Brad Ideas - Understanding Mitochondrial Eve - Comments

Nothing is perfect

brad — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:56:26 -0700

I agree that nothing is perfect. But there are levels of quality. Accepting that the apes of the future on the Planet of the Apes spoke 20th century English is vastly less of a leap than accepting that apes and humans would live and speak 20th century English on a random planet. So vastly less as to be ridiculous. But again, this is what was good about the ending. It shocked the audience by being the obviously right answer. A truly great twist ending has you saying, “Of course, now it is so obvious.”

But there are levels of quality, and this is one place I disagree. I think that BSG was one of the higher quality shows in this regard by a good measure. It’s part of why I and many others got invested in it. That it was one of the best, and then squandered it, when it could have so easily gone out with high quality and realism, is what upset the viewers like me.

We let our shows take liberties with reality all the time. Then we judge “was that worth it?” Nobody thinks Lord of the Rings is real, but we happily accept the wizards because the goal is to read a great story of high fantasy.

Moore’s choice of MT Eve fails the test of being worth it because it would have been so simple to do it better. So the story got turned around, the whole colonial culture ended up erased, not simply for nothing, but for something scientifically wrong. That’s not worth it.

Ida.....And BSG

Matthew — Wed, 20 May 2009 09:23:06 -0700

I wonder what the series would have looked like if RDM had instead decided to base his "ancient link" in BSG on Ida, the 47 million-year-old primate fossil that is in the news now, instead of Mitochondrial Eve....
I can see it now... " Who founded The lost ancient civilization of Lemuria millions of years ago?"

It was the "Space Lemurs"!

I'm betting we'll see somthing like that soon on the Cartoon Network. That, or Pixar / Dreamworks project...

"Well, in reality..."

Dustin — Wed, 20 May 2009 07:02:13 -0700

Exactly. Most fans are smart enough not to place faith in Hollywood writers. This is the board I mentioned:

bbs.stardestroyer.net

They weren't open to it being the past because of their own ignorance of science- they fully expected the writers to be ignorant, and frankly, BSG made enough mistakes over the course of the series, both scientifically and story wise(some would say) that it didn't deserve that much faith.

If you take the route that Planet of the Apes could only be in the future, then you come into more problems- wouldn't the English language and dialect change so much over thousands of years that it would be unrecognizable? I can't imagine any feasible way it would stay the same- I doubt it would even be possible to force it. Shouldn't Chuck have commented on the fact taht they were speaking English on a planet that he thought was hundreds of light years away?

Anyway- Dune has ancestral memory as a major plot point, and is considered one of the greatest sci-fi series of all time. Most great sci-fi like BSG has at least one fantastical element that can't be explained with hard science.

The unconscious memory bit

brad — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:42:45 -0700

Was just one of many strange things. But you must realize that science aware fans expect the science in TV and movie SF to suck. So that’s why they were open to past or future. If they sat and thought about it for a bit, they would have said, “well, in reality, this could only be in the future” because they would not have bought into collective unconscious, among other things. They could not sing Dylan songs and quote Shakespeare in the past, without the racial memory thing which upon more serious inspection, is silly. And certainly anybody with knowledge of genetics and evolution would have concluded that, even if the show were to be set in the past, it would not be the case that aliens would be our ancestors or partial ancestors.

Now most would not have expected this problem of interbreeding to be solved with divine will. With divine will you can make anything work, of course. But were the people you read comments from saying, “It would be very silly, but it would be consistent if they explain it as a miracle?”

But we suspend our disbelief. This is one reason that the Rod Serling ending from Planet of the Apes is so good. If you look at the movie for more than a few moments with a rational mind, you notice that they are speaking English. And they are apes and humans. Normally this would make the viewer immediately conclude “this must be in the future, and on Earth or a colony of it.” Yet the vast majority of the audience was surprised. I was surprised, but I was 8 years old. They are surprised because we normally just accept aliens speaking English in our SF TV and movies, because it’s necessary for dramatic reasons.

So I think that the fans who were ready to have it be in the past were mostly doing that. Just suspending disbelief on the things that would be silly in the past. And ignoring (correctly it turns out) the botched clues of the Tomb of Athena.

That last sentence...

Dustin — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:09:03 -0700

...I take issue with- I've never really come across that many people who cared about the time period- indeed, most of the complaints that I've heard about the finale from pro-science web boards are with the actions the characters did, not the the time period. Even among the most pro-science boards I frequent, most still wondered whether it was set in the past or future after "Revelations." And these aren't dumb, scientifically ignorant people.

Sorry to say, but I haven't ran across many who insisted the show does/should take place in the future. The vast majority were open to any time period as long as it was done well.

I will say that they should have said that we have a subconscious ability to project via racial memory, which explains the strides we have taken to rebuild Colonial society. Example- the conceit of the show could be that though we know the Greek Gods developed from Indian dieties, they could have said that cultural evolution was our subconscious fighting to bring them closer to the Colonial Gods. That would have at least show what the Cylons contributed to us.

More points

brad — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:19:07 -0700

Correct. A huge number of people would have the same mtDNA as mtEve — perhaps 300 generations of people, in theory it could be many millions. So no, they could never identify one person in a fossil bed as her. The reason we know it’s her is the angels say it’s her.

But actually, since so many millions would have the same dna as her, the odds of digging up somebody who could not be told from her is higher.

Yes, they are living, biological organisms. The colonial prejudice is one of the more interesting parts of the show.

Some points I haven't seen

tichtich — Fri, 08 May 2009 02:53:43 -0700

Some points I haven't seen mentioned (but they might have been)...

- Only a minuscule proportion of prehistoric humans have had their remains dug up. The chances of Mitochondrial Eve's remains being found are absurdly small.

- I suspect (but could be wrong) that even if her remains were dug up and her DNA could be recovered intact, it would not be possible to identify her as Mitochondrial Eve, but only as someone who was more or less closely related to Mitochondrial Eve.

- Regardless of how much Cylon DNA we have inherited, it's clear that none of that Cylon DNA has had any detectable effect on us. We appear to be functionally identical to the Colonials. Why should "God" care whether we have some Cylon DNA if it doesn't have any effect on us and we can't detect it? (Devil's advocate response: we could detect it in the future, and knowing we are partly descended from "machines" might discourage us from repeating the old cycle.)

That reminds me of something else. It always bugged me that the skinjob Cylons were referred to as "machines", even by themselves and by sympathetic humans. (It's understandable that unsympathetic humans would denigrate them as "machines", "toasters", etc.) They are quite clearly living organisms, even if artificially created.

NuGalactica goes on and on

brad — Thu, 07 May 2009 17:45:35 -0700

There’s good stuff, as you say in NuGalactica but after a while the use of the movie synthesizer gets a bit tired. It’s cute to see characters saying it, but there is also real meaning in the messages and they are more quickly.

What disturbs me is that I keep seeing more essays on how much the ending sucked, often exploring new ideas not found in the others, and they are largely right. My own final review, if I take the time to write it, is going to be called “The worst ending in the history of SF on the screen” which sounds like something very nasty, but it’s actually high praise, in its way. High praise because I mean the most disappointing ending — the greatest fall. To have the greatest fall, it was necessary to start very high — that’s the high praise part.

the last gritty word

Aaron — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:54:23 -0700

Though I thought reading the entries in this blog and the energetic back and forth and back of all the commenters plumbed the emotional heights and logical depths of our most favorite tv show to exhaustion, I was wrong.

All that can be said, is, in fact, said here, here, and here.

How much

brad — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:12:31 -0700

Again, I speak of Moore’s goal, which was to say we all had Cylon in us. Indeed, for any random human, their genetic contribution after 7,000 generations becomes insignificant. (It is true that your mitochondrial mothers have a near 100% contribution of mtDNA to their female line, and 0% contribution to those who descend via males.)

Since Cylon DNA is superior, however — we believe it confers superior strength, intelligence and a cancer immunity, while also offering a digital brain with the ability to project — it should normally contribute far more than average. We don’t know for sure if Hera or other hybrids obtain all those traits. We only see her have the cancer-curing blood and the ability to project, but it would be odd if she doesn’t get some of her mom’s other abilities, and the same should be true for other hybrids that appear.

It’s obvious why genes for such strength and intelligence might survive, unless they come at a high cost (needing more food, etc.) and in fact, the enhanced communication ability of projection sounds quite useful too.

(As to why strength might not survive — it has a cost. Looking at how much stronger other apes are, it seems likely we used to be much stronger, and lost it because we did not need it. Cylon strength, however, is not naturally evolved, it is synthetic, so we can only make limited predictions about what it would do.)

Not anymore.

Alvin — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:13:34 -0700

Well we wouldn't have any cylon in us any more. There were a limited number of cylons in the fleet who landed on Earth, and it's entirely possible that Hera was the only one to procreate, or at least one of a limited few. Over the millennia that followed, her cylon heritage would have been thinned to the point where any 'nano-technology' or whatever set them apart from the colonials would have probably been rendered moot. It's also possible that her line ended at some point and only human/human pairings survived.

Plenty of reasons to dislike the finale-- this, again, is not one of them. Move on.

Um, but...

brad — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:29:13 -0700

We don’t have it. Again, that is fine for an alternate reality, but Moore claims he did the ending the way he did to make it more connected with our reality, not less.

Cylons were distinct from

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:19:34 -0700

Cylons were distinct from human/Colonials, but that difference was impervious to detection by DNA analysis. Cylons appeared human/Colonial, subject to typical genetic differentiation. There were additional, shall we say "components", some kind of nanotechnology, that went beyond DNA. Whatever they were, it permitted Sharon/Athena to stick electronic circuits into their tissues and tap into those technologies.

Whatever made Cylons distinct passed into Hera and would, presumably, into her ancestors.

The identification of Hera as Mitrochondrial Eve means that contemporary humans are Cylon, or partly so, as we have that nanotechnology in our make-up.

What's your point?

Quantum Iguana — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:55:52 -0700

Yes, we know it is fiction. No one is saying or implying that it isn't fiction. Your point seems to be that no one should critically examine fiction. However, literary criticism isn't exactly something that has been dreamed up overnight. Just because something is fiction doesn't mean it cannot be examined. Literary criticism has been going on since the first story was writtin on a clay tablet.

Perhaps the problem is that the BSG audience draws not just from the traditional science fiction fandom, who are used to concepts such as literary criticism, but also from soap opera fans, who are not.

Ah, no.

brad — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:45:14 -0700

We thought it was a documentary. Thanks for informing us so politely.

Understanding Mitochondrial Eve

brad — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:17:28 -0700

(Advance note: Is there a reader who has video editing skills who might want to put together a short and amusing BSG-based parody video that I have conceived of? Contact me if so. Or if you have a complete collection of BSG videos or DVDs and are willing to find some scenes you could also help.)

Because it turns out that Moore decided to turn the entire plot around the idea of Hera being Mitochondrial Eve (MTE), I thought it would be good to add some information on just what this means, and why it was not a great choice as a plot fulcrum. The desire to have Hera be MTE placed the story 150,000 years in the past, and mandated a number of its less consistent elements.

First of all, people should understand that MTE is not “Eve” (mother of us all) nor is she the most recent common ancestor of us all — that person lived far more recently. MTE is an artifact of some simple genetic math. She is the most recent common ancestor calculated only through female lines. I pointed to this article about MTE before and it’s worth a read to understand why she exists and why she is less important than imagined. There is a “Y Adam” too, who is the most recent common ancestor calculated only through male lines, who also lived much more recently.

Everybody is descended from MTE, but everybody is descended from almost everybody who lived at that time. She is actually not particularly special. In fact, we are all descended from almost everybody who lived about 15,000 years ago. It would be more recent than that if human genetic lines had not been isolated for long periods in Australia, the Americas and a few other islands. Be clear: Just about everybody who lived then was ancestor to all of us. The only ones we are not descended from will be those whose lines died out quickly — they left no children or grandchildren. Once you start have several great-grandchildren, your contribution to the world’s genetic pool is all but assured, barring extraordinary events. Go a few more generations and your line is very hard to kill off, especially if it spreads a bit.

So while Moore wanted humans to be descended from Cylons, in fact that could have taken place 15,000 years ago. And if, as shown in the show, populations were distributed to the different continents, it could have been done even 4,000 years ago, or any point in between such as 40,000 years ago for the “great leap forward” when technology and agriculture and language started to really flourish. Australians isolated themselves from the rest of humanity about 50,000 years ago, however, when seas were low they got more recent influxes keeping them related to the rest of the world.

The next thing to understand is mitochondrial DNA (MTDNA) itself. MTDNA is special, in that it is only inherited from your mother. It does not change due to sexual DNA mixing like the rest of our (non-Y) DNA. Instead, it stays mostly the same. However, from time to time, it gets a small mutation that is not sufficient to kill the organism. So while our MTDNA is identical with our siblings, mother and our cousins who share a female descent line, it is very slightly different from other humans. The less related they are to you (ie. the further back your common great^n grandmother is,) the more slight differences there will be. It is precisely because we know the rate of mutation and can look at how different the MTDNA of different humans is that we can calculate when MTE lived, approximately. Estimates get debated, and you will see rates quoted at one mutation per 300-600 generations down to one every 40 generations.

But we don’t just share our MTDNA with our fellow humans. We share it with all the complex life on Earth. We share it with mushrooms and of course with chimps and monkeys and lemurs and mice. We’ve all got the same basic MTDNA, derived from an ancestor long ago that did a symbiotic “deal” with some bacteria to incorporate their energy processing engine into our cells.

Just as you have the same MTDNA, with minor changes, as an Australian aboriginal, you have the same MTDNA as a chimp, but with more of the small mutations. That’s because your common ancestor lived perhaps 50,000 years ago with the Australian, and 6 million years ago with the chimp. There will be 120x as many small differences. They are quite small so that does not turn out to be that much.

And thus we see the problem with how BSG used this process. On the BSG Earth, the chimps and the early humans would have shared fairly common MTDNA. But then Hera’s MTDNA replaced the human MTDNA. On BSG Earth, human MTDNA now bears no common ancestry with the chimps, or all the other animals of the Earth. This is quite different from the real Earth.

Now, we might consider that in fact they are not different because the God of Galactica (Gog) did a little intelligent design on both the evolved Earth life, and Cylons so that they would have the same MTDNA. Or rather that the difference between them would match what the genetic mutation clock says it should match based on the time back to the common ancestor proto-ape. And yes, when you invoke miracles, you can pull off anything, I suppose. But if so, it means the two sets of MTDNA were largely identical. In which case what’s the point? What is the meaning of Hera’s MTDNA supplanting that of the native humans if the two are identical to begin with?

If they are not identical, if there is a real, meaningful difference between Hera’s MTDNA and that of the rest of Earth-life, then this would have been big, big news in BSG-Earth’s National Geographic a decade or two ago. That’s because geneticists would have published stunning papers revealing that human MTDNA was not the same as that of apes or any other Earth life. This would have turned the scientific world upside-down. It would have have been strongly touted as hard evidence by the creationists. It would no longer be the world we live in.

This is also true for the rest of Hera’s Cylon DNA. Unless that DNA is impossible to tell from ours, or unless none of what she had was passed through to us, our genetic sequencing projects would have revealed the fact that we aren’t related to other Earth life, in some subtle way. We would have proteins and genes not found in any other Earth-life. But we don’t. We share all our genes with our animal cousins. For those, like Moore, hoping to draw a connection from the alternate history BSG Earth and ours, you must either say that none of the Cylon DNA made it through, or that it was so identical as to not make a difference.

Of course, there is an answer, discussed on this blog before. If the story had been written to say that the Kobolians came about through the abduction of primitive humans from this Earth some 6,000 or more years before the events of the show, then of course everybody is still related as they should be. The colonials, in this version, are just a lost branch of Earth-kind come home. But alas, this was never suggested in the show.

The miracle of aliens who can breed with Earth-life is indeed impossible without divine action. But it’s more than that. If there was a miracle, it created creatures so alike that in the end they contributed nothing new to the genetic code of humanity on Earth. In other words, a somewhat pointless miracle.

Now you may think that this is a somewhat subtle point, not known to the ordinary viewer who has no grounding in genetics. But this is no minor issue in the show, it is the single element upon which the entire ending, and indeed the entire plot was chosen to turn. Such a fulcrum deserves special attention. And it is also a sign of just how hard it is to try to write an alternate history which you can claim could be our real history. Something is going to catch you up. This is why many viewers never expected Moore to do something so foolhardy as to date the show in the past.