英文自修25：单一祖先论得到了进化生物学的确证
本篇讲师在科学不断证实基督教诸多基本教义为伪的大趋势下找到了一点安慰。
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Speaker - Clifford Longley
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This is the earliest evidence that human beings existed that long ago anywhere in Europe, or indeed anywhere outside of Africa. Norfolk Man has been named as Homo Antecessor, which simply means early or pioneer. Our own species of human, homo sapiens - or to give us our full name homo sapiens sapiens - is thought to have originated much later, 150,000 to 200,000 years ago.
But the African connection is still there. One of the most surprising recent discoveries from the world of genetics is that every human being now alive on Planet Earth had a common ancestor. So we all share a great great great - to the power of N - grandmother. Mitochondrial DNA passes unmodified 未更动过 from mothers to daughters.
And DNA from various diverse 不同的 racial groups - ranging from northern Europeans to Australian aboriginals 土著人 - has been found to share this common characteristic. This original mother of the whole tribe of homo sapiens sapiens has even been given the name Mitochondrial Eve, and it's thought she lived somewhere in East Africa.
I mentioned "racial groups", but to be accurate there is only one human race. Mitochondrial Eve proves we're all from the same family. Whether we are also related to the Norfolk footprinters we'll probably never know.
The name Eve is an obvious reference to the story of Adam and Even in the Bible. This Biblical narrative 叙事 about human origins had been used, long before DNA was discovered, to support belief in monogenesism - that we are all related to the same ancestors.
Indeed, once the historical truth of the Genesis story was no longer thought credible in the light of evolutionary theory, monogenesism stood more or less alone as the one abiding moral truth that Genesis still had to offer us. It's crucial - because it shoots down every claim to racial superiority 优越感. I find it a pleasing irony that this basic ethical insight about humanity from the book of Genesis has now been confirmed by Darwinian evolutionary biology.
圣歌“耶路撒冷”对英国人来说多少已经是非正式国歌——尽管当我们起劲地唱“远古的足迹，是否踏过英格兰的山绿？”时，对布雷克该问题的答案是彻底的“没有”。他所指的是传说，没有任何历史证据表明耶稣一生中曾踏足英格兰的“欣绿之地”。
但的确有另外的远古足迹曾到过英国，考古学家也找到了证据。诺福克海滩的退潮揭出一块远古泥滩，其上仍有一小群人类的足迹，科学考证其来自80万年到100万年前。
这是人类在如此之早即在欧洲——甚或非洲之外的任何地方——活动过的最早证据。诺福克人被命名为先驱智人，就是“早期、先锋”的意思。我们现代智人——全名为现代现代智人——被认为起源晚得多，在150000到200000年之前。
与非洲的关联仍在。基因世界近来最惊人的发现之一就是地球上现存人类有一共同祖先。所以我们共有一个曾曾曾——N辈——祖母。线粒体DNA由母传女，历久不变。
研究发现不同种群的DNA——从北欧人到澳大利亚土著人——都有这一共同特点。整个现代现代智人族群原初的母亲甚至得名“线粒体夏娃”，据认为她生活在东非某地。
我提到了“族群”，确切地说只有一个人类。线粒体夏娃证实我们是同一家人。我们与诺福克脚印的主人有没有亲戚，可能永远也不知道。
夏娃这个名字显然来源于圣经中亚当和夏娃的传说。早在DNA远未发现之前，圣经中关于人类起源的这段叙述就用来支持单一起源说，即我们都起源于共同的祖先。
的确，创世纪故事的历史真实性一旦在进化理论面前被认为不再可信，单一起源说就成了创世纪还能给予我们的唯一道德真相，恒久不变。这是至关重要的——因为所有种族优越的说法都因此证伪。我发现这是一种令人愉快的讽刺：这一来自创世纪书的人类道德真知如今得到了达尔文进化生物学的确证。