Handful of Common Ancestors
Given how dissimilar we humans appear to be from each other, I was surprised to learn that all living humans descend from a small “founding population” of about 5,000 men and 5,000 women! If it didn’t hit you, consider what this means: all 7 billion of us; the blonde and the uh, black hair; the blue eye and the brown eye; white guy and black guy; the pygmy and the Nordic giant all coming from such a small base. It’s very counter intuitive to believe that we come from such a common stock (at least for me, it was easier to imagine parallel evolution of humans in different places starting with different gene pools to explain the diversity we see). Until I saw this strip from Hagar the Horrible : Asian me feels exactly the same as the Viking, Hagar, when the wife does housework. Helping out is never an option for men. The only options we see are: - Option 1 : Look away (it makes us feel guilty) or - ...