Let's assume, for the moment, that the Berkeley group is right, and examine what their conclusion does and does not mean. The “Eve” sobriquet has had unfortunate consequences. Some enthusiasts have run away with the idea that she must have been a lonely woman, the only woman on Earth, the ultimate genetic bottleneck, even a vindication of Genesis! This is {54} a complete misunderstanding. The correct claim is not that she was the only woman on Earth, nor even that the population was relatively small during her time. Her companions, of both sexes, may have been both numerous and fecund. They may still have numerous descendants alive today. But all descendants of their mitochondria have died out, because their link with us passes, at some point, through a male. In the same way, a noble surname (surnames are linked to Y chromosomes and pass down the male-only line in exact mirror image to mitochondria) can die out, but this doesn't mean that possessors of the surname have no descendants. They may have numerous descendants via pathways other than the male-only pathway. The correct claim is only that Mitochon-drial Eve is the most recent woman of whom it can be said that all modern humans are descended from her in the female-only line. There has to be a woman of whom this claim can be made. The only argument is over whether she lived here rather than there, at this time rather than at that time. The fact that she did live, in some place and at some time, is certain.

Here is a second misunderstanding – a more common one, which I have heard perpetrated even by leading scientists working in the field of mitochondrial DNA. This is the belief that Mitochondrial Eve is our most recent common ancestor. It is based on a confusion between “most recent common ancestor” and “most recent common ancestor in the purely female line.” Mitochondrial Eve is our most recent common ancestor in the purely female line, but there are lots of other ways of being descended from people than in the female line. Millions of other ways. Go back to our calculations of numbers of ancestors (forgetting the complication of cousin marriage, {55} which was the point of the argument before). You have eight great-grandparents but only one of them is in the purely female line. You have sixteen great-great-grandparents but only one of them is in the purely female line. Even allowing that cousin marriage reduces the number of ancestors in a given generation, it is still true that there are far, far, far more ways of being an ancestor than just in the female-only line. As we follow our genetic river back through remote antiquity, there were probably lots of Eves and lots of Adams – focal individuals, of whom it is possible to say that all 1995's people are descended from her, or him. Mitochondrial Eve is only one of these. There is no particular reason to think that of all these Eves and Adams, Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent. On the contrary. She is defined in a particular way: we are descended from her via a particular pathway through the river of descent. The number of possible pathways to set alongside the female-only pathway is so large that it is mathematically highly unlikely that Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent of these many Eves and Adams. It is special among pathways in one way (being female-only). It would be a remarkable coincidence if it were special among pathways in another way (being the most recent).

An additional point of mild interest is that our most recent common ancestor is somewhat more likely to have been an Adam than an Eve. Harems of females are more likely to occur than harems of males, if only because males are physically capable of having hundreds of children, even thousands. The Guinness Book of Records puts the record at over a thousand, achieved by Moulay Ishmael the Bloodthirsty. (Incidentally, Moulay Ishmael might well be adopted by feminists as a general symbol of macho unpleasantness. It is said that his {56} method of mounting a horse was to draw his sword and leap into the saddle, achieving quick release by simultaneously decapitating the slave who held the bridle. Implausible as this is, the fact that the legend comes down to us, together with his reputation for having killed ten thousand men with his own hand, perhaps gives an idea of the kinds of qualities that were admired among men of his type.) Females, even under ideal conditions, cannot have more than a couple of tens of children. A female is more likely than a male to have the average number of children. A few males may have a ludicrously greedy share of the children, which means that other males must have none. If anybody fails to reproduce altogether, it is more likely to be a male than a female. And if anybody garners a disproportionate posterity, it is also likely to be a male. This goes for the most recent common ancestor of all humanity, who is therefore more likely to have been an Adam than an Eve. To take an extreme example, who is more likely to be the ancestor of all present-day Moroccans, Moulay Ishmael the Bloodthirsty or any one woman in his unfortunate harem? We may come to the following conclusions: First, it is necessarily certain that there existed one female, whom we may call Mitochondrial Eve, who is the most recent common ancestor of all modern humans down the female-only pathway. It is also certain that there existed one person, of unknown sex, whom we may call the Focal Ancestor, who is the most recent common ancestor of all modern humans down any pathway. Third, although it is possible that Mitochondrial Eve and the Focal Ancestor are one and the same, it is vanishingly unlikely that this is so. Fourth, it is somewhat more likely that the Focal Ancestor was a male than a female. Fifth, Mitochondrial Eve very probably lived less than a quarter {57} of a million years ago. Sixth, there is disagreement over where Mitochondrial Eve lived, but the balance of informed opinion still favors Africa. Only conclusions five and six depend upon inspection of scientific evidence. The first four can all be worked out by armchair reasoning from common knowledge.

But I said that ancestors hold the key to understanding life itself. The story of African Eve is a parochial, human microcosm of a grander and incomparably more ancient epic. We shall again have recourse to the metaphor of the river of genes, our river out of Eden. But we shall follow it back through a time scale incommensurably older than the legendary Eve's thousands of years and African Eve's hundreds of thousands. The river of DNA has been flowing through our ancestors in an unbroken line that spans not less than three thousand million years.

{59}

Creationism has enduring appeal, and the reason is not far to seek. It is not, at least for most of the people I encounter, because of a commitment to the literal truth of Genesis or some other tribal origin story. Rather it is that people discover for themselves the beauty and complexity of the living world and conclude that it “obviously” must have been designed. Those creationists who recognize that Darwinian evolution provides at least some sort of alternative to their scriptural theory often resort to a slightly more sophisticated objection. They deny the possibility of evolutionary intermediates. “X must have been designed by a Creator,” people say, “because half an X would not work at all. All the parts of X must have been put together simultaneously; they could not have gradually evolved.” For instance, on the day I began writing this chapter I happened to receive a letter. It was from an American minister who had been an atheist but was converted by reading an article in National Geographic. Here is an extract from the letter: