Roger Lewin perpetuates his own myth that maternal inheritance of mitochondrial DNA happens because sperm lack mitochondrial DNA (
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
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