Theory
Consider two distinct haploid organisms who differ at a single nucleotide. By tracing the ancestry of these two individuals backwards there will be a point in time when the MRCA is encountered and the two lineages will have coalesced.
Read more about this topic: Coalescent Theory
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“The theory seems to be that so long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s chillun, but that as soon as he has any luck he owes it to the Devil.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“[Anarchism] is the philosophy of the sovereignty of the individual. It is the theory of social harmony. It is the great, surging, living truth that is reconstructing the world, and that will usher in the Dawn.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of gov’t as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by gov’t. Somewhere in between and in gradations is the group that has the sense that gov’t exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)