The molecular clock was intended to be an objective chronometer for human evolution, yet for the past four decades, it has been locked into a specific spatiotemporal coordinate by an invisible shackle. This shackle is the paradigmatic presupposition of the “Recent African Origin”. This paper aims to expose the pervasive trap of “circular reasoning” in molecular clock calibration: when “Africa” is presupposed as the temporal zero point, the molecular clock ceases to be a compass for exploring the unknown and instead becomes a pair of dividers verifying prejudice. This paradigmatic limitation is thoroughly addressed in two concrete empirical dimensions: first, the physical impossibility of migration routes—demonstrating that under the dehydration and salinity barriers of the Last Glacial Maximum, the migration timelines extrapolated by traditional molecular clocks cannot take root in physical reality (see Calibrating the Molecular Clock: When Mathematics Meets Physical Boundaries, Zenodo: 10.5281/zenodo.21015522); and second, the systematic deviation within the molecular clock’s mechanism caused by glacial metabolic constraints—revealing how the severe cold filtering of high latitudes disguises a false appearance of “recent divergence” (see The Molecular Clock Recalibrated—But Still Subject to Physical Veto…, Zenodo: 10.5281/zenodo.21117925) 1.The LSED framework calls for a “Copernican correction”: breaking geographical biases, introducing external anchors from fossils and strata, and granting physical feasibility the power of veto. Only by returning time to evidence, and to physical laws, can we reconstruct the true spatiotemporal framework of human evolution.
Jing Zhang (Fri,) studied this question.