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New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

bbc.com

101–110 of 111 posts

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#101

Nesher largely occupies the site of the Palestinian village Balad Al-Sheikh which was depopulated in 1948. So Balad Al-Sheikh Ramla , maybe?

You are probably referring to a different Nesher, some 69 km from the site (the cement factory near Ramle). This makes the flame down here ridiculous.

I put my hands up, I got that wrong.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#102
post #42
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a criminal trial, with failsafe rules about doubt. There are very few generic outliers. They do exist, but at the same time, the chance that the next person you meet will be 2.40m tall is insignificant. The argument is stronger for the past, because generic outliers tend to have worse health than the average and have worse chances of reaching adulthood, so if you find a part of the skeleton of a single adu…

But the same logic applies. Instead of innocent until proven guilty it's "not a new species" until there's sufficient evidence to establish that. I'm dubious that they have that evidence, especially given their further unsubstantiated claims that they're ancestors of the neanderthals. The linked article discussed 0 evidence for why it's a new species. Presumably there's a published paper that goes into details.

OK, so what's sufficient evidence?

You're "dubious that they have that evidence". What evidence is required, in your opinion, then?

Speaking as a layman, my first guess at a suitable threshold would be: finding a large-enough, different-enough part of a skeleton/whatever that in the past such parts have seldom turned out to be an existing species.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#103
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like mansplaining. I'm not sure what the correct term is, but watching a Brit tell an Israeli that they don't know their own country's history is surreal.

You don't think it's plausible that a foreigner F and local L can be found, such that F is better versed in L's country's history than L? I believe that if I were to read a pamphlet on US history, and then go to the USA and quiz random people on it in the street, within fifteen minutes I would find someone born there who knows jack shit.

I think it's plausible, but not in this scenario. In the west, this is a politically charged situation. There, it's a matter of life and death.

If this was an actual simple border dispute, I'd be more inclined to listen to anyone who didn't have direct knowledge, but since this conflict hearkens back to literal Old Testament days, I'm more inclined to believe a native.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought a big part of that was that birds have big variation between juveniles and adults, something that mammalians have less of... You should see what insects do. It just isn't possible, using fossil records alone, to identify whether two insects belong to the same or different species.

yeah and that's what is behind the idea that some "different" dinosaur species (aka birds) are actually juvanile / adult versions of the same species totally amazing that insects basically rearrange themselves on near celular level though at certain points in their lifespan

> totally amazing that insects basically rearrange themselves on near celular level though at certain points in their lifespan

What I find more amazing is that, in the popular culture, this is usually presented as something unusual that butterflies do. When in reality all insects do it and the metamorphosis of butterflies is notable only for its extreme typicality.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#105
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made a plea (which you support), that simply because they are from there, that they therefore know the history better than someone from outside. That does not follow.

I wouldn't say I know history of this area better than all Europeans, but definitely better than the vast majority. I wouldn't confuse Nesher the town with Nesher the factory, for instance, since having lived not far from the latter I know it's not anywhere near Ramle.

having grown up in Nesher myself... makes me wonder how many degrees apart we are (not that either name is all that uncommon)

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there is "Mitochondrial Eve", a single individual from whom entire sections of humanity descend!

From Wikipedia: "Cann, Stoneking and Wilson did not use the term "Mitochondrial Eve" or even the name "Eve" in their original paper; it appears to originate with a 1987 article in Science by Roger Lewin, headlined "The Unmasking of Mitochondrial Eve."[19] The biblical connotation was very clear from the start. The accompanying research news in Nature had the title "Out of the garden of Eden."[20] Wilson himself prefe…

Myths are useful cultural references, in being universally understood. I didn't interpret the use of the term Eve here to connote any religious intimations.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Wikipedia: "Cann, Stoneking and Wilson did not use the term "Mitochondrial Eve" or even the name "Eve" in their original paper; it appears to originate with a 1987 article in Science by Roger Lewin, headlined "The Unmasking of Mitochondrial Eve."[19] The biblical connotation was very clear from the start. The accompanying research news in Nature had the title "Out of the garden of Eden."[20] Wilson himself prefe…

Myths are useful cultural references, in being universally understood. I didn't interpret the use of the term Eve here to connote any religious intimations.

Hm, but here even the researchers clearly said, that the use of "Eve" implicates a interpretation ( that there was only one Birthmother, like Eve, so a "proof" hat the bible is partly right) that is not true, but this is what understood by many, because also the news releases are skewed this way.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not a tree, there is an indisputable orderly structure: the directed acyclic graph of individuals descending from other individuals. Then we can collapse nodes to obtain species that evolved from one another or more realistic arrangements, respecting some constraints (for example, if A is an ancestor of B and B is an ancestor of C, putting A and C in the same species should imply that B belongs to that species…

The problem is that grouping individuals -> species is highly nontrivial. Even your constraint fails with bidirectional admixture. Imagine individuals from species A interbreed with people of species B. The admixture survives in B for a couple hundred thousand years and then back-admixture occurs, producing descendants in A who have intermediate ancestors of a different species. This is a common pattern in genus Homo…

The idea of species is quite meaningless in any case. Boundaries are arbitrary, genetic similarity can arise by chance, interbreeding is situational, reproductive isolation is rarely perfect, populations are vague; of the different definitions of species surveyed in the article, the "cohesion"-based one is the closest to admitting that taxonomy is a rough model of cohesive genealogical and evolutionary patterns.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#109
post #8
post #3

> It all started in Israel. We suggest that a local group was the source population," she told BBC News. "During interglacial periods, waves of humans, the Nesher Ramla people, migrated from the Middle East to Europe Hm, how convenient for people who claim they have divine rights to the land. Odd racial superiority vibes here.

I’m sorry are you saying her claim that Neanderthals’ ancestors originated in Israel has something to do with a religion that started hundreds of thousands of years later? Because I just don’t see the connection.

Me neither. What I’m saying is they will certainly use this to label Israelis as the “original race” supporting their superiority feelings. The claims are bold and already being disputed.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and dominated by the great powers granted them 55% of the land for a Jewish stat 70% of the area that was proposed for the Jewish state was used to create what is today Jordan. The rest is creative interpretations and framings to make one of the worlds smallest countries - and the only land where Jews can feel safe - to seem like a giant agressor.

>70% of the area that was proposed for the Jewish state was used to create what is today Jordan. Do you have a reference for that?

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