Neanderthals in the family
One of the most fascinating of the old genes is
Melanocortion-1.
It seems that a genetic study of the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) shows that this gene has enough variability to date it around 1,000,000 years for its origin. The date comes from the
fact that there are so many mutant forms of this gene that it would take one million years for them to arise.
[Terumo: How did he conclude this fact? How can he assume that it'll take 1,000,000 years for a Melanocortion-1 to mutate? Carbon or potassium-argon dating? So a reading in a pit in Timbuktu is now a fact.....hmmmmmm]
There are two alleles which have a date of origin of 100,000 years.
[Terumo: and here we have a guesstimate based on a very limited source, again.]
This might not seem important until it is recognized that these two are the red-hair genes. Red hair is only found in two places on the earth--Europe within the former territory of the Neanderthals and Papua New Guinea (but Harding seems to think that the Papuan example is a case of demographic history rather than selection (Harding and Rees)). Now, this gene is not found in Africans who, according to the Recent Out of Africa view, are the only ones who are supposed to have contributed to the modern human gene pool. If that is true, then the question is where did the gene come from and why does it end up almost exclusively a trait found in regions previously occupied by Neanderthals--namely Europe? Given that this gene has 100,000 years of history behind it, if the mutation had occurred among the earliest group to leave Africa, it should have gone in all directions and today be found among the Chinese and other groups. And the fact that it isn't found would tend to rule out such a scenario in which the red-headed gene was brought to Europe from Africa.
[Terumo: The same reason why certain anthropological groups have no P-450 in their body. If we base Evolution on the who has XYZ and who doesn't, that leaves great gaps in a common ancestor theory.
The dangers of taking observation too far is trying to take limited direct knowledge and apply it to everything down the chain. This guy is assuming Neandertals (that he uses the old spelling says something too in itself) had to be the only species that could've brought the red hair to Europe. The guy didn't factor disease process into the equation. Now which disease of malnutrition will turn the hair red? And why? If that disease process is common due to the lack of vitamins and proteins what can it do over time for small groups? He didn't factor that into the equation, but continues on a belief that justifies it, instead of doing that very elemental process scientists know well -- using the scientific METHOD of elimination.]
So where did it come from? One hundred thousand years ago, the only people in Europe were the Neanderthals and most observers of this gene have drawn the conclusion that the red haired gene is from the Neanderthals. Indeed, Harding, the leading researcher has never said as much IN HER RESEARCH PAPERS, but she has said so in interviews:
[Terumo: the "AH!" affect. He had an idea and because he shaped his idea to fit his belief, it's now some truth with ZERO HARD EVIDENCE.]
""So does that mean it is possible that Scottish redheads are directly descended from the Neanderthals? ""It seems to be the logical conclusion to what I am saying,"" said Harding. ""But I don't know if people are going to like me for saying that."""" http://www.aulis.com/news12.htm
Given the strong bias against the concept of Neanderthal heritage among the Out of Africa advocates, I have no doubt people won't like her saying that.
[Terumo: I'll agree with that, especially when disputing the group think of Evolutionists (and Creationists).]
Lest people think that I am demeaning others for being related to the Neanderthals, I suspect I am also and if I am, I am proud of it because they were quite fascinating people. I suspect I have the red-headed allele of the MCR 1 gene, as I have a now graying red moustache, my grandmother was a red head and my brother also had a red beard, and I am decesnded from Scots on both sides of the family (10% of Scots are red-haired).
[Terumo: Well I have red hair in my tree too, but to date no offspring are redheads -- blondes but no red heads. It's a recessive gene, and that it is could mean it's not a genetic trait carried over by the Neandertals -- brown hair/eyes have (dominant traits). Which could mean the "red head gene" was one adopted more recently -- like with extended malnutrition (which must've been rampant in prehistoric times -- hard evidence, considering how malnutrition was epidemic until the mid 20th century with the best technology and medicine. Protein deficiency of that nature over time can do some weird things to population sub-groups).
Here is the age of the melanocortin gene:
?Both African and non-African data suggest that the time to the most recent common ancestor is ~1 million years and that the age of the global 314 variant is 650,00 years. On this time scale, ages for the Eurasian-distributed Val60Leu, Val92Met, and Arg163Gln variants are 250,000-100,000 years; the ages for African silent variants?Leu106Leu, Cys273Cys, and Phe300Phe?are 100,000-40,000 years. For the European red hair-associated Arg151cys and Arg160Trp variants, we estimate an age of ~80,000 years; for Asp294His, and Ser316Ser, we estimate an age of <= 30,000 years. ? (Harding et al, 2000, p. 1357 )
There is also a widespread population 800,000 years ago and there was much gene flow across the old world. Harding et al write:
"The most recent common ancestor of the ß-globin gene tree is a sequence found only in Africa and estimated to have arisen ~800,000 years ago. There is no evidence for an exponential expansion out of a bottlenecked founding population, and an effective population size of ~10,000 has been maintained. Modest differences in levels of ß-globin diversity between Africa and Asia are better explained by greater African effective population size than by greater time depth. There may have been a reduction of Asian effective population size in recent evolutionary history. Characteristically Asian ancestry is estimated to be older than 200,000 years, suggesting that the ancestral hominid population at this time was widely dispersed across Africa and Asia. Patterns of ß-globin diversity suggest extensive worldwide late Pleistocene gene flow and are not easily reconciled with a unidirectional migration out of Africa 100,000 years ago and total replacement of archaic populations in Asia." (Harding et al, 1997, p. 772)
[Terumo: and they don't factor in disease factors and it's effects on sub-populations over time. Like a person would gain callouses working with their hands, our ancestors would've had a "red haired" callous that could've eventually be passed onto the gene pool over time. Considering the diet of the populations is varied, the areas with less protein sources could've been red heads originally not out of genetic mutation, but because of disease. If this continues on for generations, their bodies could've adapted to the limited protein source that it reprogrammed their very DNA (what is DNA after all)?]
When one tries to calculate how long it would take, at current rates of mutation, for the genetic variability observed around the world to have arisen, we find that it is much longer than many apologists and secular Out of Africa advocates would allow. Harding et al write:
"The expected TMRCA [time most recent common ancestor-grm] and also the ages of the mutations were estimated for each population as well as for the world data set. Estimating the TMRCA of the world data set gave a value of 750,000 years with a 95% confidence interval of 400,000-1,300,000, encompassing all of the TMRCA values from individual populations." (Harding et al, 1997, p. 778)
[Terumo: how in the world can limited data sets equal an "95% confidence interval of 400,000-1,300,000" years? That's like taking water and assuming that it'll weigh the same as ice, water and vapor based on measuring only ice weight. Our technology is rather limited in dating fines very accurately to assume such dates are factual. We can only assume, and to assume it's not a "95% confidence interval".]