I'm related to Sarah Palin. And Gandhi.

___________________

I don't understand why people care about their genealogical roots. What does that tell us about ourselves as individuals? Not much, perhaps as a group... which would reflect a bit about oneself as an individual depending on how much you embrace or reject from your cultural environment and in turn tells you a little about some aspects of yourself... and maybe a little bit about it's history which might help understand why certain cultural phenomenon exist, and why in that state. But that's really about it. I'm a descendant of Muhammad, the final and last Prophet according to Islam, since my tribal lineage comes from Zain-ul-Abidenn, the 13th Shi'ia Imam, who is a direct descendant and my blood line is just one of the many. You would imagine as a Muslim I might find this to be really "cool" and "fascinating" or something. Well, I don't. I think it's absolutely irrelevant and has absolutely nothing to do with me as an individual. I am in no way any better or worse than any other human on the planet. Point is... does it matter what your geneology is? I guess the only reason why it matter to most is since they cannot define themselves with out appropriating that identity through some external phenomenological factor or grouping.

In short, I'm just curious why you brought it up and what input you were expecting from anyone else?

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Well, exactly. The date's pretty hard to pin down, but at some point in human history (most likely 100,000+ years ago, which would place it before the first human migrations out of Africa depending on which migration model you believe) there must have existed a woman from whom all human beings are directly decended. It's just a simple biological / mathematical necessity that all members of a species must be directly related to a single female and a single male (who would have lived much more recently than the female, incidentally), but it's still pretty amazing to think about. Probably not too far, apparently, unless one of you is Polynesian and the other one African: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_a...netic_variation

That's really weird, because it implies the Adam / Eve mythology actually has an element of truth to it i.e. we all descend from one man and one woman. You seem like you've done your homework on the subject. Is that really the only theory regarding origin of the human race as a species? A single couple? Doesn't that also imply that's we're all technically incestuously inbred in a sense? I mean, keeping speciation in mind, that automatically eliminates any other possibilities.

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller