Deep Thought – Hi Cousin!

According to scientists who have been studying the human genome, if you could line up your father and his father (your grandfather) and his father (your great grandfather) on and on in a long line going back in time through the generations, you would only have to line up about 3,000 people until we would get to a handful of people who lived in a small clan near what is now Ethiopia, to whom every person living on Earth right now is related. (Phew…that was a long sentence.)

3,000 people. Not many.

Anyhow…the deep thought – in about another 3,000 generations our children’s children’s children’s (etc.) child will be born who will finally be paying off our Bush era debt.

16 Comments

  1. Dorian Gray

    Richard Dawkins describes this concept at book’s length in The Ancestor’s Tale.

    “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes”
    – Mark Twain

  2. jason330

    I’ll have to give that a read.

    From time to time, when I have a far away look in my eye, I find myself thinking about how different my life must be from my great-grandfather’s – and, in turn, how similar his peasant life was to his great (to the tenth power) grandfather’s.

  3. Joanne Christian

    Read Mark Twain instead-more truth.

  4. Dorian Gray

    ‘more’ truth?

  5. Yeah, it’s like all truthiness and more!
    😛

  6. From our vantage point, looking back and then looking forward, humans are kind of a paradox. As there becomes more of us, becoming closer and more interwoven, we’ve somehow managed to become more isolated from each other.

    Go figure.

  7. cassandra m

    we’ve somehow managed to become more isolated from each other

    And I think that we’ve invested a great deal of work in maintaining alot of that isolation.

  8. You have no idea what I am talking about, do you?

    FWIW, I do know what you meant with this thread and all, but simply trying to have a little fun at your expense. Cheer the frick up! Hope that helped.

  9. Dorian Gray

    Well we are all Africans anyway. 🙂

  10. 😀 Thanks, Cass! That was my thought.

    Although, DV, I think you’d enjoy that conversation (it’s about one-third down on that page).

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