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Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#121

Post by nobodyandproud »

hnracer wrote: post #108
nobodyandproud wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The height difference owes a lot to nutrition and the long-term living standards of the different countries. I bet the height difference in Koreans between the different generations alive today is quite different from one another. As for Olympics 100 years ago. Are you for real? Most of Asia was under the thumb of Imperialism. They weren’t exactly positioned to “send their best”. How many African nations participated…

The height difference between racial groups has a significant genetic component. Asian Americans are 8cm shorter than White Americans, despite being about equally wealthy. This means that Asians are, on average, genetically disadvantaged when it comes to performance in, for example, basketball - meaning they are less likely to produce a star basketball player, all else equal, because there are less extremely tall Asi…

You realize that much of Asia in modern times has only enjoyed first world lifestyles in the past 30 years?

That’s not to say that there aren’t genetic differences, but every “evidence” I’ve seen brought up has jumped the gun.

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#122

Post by nobodyandproud »

rsynnott wrote: post #96
nobodyandproud wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The height difference owes a lot to nutrition and the long-term living standards of the different countries. I bet the height difference in Koreans between the different generations alive today is quite different from one another. As for Olympics 100 years ago. Are you for real? Most of Asia was under the thumb of Imperialism. They weren’t exactly positioned to “send their best”. How many African nations participated…

> I bet the height difference in Koreans between the different generations alive today is quite different from one another. Also quite different between the Koreas. While the average height in both has increased significantly since the Japanese occupation, it has done so significantly faster in South Korea (as you'd expect, given the economic difference).

Exactly. Look at the average height by age group.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/935212/south-korea-avera...

A 12 cm (or 4/5 inch) difference. Amazingly enough, not too far different from the NK to SK average height difference.

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#124

Post by rendall »

throwanem wrote: post #118
rendall wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fish represents the lost dreams of our ancestry, if not the fishy ancestors themselves. The man is us, all of us. The hungry family is our hungry family. Or perhaps our hunger for connection to our past. The story as a whole is meaningless, and in being so, represents the randomness and chaos in which we find ourselves. Is the universe beneficent, malevolent, indifferent? We cannot know for sure. We can only star…

Nobody likes a smartass.

This is true and I approve this comment

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#125

Post by hnracer »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #121
hnracer wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The height difference between racial groups has a significant genetic component. Asian Americans are 8cm shorter than White Americans, despite being about equally wealthy. This means that Asians are, on average, genetically disadvantaged when it comes to performance in, for example, basketball - meaning they are less likely to produce a star basketball player, all else equal, because there are less extremely tall Asi…

You realize that much of Asia in modern times has only enjoyed first world lifestyles in the past 30 years? That’s not to say that there aren’t genetic differences, but every “evidence” I’ve seen brought up has jumped the gun.

In the post you responded to, I was talking about Asian Americans which have similar wealth to White Americans and earn 38 percent more than the national median income.

Asian Americans are 6cm shorter than Black Americans who earn much less than the national median.

Thus their smaller average height can't be attributed to nutritional deficiency or wealth factors, and can only be explained by genetics.

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#126

Post by kenjackson »

jlawson wrote: post #19
themgt wrote: post #3

While this article's content isn't exactly wrong, the Wikipedia on "Identical ancestors point" gives some important context for what's actually being asserted: All living people share exactly the same set of ancestors from this point back, all the way to the very first single-celled organism. However, people will vary widely in how much ancestry and genes they inherit from each ancestor, which will cause them to have…

Another important point here is that genes don't divide infinitely, so that if you go back some distance, you start finding ancestors from whom you actually didn't get any DNA. The book Who We Are and How We Got Here talks about this. When DNA recombines at conception, it only snips and stitches in a fairly limited number of places. It doesn't 'mix' finely like paint. It's more like taking two short pamphlets of ~25…

> The reality is opposite the title - humans are far more distinct, especially on group levels, than is commonly understood.

This really seems to have some huge assumptions in there. What is commonly understood? I don't think there is much common understanding associated with this. Except maybe that we should treat individuals as individuals, rather than make strong distinctions based on group membership, regardless of any underlying distinctions in the groups. At least that's the noble intent -- I don't think any lies are layered on this.

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#127

Post by [deleted] »

diegoholiveira wrote: post #106
jerzyt wrote: post #24

Disclaimer - the last thing I want to do is to start a religious debate on HN. So, please, don't down-vote me because I'm going to mention Bible here. But I find it interesting that the Individual Ancestors Point is not that far off from the Biblical estimate of the Earth's age of about 6,000 to 15,000 years. So forget about "planting" the planet with "fake" fossils, Adam and Eve are right on the same timeline as the…

> So, at least in this case, the Bible got the math down fairly well, and I'm bringing it up purely as a historical document here. No. Genesis is not a historical document. It is an allegory about creation. Adam and Eve need not necessarily be the first humans, but they were the first to receive a divine spark called "the soul".

[deleted]

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#128

Post by PTOB »

rendall wrote: post #112
throwanem wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you actually talking about, though? Veiled and gnomic proclamations can be fun, but sooner or later you have to show your hand.

The fish represents the lost dreams of our ancestry, if not the fishy ancestors themselves. The man is us, all of us. The hungry family is our hungry family. Or perhaps our hunger for connection to our past. The story as a whole is meaningless, and in being so, represents the randomness and chaos in which we find ourselves. Is the universe beneficent, malevolent, indifferent? We cannot know for sure. We can only star…

I do. This was quite entertaining.

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#129

Post by dmos62 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #114
goto11 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are looking at two different verses. NIV have basically the same text for Genesis 2:21: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A21&... > So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.

I had heard a different theory, that this may be a mythological explanation on why humans don't have a penile bone like many common farm animals at that time (with 'rib' being a mistranslation of a more vague 'bone'). This would also make more symbolic sense, as a penile bone would be more obviously related to creation than a rib.

Quoting the wiki article for penile bone:

> The baculum (also penis bone, penile bone, or os penis, os genitale or os priapi) is a bone found in the penis of many placental mammals. It is absent in the human penis, but present in the penises of other primates, such as the gorilla and chimpanzee.

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#130

Post by dmos62 »

levosmetalo wrote: post #93
goto11 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are looking at two different verses. NIV have basically the same text for Genesis 2:21: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2%3A21&... > So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh.

He took a rib from the left or from the right side? The truth would be easy to prove by counting how many ribs a man has on which side. If it's true, one side would have one rib more. If the number of ribs is the same, then it's either that God didn't create a woman from man's rib, or he took two ribs, one from each side, and created two women.

I love this form of theology. Maybe the rib spawned the woman, similarly to how a woman gives birth to a child, without perishing herself.
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