Eden

I'd be more of the view: what happens in Eden stays in Eden 😘

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source: Le Journal de Montreal   BLOGS

author: NORMAND LESTER

Wednesday, October 30, 2019 05:00

translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise

Were Adam and Eve incestuous monkeys?

Let's forget for a moment Donald Trump's antics to talk about news that should lead us to reflect on our origins and those of the 7 billion people who inhabit and pollute the planet.

Scientists claim to have discovered the birthplace of humanity. In a way, the "Garden of Eden" where according to Genesis lived Adam and Eve. The scientific journal Nature has published this information.

According to Australian and South African researchers, the authors of our study, our first "human" ancestors (homo sapiens sapiens) were born 200,000 ago in a small wetland in Botswana in southern Africa where hunter-gatherers lived in isolation for 70,000 years before climate change forced them to disperse across Africa and then the entire planet.

As is often the case in science, the researchers' conclusions were immediately challenged. In particular, they were criticized for having relied primarily on the analysis of mitochondrial DNA, which represents only a tiny part of the gene pool.

Anyway, it's the "Adam and Eve" aspect of the news that interested me because I did research on the genetic proximity of humans and great apes for the scientific thriller " The Orchids of Stalin "which I co-authered with Corinne de Vailly.

How did primates become humans? The main difference between humans and other great apes is that we have one pair of chromosomes less: 23 pairs of chromosomes instead of 24 . The chromosomes of humans are very similar to those of chimpanzees and bonobos, the two species of great apes with whom we have a genotypic proximity of more than 98%.

The split between the branch of the monkeys and that of the hominids in the primate tree is probably due to a genetic aberration. A mutation that caused the appearance of a viable being whose cells had only 47 chromosomes instead of 48. This mutation was unlikely to spread because it is very unfavorable to those who are afflicted, if they are viable.

To move on to 46 chromosomes, it required mating between two individuals with 47 chromosomes. Such a cross will yield non-viable trisomics and tetrasomics, but possibly a viable individual with 46 chromosomes: "Ecce homo". Some specialists believe that the acquisition of bipedalism in humans was made with the transition to 46 chromosomes. As also the development of the cerebral neocortex involved in higher cognitive functions such as language, spatial reasoning and consciousness.

It is highly unlikely that many monkeys with the same chromosomal deficiency coexisted for the reasons outlined above. If two individuals with 47 chromosomes mated, they had to be brother and sister or, perhaps, father and daughter.

Even though consanguinity is dramatically harmful to the offspring of humans and great apes, the taboo of incest only appears fairly late. In most current primates, males leave their family group at maturity to avoid incest. In the case of bonobos, it is the females that disperse during adolescence.
Two conclusions can be inferred from the above.

We are all descendants of the same pair of genetically imperfect primates.

Adam and Eve really existed: two monkeys with 47 chromosomes who practiced incest!

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