Page 209 - The Errors the American National Academy of Sciences

The NAS's Human Evolution Error

However, present-day findings show that Neanderthal Man lived to-
gether with Homo sapiens, and that the Neanderthals are an extinct
human race, not a species different from man. You can find more de-
tails on this subject in our book Darwinism Refuted. The matter to be

considered here is whether the data obtained from Neanderthal DNA
are reliable.
The DNA analysis in question was carried out by Svante Pääbo
of Munich University. Pääbo and his team studied mitochondrial
(mtDNA) obtained from Neanderthal fossils instead of nuclear DNA.
The reason for the use of mtDNA in studies of this kind is that while
there are only two copies of DNA in each cell nucleus, there are be-

tween 500 and 1,000 copies of mtDNA in each cell. There is thus a
greater possibility of ancient mtDNA's having been preserved.
However, there are serious difficulties that reduce the reliability of
this DNA analysis. Some of these difficulties are as follows:

1. The method employed in the comparisons is wrong

Here is one erroneous interpretation in the conclusions from this
research: mtDNA obtained from Neanderthal Man was compared
with mtDNA sequences from modern human beings, and the differ-
ence between the Neanderthal and modern human mtDNA se-
quences was determined to be greater than that between the mtDNAs

of present-day humans. The method employed here is erroneous,
however. A single sequence taken from the mtDNA of a single
Neanderthal was compared to 994 sequences taken from 1,669 differ-
ent modern humans. Bearing in mind that among these 1,669 people,
some displayed differences among themselves as great as the differ-

ence between modern mtDNA and that of the Neanderthals, we can
understand that the statistical results obtained are not trustworthy. 22

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