The Origin of Man and the "Waiting Time" Problem

Editor's note : We are pleased to welcome a contribution from Dr. Sanford, who is Courtesy Associate Professor, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University.

My colleagues and I recently published a paper in Theoretical Biology and Medical Modeling, "The Waiting Time Problem in a Model Hominin Population." It is one of the journal's "highly accessed" articles. A pre-human hominin population of roughly 10,000 individuals is thought to have evolved into modern man, during a period of...