Please assess the validity of, or simply reflect on, this statement.....?

Question

"Some anthropologists today...acknowledge that all humans are derived from an original pair."

Answer 1

this could be technically true even if the religious implications are removed, although evolution doesn't draw such clear boundries between species. if one pair of anscestors are arbitrarily defined as "human", separate from their contemporary primates by certain qualities, and we still have these qualities, the argument could be put forth. but where would this first pair come from? how could be decide "who" they were, and whether or not they were strictly human?

if taken as a statement to support creationism, then "some anthropologists" are deluding themselves.

Answer 2

I dont' think any do, in the classical 'garden of Eden' scenario.

We have a male and female  'most recent common ancestor', that's about as close as you'll get to that. Y chromosome Adam and mitochondrial Eve.

As anthropolgists repeatedly point out, there were humans around before Y Adam and Mt DNA Eve, and plenty of other men and women alive at the same time.

Answer 3

It is conceivable that "some anthropologists today...acknowledge that all humans are derived from an original pair." Given a large enough crowd you can usually find someone willing to say anything. In that sense you may have made a valid statement. However that has absolutely no bearing on the validity of the IDEA that "all humans are derived from an original pair".

At present there is no known evidence to support that idea.

Answer 4

been there done that ages ago. wouldnt be surprised if this comment came from myelf lOL i beleive that if the human race all cam from eaxactly one mman and one woman then we would be inbred loveyourmothersbrothersistersaunt. bacially we are all insane.

Answer 5

What you are leaving out is that the individuals of the pair did not live at the same time. So, your statement may be valid but it lacks completeness.

Answer 6

dude thats so simple. you ever here of sister chromatids???

Answer 7

Uh, if this is referring to "Mitochondrial Eve" and "Y-chromasome Adam" then no. They didn't live at the same time, but many generations apart.

And, could we go back to this time, we wouldn't be able to identify either without genetic testing. They wouldn't look at all different than their relatives and others of their kind.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/bein...