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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

#11

Post by Mary-Jane »

throwaway4666 wrote: post #8
Mary-Jane wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science, indeed any intellectual thought, won't progress without contrarian views challenging the/your status quo.

Yes, this is the usual precanned retort when faced with the fact that one's fringe viewpoint isn't in line with the mainstram science. It's not an argument though, in that it doesn't tilt the balance of probabilities (from a Bayesian point of view) away from the initial prior (i.e. the fringe is likely wrong and experts are likely right - note that I said likely , not 100%, like a good Bayesian). If anything, his ele…

I have no skin in the game; didn't even read the article. "You're just being contrarian so you're wrong" is a weak and lazy retort. I did appreciate that op provided a counter-perspective though; that's rare.

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

#12

Post by keewee7 »

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…

>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.

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

#13

Post by throwaway4666 »

traject_ wrote: post #10
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…

>Africans do have Neanderthal DNA, up to 0.3%. That ancestry comes from later interactions with West Eurasians and is at trace levels compared to the substantial 2-3% in non-Africans. This does not change the point that non-Africans received input from Neanderthals just before expansion outwards. >The post tries very hard to make it look like 'Out of Africa' is wrong and not the mainstream accepted by the majority of…

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.

I just want to comment on this: opposing 'scientific racism' is an ideological claim now?! The dude has a pretty large record making claims about race and IQ and 'human biodiversity', works in an industry that's banking heavily on grifting money out of rich people with PGSes, and mainstream scientists debunking it are the ones being ideological? I feel like I'm dreaming here, imagine a Philip Morris lobbyist accusing you of being 'ideological' when you point out flaws in their 'actually cigarettes are pretty good for you' studies. (Wait, that actually happened)

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

#14

Post by oh_sigh »

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…

Scientific racist is a funny term. If a scientist shows that "race" X has a different distribution of traits than "race" Y, does that mean that they are a scientific racist? Doesn't racism also have to have an associated hatred, prejudice, or antagonism against a different race? Is it scientifically racist to say that blacks get a certain blood disease more frequently than whites?

To put it another way, if a scientist does a study and shows that the Ainu people of northern Japan are statistically taller than the Mbuti people of the Congo, does that mean the scientist is a "scientific heightist"? Wouldn't they need to amend their report with something like "...and therefore, Ainu people are better than Mbuti" or something like that?

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

#15

Post by AlotOfReading »

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 didn't get the vibe that this particular article was rejecting OoA, but simply pointing out that the modern approach is OoA + "it's complicated".

The HBD stuff is troublesome and it's certainly worth regarding the author more critically, but I found the bones of what was linked fairly pedestrian and uncontroversial. I suspect that will not be true of the follow-up article about origin models within Africa though.

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

#17

Post by kspacewalk2 »

keewee7 wrote: post #12
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…

>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.

>Unfortunately, as your comment shows, they have been succesful in maligning him as a racist for speaking the truth.

Could also be your typical sour grapes over a dissenting view on the science. Academia is full of childishness like this (especially but not exclusively as you go further away from stuff that can be unambiguously measured and into the realm of the squishy soft sciences).

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

#18

Post by traject_ »

throwaway4666 wrote: post #13
traject_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Africans do have Neanderthal DNA, up to 0.3%. That ancestry comes from later interactions with West Eurasians and is at trace levels compared to the substantial 2-3% in non-Africans. This does not change the point that non-Africans received input from Neanderthals just before expansion outwards. >The post tries very hard to make it look like 'Out of Africa' is wrong and not the mainstream accepted by the majority of…

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. I just want to comment on this: opposing 'scientific racism' is an ideological claim now?! The dude has a pretty large record making claims about race and IQ and 'human biodiversity', works in an industry that's banking…

> 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 thousands of years to now be in various African populations) which all are distinguished by a lack of Neanderthal DNA outside of West Eurasian admixture.

And for the last point, I did not condone scientific racism. 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.

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

#19

Post by AlotOfReading »

throwaway4666 wrote: post #13
traject_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Africans do have Neanderthal DNA, up to 0.3%. That ancestry comes from later interactions with West Eurasians and is at trace levels compared to the substantial 2-3% in non-Africans. This does not change the point that non-Africans received input from Neanderthals just before expansion outwards. >The post tries very hard to make it look like 'Out of Africa' is wrong and not the mainstream accepted by the majority of…

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. I just want to comment on this: opposing 'scientific racism' is an ideological claim now?! The dude has a pretty large record making claims about race and IQ and 'human biodiversity', works in an industry that's banking…

Not everything he says is wrong just because he has lots of nutty beliefs more generally. Maybe I missed something, but I didn't see anything terribly controversial or wrong in the article.

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

#20

Post by sjtindell »

oh_sigh wrote: post #14
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…

Scientific racist is a funny term. If a scientist shows that "race" X has a different distribution of traits than "race" Y, does that mean that they are a scientific racist? Doesn't racism also have to have an associated hatred, prejudice, or antagonism against a different race? Is it scientifically racist to say that blacks get a certain blood disease more frequently than whites? To put it another way, if a scientis…

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.
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