Pass the ribs!

Moments ago, a friend sent an innocuous email entitled: "Fwd: Interesting History Info from Cecelia." I'm still not sure why I opened it; but I'm glad I did.

The email contained a link to a story on the BBC's website, Genetic 'Adam Never Met Eve'. If this isn't a drama, I can't imagine what is.

As this story unfolds, a group of scientists from eight countries traced mankind's genetic family tree. They did this by studying the variations in the Y chromosome of more than a thousand men from different communities around the world. (If you've been away from a biology class as long as I have, you'll need to be reminded that men carry the Y chromosome and the X chromosome. Women carry two X chromosomes.)

In earlier studies, fossil evidence revealed that modern humans originated in Africa 150,000 years ago, then slowly spread across the world. These scientists' research confirmed the decades-old "Out of Africa" hypothesis, which was based on studies of mitochondrial DNA, the segment of genetic material that is inherited exclusively from the mother. These studies determined that our most recent common ancestor was a woman who lived in Africa some 143,000 years ago, the so-called "Mitochondrial Eve".

Not content that they found "Eve", the latest group of scientists launched an exhaustive DNA search for "Adam". Voila! They found him. He was a man who lived in Africa around 59,000 years ago.

Did you do the math? Uh huh: There's an 84,000 year gap between Adam and Eve.

Pass the ribs, please. Reading this story on Earth Day made me see the entire planet in a new light. It was solely populated with women for 84,000 years? How on earth did they procreate?

Of course, the astute scientists have an explanation for this: They've concluded that the human genetic blueprint evolved as a mosaic, with different pieces of modern DNA emerging and spreading throughout the human population at different times. What does that mean: the first humans were male and female, not either/or?

Wait a minute! These scientists didn't mention a word about mankind being created from dust. And their women-first theory takes a plug out of our all-time favorite story of Adam's rib.

There's only one thing to do: We'll have to give these heretics a time-out; march them into their labs to stare into their Petri dishes until they can emerge with some more palatable answers.

What we really want to hear is that science is in synch with what we already believe: Man was here first. He was made from dust--and he was made from clay. Since the earth is nearly five billion years old and everything was created in a week, they will have to establish human life on the planet five billion years ago. And then we want them to explain how and why mankind regressed intellectually. After all, cavemen didn't have language, but Adam was able to develop the sophisticated nomenclature for every plant and animal soon after birth.

I might be pushing my luck, and maybe this is outside of the realm of science. But I wonder if the researchers can tell us why we didn't get a Savior for hundreds of thousands (maybe even billions) of years, since God seemed to be pretty fed up with us quite soon after our arrival on the planet.

One thing for sure, before these wise guys are allowed to release any more scientific evidence about the origin of man, they are absolutely positively going to have to stop locating the Garden of Eden so far south of Europe!