[Aztlan] THE BERINGIAN POPULATION AND THE FIRST AMERICANS

[Scott]

On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 07:08:58PM -0700, D. Mylne wrote: > 

> Certainly genetic patterns changed (narrowed, specialized, etc.) in
> each population that fell out of contact with other human
> populations;. However, it seeems suppositional to claim there were
> "mutations" unless either this term is defined differently from how I
> have understood it, or concrete evidence of such mutations is
> available. 

<delurk>

As I recall from long-ago biology courses, a mutation *means* a change
in genetic patterns; ie, an A-T pair somewhere in the immense code
randomly changes to a C-G pair. If the change is malicious, then it
will probably not be propagated into the next generations; if it does
neither harm nor good to the organism, then its chance of propagation
is random; if it provides a benefit to the organism, then it is more
likely to be retained in the code. (Of course, there are mutations
such as the sickle-cell gene which are both malicious and adaptive,
leading to an interesting propagation mix, but let's not get too far
afield here....) I presume that the 'mutations' being charted here are
random non-adaptive ones which became retained and propagated in the
isolated population. Someone more knowledgeable than I will correct this.

</delurk>

Scott Swanson