Coalescent theory is a retrospective stochastic style of population genetics that will relates genetic diversity within a sample to demographic history in the population from which it was taken. That is a style of the effect involving genetic drift, viewed backwards with time, on the ancestry and genealogy of antecedents. The utility of coalescent theory in the mapping of disease is slowly gaining more appreciation; although the application of the theory is still in its infancy.
Coalescent Theory
