Were we talking about human evolution theories a moment ago? Here’s another, easier to make into a movie: In “Was humanity born in the mother of all plagues?” (New Scientist, 04 June 2012), Michael Marshall reports,
Around 100,000 years ago, the human race was on the brink of extinction. Confined to Africa, our population had fallen to less than 10,000. Yet within a few tens of thousands of years, we began spreading around the world.
New genetic evidence suggests that one factor contributing to the population bottleneck was a massive epidemic of bacterial disease. The bacteria were exploiting two immune system genes, turning them against us. So the solution was simple: get rid of the traitorous genes.
Sure. Bell the cat.
Varki thinks that early humans were confronted with a massive epidemic of bacterial infection. The two bacteria he studied are particularly dangerous to newborn babies, who often die after being infected. That could explain why the human population fell so precipitously, and why we got rid of the Siglec genes that made us so vulnerable.
Whichever Darwinian marvel did that must have been one cell of a scientist.
Funny how much this story sounds like a Left Behind movie, retro-retro, minus the get-religion scenes.
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