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

razib.substack.com

61–70 of 95 posts

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

#61

We all came from Adam and Eve, Allah(God) created everything. some people are believing theories made by a handful of "scientists" and became facts all of a sudden.

You can have faith in your religion without disregarding science. Who's to say creationism wasn't lost in translation to begin at the Big Bang and end at human consciousness through evolution?

I don't believe in that stuff. But it's a much more cohesive story than believing in an actual Adam and Eve with people living hundreds of years old.

If it happened, science may eventually prove it. Since you believe it to be fact, you should instead, push to dig deeper.

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

#62

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…

graham was on my committee and i know him personally even before grad school (this is razib).

from the acknowledgments his 2013 paper https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...

"Thanks to Razib Khan, Sharon Browning, and Don Conrad for several useful discussions"

you can nitpick the piece but this is from an attack piece on me:

"MANY PROMINENT geneticists familiar with Khan’s work do take him seriously. “I don’t agree with everything that Razib writes, but I think that he does write about population genetics very clearly,” said Graham Coop, a population genetic"

so yes, put your faith in graham :-) you know his work so little you weren't aware i was going to easily pivot in this direction

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

#63
Related reminder:

"Everyone is a descendent of Charlemagne" or

"After a couple of millenia, every human is related."

https://www.sarahwoodbury.com/were-all-descended-from-charle...

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/info%3Adoi%2F1...

https://github.com/pannous/hieros/wiki/paradoxon

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

#64
post #62

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…

graham was on my committee and i know him personally even before grad school (this is razib). from the acknowledgments his 2013 paper https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou... "Thanks to Razib Khan, Sharon Browning, and Don Conrad for several useful discussions" you can nitpick the piece but this is from an attack piece on me: "MANY PROMINENT geneticists familiar with Khan’s work do take him ser…

[deleted]

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

#65

Related reminder: "Everyone is a descendent of Charlemagne" or "After a couple of millenia, every human is related." https://www.sarahwoodbury.com/were-all-descended-from-charle... https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/info%3Adoi%2F1... https://github.com/pannous/hieros/wiki/paradoxon

I thought it was Genghis Kahn.

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The science is constantly evolving to this very day on the supposedly 'trace levels' of Neanderthal DNA in Africans (especially as we gather a more diverse range of cohorts) so I'll leave it at that. No, the trace levels of Neanderthal DNA in Africans is very unlikely to change by gathering more diverse range of cohorts. It is a matter of identifying major strands of ancestry within Africans (by admixture over thou…

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.

Finding a subpopulation within Africa with more Neanderthal DNA would not overturn the the fact that African populations in general have less of this DNA than elsewhere.

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

#67
post #45
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…

What is that paragraph indented to demonstrate? It looks like he making a decent point using generalities as examples.

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

#68
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Protip: when someone's wiki page has a 'Controversies' tab it doesn't look good If wikipedia had existed in the time of Copernicus, Plato, Giordano Bruno, Galileo or Darwin, I do not think they would be without their own large ‘controversies’ section ;)

Quoted post unavailable.

He’s clearly not arguing that, but maybe you’re angry at him because some of his other points hit too close to home for you?

> These include many people who I know personally, who are diversity loving progressives, but who seem to fall into the trap of disaggregation. Since I don't love diversity and don't care about that issue I don't bring it up with them often. But it's what I call a revealed preference. Or, to give an amusing example, I said something offensive in one of my posts apparently a few years back, which prompted one outraged reader to leave a long shocked rant about my racism. The comment was trashed, and the reader banned. Nevertheless, I traced their Facebook account. The individual was a young white professional resident in San Francisco. And, their friends list was visible. I did a quick spot check, and estimated that ~90 percent of their San Francisco friends were white. In contrast, about ~50 percent of San Francisco's population is white.

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

#69
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know claiming a genetic component in explaining differences in racial averages for IQ is scientific racism.

You will find that 'some races just have the dumb SNPs, you know' is indeed a fringe and unserious position often posited by Pioneer Fund recipients (you know, the organization founded in the 30s for the 'purpose of race betterment' that literally inspired Hitler) to justify that we abandon all welfare and remedial programs toward the poorer demographics. If that's not scientific racism, I wonder what's your definiti…

What is one to do when science itself is considered taboo or racist, independent of the veracity of the findings?

I would argue that racial genetics science itself is not racist, but it can be executed in bad faith, and has a high potential for misuse.

One can ask the following in good faith, absent of racism:

1) Is there a genetic component to intelligence

2) Is it heritable?

3) Are there differences in these genetics across groups?

What policy conclusions one draws from any conclusive findings is the controversial part.

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

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The science is constantly evolving to this very day on the supposedly 'trace levels' of Neanderthal DNA in Africans (especially as we gather a more diverse range of cohorts) so I'll leave it at that. No, the trace levels of Neanderthal DNA in Africans is very unlikely to change by gathering more diverse range of cohorts. It is a matter of identifying major strands of ancestry within Africans (by admixture over thou…

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…

"sub-Saharan Africans have some genetic differences from other clades" is not tantamount to scientific racism and you're doing yourself, them, genetics, and the scientific community a disservice. Neanderthal DNA is not magic fairy dust. The differences between Neanderthal and H. sapiens brain cell organelles in vitro are well known.
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