago across the Bering Strait. (There is also linguistic and genetic evidence that there was a later migration to Canada up the West Coast of the Americas 6,000 to 10,000 years ago.) ...Many in the scientific community hope the Genographic Project doesn't suffer the same fate as earlier studies. "It would be a tremendous loss for humanity," says Mark Stoneking, a professor at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany. As indigenous groups intermarry and disperse at an ever-accelerating pace, scientists believe the chance to capture human history is fast disappearing.
Now really, beyond the consideration of; do we at this point in time need to have so much money invested into Genome projects to find out where we all came from and when, is the statement, "the chance to capture human history is fast disappearing". I cannot perceive this as being true, it seems to be a desire to have the info now as opposed to finding it all out sometime in the future when technology can do it all quite easily. After all, they have managed to trace migration routes thoughout the ages, even though there of course has been "intermarrying" (that is an horrible use of an expression and does not state what actually was/is going on) and there was also despersion occuring contunually throughout the last 60 thousand or so years. And it has not been lost.
The body's evidence
Edited cause I forgot the link. [ 21 February 2008: Message edited by: remind ]
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004
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Aside from that silliness, I agree with you entirely:
