The Way of a Skeptical African

“What is a Skeptic? The Oxford English Dictionary gives this historical usage of the word Skeptic: "One who doubts the validity of what claims to be knowledge in some particular department of inquiry; one who maintains a doubting attitude with reference to some particular question or statement." And: "A seeker after truth; an inquirer who has not yet arrived at definite convictions." “Skepticism is not "seek and ye shall find," but "seek and keep an open mind." But what does it mean to have an open mind? It is to find the essential balance between orthodoxy and heresy, between a total commitment to the status quo and the blind pursuit of new ideas, between being open-minded enough to accept radical new ideas and so open-minded that your brains fall out. Skepticism is about finding that balance. Here is a definition of skepticism: Skepticism is the rigorous application of science and reason to test the validity of any and all claims. Skeptics question the validity of a particular claim by calling for evidence to prove or disprove it. In other words, skeptics are from Missouri -- the "Show Me" state. When we skeptics hear a fantastic claim, we say, "That's interesting, show me the evidence for it."” Michael Shermer, PhD’s Huff Post 2/01/2013 article titled: What is Skepticism, Anyway? What is truth? Truth is defined as something that is demonstrable or proven. I call my way of living “the way of a Skeptical African” because I am a skeptic and I am an African. I believe I should question the validity of a particular claim by calling for evidence to prove or disprove it. I am an African because Africa is my species place of origin. Nevertheless, what I am above all things is someone who seeks truth (i.e. a skeptic) and how or “a way” to apply this truth.

I Love Lucy

Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis) lived 3.2 million years ago in Ethiopia although she wasn't the first hominid, a recent fossil of Ardi (Ardipithecus Ramidus) pushes hominid evolution back to 4.4 million years ago. Probaby due to climate change they walked on two feet, which took courage. Being bipedal in an environment where the ancestors of lions, leopards, cheetahs, and hyenas where looking for their next meal was a tremendous risk, but Lucy, Ardi, and our hominid ancestors took those steps, which lead to higher development and evolution of the hominid brain, which eventually gave us an advantage on the East African plains. I often wonder if the first hominids did not get out of the tree and stand on their two feet, there probably would not be Homo Sapiens, but a band of primates did, survived long enough to allow evolution to do its work and now their distant offspring is writing about it. I love Lucy because her kind made the steps that eventually lead to humanity. Think about it... We are all Africans..

King Tut Unwrapped and need for Critical Thinking

Last week I watched the Discovery Channel King Tut Unwrapped. In the documentary, allegedly the truth about King Tut is finally revealed; however, I think it open up more questions than it answered. One important question is what is King Tut's Y-DNA and mt-DNA Haplogroups? First I think it is important to discuss what's a haplogroup, and why do geneticists concentrate on the Y-chromosome and Mitochondrial in their search for markers? For that matter, what's a marker? "Each of us carries DNA that is a combination of genes passed from both our mother and father, giving us traits that range from eye color and height to athleticism and disease susceptibility. One exception is the Y-chromosome, which is passed directly from father to son, unchanged, from generation to generation. Unchanged, that is unless a mutation-a random, naturally occurring, usually harmless change-occurs. The mutation, known as a marker, acts as a beacon; it can be mapped through generations because it will be passed down from the man in whom it occurred to his sons, their sons, and every male in his family for thousands of years. In some instances there may be more than one mutational event that defines a particular branch on the tree. What this means is that any of these markers can be used to determine your particular haplogroup, since every individual who has one of these markers also has the others. When geneticists identify such a marker, they try to figure out when it first occurred, and in which geographic region of the world. Each marker is essentially the beginning of a new lineage on the family tree of the human race. Tracking the lineages provides a picture of how small tribes of modern humans in Africa tens of thousands of years ago diversified and spread to populate the world.
A haplogroup is defined by a series of markers that are shared by other men who carry the same random mutations. The markers trace the path our ancestors took as they moved in and out of Africa. It's difficult to know how many men worldwide belong to any particular haplogroup, or even how many haplogroups there are, because scientists simply don't know.
Likewise for Mitochondrial DNA, the string of 569 letters is your mitochondrial sequence, with the letters A, C, T, and G representing the four nucleotides-the chemical building blocks of life-that make up your DNA. Here's how it works. Like I describe for the Y-DNA every once in a while a mutation-a random, natural (and usually harmless) change-occurs in the sequence of our mitochondrial DNA. Think of it as a spelling mistake: one of the "letters" in your sequence may change from a C to a T, or from an A to a G.
After one of these mutations occurs in a particular woman, she then passes it on to her daughters, and her daughters' daughters, and so on. (Mothers also pass on their mitochondrial DNA to their sons, but the sons in turn do not pass it on.)
Geneticists use these markers from people all over the world to construct one giant mitochondrial family tree. As I can imagine, the tree is very complex, but scientists can now determine both the age and geographic spread of each branch to reconstruct the prehistoric movements of our ancestors. By looking at the mutations that we carry, geneticist can trace our lineage, ancestor by ancestor, to reveal the path they traveled as they moved out of Africa." (1)
As a result, I did a search on Google "King Tut's DNA results". I found the actual results were published in the JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association) that Dr. Hawass used in the Discovery Channel's documentary and King Tut's Haplogroups information is absent, perhaps because there weren't enough data to conclude this information. However, I did another Google search "King Tut's DNA results haplogroup". I found the absent of haplogroup in the published report did not stop people from trying to speculate. Consequently, we now have an unproven speculation circulating on the World Wide Web that King Tut's haplogroup is R1b. I found the source of this speculation to be someone on RootsWeb (link: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2010-02/1266472989) who claimed by looking at the screen shots of the video, they were able to decipher the Y-STR markers and therefore determine King Tut's Y-DNA Haplogroup. I watched the same video and no marker numbers are evident. From this now there is a great debate that King Tut and his ancestors where R1b on Rootweb and other places on the internet (some which have become racially tinged). Nowhere was the Y-STR markers published except for 2 Y-STR here's a link to the Article: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/303/7/638?home. The end result from this discussion someone published the so-called y-STR markers on Family Tree DNA's y-search.org under the ID ER7RQ. I think this should be a lesson in critical thinking; if you do not have enough data don't make it up. This led to another question; what was the motivation of the person who allegedly was able to determine King Tut's haplogroup? Quoting directly from the person who started this fiasco: "Additionally, if you look at the CODIS markers for Tutankhamen which they provide in the published study and run them in OmniPop, it indicates similarity with Europeans." In other words, did he want to know if King Tut was European? Why should King Tut's ethnicity matter? What I find fascinating is the science, that we can abstract DNA from a 3,000 year old mummy and verify his genealogy! Think about it....

Source:
Genographic project: https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/lan/en/index.html

Pope Benedict (Is-a-dict) goes to Africa!

I am writing about an article I just read on AP (Associated Press) (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090318/ap_on_re_af/af_pope_africa ) about Pope Benedict 16's first and current trip to Africa. His name should be Is-a-dict. Here is a man, telling Africans who have the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the world to not use condoms, to use abstinence. Just because the last time he saw a vagina was birth does not mean everyone is cut from the same cookie mold, if it has been proven that condom use reduces the chance of HIV/AIDS infection it should be on the table for the fight against its spread. (please read: http://www.unfpa.org/hiv/programming.htm) If it has not been proven then his argument may have sustenance. Another thing that I disagree with Pope Benedict who is-a-dict is his statement of "the growing influence of superstitious religions". Is he kidding? Catholicism and its offspring of non-Catholic Christianity is not a superstitious religion? Superstitious comes from the word superstition, which is defined as a belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance. (American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition). First, according to Catechism of the Catholic Church about Holy Scripture "107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures." " Therefore, if they accept that scripture is without error this means they believe that the earth was created in six literal days; women come from a man's rib; a snake convinced two people to doom humanity, or that a donkey, and a burning bush spoke human language; the entire world was flooded, covering the mountains to drown evil (this included little babies and children, innocent animals that did not get on the because only 2 were allowed); all animals, insects, and reptile species, millions of them, rode on one boat ; language variations stem from the tower of Babel; Moses had a stick that could part a sea or turn into a snake; the Nile turned to blood; that bats are birds; food rained from the sky in the middle of a desert; people were cured by the sight of a brass serpent; the sun stood still to help Joshua win a battle, and it went backward for King Hezekiah; men survived unaided in a fiery furnace; a detached hand floated in the air and wrote on a wall; men followed a star which directed them to a particular house; Mary was a virgin, she had Jesus and became a virgin again; that a cracker and wine turns into the actual body and blood of Jesus; Jesus walked on water unaided; fish and bread magically multiplied to feed the hungry; water instantly turned into wine; mental illness is caused by demons; that their founder, Jesus, died and rose three days later; that dragons, unicorns exist; people were healed by stepping into a pool agitated by angels; a disembodied voice spoke from the sky; Jesus vanished and later materialized from thin air; people were healed by Peter's shadow; angels broke people out of jail; a fiery lake of eternal torment awaits unbelievers under the earth ... while there is life-after-death in a city which is 1,500 miles cubed that will descend to earth and fit in the country of Israel, with mansions and food, for Christians only. If this isn't superstitious what is? This is as we say "the pot calling the kettle black", in other words, it is a superstitious belief system calling another superstitious belief system "superstitious", while thinking it's beliefs are not superstitious, this is bullsh!t. What hypocrisy and arrogance! If any of what I just wrote is based on logic and reason, help me find it. Think about it....

Black Socrates

Journey of my ancestors

My journey to know about my ancestry began with the desire to research who my ancestor were, where they came from and how they contribute to me being me. Due to the history of the slave system of the United States of America and other European colonies, as well as the subsequent treatment of my Africans ancestors; their names, religions, histories, languages, and cultures were all but erased from their descendants memories. As a result, the enslaver who brought our ancestors here gave us names, their languages, their religions, and we created a new culture that is an amalgamation of the unknown cultures that our forbearers brought with them over the middle passage with new the identity the enslaver gave them. Thanks to science and technology, I had my Y-DNA tested by the Genographic Project, upgraded with Family Tree DNA. My Y-DNA test results identify me as a member of haplogroup E1b1a (E-M2 in shorthand). The genetic markers that define my ancestral history reach back roughly 70,000 years to the first common marker of all non-African men, M168, and follow my lineage to present day, ending with M2, the defining marker of haplogroup E1b1a. If I look at the genetics highlighting my ancestors' route in and out of Africa, I see that members of my haplogroup E1b1a carry the following Y-chromosome markers: Haplogroup CT or M168 >> Haplogroup DE or YAP +>> Haplogroup E or M96 >> Haplogroup E1 or P147 >> E1b or P177 >> Haplogroup E1b1 or P2 >> Haplogroup E1b1a or M2. I am descended from an ancient African lineage.
What I Know Now:

My paternal ancestry begin with an individual carrying the genetic marker M168 in my lineage who probably lived in northeast Africa in the region of the Rift Valley, perhaps in present-day Ethiopia, Kenya, or Tanzania, some 31,000 to 79,000 years ago. Scientists put the most likely date for when he lived at around 70,000 years ago. His descendants, which I am too, became the only lineage to survive outside of Africa, making him the common ancestor of every non-African man living today. But why would man have first ventured out of the familiar African hunting grounds and into unexplored lands? It is likely that a fluctuation in climate may have provided the impetus for my ancestors' exodus out of Africa. The African ice age was characterized by drought rather than by cold. It was around 50,000 years ago that the ice sheets of northern Europe began to melt, introducing a period of warmer temperatures and moister climate in Africa. Parts of the inhospitable Sahara briefly became habitable. As the drought-ridden desert changed to a savanna, the animals hunted by my ancestors expanded their range and began moving through the newly emerging green corridor of grasslands. My nomadic ancestors followed the good weather and the animals they hunted, although the exact route they followed remains to be determined. In addition to a favorable change in climate, around this same time there was a great leap forward in modern humans' intellectual capacity. Many scientists believe that the emergence of language gave us a huge advantage over other early human species. Improved tools and weapons, the ability to plan ahead and cooperate with one another, and an increased capacity to exploit resources in ways we hadn't been able to earlier, all allowed modern humans to rapidly migrate to new territories, exploit new resources, and replace other hominids. As time moves on he have descendants, one his descendants had another mutation. Sub-Saharan populations living today are characterized by one of three distinct Y-chromosome branches on the human tree.
My paternal lineage E1b1a falls under one of these ancient branches and is referred to by geneticists as YAP+ or Haplogroup DE.The individual carrying the YAP was born around northeast Africa and is the most common of the three ancient genetic branches found in sub-Saharan Africa. He had a mutational event known as an Alu insertion or YAP, which is a 300-nucleotide fragment of DNA which, on rare occasion, gets inserted into different parts of the human genome during cell replication. Living around 65,500 years ago, my distant ancestor, acquired this fragment on his Y-chromosome and passed it on to his descendants. Over time his lineage split into two distinct groups. One is found primarily in Africa and the Mediterranean, is defined by marker M96 and is called haplogroup E. The other group, haplogroup D is found in Asia and defined by the M174 mutation. Y-DNA haplogroup E would appear to have arisen in Northeast Africa based on the concentration and variety of E subclades in that area today. But the fact that Haplogroup E is closely linked with Haplogroup D, which is not found in Africa, leaves open the possibility that E first arose in the Near or Middle East and was subsequently carried into Africa by a back migration.E1b1 is by far the lineage of greatest geographical distribution. It has two important sub-lineages, E1b1a and E1b1b. My genetic lineage lies within the group that remained close to home, and was carried by men who likely played an integral role in recent cultural and migratory events within Africa.
Moving Out of Africa:
As explain above, my ancestor have descendants they move out of east Africa into “North Africa/Middle East/Near East” corridor possibly present day region from Egypt to possibly present day Iran/Iraq. As the population grows from the abundant food and livestock in the region, these resources become strained. Therefore some of Haplogroup DE (YAP+) descendants migrate to Far East Asia, while some remain close to Africa via the Middle East/Near East corridor, one such descendant had another mutation which created a new Haplogroup called E. This Branch of the tree and ancestral lineage was born around 52,500 years ago in northeast Africa and had a new mutation that gave rise to marker M96. The origins of M96 are unclear; hopefully as DNA research is refined and updated more light will be shed on his origins.
What is known is that there were two great waves of migration out of Africa. The first small groups of people left around 60,000 years ago and followed a coastal route that eventually reached Australia. The second exodus occurred beginning around 50,000 years ago, heading north. The bulk of these travelers were descendants of a man born with marker M89, a group we'll call the Middle Eastern Clan. Some 90 to 95 percent of all non-Africans today are descendants of the Middle Eastern Clan. I am descended from an ancient African lineage that chose to move north into North Africa and Middle/Near East regions. My kinsmen may have accompanied the Middle Eastern Clan as they followed the great herds of large mammals north through the grassy plains and savannas of the Sahara gateway. Alternatively, a group of my ancestors may have undertaken their own migration at a later date, following the same route previously traveled by the Middle Eastern Clan peoples.Nevertheless, beginning about 40,000 years ago, the climate shifted once again and became colder and more arid. Drought hit Africa and the grasslands reverted to desert; for the next 20,000 years, the Saharan Gateway was effectively closed. With the desert impassable, my ancestors had two options: remain in North Africa, or move on. Retreat back to the home continent was not an option. Like his father he too had descendants, some stayed in the North Africa/Middle East/Near East regions and others longed to return to home (Africa). Like his ancestors there was another mutation on my ancestors Y-DNA which gave rise to a new branch now called E1b1a with the defining mutation or marker called M2.
The Rise of E1b1a (E-M2):

The haplogroup E1b1a (E-M2) may have originated about 20,000 to 25,000 years ago in the pockets of habitable land along the Sahara/Sahel/Sudanese Belt that runs from the Red Sea to Senegal/Mauritania in Western Africa, when much of the continent was extremely dry due to Ice Age climate conditions (i.e. the Last Glacial Maximum). E1b1a is often associated with Agricultural Expansion in Western, Central,Eastern and Southern Africa, one well studied expansion was the migration of Bantu-speaking agriculturalist throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon to South Africa). One migration path crossed the central African rain forests into eastern Africa, and then turned southward about 1,500 years ago to extend from Tanzania into southeastern Africa. A second route began in the Congo basin and moved southward along the Atlantic coast into Angola, Namibia and Botswana. E1b1a reaches levels of 50% and higher among Bantu-speaking populations on the paths of these two broad migrations, such as the Hutu, Sukuma, Herero and !Xhosa. However, the Bantu expansion does not explain the high frequencies of the haplogroup in non-Bantu Niger-Kordofanian speakers in the western regions of Africa from Senegal to Nigeria. Moreover the high frequency in non-Bantu speaking regions, in some published studies it reaches levels of up to 90% among the Mandinka and Yoruba of western Africa, has lead to other hypothesis’s of E1b1a expansion into the Sudanese belt (a region south of the Sahara extending from western to central Africa) is more complex and perhaps involved a separate expansion or was existing in Western non-Bantu speakers before the Bantu expansion 5,000 years ago. For instance E1b1a* also called E-M2, and its derivative, haplogroup E1b1a7 also called E-M191, harbor opposite clinal distributions in the Sudanese Belt region, a finding that is at odds with the hypothesis of a Bantu expansion of these two lineages in the area. Haplogroup E1b1a7 has a frequency of 23% in Cameroon (where it represents 42% of haplotypes carrying the DYS271 mutation or E-M2), 13% in Burkina Faso (16% of haplotypes carrying the DYS271 mutation or (M2)) and only 1% in Senegal (Semino et al. 2002), whereas '''Haplogroup E1b1a* or E-M2''' reaches its highest frequency (81%) in Senegal (Semino et al. 2002). In other words, as you move to West Africa from west Central Africa the less subclade M-191 is found and the more M-2 is found, this lead Cruciani to concluded "A possible explanation might be that haplogroup E1b1a or E-M2 were already present across the Sudanese belt when the M191 mutation, which defines haplogroup E1b1a7, arose in central western Africa." Therefore this give credence to E1b1a (E-M2) originating in pockets of habitable land along the Sudanese belt 20,000 years ago, with each area developing their own language , cultures, agricultural centers and technology, each with a separate expansion. E1b1a is also the most common haplogroup among African-American male individuals. About 60% of African-American men have E1b1a Y-chromosomes, primarily because the Atlantic slave trade drew most of its individuals from western Africa and Mozambique, where E1b1a occurs in high frequencies. Thanks to science, it is reassuring to know that my ancestors did not begin in the chains of slavery in the United States of America but 70,000 years ago on the continent of Africa.

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