Genealogy Books - The Seven Daughters of Eve

Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:

Summary: Musguided interpretation of a scientific fact extrapolated into junk
Comment: This is a book popularizing a scientific fact. In it, the author describes several characters
representing branches of a genetic tree, and brings them to life based on theoretical timelines,
which could place these individuals in particular times and places. Because the "trait" being
followed is passed only through females, the individuals represented in each genetic branch of the
tree are female, and called "Eves".

One of many problems is that the author assumes
that genetic mutations are introduced at a constant rate. By examining many different current
versions of the " trait " - the DNA of a cellular component called mitrochondria - one could
theorize how long it would take to go back in time to when there was only one version, or this case
seven versions. In fact, genetic variation typically takes place at very different rates over long
periods of time. The concept of punctuated equilibrium, for example, shows that a population may be
rapidly enriched for a certain variation of a genetic trait, if one should suddenly prove more
advantageous. Similarly, isolated populations may lack diversification for exceptionally long
periods of time on a geological, or evolutionary scale. This wreaks havoc on placing fictional
characters in specific times and locations, and describing their lives, without supporting
anthropological data, for example.

Several people that I spoke to who had read the
book for a discussion group, all left with the impression that these "Eves" walked out of a forest
fully formed, with no mention of the crushing onslaught of other evidence in human evolution, or the
examination of the other 30,000 genes thus identified in the human genome. They were also drawn to
the convenient coincidence that the author's lab, for a fee, will tell the reader which fictional
character they are related to.

While mitochondrial DNA is actually passed only through
female lines, the book took far too many liberties in extrapolating that fact into a bin of
nonsense. Its lack of references, peer reviewed material, or mention of other relevant scientific,
and evolutionary facts, was more than a little frightening to me, especially from the Department
Head of a prestigious University, who should know better.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Very interesting!
Comment: This was one of those books I read in one day because I just couldn't put it down. It was so
different from anything I'd read before (even given that I was an anthropology student back in the
dark ages). Granted that his portraits of the seven clan mothers are fictitious, I found it
interesting to speculate on their lives, given the time period and geographic areas in which they
must have lived. I also found the whole scientific process interesting to follow - quite the drama
in itself.

Customer Rating:

Summary: There are better books about the subject
Comment: I am interested about haplogroups and do not regret buying the book. However, I do not consider the
book particularly good.
First half of the book was at least interesting reading (more about
history of DNA science than those Seven Daughters).
Second half was quite different. I do not
mind at all including the fictional stories about these "seven daughters" in the book - these
stories were just not very interesting! And they appear to represent some "peaceful past" mythology
where in distant past no human-to-humal violence exist, females had much more rights than their
sisters in 21th century in most of world and only violent event could be attack of some carnivorous
predator like leopard.
(I am surprised that Ursula was allowed to get pregnant at the age of
15, how come these nice and admirable law abinding citizens of 40000 BC were not heard that UK age
of consent is 16)

Customer Rating:

Summary: Good, informative book
Comment: Bryan Sykes, a professor of genetics at Oxford, has written a very good, informative book, on how
DNA has been used in an unlikely endeavor: to help trace the history of the human race, after they
left Africa. You see, human DNA changes at a particular rate in time, so this allows us to identify
when the different human groups split from one another. The book is a bit eurocentric (one can
almost forgive that, given that Sykes is an European) as most of the book deals with the origins of
the European people. He found that almost all (native, not recent immigrants) Europeans descend from
a particular woman (the Eve of the title) who lived during the Ice Age (Sykes tentatively places her
as having lived in what is today Syria). From "Eve" are descended seven different European subgroups
that Sykes is able to identify in those who want it through a saliva sample (he has founded a
company to do that, so he is a bit of an entrepeneur, something that fellow scientists probably will
not like). More tentatively, and drawing on archaelogical records, Sykes imagines the lives of those
seven daughters of Eve. Another thing to criticize in the book is Sykes egolatry: he always speaks
about himself, and criticize those who in the scientific community had taken a different opinion on
a particular issue.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Sykes could have his high college position partially due to nepotism
Comment: To the poster who talked about negative posters having "arrogance" blasting the book.
/>As for the book itself the stone age stories are fake and take forever. Though some find the
middle eastern, neolithic ancestry (of fake girl Jasmine) that the British possess interesting I
find that a distasteful and unimportant fact trying to link the inhabitants of the British Isles to
the followers of (genocidal mass-murderer) Saddam Hussein in Iraq. 10,000 years ago is a long, long
time ago and a connection like that doesn't matter.

Back to The Seven Daughters of Eve

Showing page 2 of 23
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |