An excerpt from an Atacama Mummy article I wrote. This is not the only case...
Moreover, these large-scale single nucleotide, block indel and structural variants in no way constitute simple ‘novel genetic variations’ as the article frames them; rather they involve [Bhattacharya et al.;
Whole-genome sequencing…]:
i. 3,356,569 single nucleotide variations (SNVs),
ii. 518,365 insertions and deletions (indels), and
iii. 1047 structural variations (SVs) were detected as compared to a human reference genome.
None of this was even mentioned in the Halcrow Article. The only time it was alluded to, the above variance was downplayed as part of a desperate grasp at the plausible deniability of ‘nitrate exposure’ and to question the haplogroup and human they used as the genomic reference. In other words, desperate rhetoric. Again, show me the precedent for such large scale and functional ‘mutation’. To make the implication that this is not a mystery is just plain old agenda-spinning ignorance. To suggest that no morphological feature of this artifact should have served to raise a scientific question at all, is corrupt in its crafting. The DNA simply serves to confirm this.
In order to place this DNA divergence into perspective – this genetic distance represents slightly more than the separation break between Homo sapiens and Neanderthal, at about 3 million base pairs.
2 This represents 300,000 years differential evolution at the Scally/Sykes rate of observed natural genetic mutation.
3 4 Three hundred millennia of evolution comprised inside one single generation of in-species birth. Technically, we encountered a completely new species of man in the case of Ata. However, we panicked so badly as to how to spin this information for damage control (as are the Halcrow Article authors now), we failed to take note of the scientific observation. An observation just as exotic in nature as the discovery of Denisova hominins, Homo naledi, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo floresiensis. Finding human DNA inside a set of remains, does not logically constrain our conclusion therefore to that of the remains being modern human, as the article has incorrectly contended. Each of the four predecessors just listed, as it turns out all have human DNA in them – this does not serve to make them modern Homo sapiens.
The study of this little mostly human foetus could serve to turn our understanding of the mechanisms underpinning evolution upon its ear, or advance us decades into the future of our understanding of speciation. Yet, we think it is ethical to bury this evidence back in the ground. Much like having the Royal Navy sink Darwin’s ship HMS Beagle, replete with all his work, because it did not pay its port departure fee. I swoon at such virtuous action!
Halcrow Article experts, query your human genetic representative, Michael Knapp. Have him email me with even ONE SINGLE precedent for a single generation mutation which has attained this level of variance from its parental genome – and lived long enough to be analyzed as a creature for that matter. In fact, I challenge all the study authors to explain to me – one highly involved in genetic studies, just how this 3.4 million SNV genetic distance was attained in a single generational reproductive context. I await your expert response.