Modern human brain organization emerged only recently • Hacker News Board

Re: Modern human brain organization emerged only recently

#71

Post by danieltillett » Thu, Feb 01, 2018, 1:12 AM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #54

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your use of "African" seems confusing here. In particular the line "evidence of there being people in Australia before African peoples had left the Middle East" seems to suggest you think Denosovan people didn't originate in Africa.

We (sapiens) and perhaps late model erectus are the African species/subspecies of the archaic human group. Denisovans are Asian and neanderthals are European. It's all based on migration theories which are far from certain, currently. The story gets more complex with every find. The morrocan find is a spanner, as it "proves" a wide distribution of sapiens early on. This essentially excludes the idea of a migration ou…

You are making a very large assumption about the evolution of modernity in Australia.

Re: Modern human brain organization emerged only recently

#72

Post by lobf » Thu, Feb 01, 2018, 2:09 AM UTC

astebbin wrote: post #15

lobf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't gene expression dependent on environment though? Is there some reason to believe that these differences are inherent, and not the result of gene expression being affected by the environment?

IANA biologist. That said, if by "inherent" you mean primarily genetically determined, I'd say that explanation seems most likely given the evidence.

>primarily genetically determined

Even this statement isn't as absolute as you seem to think it is. Your genes may or may not express based on the environment in which you grow up. Primarily genetically determined doesn't make sense, since genes aren't working in a vacuum.

Re: Modern human brain organization emerged only recently

#73

Post by dalbasal » Fri, Feb 02, 2018, 12:24 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #71

dalbasal wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (sapiens) and perhaps late model erectus are the African species/subspecies of the archaic human group. Denisovans are Asian and neanderthals are European. It's all based on migration theories which are far from certain, currently. The story gets more complex with every find. The morrocan find is a spanner, as it "proves" a wide distribution of sapiens early on. This essentially excludes the idea of a migration ou…

You are making a very large assumption about the evolution of modernity in Australia.

What assumption? The only assumptions I (well, prominent theories) I make are that (a) people got there 45-70kybp and (b) they achieved behavioral modernity (art, tools etc.) around that time or shortly after.