Recently I wrote a piece kind of throwing together the ideas of human evolution and personal genealogy, two things that clearly are ultimately connected because they both come down to simple genetics and who begat whom, but in reality are so separated in time that we cannot properly connect them. But those who accept genealogies and DNA tests for paternity have to accept evolution, because the concepts are the same. Ultimately genes work a certain way and we understand how they work quite well. Evolution is no great mystery or controversy. What is amazing is that Darwin, with no concept of genes, came up with a system that once genes were studied was found to fit very well how genes actually work. Genetics and Evolution started as separate fields, but amazingly the two separate fields merged almost perfectly. To me genealogy is simply what we can see up close of our evolutionary path. Once we get a few generations back, the branches of our ancestry become quite tangled and hard to see...but they are there. And their imprint is in our genes.

Race, ethnicity, culture, family...all important to people. But usually we think of these things completely separate from reality.

I have been reading several books that together have put some of this into perspective. Each of us are part of the whole sweep of human evolution, and we are all related in a very real, genetic way.

This man might be your ancestor:

(Ramesses II, king of Egypt, 13th century BC)

Yep, I bet lots of people today could, if only we had all the information, trace their ancestry back to this man. I would guess somewhere in the millions of people today are his descendants.

Go back far enough and we are all related. This is a fact. Or, more precisely, every little piece of our DNA ultimately derives from a common ancestor that can be traced back to some specific time and place.

This comes from the National Center for Science Education and the Leakey Foundation:

Creationists persistently deny the possibility that our species has had an evolutionary history, in spite of the overwhelming evidence. Dr. Eugenie C. Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, will argue that understanding the creationist treatment of human evolution requires an understanding of theological doctrine. This includes the idea that humans and other "kinds" be separate creations, hence all the fossils are either "true humans" or "just apes." How should we address the fact that some fossils show both "primitive" and "advanced" features, rather than this dichotomous divide?

*THERE WILL BE A BOOK SIGNING FOLLOWING THIS LECTURE.

Date: Thursday, May 17, 2007
Time: 7:00pm
Location: American Museum of Natural History
Address: 77th street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue
Tickets: $8 Members / $10 General / Free for Students
Call:(212) 769-5100 or www.amnh.org
Co-Sponsor: New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology (NYCEP)

*There will be a book signing following this lecture.

Event Details: