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Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

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Re: Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

#51

Post by stakkur »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #49
stakkur wrote: post #48

> 'By “modern humans,” I mean Homo sapiens' Though it's not a distinction many people care about, for me this is always the fundamental context: Homo Sapiens, not 'humans'. There have been many species of humans; only one of them made it to modern times. So--the post isn't on 'human origins', it's on 'Homo Sapien origins'.

The article clarifies that "human" includes the whole homo genus (well, not explicitly, but it at least mentions other species in homo as being human) within the same paragraph you quoted from.

He's talking about the origin of 'modern humans', which are specifically the homo sapien species, not about the origin of all humans. He even says so:

>"Today almost everything we had figured out then is wrong. We didn’t understand the origin of modern humans, and we’re still in the process of unpacking all the complexity as more and more findings come to light."

And thanks for the downvote.

Re: Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

#52

Post by didibus »

stakkur wrote: post #48

> 'By “modern humans,” I mean Homo sapiens' Though it's not a distinction many people care about, for me this is always the fundamental context: Homo Sapiens, not 'humans'. There have been many species of humans; only one of them made it to modern times. So--the post isn't on 'human origins', it's on 'Homo Sapien origins'.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying?

The article explains that modern humans actually don't descend exclusively from homo sapiens, but also have lineage from Neanderthals and Denisovans, and that's just of the ones we know. So the article seems to talk about the origin of modern humans as in the people alive today that we'd all consider to be human.

That's why he specifies that now we understand that what we thought in the 80s, that modern humans = homo sapiens, we now know is wrong, as we now know that modern humans involve a more complex lineage. But what we thought of the homo sapiens lineage does seem to be correct though.

At least that's what I understood of the article. Now I don't know how precise and correct and up to date the article is.

Re: Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

#53

Post by marcellus23 »

sega_sai wrote: post #50
throwaway4666 wrote: post #3

Multiple inaccuracies there. Crick and Watson certainly didn't discover DNA as the substrate for Mendelian inheritance, that was known long before. They (in collaboration with Rosalind "don't talk to me about this woman" Franklin) discovered its 3D structure . Africans do have Neanderthal DNA, up to 0.3%. The post tries very hard to make it look like 'Out of Africa' is wrong and not the mainstream accepted by the maj…

I knew nothing about the author of the text, and read it with interest, but the fact that he didn't mention Franklin was certainly a surprise and warning sign. To anyone who studied the issue, it's clear that Franklin should be credited at least equally with Crick&Watson.

It's quite possible not to be familiar with the issue, or only aware of it peripherally. "Crick & Watson" is the way it was taught to almost all Americans, correct or no.

Re: Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

#54

Post by busyant »

throwaway4666 wrote: post #3

Multiple inaccuracies there. Crick and Watson certainly didn't discover DNA as the substrate for Mendelian inheritance, that was known long before. They (in collaboration with Rosalind "don't talk to me about this woman" Franklin) discovered its 3D structure . Africans do have Neanderthal DNA, up to 0.3%. The post tries very hard to make it look like 'Out of Africa' is wrong and not the mainstream accepted by the maj…

> Crick and Watson certainly didn't discover DNA as the substrate for Mendelian inheritance, that was known long before. They (in collaboration with Rosalind "don't talk to me about this woman" Franklin) discovered its 3D structure.

Just to add a little bit.

They discovered the 3D structure, but the structure (specifically, the base pairing) made it quite clear that the mechanism of inheritance was due to each complementary strand serving as a template for information copying.

For me, that was the stunning bit of the discovery.

Re: Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

#55

Post by mayli »

xwdv wrote: post #4

One of the things I do know about my great grandmothers of several centuries far back (and maybe she is also one of yours if she is a common ancestor), is that she must have been an obese woman, even for the standards of the day. We’re talking late 1400s or so. This woman indeed must have been so fat, that at the time of her death the earth was flat, but when they buried her it became round.

Yeah, I cannot stop searching for "fat" in this thread.

Re: Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

#56

Post by selimthegrim »

csee wrote: post #34
throwaway4666 wrote: post #3

Multiple inaccuracies there. Crick and Watson certainly didn't discover DNA as the substrate for Mendelian inheritance, that was known long before. They (in collaboration with Rosalind "don't talk to me about this woman" Franklin) discovered its 3D structure . Africans do have Neanderthal DNA, up to 0.3%. The post tries very hard to make it look like 'Out of Africa' is wrong and not the mainstream accepted by the maj…

You're misrepresenting him, and it sounds like you have an ideological stake in this. > Africans do have Neanderthal DNA, up to 0.3%. He never claimed or hinted that Africans do not have Neanderthal DNA. He says "non-African modern humans were discernibly more similar to the Neanderthal sample than Africans were", which is factually accurate, given that there's about a 1.5-2.5% gap in the amount of DNA that's shared,…

There was a Eurasian introgression back into Africa from either the Arabian Peninsula or (less likely) across the Sahara into Chadic ethnic groups visible in Y-DNA haplogroups. Most likely that's the source of the 0.3%

Re: Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

#57

Post by [deleted] »

traject_ wrote: post #36
throwaway4666 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing how African populations are extremely diverse and we're just seeing the extent of it I would refrain from making such definitive statements. >To repeat, interest in human populations and such phenotypic differences does not imply scientific racism once you realize the basic scientific principle that humans are animals and consider how animals exist in populations with phenotypic differences. That's a needlessl…

> Seeing how African populations are extremely diverse and we're just seeing the extent of it I would refrain from making such definitive statements. There's no reason to not. Holocene expansion of farming/pastoral populations all over the world (including Africa) has largely homogenized human ancestry into identifiable distinct strands that is in varying proportions. Africa is indeed diverse genetically but it is no…

[deleted]

Re: Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

#58

Post by rayiner »

culi wrote: post #45
keewee7 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, isn't Razib Khan a "scientific racist"? (Protip: when someone's wiki page has a 'Controversies' tab it doesn't look good) He is a Bengali-American (with a Muslim name) who has repeatedly debunked Hindu nationalist claims about ancient human migrations in and out of India. Unfortunately, as your comment shows, they have been succesful in maligning him as a racist for speaking the truth.

I'm not taking a stance on either side of this, but the fact that he's Bengali-American doesn't somehow mean he can't be a scientific racist. (Btw by "Scientific racism" I'm talking about the pseudoscience movement) I'd suggest you take a look at some of his work yourself and make a judgement of how unscientific he really is: https://vdare.com/letters/vdare-khan-letter-and-sailer-reply... Here's a paragraph for insta…

> I'm not taking a stance on either side of this, but the fact that he's Bengali-American doesn't somehow mean he can't be a scientific racist.

Given that Bangladesh has one of the lowest average IQs in the world, that suggests a strong motivation for Kahn not to make assertions lightly.

The paragraph you point to is blunt, but not “racist” and not inconsistent with what I’ve heard in “just among us Asians” conversations. (You’re very sheltered if you think it’s controversial to point out that East Asians think that Americans are fat and age quickly.)

Re: Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

#59

Post by Bayart »

xwdv wrote: post #4

One of the things I do know about my great grandmothers of several centuries far back (and maybe she is also one of yours if she is a common ancestor), is that she must have been an obese woman, even for the standards of the day. We’re talking late 1400s or so. This woman indeed must have been so fat, that at the time of her death the earth was flat, but when they buried her it became round.

Your joke's working off the notion that in the 1400s, people believed the Earth to be flat, which wasn't the case.

Re: Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins

#60

Post by ralfd »

throwaway4666 wrote: post #22
sjtindell wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. A scientific racist is a racist (someone who thinks one race is inferior to another) who uses science to back up their claim. Not sure this person is one.

Scientific racists don't use such crass words like 'inferior', they'd rather say 'have a lower mean IQ and impulse control due to genetic differences'

But does Razib Khan do that?

Anyway, David Reich argued in the NYT that there are genetic differences between populatons which do influence behaviour and mental traits. It is only a question if we want to find these (or leave the field to racists):

https://archive.md/z3TlJ

> since all traits influenced by genetics are expected to differ across populations (because the frequencies of genetic variations are rarely exactly the same across populations), the genetic influences on behavior and cognition will differ across populations, too.

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