Letter: Letters : Seminal myth

From Jim Cummins, Murdoch University

Australia

Roger Lewin perpetuates his own myth that maternal inheritance of
mitochondrial DNA happens because sperm lack mitochondrial DNA (New
Scientist, Science, 17 August, p 18).

This is just plain wrong. Mammalian sperm not only contain mitochondria and
mitochondrial DNA but pass them on to the egg at fertilisation. The only
known exception to this rule is the giant sperm of the Chinese hamster (and
possibly some insectivores).

Furthermore the human sperm mitochondria can be identified in the embryo for
several days. For an illustration of this see http://numbat.
murdoch.edu.au/spermatology/sath01.html.

This particular myth of the missing sperm mitochondria has now invaded
standard anthropological texts because it supports the “African Eve” model of
human origins. It has even invaded Richard Dawkins’s writing, who stated in
The Blind Watchmaker that “Sperms are too small to contain mitochondria” (p
176). It has no basis in fact.