|
us that we derive these genes from a cross species ancestry going back at least 65,000,000 years, it also permits an estimate of the size of breeding populations that give rise to a species, including the human species. Quote: "The MHC data imply that the early hominid line split, at some stage, into at least two populations--one of which led to modern Homo sapiens (us). This population consisted of at least 500 but more likely 10,000 breeding individuals who carried most of the MHC alleles and allelic lineages now found in human populations."
Many (most?) readers think that the Urantia Book claims that Andon and Fonta were the sole ancestral parents of all of us. In fact, it does not. It says: "Even the loss of Andon and Fonta before they had offspring, though delaying human evolution, would not have prevented it. Subsequent to the appearance of Andon and Fonta, and before the mutating potentials of animal life were exhausted, there evolved no less than seven thousand favorable strains which could have achieved some sort of human type of development. And many of these better stocks were subsequently assimilated by the various branches of the expanding human species." (734). Which would account quite nicely for the present polymorphism of the MHC alleles, as well as the estimates of the initial size of the breeding population at between 500 and 10,000. Ain't that marvellous?
Reference: Klein, J., N. Takahata, & F.J. Ayala. "MHC Polymorphisms and Human Origins." Scientific American 269 (6) 46-51. 1993.
|
|
