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:
“every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view.”
—Thomas Nagel (b. 1938)
“The weakness of the man who, when his theory works out into a flagrant contradiction of the facts, concludes So much the worse for the facts: let them be altered, instead of So much the worse for my theory.”
—George Bernard Shaw (18561950)
“... liberal intellectuals ... tend to have a classical theory of politics, in which the state has a monopoly of power; hoping that those in positions of authority may prove to be enlightened men, wielding power justly, they are natural, if cautious, allies of the establishment.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)