Why so much resistance?
Dr. Hebert: Well, there is a typological ring to barcoding. If it were really and truly the case that each species was indelibly barcoded with an invariant DNA marker, that would have some very drastic consequences for theories of the origin of life. If there was only significant variation between species - and none within species - that could imply creationism.
[...]
Let's return to creationism again. You said that one of the surprising things is that there is so little difference between individuals in a species.
Dr. Hebert: The explanation, when this lack of mitochondrial diversity showed up in humans, was a population bottleneck - the collapse of our species to perhaps 1,000 individuals about 150,000 years ago in Africa and out of that bottleneck modern humans emerged, stripped of mitochondrial diversity. But am I supposed to believe that every aphid species on the planet, every water flea, every fish went through a similar bottleneck at the same time? That is impossible. Honestly, I sometimes wake up at night and think, "If I was a creationist, this would be my proudest moment."
Since you are not a creationist, what do you think is happening?
Dr. Hebert: I think that it can be explained scientifically by there being a scouring mechanism that cleanses mitochondrial genomes of their diversity on a regular basis.
[...]
Let's return to creationism again. You said that one of the surprising things is that there is so little difference between individuals in a species.
Dr. Hebert: The explanation, when this lack of mitochondrial diversity showed up in humans, was a population bottleneck - the collapse of our species to perhaps 1,000 individuals about 150,000 years ago in Africa and out of that bottleneck modern humans emerged, stripped of mitochondrial diversity. But am I supposed to believe that every aphid species on the planet, every water flea, every fish went through a similar bottleneck at the same time? That is impossible. Honestly, I sometimes wake up at night and think, "If I was a creationist, this would be my proudest moment."
Since you are not a creationist, what do you think is happening?
Dr. Hebert: I think that it can be explained scientifically by there being a scouring mechanism that cleanses mitochondrial genomes of their diversity on a regular basis.
Strauss, Stephen, The Barcode of Life Takes Flight, University Affairs, vol. 47, no. 4, April 2006, pp. 11-15.
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