Humanities family tree.

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by TheFrogger, Jun 2, 2017.

  1. TheFrogger Banned Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,175
    Hi there.

    Is it possible to trace the family tree of humans to a single entity?

    For example if there was one, one would give birth to two, and two to four.

    1
    2
    4
    8
    16
    32
    ...

    etc.

    1/2=0.5

    That is halfway.

    So then the correct equation (depending upon our generation, because we are not the singularity) is...

    n/2x/4x

    This is the formula.

    However to discover n we must work the equation in reverse...

    n*2n*4n

    ...or...

    8*n*n*n (8n^3)

    ...and...

    8/n*n*n

    There are three n's in eight. What does n equal?

    2*2*2=8

    n=2.

    Is this mathematics correct??
     
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  3. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    39,421
    No.

    By the same reasoning, you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents etc. So, as you go back further in time there ought to be more and more people.

    Something is wrong with this. Can you see what?

    This mathematical gibberish is a waste of time. Please don't post nonsense like this again.
     
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  5. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    13,077
    Have you never seen a diagram of a family tree?

    The diagram shows the further back you go the more ancestors you find

    No single entity there

    Are you trying to establish a link with Lucy?

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  7. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    5,909
    Perhaps one taxonomic classification of ancestral organism, but in my opinion probably not from a single individual organism.

    That means that I'm somewhat skeptical about all the talk of 'mitochondrial eve', the claim that all humans living today are descendants of a single female. I'm inclined to think that conclusion is probably an artifact of the analytical (cladistic?) methods that these scientists applied to their data.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

    It would seem to operate the other way. Each of us has two parents, each of them had two parents, each of those grandparents had two parents and so on. That multiplies very quickly into huge numbers, which at some point are going to be larger than the size of the human populations living at the time.

    So all of those ancestors can't be distinct individuals. We are going to have to share ancestors way back in time. So there may hypothetically be a single ancient individual that is found is found in every living person's family tree if we traced things far enough back and if the early ancestral population was small enough.

    But having said that, I don't really believe that we are all descendants of a single favored individual. I'm more inclined to believe that we are all descended from a single ancestral population. I don't know how large it was or how geographically dispersed.
     
  8. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    13,077
    Yes BUT the population of humans

    (in our current form)

    living at the time would be zero

    Remember our extreme distant ancestors were a haphazard group of almost current humans

    This might help

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

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  9. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    8,476
    I'm reasonably certain that there was one single celled prokaryotic cell at the head of my family tree.(about 3.8 billion years ago)

    I----------we are a collection of inherited cells which are hosts to millions of bacteria and viruses, and maybe a bit of mold(and a mystery life form?). Let us assume that our symbiotic guests evolved at different times in/for different ecological niches---------and it gets complicated.

    We only survive as a symbiotic cooperative collection of life forms.
    (god bless us everyone)
     
  10. TheFrogger Banned Valued Senior Member

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    2,175
    Yet the human population is growing.
     
  11. TheFrogger Banned Valued Senior Member

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    2,175
    Duplicate.
     
  12. Dinosaur Rational Skeptic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    4,885
    Going back generations: 2 Parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents. etc. assumes that there was never mating between first, second, third, et cetera cousions.
     
  13. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,089
    That's down to longevity more than reproduction. We're mostly supposed to die before puberty, or, if we have reached adulthood, drop off again sharply at 50-60. We are supposed to die in large numbers during every epidemic, winter, famine, flood, drought, earthquake and tornado. Between technology and species-sympathy, we've circumvented many of the natural causes of death - while also enhancing our own ability to conceive and produce an increasing number of viable offspring. We only manage any appreciable culling of the human population through war.
    And maybe climate change. We'll see.
     
  14. Beaconator Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,486
    Yggdrasil...
     
  15. Beaconator Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,486
    Chloroplast
     
  16. sweetpea Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,329
    I found this interesting... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19331938
    3,000 years ago...About the time of Ramsese II. Would that be 100 x Great Grandad?
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2017

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