by Comatose 40 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
moshe
'The genographic project uses familytreedna to do the tests- go directly to them, save money and match up with your lost ancestors/cousins in their huge database- it worked for me.'
Is this something that works without you having to send in dna? Can a person freely access their data base?
S
S- you must send in your dna for testing- from that test you can join a matching dna project- if you agree to share data, you can see matches and communicate with each other- you can join International projects , too.. A guy will need to do a 37 marker test in order to find male relatives who are related to you (and same last names) within the last 250 years- a 100% match on a 12 marker only means you could be related going back 1000 years or more- before the creation of surnames. The tests for maternal dna is not so accurate- I have hundreds and hundreds of matches to my maternal dna, but they could be a match to a common ancestor going back many thousands of years, because that dna doesn't mutate very fast in comparison to Y dna.
Thanks.
S
Phizzy - "Also his more readable "The Greatest Show on Earth" covers much that pertains to your doubts."
Oh, sweet Jesus, yes; "Greatest Show" is a truly awesome book!
Phizzy - "As to Neanderthals, there is no doubt that most of us share some of "their" DNA, but that alone does not put them in the line of ancestry that we have for sure, we and they could share a common ancestor after LUCA. (Last Universal Common Ancestor)"
Yeah, more like an older branch of the hominid ancestral tree that diverged into two; then much later (but not so much later that there was too much genetic differentiation), the caucasian portion of the Homo sapiens branch brushed up against the smaller Homo neanderthalis branch and took away a little bark shortly before the neanderthalis branch withered.
Or am I talking out of my ass again?
On a related note, has anybody else here Googled "Jack Horner chickensaurus"?
Hey Phizzy, I haven't read those books. I've read bits of Greatest Show, and found he made a lot of speculation not based on actual evidence, but like I said I haven't read it all. I find Mr Dawkins makes some sweeping assertions, but hey, I can give him another go.
If I remember correctly they've found graves with the dead adorned with jewellry (necklaces, etc). That's sad.
Yes Harry! So why did they not get interaction with god is my question. The only possible excuse is that they lived at same time and were another race. That's why WT says it. They were so similar to us, and yet ignored by god.
I thoroughly agree with your intelligent assesment Julia, of Richard Dawkin's writng style, and yes, one has to sift out his suppositions, but I found reading him an easy way to get a handle on the facts he uses to come to his conclusions, anything he quotes as fact cannot be in dispute or other scientists would have "strung him up" !
There are many other excellent books on the whole subject of Evolution, there is a not so old thread about them on here.
I am awating with excitement more understanding about early Hominids, such as the Denisvonians (spelling?) discovered in a cave in Siberia I believe, and genetically different to Neanderthals. There have been some more early Hominids come to light in China I believe, interesting stuff !
I am also interested in the evolution of the human mind/intellect. It seems that though huge leaps forward were made, tool making, using fire, then agriculture,the mind had not evolved enough to take on board concepts we find commonplace, and had not the ability to do "joined up thinking".
I think many in today's human race still do not think clearly, which gives us many of the problems we face.
The mind has some evolving to do, it is not generally yet fit for purpose. To be fit for purpose it would only seek ways to benefit the human race, at present most effort seems to be centered on finding ways of destroying it.
Children go through phases of cognitive development. I think some people with seemingly under developed thinking abilities never progressed beyond certain stages such as concrete thinking stage. I find as a teacher that kids stuck in that phase have trouble with more abstract curricula. Doesn't mean they're not nice people though. There are sociopaths though. I believe that is genetic: my friend's son had a sociopathic father and now he's hit 13 and hasn't seen his dad for years, he developing sociopathic traits. Scary. Off topic, but scary
