New human-like species discovered • Hacker News Board

Re: New human-like species discovered

#51

Post by javert » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 12:50 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #41

njharman wrote: post #26

Something I've never understood (since highschool some 30 years ago) is; when getting partial skeletons perhaps from only a single individual, how can they claim new species? I mean what's diff with that and some hypothetical future anthropoligist looking at siberian with roundish skull thicker brow ridges and that of six foot tall masai with long face and then a sub 5 foot native peruvian and declaring them all diff…

What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? It's not done now for political reasons, but the future has no reason to be concerned with the past's special sensitivities. Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easi…

> Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easier time communicating.

I'm not certain, but that doesn't sound right to me.

I'm pretty sure Americans and Scots have a far easier time communicating than someone who only speaks Italian and someone who only speaks Spanish.

(Assuming Scottish accents that are reasonably mainstream, not an extreme outlier.)

If I'm wrong, I'd like to be enlightened.

Re: New human-like species discovered

#52

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 12:51 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #42

thaumasiotes wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? It's not done now for political reasons, but the future has no reason to be concerned with the past's special sensitivities. Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easi…

> What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? The fact that they are capable of producing fertile offspring ?

Taking that as the metric how have the writers of the paper in the OP proved that the species that produced these bone fragments was not able to produce [fertile] offspring with any other species (of which they have a few bone fragments), or even with modern humans.

Even with a full genome, or a full skeleton is it even possible? Surely the only way we currently have to determine mating compatibility is to have live subjects to mate/extract gametes from and means to incubate the zygote [and care for it to adulthood].

Re: New human-like species discovered

#53

Post by rtp » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 12:53 PM UTC

TuringTest wrote: post #21

adityar wrote: post #9

for a minute there I thought we discovered hominids alive today. Phrasing!

Ditto. The BBC writer could have specified "new extint human-like species discovered", or " Fossils of new human-like species discovered".

Extinct might not work since that human-like species might be an ancestor of ours.

Re: New human-like species discovered

#54

Post by arxpoetica » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 12:54 PM UTC

merah wrote: post #39

Amazing fly-through video of the Rising Star cave where these discoveries were made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI-JF28T44U Using a type of subterraneous mapping lasers I imagine as you see some kind of globular markers dotted around the cave as you pass through. Unable to find exactly what tech they used for this. Would be interesting to hear any more info on this!

Gollum!

Re: New human-like species discovered

#55

Post by simonh » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 12:57 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #41

njharman wrote: post #26

Something I've never understood (since highschool some 30 years ago) is; when getting partial skeletons perhaps from only a single individual, how can they claim new species? I mean what's diff with that and some hypothetical future anthropoligist looking at siberian with roundish skull thicker brow ridges and that of six foot tall masai with long face and then a sub 5 foot native peruvian and declaring them all diff…

What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? It's not done now for political reasons, but the future has no reason to be concerned with the past's special sensitivities. Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easi…

As the saying goes, a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.

Re: New human-like species discovered

#56

Post by elros » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 12:58 PM UTC

gregwtmtno wrote: post #44

njharman wrote: post #26

Something I've never understood (since highschool some 30 years ago) is; when getting partial skeletons perhaps from only a single individual, how can they claim new species? I mean what's diff with that and some hypothetical future anthropoligist looking at siberian with roundish skull thicker brow ridges and that of six foot tall masai with long face and then a sub 5 foot native peruvian and declaring them all diff…

I think the problem is the "species" construction itself. Remember, it's completely made up by people and has no obligation to reflect the sometimes messy reality on the ground. I'm more interested in what we can learn about these people (using the term for convenience) than what they are called. When did they live? How much genetic distance is there between us and them? Do modern humans carry some of their genes? Co…

I do seem to remember being taught in school that the definition of species is "organisms that can reproduce and generate fertile offspring".

Apparently, though, it's not that simple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem

Re: New human-like species discovered

#57

Post by kamilner » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 12:59 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #42

thaumasiotes wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? It's not done now for political reasons, but the future has no reason to be concerned with the past's special sensitivities. Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easi…

> What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? The fact that they are capable of producing fertile offspring ?

Producing infertile offspring is not necessary for two things to be different species, though. Fertile offspring from two different species is not all that uncommon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_speciation

Re: New human-like species discovered

#58

Post by simonh » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 1:00 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #42

thaumasiotes wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? It's not done now for political reasons, but the future has no reason to be concerned with the past's special sensitivities. Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easi…

> What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? The fact that they are capable of producing fertile offspring ?

But then you have ring species such as some seaguls. The gulls in Northern Europe can interbreed with the ones in Canada, which can interbreed with the ones in Alaska, which can interbreed with the ones in Siberia, which cannot interbreed with the ones is northern Europe. So is there one species or two, and if two where do you draw the line?

Re: New human-like species discovered

#59

Post by kenbellows » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

elros wrote: post #56

gregwtmtno wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is the "species" construction itself. Remember, it's completely made up by people and has no obligation to reflect the sometimes messy reality on the ground. I'm more interested in what we can learn about these people (using the term for convenience) than what they are called. When did they live? How much genetic distance is there between us and them? Do modern humans carry some of their genes? Co…

I do seem to remember being taught in school that the definition of species is "organisms that can reproduce and generate fertile offspring". Apparently, though, it's not that simple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem

That's a problematic criterion when trying to classify long extinct species. We can hypothesize, and perhaps there is a point where we can confidently say "These two definitely couldn't mate" (e.g. Australopithecus afarensis and Homo neanderthalensis), but there's always going to be a large gray area. In fact, here's an interesting quote from the OP article:

> A small group of Homo sapiens left Africa 60,000 years ago and settled the rest of the world, replacing the other human species they encountered (with a small amount of interbreeding).

So actually, it seems we are confident that Homo sapiens was capable of reproduction with some of the other "species" we've identified.

Re: New human-like species discovered

#60

Post by gregwtmtno » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 1:18 PM UTC

elros wrote: post #56

gregwtmtno wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is the "species" construction itself. Remember, it's completely made up by people and has no obligation to reflect the sometimes messy reality on the ground. I'm more interested in what we can learn about these people (using the term for convenience) than what they are called. When did they live? How much genetic distance is there between us and them? Do modern humans carry some of their genes? Co…

I do seem to remember being taught in school that the definition of species is "organisms that can reproduce and generate fertile offspring". Apparently, though, it's not that simple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem

Yeah, not that simple at all. To me though, the problem isn't the difficulty of defining the species. The problem is peoples' need to classify things (a problem that goes far beyond scientific classifications). But I recognize that I'm in the minority in that view.