The Genographic Project & My Latest Crush

I will admit with a fair amount of shame that I've been down on men lately. By lately, I mean most of my adult life. When thinking about the Bullshit of this World - the wars, the oppression, the violence, our government - it's hard for me not to notice that men are responsible for most of it, perhaps since the dawn of mankind. This observation (no matter how true) does leave me feeling a bit guilty, particularly of late since I gave birth to yet another male creature a few months ago, and it's my reproductive system that bathed him in testosterone enough to grow him some boy-parts.  It's my responsibility to raise him up right, after all. Maybe the men responsible for the Bullshit of this World simply had inadequate mothering? Could be.

To better my karma and to pass along a positive message of hope in the face of today's racial and religious tensions, I want to make sure everyone knows about my latest crush, Dr. Spencer Wells, geneticist. A very good man indeed, whose work is laying groundwork for understanding who we are.

PBS has been running the National Geographic show featuring Dr Wells' series Journey of Man for the past year or so, and I happened to catch it again not long ago. The documentary fleshes out Wells' theory that every single human can be traced genetically to a single `Adam and Eve' from Africa, and that our outward differences developed over thousands of years of adaptation to globetrotting.  Curiously, `Eve' predates `Adam' by several thousand years according to his findings, but I can't even pretend to understand how he knows this. I'll take his word for it. If you haven't seen this series, or read his book, I urge you to do so. The documentary traces his extensive travels throughout the world as he meets with people from vastly different cultures and races who ultimately share the same DNA, and it's very interesting to watch.

Other than his movie star good looks, his overall theme of the absurdity of racism (via science) makes my heart go pitter-patter . From an interview:

You said that all human beings are related to one man in Africa. Was this the Adam mentioned in the Bible?

It's interesting that both genetic science and the Bible show that there is a single origin of molecule. According to genetic science we come from a single male ancestor. In the Bible too it is mentioned that there is a single male Adam and single female, Eve. Personally, I don't equate that one to one with the story of the Bible because if you come back generations, Adam should have existed in 4004 BC, and our Adam existed 60,000 years ago.

So can you say that you are disputing the claim of the Bible?

I don't like to get involved in religious issues because I am not a specialist in religion. I am a scientist and I demand evidence. And religion is not about evidence but about belief.

(snip)

You are very critical of racism.

Yes. We are all much closely related than we ever expected. Racism is not only socially divisive, but also scientifically incorrect. We are all descendants of people who lived in Africa recently. We are all Africans under the skin.

Sigh. So dreamy and smart and stuff.

DNA is about more that just determining paternity on The Maury Povich Show. From an NPR interview:

"DNA can help us go all the way back to the beginning," he says. "We can go back to the very early days of our species, to infer where we come from and how we got to where we live today."

By studying patterns in DNA, scientists will be able to map the migration of the human species -- and may pinpoint where the original humans came from in Africa, and how humans spread and diversified as they moved to distant parts of the globe.

Wells says some ethnic groups, like the San Bushmen of Namibia, have retained closer genetic lineages to the earliest humans. But in spite of the tremendous diversity of human beings, we are all "effectively members of an extended family."The amazing thing to come out of all of this is how closely related we all are," .Wells says. "We share a common ancestor -- a man who lived in Africa around 60,000 years ago. That's only about 2,000 generations."

While I watch these cartoon riots, and the aftermath of Katrina, and the religious wars that don't seem to end, it just seems patently absurd to me, a colossal misunderstanding. It gives me some hope that there are men like Dr. Wells who are contributing to changing the dialogue in a fundamental way for future generations (my son). I hope that research like his and our growing understanding of mankind's shared heritage will help to create more men who won't kill, oppress and burn embassies in the name of skin color, religion or whatnot.

The Genographic Project

The Book (buy Blue)

A tip of the hat to Dr. Spencer Wells, my crush du jour.