Book review - "The Ancestor's Tale"

[billvon 3,131]

I just finished a fascinating book - "The Ancestor's Tale" by Richard Dawkins. It's a trip backwards through time, starting from present day. Every chapter is about another "rendezvous" or another splitting point from a common ancestor between man and another species. In each chapter he picks a topic on evolution/development and goes into depth, using that 'concestor' (or common ancestor) as a basis for discussion.

Some examples of rendezvous:

Rendezvous 1: Chimpanzees and bonobos
2: Gorillas
3: Orangutans
. .
7: Lemurs and bushbabies
8: Colugos and tree shrews (including a very cool flying colugo)
. . .
19: Coelacanths
. . .
22: Lampreys
. . .
35: Amoebas and slime mold
36: Plants

etc etc. He goes back through 39 concestors to the origin of life itself.

Some cool things I learned:

There are actually molecular 'clocks' running in almost every cell out there that lets you trace the 'distance' between animals with a common ancestor. It can be used to determine how closely related two people are, and it can be used (with a lot more effort) to determine how closely related two animals of different species are. The clock shows little time elapsed between us and bonobos, but a lot of time between humans and fish. (Note that they're not really clocks; they are just persistent markers that change at a rate that's random individually but predictable statistically.)

In Australia, marsupials rather than placental mammals had the upper hand during the time when land bridges existed to Australia, about 55 million years ago. Evolution then took separate but nearly identical paths for some animals, with the result that american opossums look and act a lot like australian possums - but are related only very distantly.

Females have inherently better color vision than men, on average, since they duplicate some of the critical information on their sex chromosomes. Indeed, since all genetic coding for red/yellow and green/yellow cones are on the X chromosome, and there is more than one coding for red/yellow and green/yellow - some women may actually be able to see more colors than men can. (Blue coding is somewhere else, so it doesn't care about male/female.)

Almost all animals share the HOX set of genes, which controls in a very specific way how your body is constructed. Change a HOX gene and a fruit fly will grow a second set of wings, or some extra eyes. What's cool about them is that they present on the chromosome in approximately the same order that the body will end up developing i.e. the HOX genes for "head" are located at one end of the active segment and the HOX genes for "tail" are located on the other. Exactly how you would expect them to work, if expression were controlled by chemical gradients in developing animals.

Also, genetic coding is amazingly common. If you take a mouse 'eyeless' gene (which actually codes for an eye, it's how geneticists label things) and insert it into the abdomen of a developing fruit fly larva, the fruit fly will grow an eye on its abdomen. The coding for "eye" has stayed similar enough througout the millenia that the developing fruit fly recognizes the mouse eye gene and starts making an eye.

[Andrewwhyte 1]

Let's see:
Chapter 1. Present Day
Chapter 2. Garden of Eden
The End

[billvon 3,131]

>Chapter 1. Present Day
>Chapter 2. Garden of Eden

Wasn't there some sort of boat/lots of rain thing in there too?

[aerohaga 0]

My husband always says that you can be sure of 2 ancestors-Noah and Adam.

For my part, I know nothing with any certainty,
But the sight of the stars makes me dream.
-Vincent Van Gogh

[SpeedRacer 1]

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If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

Is this a serious question, or am I just slow tonight?

Speed Racer
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[Shotgun 1]

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Let's see:
Chapter 1. Present Day
Chapter 2. Garden of Eden
The End

Well, at least that keeps everything simple and doesn't require much thinking.

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, honey... don't you know that I love you?

[SpeedRacer 1]

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Chapter 1. Present Day
Chapter 2. Garden of Eden

Hey, did y'all know that Eden was in Iraq??

Speed Racer
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[SpeedRacer 1]

would one of those molecular clocks be cytochrome C by any chance? it's a protein in the mitochondria, and has changed very slowly over millions of years.

Speed Racer
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[billvon 3,131]

>would one of those molecular clocks be cytochrome C by any chance?

Yes, and it's sort of a special case, since mitochondria can be used to trace back maternal parentage exclusively.

[billvon 3,131]

>My husband always says that you can be sure of 2 ancestors-Noah and Adam.

I assume that's a joke, but Dawkins does go into finding someone we could call "adam" and "eve." They are humanity's most recent common ancestor. If you go back far enough you are going to find two people (one man, one woman) who gave some DNA to every person alive today. They most likely never met each other, and they were in no way remarkable (i.e. they were just one of millions) and their identities can change from day to day, as people die and their lineage dies with them. But at any given time you could theoretically go back and find the last person who shared genes with every living person. Pretty cool.

[Shotgun 1]

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but Dawkins does go into finding someone we could call "adam" and "eve."

The "Mitochondrial Eve"?

[TheAnvil 0]

Bill, you're the second person who has recommended that book. I think I'm going to go get it.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[jakee 1,609]

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Chapter 1. Present Day
Chapter 2. Garden of Eden
The End

"And the Serpent told them to eat of the apple. And Eve said 'But if we eat of or touch the apple we will die' And the serpent said 'Don't worry its not from South Africa' And so Adam and Eve ate the apple and opened their eyes and knew that they were naked. And Adam said 'Stand back love, I don't know how big this is going to get.' And they were ashamed and sewed fig leaves to cover themselves, one for Eve, seventy eight for Adam."

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[jakee 1,609]

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If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

Q. If land animals evolved from fish, why are there still fish.

A. Because the sea is still there.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[billvon 3,131]

>The "Mitochondrial Eve"?

Well, mitochondrial eve and DNA eve are two different people. Keep in mind that a given gene can be passed down woman to man to woman, but mitochondria can only be passed down woman to woman. So they are probably two different people. (They actually could be the same, but the odds are astronomical.)

[Guest]

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Chapter 1. Present Day
Chapter 2. Garden of Eden

Hey, did y'all know that Eden was in Iraq??

Yeah, and it was a big Mess o' Potamia too.


mh

.

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[billvon 3,131]

>Yeah, and it was a big Mess o' Potamia too.

You stole that from Jon Stewart!

[Shotgun 1]

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>The "Mitochondrial Eve"?

Well, mitochondrial eve and DNA eve are two different people. Keep in mind that a given gene can be passed down woman to man to woman, but mitochondria can only be passed down woman to woman. So they are probably two different people. (They actually could be the same, but the odds are astronomical.)

Oh, I see.

But that can't be right because the Bible says there is only one Adam and Eve!

You should really quit reading that science stuff, Bill. It will only confuse you with reality.

[Shotgun 1]

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If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

Where do you get the idea that humans evolved from apes?