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Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

theguardian.com

351–360 of 363 posts

Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you literally saying they all share a single ancestor? Because that is unlikely to be true

Is it? I'd imagine they all share many common ancestors, but that those common ancestors are probably shared by many others as well so it's not very unique. 30 generations back (a thousand years?) you have over a billion ancestors, which is way more people estimated to have lived at the time, meaning your family tree at that depth contains the same people over and over. Of course your ancestry probably isn't uniforml…

> they all share many common ancestors, but that those common ancestors are probably shared by many others as well so it's not very unique.

That's my point. By "common ancestor" I meant, common ancestor common to them only. That's what I find to be unlikely.

And yes, you are right about this. There is plenty of vids on YT that explain the math

Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you literally saying they all share a single ancestor? Because that is unlikely to be true

It is indefensible to make arguments of likelihoods without and understanding of context and priors. If I listed 1,000 people from around the world at random and claimed we all had a shared great^N grandfather (with N not so large at to be trivially true), I’d need some rather significant proof to back up at that claim, and barring that we could say it was unlikely to be true. If on the other hand I consulted my fami…

Given the socio-historical relevance of family trees, genealogical records of anyone but the wealthiest are likely unreliable the farther you go back

Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

#353
post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pvaldes is saying that biologically/genetically, the difference is irrelevant. And it is because we're >99% identical. https://www.genome.gov/dna-day/15-ways/human-genomic-variati...

If he were to be saying that, he’d be terribly misinformed. Slight specific genetic changes can have absolutely massive impacts, hand waving “ninety nine percent of us is a banana!”-type speak is brain-dead. I’ll let him speak for himself.

What you call "Jewish DNA" evolved for millions of years before Abraham, mixing freely with other Mediterranean and Middle East people for most of this time.

I'm not against the use of taxa below species level for humans; Its use is widespread on life sciences, but we need to apply it wisely. Race was a poorly defined biological term kidnapped to justify doing evil things against other people. The term may be a lost cause at this moment.

If we take a look to a Wolof from Senegal near an Aboriginal from Camberra we can always say who is who. If we take a look to somebody from Israel and somebody from Palestine, we can't. At the naked eye, both are indistinguishable. At a physiological level, both breath air and work exactly in the same way. Genetic differences between both are smaller than current genetic variability among Jewish.

If Jewish are some kind of taxon below species level, we would have to include Palestinians (and a lot of other Middle East people) on that taxon. This is how Taxonomy works.

If the reason is because they were a closed group for some time; applying the same reasoning, the European monarchies should be also a race. Is also a reproductive closed group, showing high frequencies of some rare diseases and even developed an unique look as consequence (See a portrait of Charles II from Spain).

Anthropology books should talk about Africans, Caucasians, Asians, Jewish... and Kings.

Why stop here? Should Mormons be also their own human race? Are Amish a race? Are rednecks a new race of humans?

The obvious answer is not. Maybe in 65000 years, but not now.

That would introduce a lot of noise in Anthropology, just for fulfilling a wish of "but I feel special", and should be avoided. We all feel special.

Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

#354
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't acknowledge continent-scale cultural and human destruction by calling it "injustice" or "inevitable awful consequence". Do you imagine someone saying that about the current situation in Crimea? Millions of people died. It is not just an "injustice". An injustice is a state official forging evidence for nefarious purposes not destroying a country and unaliving its people let alone a whole continent. It reall…

Permanent contact between the Americas and Eurasia was inevitable. If it hadn’t been the Europeans coming here, it could have been the Chinese. Whether it was a Columbus or a Chan, the introduction of diseases which the Eurasians had been swimming in for eons would have still slammed into the Americas like an apocalypse. Even if you gave it another 300 years (after vaccines were invented) there’s no way a distributio…

You seem to be missing my point. There is no argument about one group finding about each other or about the fatal effect of bringing new diseases into the continent.

My point was that your use of "bringing together" in the context of putting it as Columbus achievement when we all know what happened and what he did when he got there was insensitive. You realise that there are people still living under the consequences of that? People have been still been dying because of it in the 90s. It is not some small event that happened a while ago but a huge continent scale massive event that is still reverberating nowadays. In deference to people who are still alive and affected by it, "Connecting" is a neutral term that better conveys what happened without having to add your own moral viewpoint on whether what he did was good.

It was horrific and it would be nice if you acknowledged that the same way you acknowledge the systematic horrors that certain countries did in a certain large scale war the previous century even if science and lots of countries progressed socially, ethical and technologically as a result of it.

Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

#355
post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider ironic about two groups of long-isolated (from each other) humans making contact and there being conflict? There are no similar events at this scale to compare to (what is your context for irony?). Looking at the smaller-scale examples, the presence of conflict seems entirely consistent, and hardly ironic. I’m guessing you’re reading “brought together” as some sort of idiom for happiness and mutu…

I considered ironic that the user used a positive expression "humanity coming together" for what was one of the most destructive invasions in human history. I suggest you ask any native to America what they think about that term? "humanity coming together" is definitely a positive expression. The cambridge dictionary says "to help people or groups to become friendly or to do something together, especially when they w…

No, you’re adding your own bias into this reading. You are putting your own thoughts into the head of another, projecting. You can’t burden another person with that. Read it literally.

Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

#356
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also don’t think it’s ill named. The moors conquered and the Catholics took it back. It doesn’t defy logic.

> The moors conquered and the Catholics took it back. This take only makes sense if you argue the Romans took it back, which would only be a valid claim from the perspective of the Roman Catholic Church, not war lords from the Iberian Peninsula.

The first large ethnic group in the Iberian Peninsula that the Romans conquered was the Gaels (Galicians); and for the largest part wiped them out. Primarily the Celtiberian Lusitanians.

Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

#357
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

def genocidal: relating to or involving the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. Pedantic to say that Columbus subjugating entire people groups with mass murder doesn't qualify here. The manpower skew was huge, so how exactly did they subjugate the Tainos without genocide? 7M tainos died when all was said and done.

7M tainos by the hand of Columbus and his crew? I don't question that what the Spanish accomplished was a massacre. I just question whether that can be attributed to Columbus himself. He did 3 trips to the Americas, none of which lasted very long: 1st Voyage - 1492-1493 2nd Voyage - 1493-1496 3rd Voyage - 1498-1500

You don't have to personally perpetrate or even succeed to be genocidal right? If your intention is "drive out the natives and eradicate them because they're pests unless enslaved" that's genocidal.

Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

#358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we need "to be fair" about who we celebrate? I don't understand why anyone is arguing the point that we shouldn't celebrate people who did awful things. They also weren't all the same. Not everyone goes around enslaving people and using their life to seek riches and fame. I don't think anyone complains about historical figures who, flaws and all, fought for higher ideals like personal liberty.

Because they were all horrible people? The atctecs were the russians of south america- a grueling empire, that had it won the run to steam ships first would have invaded africa and europe, to build human sacrifice pyramids? They are just characters, surfing the waves of technological change and resulting cultural power asymmetries. They are surprisingly irrelevant and replaceable. But they are the representatives of…

You can just not celebrate columbus; I don't think anyone is poorer for it.

Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

#359
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Permanent contact between the Americas and Eurasia was inevitable. If it hadn’t been the Europeans coming here, it could have been the Chinese. Whether it was a Columbus or a Chan, the introduction of diseases which the Eurasians had been swimming in for eons would have still slammed into the Americas like an apocalypse. Even if you gave it another 300 years (after vaccines were invented) there’s no way a distributio…

You seem to be missing my point. There is no argument about one group finding about each other or about the fatal effect of bringing new diseases into the continent. My point was that your use of "bringing together" in the context of putting it as Columbus achievement when we all know what happened and what he did when he got there was insensitive. You realise that there are people still living under the consequences…

This moment of which we speak (500 years ago) has many significant aspects that can be discussed, but recognize a claim is also made on the moment by a story whose scope is measured in tens of thousands of years and whose theater is planetary in scale.

This is the migration of Homo sapiens, their separation and their ultimate reunion. It is difficult to fathom the planetary conditions and durations involved in ever recreating it. For all intents and purposes, it’s not happening again, and its closure happened less than 1000 years ago.

The observation that Columbus is part of that profound story is undoubtedly one thing that makes him very, very remarkable.

There is a difference between observations made irrespective of culture (such as this one), and being disrespectful or insensitive to culture. That’s an important distinction you should take away from this exchange. It is possible to reflect on certain dimensions of an issue without being obligated to repeat safe harbor statements about unrelated dimensions, as we are not children, or repeating acknowledgements of unrelated dimensions like mantras to ward off bad vibes as if we were superstitious. I think we/you are better than that. Read words carefully and take them as they are given without projecting some bad faith meaning into them. And don’t be anxious about what may or may not be in other peoples’ heads. You’ll drive yourself nuts and be seen as very annoying to others.

Re: Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong on this point. Genetically, Jews are as distinct as any other race (and the world's obsession with Jews mean that you can find plenty of studies on Jewish genetics). Jews take DNA tests and get marked as "Ashekanzi Jewish" (or other Jewish type) on tests like 23andme.

Genetically, Jews are as distinct as any other race. By what measure? And how is "race" defined?

There are many definitions, but the only one that excludes Jews is pure colorism (and also ignorance of the different types of Jews / mixing that has occurred).
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