Talk:Mitochondrial Eve

Semitism

Why is she called Eve? Was she Jewish or Muslim? This choice of naming is discriminatory. --144.122.104.211 (talk) 13:50, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

should be Lucy (Charlie's pal)

Please rant elswhere 'bout discrimination - we go by reliable source usage around here. Vsmith (talk) 14:22, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Sykes ("The Seven Daughters of Eve") cites the concept in a 1987 unidentified paper; it is likely that the epithet was adopted by the press reporting on the finding at that time. Oddly, he also points out that it is hardly an African name. SkoreKeep (talk) 03:52, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Merged from "7 Mother not Eve"

Using the name Eve seems to be a purposeful slight at non-Christian religions. Wouldn't Mitochondrial Mother be a better name? I know people are going to argue: 'All prominent scientists use the term Eve' or some other way to shirk the duty of critically considering the name use. However, part of Wikipedia's duty is to move thought forward, and neutalizing the religious favouritism is a step forward. Besides, the alliteration sounds better. Steven McIntire ALLEN 07:27, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedians aren't allowed to make stuff up. See WP:No original research. Since when does a free encyclopedia written by volunteers have a "duty" other than to stick to the facts and respect copyright? HelenOnline (talk) 09:09, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

That is right. We use the most common name being used in published reliable sources. To do otherwise would certainly not be neutral. It seems to me there is always a minority somewhere who will endeavour to be offended at pretty much anything. (I certainly do not think most Christians or any scientists see this as an insult.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:39, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

For more on what Lancaster said, see WP:COMMONNAME.
—Sowlos 09:15, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

This would not be the first time most Christians would be insulting others without realising their insult. A web search for "mitochondrial mother" (with quotes) gives 3,220 results. Admittedly, mitochondrial eve has more, but 3,220 results suggests I am not making stuff up. Moreover, we should not be simply using the term that scores highest in search results. An encyclopaedia is meant to educate, so we could say Wikipedia has a duty to educate. If most of the English speakers in the world were using a religiously derogatory name, would Wikipedia use that name? Steven McIntire ALLEN 06:45, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Generally speaking the term "mitochondrial mother" is not used as a proper name while "Mitochondrial Eve" is. This article is about our "mitochondrial mother" who has been named "Mitochondrial Eve". HelenOnline (talk) 07:38, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

First, this article is about a well-establish term in science. Second, Adam and Eve are central to all three of the Abrahamic religions. Third, the Talk page is not for furthering personal, uninformed opinions. Lklundin (talk) 07:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

There is no need to be insulting. Opposing opinions may seem equally uninformed to the other. There is no dispute the term is well-established. You bring up a good point that the term bias relates to non-Abrahamic religions rather than non-Christian. None of your points are logically dispositive. Steven McIntire ALLEN 05:13, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

There is no point in trying to make excuses for using genetics to try to justify your belief in biblical stories. The genetic arguments are repeatedly made throughout this article that there was no such person, only tens of thousands of such person. Thus, whilst each will undoubtedly have many descendants, and you may sit in a room one day filled with those who have all descended from the same eve, there are always going to be people on earth who did not, thus, unless you want to be 'Eveist' about things, accept that at best genetics has proven that there were Mitchondrial Eves, tens of thousands of them. your Eve probably wasnt called Eve and neither most likely was mine. this is not to say you have to agree with my beliefs nor that i disrespect yours, but if you wish to take a modern, scientific view then do that and stop referring to a single person. I suggest retitling the article to Mitochondrial Eves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.37.134.125 (talk) 22:30, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Between this discussion having finished over three years ago, and no one having tried to justify a literalist interpretation of the Bible (which makes it hard to believe that you actually read any of the discussion)... there was absolutely no point in you responding. I'm not even going to address your arguments because the above posts already deal with it. Ian.thomson (talk) 04:08, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Please bear with me for one sentence. The name for the planet Jupiter is an allusion to a commonly known reference from Greek mythology, it made sense for the original proponents of the discovery/theory and their peers, using the word Jupiter in no way indicates superiority of Greek mythology over other mythology, and modern scientists who do not believe in Greek mythology can still feel comfortable using the word without feeling insulted or inferior. Now replace "Jupiter" with "Mitochondiral Eve" and "Greek mythology" with "Abrahamic religions." Is there a logical difference between the original sentence and the sentence with the words replaced? Please continue this argument after you've also requested to rename each of the non-Earth planets in our solar system on their respective Wikipedia pages. Cheddar3210 (talk) 07:59, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Discovery section

These rants and squabble are, I believe, resolved by the new section "Discovery". Chhandama (talk) 03:37, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Contradiction in the article

I find the notion of a mitochondrial Eve very strange. Is it really likely that we are all descended from a very small human population of a few thousands people somewhere in Africa? Remember that at the same time, there were Neandertalians and Denosovians (and other species too?) in Eurasia and we carry some of their genes. Does it mean we are descended from Neandertalian males exclusively? The article is contradictory: "Mitochondrial Eve is named after mitochondria and the biblical Eve.[2] Unlike her biblical namesake, she was not the only living human female of her time. However, her female contemporaries, excluding her mother, may have produced direct unbroken female lines only to portions of the present day human population." This is not possible. Any present day human can have only and only one matrilinear great-great-great...... great-grand mother in a given generation. There can be no such thing as a female contemporary of Eve being the direct matrilinear ancestor of anyone alive. Of course, many female contemporaries of Eve might be our great-great... grand-mothers, but not in a direct matrilinear way. Not that I am convinced that Eve existed. Let's imagine some Neandertalian woman was adopted into a Sapiens family 50 000 ears ago (I leave it to you to imagine a violent abduction or a romantic dalliance). Let's imagine this woman is our matrilinear great-great-great... grandmother. Is there a scientific way to tell out the new polymorphisms she brought into our line from new mutations appeared randomly? You have to demonstrate this before you can argue that Eve existed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiskrof (talk • contribs) 08:45, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I do agree that " There can be no such thing as a female contemporary of Eve being the direct matrilinear ancestor of anyone alive." I will look at that wording.

The best sources all insist the evidence does show we descend from a small population, so we have to report that, based on the way Wikipedia works.

But you are right to point out that in recent years, it has also been shown that the small population who were our main ancestors also seem to have interbred with some other small populations, very distantly related, such as Neanderthals. But how should that affect what we write in this specific article?

If I understand correctly you are proposing that we are not really sure that the most recent common ancestor of all human mitochondrial lines, might actually have been a person from one of those other populations, such as the Neaderthals. I am not sure about that, but I am also not sure whether it is relevant to any thing in the article? It would indeed be interesting to know if any published source has ever looked into that question, but I am not sure it would make the article wrong.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:53, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

by definition, mt-Eve's mother was a "female contemporary of Eve being the direct matrilinear ancestor of [everyone] alive", just not the most recent one. --dab (𒁳) 09:08, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Outdated information

"The identical ancestors point. Just a few thousand years before the most recent single ancestor shared by all living humans was the time at which all humans who were then alive either left no descendants alive today or were common ancestors of all humans alive today. In other words, "each present-day human has exactly the same set of genealogical ancestors" alive at the "identical ancestors point" in time. This is far more recent than when Mitochondrial Eve lived.[36]" This seems to be outdated. The idea is from a 2004 article. I think we did not know back then that humans outside of Subsaharian Africa have Neandertal genes. The identical ancestors point has to be put back to the time before Proto-Neandertals left Africa, i.e. not "far more recent than when Mitochondrial Eve lived" but far far older. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiskrof (talk • contribs) 09:26, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Please double check this and let the talk page here know what you find? I believe however that the 2004 article involved was not based on genetic assumptions, but simply mathematical simulations about interbreeding. The question of archaic populations does not effect this because there are not people alive who are purely of archaic descent, and we are talking about ancestry shared with the rest of humanity, not DNA they do not share with the rest of humanity.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:28, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Not the Biblical Eve

I believe this section was written to prove that Mitochondrial Eve is not the same person referenced in religious texts. I question the need for this section, but more importantly, I call for citations. Until equipped with citations, this section is more of a dogmatic rant than a scientific encyclopedia.

• The page suggests that Mitochondrial Eve is not a "fixed" individual. Perhaps we have not found the year/generation/genetic sequence of Mitochondrial Eve, but we are precisely searching for a "fixed" person: the most recent common ancestor. By definition, we are not looking for her mom, her sister, or someone living in her neighborhood; we are looking for her. In terms of population genetics, you cannot be more of a "fixed individual" than this.
• While it is safe to assume that Mitochondrial Eve had a mother based on the evidence that we all have mothers, I think specific cited evidence is warranted for such a special case as Mitochondrial Eve.
• If we have genetic evidence that indicates that Mitochondrial Eve's contemporaries had similar mitochondrial DNA, please cite. Short of this, please cite fossil evidence indicating a larger human population contemporary to Mitochondrial Eve.
• Suggest rephrasing the last point to be more scientific: Although the estimated timelines of Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam overlap, there is no genetic evidence to indicate that they were alive at the same time or knew each other. Given the large time ranges and large geographies involved, their chance meeting would be extremely improbable.

For clarity, I do not argue here that Mitochondrial Eve has any relation with the Eve of religious texts. I only call for citations and rephrasing in order to improve the scientific basis of Wikipedia and shed dogmatic rants. Cheddar3210 (talk) 09:18, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

First, just as a standard procedure, I will move this new section to the bottom of the page rather than the top.

The article has many citations and those citations show clearly that Mitochondrial eve is defined to mean something handy for scientists, and not with reference to anything else such as these eves being the first woman (not even in science, let alone the Bible). That makes it redundant to ask for a source which specifically says something is NOT true, that no source would ever lead you to think in the first place?

The fact that the mitochondrial eve will in fact change over generations stems from the definition itself, because this person is defined in terms of mitochondrial lines in existence on the day we are talking, and every day there are lines going extinct. Concerning the last two bullets perhaps they need separate discussion:

• Does the article currently say that "Mitochondrial Eve's contemporaries had similar mitochondrial DNA"? Maybe we indeed need to look at that, but please cite the part of the article for discussion here.
• Similarly, concerning the proposed rewording about the overlap with "Y Adam" can you post the text you want to change?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:26, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

All the "dumbed down" explanations in this article are here due to our decade-long experience that people will make well-intended but uninformed edits unless we really really go out of our way to explain it so everyone can understand. It's not usual to go so far in Wikipedia articles on technical topics, but this page has really proven to be a magnet for such edits.

Andrew's explanations are correct of course. I seriously do not know how we could make the concept any clearer to avoid being forced to give personalised explanations on talk as well. Perhaps a FAQ page we can point to?

Perhaps using really drastic examples?

"If tomorrow, the entire human population would be wiped out, with the only exception of you, your parents and your siblings, your own mother would become mitochondrial Eve. Not because she was in any way special when she was born, but because she and her decendants later on proved lucky not to be wiped out with the others. If you do not understand that your mother may in principle become mt-Eve after a suitable extinction event in the future, please don't ask for 'citations' saying other women with similar mt-DNA were alive at the same time as mt-Eve." --dab (𒁳) 09:14, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

"234 kya"

The article has been pretty much slaughtered since 2009. The "234 kya" estimate was left over without any indication where it originated. It turns out it was derived from a detailed review of the estimates available in 2009,[1] summarized as

"There are various estimates given for when Mitochondrial Eve lived, ranging between 234,000 years ago and 82,000 years before present(BP), with the majority of estimates clustered between 160,000 and 200,000 BP" (from page 82 "Supplemental Data", mmc1.pdf Soares et al. (2009); see Results, p. 897; Table 3, p.898 of Endicott & Ho (2008))

It is inadmissible to throw out these specific references and just retain "234 kya" without any kind of citation. Anyway, the studies from 2012/13 seem to favour 160 kya, so I am citing this for now.--dab (𒁳) 10:22, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

I misread that. The 2009 studies has "150-234 kya", and the 2013 study has "99-148 kya". I.e. the CIs do not even overlap. An explanation is needed for this (rather than just saying "ca. 150 kya" because this is where the conflicting CIs happen to meet). Also, this duplicates the scope of Macro-haplogroup L (mtDNA), it would be easier to maintain only one page with a topic as complex as this one. --dab (𒁳) 11:22, 23 October 2016 (UTC)