So, there’s a study going around the different popular science sites of the internet to the effect that genetic testing indicates most animal species actually appeared about the same time as humanity: 100 – 200,000 years ago. Apparently, they can tell this by the lack of notable variations in mitochondrial DNA between different species.

I’m not a scientist, and I don’t really even understand the test they claim to have used, nor do I have an ideological dog in this fight, but my initial, and as yet unshaken response to this is: “maybe these variations in mitochondrial DNA just don’t mean what you think they mean.”