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From: "Lancaster-Boon" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] More Y-Joe debate
References: <003601c8aead$f8248fa0$12f4be7c@melbourne><96F96A0EC0D247898F991CC99ACD6620@PC><007501c8af0c$65695790$12f4be7c@melbourne>
In-Reply-To: Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 07:48:17 +0200


Dear Joe

Here's how the conversation now seems to me...

1. You started by saying that the Y Adam hypothesis is not proven.

2. Ann, and others, explained how the Y hypothesis works.

3. You have claimed that there is a problem with her explanation, and it is
still not proven.

4. Everyone else disagrees with you, but in response to their comments you
have (in a round about way) explained that your position involves redefining
the what Y Adam hypothesis means:

You now say that the hypothesis really is a specific prediction particular
number of generations back when the Y Adam lived, and you say that this
specific prediction is not proven. Nobody else uses the term that way,
including the people who you claim to have proven wrong.

5. Having discovered what you mean, we continue to say that,

First, Ann's description was not about the prediction which you are talking
about, and is still right. There was a Y Adam, the way everyone else uses
the term, even if he was a fish. Ann was not discussing any particular
theory about how long ago this Y Adam, and whether he was human for example.

Second, what you are really wanting to debate, the exact time of the Y Adam,
involves not logic alone, but empirical data.

Your claim that the most common estimates are unproven, because amazing new
data could be discovered tomorrow, therefore just collapses into the old saw
that no statement about real things can ever be fully proven: the laws of
physics have existed every day of ours lives but how do you "prove" they'll
still be there tomorrow? And how do you "prove" that pigs have no ability to
fly backwards?

I'd suggest that anyone interested in such questions should be reading and
discussing David Hume, for example, because in any discussion about real
things you could be constantly expressing doubts like this - but what's the
point of that?

In conclusion,

1. You are still wrong about all the others who you keep saying are wrong -
because you don't address the things they wrote, but instead redefine what
you think they meant.

Apparently you prefer to present your musings as destroying the cherished
belief of lesser mortals even if they don't. This is extremely distracting.

2. Your point that new information might come along and force us to change
our ideas about when the Y Adam lived is not all that interesting unless you
actually have that new information.

Best Regards
Andrew


----------
From: "Joe Flood" <>
Subject: [DNA] Ann's problem
Date: Wed, 7 May 2008 09:34:47 +1000
References: <>

Why are you finding this so hard Andrew? I was asked to solve a mathematical
problem posed by Ann, and I did, though it took me some thought. I gave the
correct answer, and a couple of equivalent explanations, as the obvious one
seemed too hard for you to understand. Yes you have seen the mind of a
mathematician at work in real time, though that seems to be a shock to the
system.


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