Is Mitochondrial Eve proven or theory?

[Anarchist420]

Seems like fact to me (it makes me disbelieve in creationism even though neither evolution nor creationism have been proven false).

I think it's fact because all humans have MtDNA. However, what I don't understand in relation to Mitochondrial Eve is how everyone alive today has mtDNA that is said to be descended from her, yet she wasn't a neanderthal (some people are more neanderthal than Cromagnon).

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[wuliheron]

Homo Erectus thrived for some 2 million years before mitochondrial Eve using fire and stone tools. However, they didn't have art and made no progress whatsoever in those 2 million years. They just kept using the same crude stone tools and had half our brain capacity. So in that sense there is some resemblance to the story of the Garden of Eden before Eve eat the apple.

However, mitochondrial Eve lived some 200,000 years ago and it wasn't until around 70,000 years ago that humanity started taking off like a rocket with new inventions like art and sophisticated tools. Research at the Yerkes Institute suggests that what distinguishes modern humans from other apes is, among other things, our interest in teaching and being taught. Human infants, for example, love to point at anything of interest and their parents look for and encourage such behavior.

Wild apes never exhibit even this simple pointing behavior and either have to be lucky enough to witness something or have to reinvent the wheel for themselves. They're not stupid and can be taught to appreciate teaching and being taught, but they just don't have an innate predisposition for such things. One chimp that was taught sign language was even dropped on an isolated island with a wild troop of chimps as an experiment. For months he tried to teach the other chimps sign language and they all thought he was insane.

Anyway, my point is it was likely a combination of both physical and social changes that lead to the sudden ascent of man and that Eve's mitochondria was probably just a small but crucial part of the equation that occurred some 130,000 years previously.

 

[lehtv]

Seems like fact to me (it makes me disbelieve in creationism even though neither evolution nor creationism have been proven false).

Creationism regarding to origin of species has been falsified, because evolution by natural selection has been proven true (as much as any scientific theory can be proven true). They are mutually incompatible concepts. Creationism regarding to the origin of the universe has not been falsified and probably never will be.

Eve's mitochondria was probably just a small but crucial part of the equation that occurred some 130,000 years previously.

I don't see what mitochondrial Eve has to do with any crucial moment in our species' history. Mitochondrial Eve is just a symbol of the fact that our mitochondrial DNA has a common origin. mtDNA doesn't recombine because it is inherited from the mother only, therefore there has to be, by definition, a mitochondrial Eve, the carrier of the mtDNA that all of our mtDNA descends from.