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Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
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Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
#42Every time I read about ancient DNA work, it's about Reich's research. Can anyone expert in the field shed light on that? He certainly seems to have a successful research group. And he's a good communicator, I got a lot out of his 2018 book. Who else should I be reading or reading about?
chromosomal fusion as the explanation for the "loss" of a chromosome pair, in humans.
https://www.johnhawks.net/p/when-did-human-chromosome-2-fuse
also , independent confirmation of observations, are gold for research, however needless repetition of effort is not.
thus when someone is prolific,or uncannily mad about a topic it tends to be dominated by that persons submissions, and often any other contributors are on that lead researchers team.
Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's unfortunate that the URL happens to be buzzfeed, but there was an open letter to Reich by other academics about his terminology in the book you're quoting [0]. The short of it is that social categorizations we believe in like race intersect with genetics in a very complicated way. Reich is a world-class expert in genetics. He simply commits the same error as many other other experts in discounting the complexity…
The crux of that letter is the "need to recognize that meaningful patterns of genetic and biological variation exist in our species that are not racial." This is true. However, this does not mean that there aren't also meaningful patterns of genetic and biological variation that do stratify according to ancestry (not race!). The letter tries to handwave this away, claiming that "[f]or several decades billions of doll…
This is simply not true.
But his skillfulness with ancient and contemporary DNA should not be confused with a mastery of the cultural, political, and biological meanings of human groups.
But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”
The list is mainly people in fields that deal with these things, as you'd expect.
Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Reich in particular is borderline deliberate about attracting those sorts with his lab's research, because of how badly he chooses to handle the topic and terminology of race. Sorry, do you have any examples? His views that I've read [0, 1] are scientifically rigorous and terminologically precise, deftly navigating the politics that some consider extremely controversial. To wit, one of my favorite passages from [1],…
It's unfortunate that the URL happens to be buzzfeed, but there was an open letter to Reich by other academics about his terminology in the book you're quoting [0]. The short of it is that social categorizations we believe in like race intersect with genetics in a very complicated way. Reich is a world-class expert in genetics. He simply commits the same error as many other other experts in discounting the complexity…
Fortunately, there are many wise laymen such as yourself in the internet to correct him.
Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
The definition of what constitutes a species is a human construct. Two bird populations living in the same locale but divided by a mountain range therefore not naturally breeding with each other would classify as a different species, even if they could breed with each other. So your question is hard to answer.
I’ve often dreamt of breeding with that mythical bird far, far away.
If you do cross the barrier, you could successfully mate with that mythical bird!
Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
#46Is there any species, other than humans, that is found all across the globe (i.e. geographically separated), and has not differentiated into subspecies? Wolves, elephants, tigers, bears, and foxes have all been categorized into multiple subspecies each, distinct but able to interbreed.
How about Taraxacum officinale, the common dandelion? It’s not quite all across the globe but pretty close, and is so adapted that it is not considered invasive any more in most places.
Or, it's equally invasive everywhere.
Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
#47Is there any species, other than humans, that is found all across the globe (i.e. geographically separated), and has not differentiated into subspecies? Wolves, elephants, tigers, bears, and foxes have all been categorized into multiple subspecies each, distinct but able to interbreed.
Do humans not fit the standards for being broken into multiple subspecies? I assumed that they would but "the science community" is too scared of the implications when idiots learn about it. I look at a sumatran tiger and a Siberian tiger and I see a lot less variance than I see when I look at a pygmy, a Norwegian, an sentinel islander, and a han Chinese person
>Do humans not fit the standards for being broken into multiple subspecies?
No. Multiple human subspecies did once exist (examples being Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo Erectus, and Homo Floresiensis) but only our species, Homo Sapiens, remains (with traces of Neanderthal DNA so there was some interbreeding.) However race is a cultural and social construct. Different human races are not different human subspecies. A Pygmy, a Norwegian, a Sentinel Islander, and a Han Chinese person are all the same species. The superficial variations in average height, skin color, etc. do not vary enough to constitute species differentiation - humans share 99.9% of their DNA, and the vast majority of genetic variation exists within populations (in other words, within "races") and not between them.
Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason no one wants to talk is that these discussions are always co-opted by racists wanting to affirm their beliefs, regardless of the underlying science. Reich in particular is borderline deliberate about attracting those sorts with his lab's research, because of how badly he chooses to handle the topic and terminology of race.
>Reich in particular is borderline deliberate about attracting those sorts with his lab's research, because of how badly he chooses to handle the topic and terminology of race. Sorry, do you have any examples? His views that I've read [0, 1] are scientifically rigorous and terminologically precise, deftly navigating the politics that some consider extremely controversial. To wit, one of my favorite passages from [1],…
I haven't read much from Reich, so I don't know his position. But I've understood that the current best practice in human genetics is to explicitly justify the population descriptors chosen for each study, rather than using any fixed set of descriptors given from the outside.
There are two main types of genetic descriptors: those based on genetic similarity and those based on ancestry groups. Genetic similarity is quantitative, and individual samples often have multiple labels attached to them. Ancestry groups are discrete categories based on quantitative measures. If it's appropriate to use descriptors based on genetic ancestry groups in a study, it's usually also appropriate to drop samples that don't fit neatly in any single group.
Sometimes it's more appropriate to use descriptors based on environmental factors, such as ethnicity or geography. Environmental descriptors tend to be correlated with genetic descriptors, but they are not the same.
Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't dogs technically one species?
This distinction seems more arbitrary over time. Growing up I was taught different species couldn’t interbreed. But what about Neanderthal and Sapiens?
Funny tangent: this comic has strong feelings about such distinctions, using "dog" as the canonical example:
Re: Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
The crux of that letter is the "need to recognize that meaningful patterns of genetic and biological variation exist in our species that are not racial." This is true. However, this does not mean that there aren't also meaningful patterns of genetic and biological variation that do stratify according to ancestry (not race!). The letter tries to handwave this away, claiming that "[f]or several decades billions of doll…
This is simply not true. Yes, because it's not an argument the letter is making. Everyone can name a meaningful genetic patterns of genetic variation that follow ancestry like lactase persistence. The argument is in the second paragraph: But his skillfulness with ancient and contemporary DNA should not be confused with a mastery of the cultural, political, and biological meanings of human groups. It's not an argument…
>Yes, because it's not an argument the letter is making.
It literally is though. The full quote from the Buzzfeed piece is:
Reich’s claim that we need to prepare for genetic evidence of racial differences in behavior or health ignores the trajectory of modern genetics. For several decades billions of dollars have been spent trying to find such differences. The result has been a preponderance of negative findings despite intrepid efforts to collect DNA data on millions of individuals in the hope of finding even the tiniest signals of difference.
But his skillfulness with ancient and contemporary DNA should not be confused with a mastery of the cultural, political, and biological meanings of human groups.
>When he says things like: But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”
Note that he put "races" in quotes. The point he was making here is that sometimes genetic ancestries can intersect quite well with traditional notions of "race" [0]. But often times they do not, especially in the case of admixed populations [1].
[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-32325-w/figures/1
[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12859-019-2680-1/...