The Eve of biblical legend was a temptress, thus initiating a lamentable theme in the history of sexism. Unfortunately, her latest incarnation--as the so-called Eve theory of human origins--has equal power to mislead, even while embodying (as did Eve herself) fruits of great merit and consequence.
No subject has won more popular attention in press reports on human evolution during the past five years. In 1987, in the leading British journal Nature, Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Allan Wilson published data suggesting that the mitochondrial DNA of all modern humans had a common ancestry in Africa some 200,000 years ago. (Wilson, who initiated this research at the University of California at Berkeley, died prematurely a year ago, and we mourn and deeply miss one of our favorite and most brilliant colleagues.) Their argument, if correct, is enormously exciting in its implications. (Wilson and his co-workers have responded to critics of ...
