Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 142 posts

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#51

Post by prmph »

hnracer wrote: post #42
titzer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's clear from history that narrative of us "being the same" hasn't caused nearly as much trouble as the opposite, the complete and utter lie that we are not all human .

I agree with you that it's not a great idea to obsess about genetic differences between races, but what is true is not necessarily the same as what is socially beneficial. It's simply a fact that there are important genetic differences between racial groups that manifest as important phenotype differences, and understanding these can help to make sense of the world around us. It's no coincidence that people with Afri…

> It's no coincidence that people with African genetics always win sprints and marathons in the Olympics.

This is a lie, and you know it. Many people of non-African origin do win such sprint and marathon contests. I suspect what you are really trying to get at, in as few words as possible, is a typical the racist trope: that Africans excel in mindless physical sports, while being inferior in the intellect. However, for example, the physical sport of swimming (and many other sports) is dominated by caucasian people. Given this, it would be wrong to ascribe any over-arching superiority of Africans in sports, or even of any sport category.

That there are physiological differences between groups of people is not in doubt. However, that does not necessarily translate to any culturally meaningful broad characterizations. Fitness in any endeavour requires a complex mix of talents and skills. I'm surprised to see such simplistic, pseudo-rational arguments from HN members.

Edit: Fixed typos

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#52

Post by hnracer »

prmph wrote: post #51
hnracer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that it's not a great idea to obsess about genetic differences between races, but what is true is not necessarily the same as what is socially beneficial. It's simply a fact that there are important genetic differences between racial groups that manifest as important phenotype differences, and understanding these can help to make sense of the world around us. It's no coincidence that people with Afri…

> It's no coincidence that people with African genetics always win sprints and marathons in the Olympics. This is a lie, and you know it. Many people of non-African origin do win such sprint and marathon contests. I suspect what you are really trying to get at, in as few words as possible, is a typical the racist trope: that Africans excel in mindless physical sports, while being inferior in the intellect. However, f…

Korean people are genetically shorter than other races. Do you dispute that this would give them a profound disadvantage in basketball, all else equal? The narrative of all races being functionally the same phenotypically is prima facie absurd as even the most simplistic armchair observation reveals. Anyone who denies that Korean people have a genetic distadvantage in basketball must be acting in bad faith, and if they agree that they are disadvantaged in basketball then they agree with the premise that genetics of racial groups do play an important role in determining over- or under-performance in particular domains.

I never ascribed African dominance to sports in general, only running. Presumably the genetics required for elite swimming performance differ to those required for elite running performance, since they are completely different sports.

> This is a lie, and you know it

Absolutely not. It is an exaggeration, but very much is broadly true. All 100m men's champions at the Olympics going back to 1984 have been of African descent. If my hypothesis is correct, we would expect their dominance to only continue and increase especially as they are given more economic opportunity, but time will tell.

Notably, there are 0 Asian champions going back to the 1800s. Is this just a total coincidence in your worldview? Or is it purely a cultural phenomenon, and if so, do you have any evidence whatsoever for this, or merely a bare assertion?

> However, that does not necessarily translates to any culturally meaningful broads characterizations.

The extent to which this is true is an open question, the only thing I'm sure of is that it's not going to be addressed honestly because of how politically charged it is.

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#53

Post by martinleslie »

lopmotr wrote: post #9

Weren't Australian Aboriginals isolated for tens of thousands of years and some full blooded individuals still exist today? How could they have an ancestor outside Australia in only 1400 BC?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/aboriginal-austra... agrees with you

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#54

Post by rendall »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #25
titzer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An intuition about the "appearing trillions of times in a family tree" is to realize that family trees are actually a binary tree extending backwards in time --i.e. each person has exactly two parents, who have exactly two parents, and so on. So N generations back, there are 2^N individuals. Obviously, there weren't 2^100 people on Earth at any point in time, so this backwards tree starts folding back on itself, cont…

To play with the river analogy: and then imagine that it flows next to a dye factory, and every now and then a droplet of dye finds its way to the stream, creating a colorful streak. That's to account for random mutations. And then what would an analogy look for prokaryotes - bacteria, archaea? If my understanding of biology is correct, it would be like an infinitely tall, densely tiered waterfall. There's some forwa…

To continue playing with our river analogy: consider a man fishing beside the river, who catches a large salmon. The man is ecstatic, for he is poor, and his family is hungry. Just as he draws his knife to gut it, the fish speaks! It says "Please do not kill me. Throw me back into the river, for I am the Fish King, and I will grant you 3 wishes. You can have whatever your heart desires." Astonished, the man agrees, and throws the talking fish back into the water. He speaks his 3 wishes into the air: to be rich, to be respected, and to be young again. Time passes. The man goes home to his hungry wife and child, hands empty. A day passes. A week. Then a year, and youth, wealth and respect remain elusive. A year after that, the man is fishing by the same riverbank - and remember, this is an analogous riverbank - an analogy for our ancestry - and the man catches the same fish! Or is it? It looks the same, but it does not speak. There is no recognition in its fishy eyes. It just lays on the shore, gasping, flopping. The man decides it's just a normal fish after all.

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#55

Post by coldtea »

titzer wrote: post #4
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…

An intuition about the "appearing trillions of times in a family tree" is to realize that family trees are actually a binary tree extending backwards in time --i.e. each person has exactly two parents, who have exactly two parents, and so on. So N generations back, there are 2^N individuals. Obviously, there weren't 2^100 people on Earth at any point in time, so this backwards tree starts folding back on itself, cont…

>Go back far enough and there is a set of individuals who were alive at a particular point in time that completely cover that forward tree.

So like Adam and Eve? :-)

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#56

Post by genghizkhan »

coldtea wrote: post #55
titzer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An intuition about the "appearing trillions of times in a family tree" is to realize that family trees are actually a binary tree extending backwards in time --i.e. each person has exactly two parents, who have exactly two parents, and so on. So N generations back, there are 2^N individuals. Obviously, there weren't 2^100 people on Earth at any point in time, so this backwards tree starts folding back on itself, cont…

> Go back far enough and there is a set of individuals who were alive at a particular point in time that completely cover that forward tree. So like Adam and Eve? :-)

Adam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

Eve: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#57

Post by krapp »

hnracer wrote: post #52
prmph wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's no coincidence that people with African genetics always win sprints and marathons in the Olympics. This is a lie, and you know it. Many people of non-African origin do win such sprint and marathon contests. I suspect what you are really trying to get at, in as few words as possible, is a typical the racist trope: that Africans excel in mindless physical sports, while being inferior in the intellect. However, f…

Korean people are genetically shorter than other races. Do you dispute that this would give them a profound disadvantage in basketball, all else equal? The narrative of all races being functionally the same phenotypically is prima facie absurd as even the most simplistic armchair observation reveals. Anyone who denies that Korean people have a genetic distadvantage in basketball must be acting in bad faith, and if th…

Why did you change your example of Asian shortness from Chinese to Korean when rewriting this comment? Did you look up statistics for Chinese basketball players and decide there were too many of them playing at an elite level to support your narrative?

If so... you do realize that Koreans and Chinese are different ethnicities but the same race, right? And that all of them play basketball?

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#58

Post by pedrosorio »

prmph wrote: post #51
hnracer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that it's not a great idea to obsess about genetic differences between races, but what is true is not necessarily the same as what is socially beneficial. It's simply a fact that there are important genetic differences between racial groups that manifest as important phenotype differences, and understanding these can help to make sense of the world around us. It's no coincidence that people with Afri…

> It's no coincidence that people with African genetics always win sprints and marathons in the Olympics. This is a lie, and you know it. Many people of non-African origin do win such sprint and marathon contests. I suspect what you are really trying to get at, in as few words as possible, is a typical the racist trope: that Africans excel in mindless physical sports, while being inferior in the intellect. However, f…

> Given this, it would be wrong to ascribe any over-arching superiority of Africans in sports

I don’t see anywhere in the parent comment where this was done. They specifically talk about (running) sprints and marathons.

The claim with respect to sprints does not seem too controversial. The fastest white man ever has a personal best that is tied for 49th in the 100m [1] - put another way, the top 50 fastest men ever, citizens of multiple countries, all have recent African ancestry.

A look at the fastest ever in the marathon [2] reveals a pattern of dominance by athletes of African ancestry as well. Very different ancestry (Kenyans and Ethiopians) and average phenotype from the ones who dominate the 100m as you’d expect but such confusion is inevitable when one talks about these topics in an American forum where “African ancestry” is supposed to mean some narrow and clearly defined thing...

> This is a lie, and you know it. Many people of non-African origin do win such sprint and marathon contests

Are we following the same track and field events?

[1] https://www.worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/spr...

[2] https://www.worldathletics.org/records/all-time-toplists/roa...

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#59

Post by hnracer »

krapp wrote: post #57
hnracer wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Korean people are genetically shorter than other races. Do you dispute that this would give them a profound disadvantage in basketball, all else equal? The narrative of all races being functionally the same phenotypically is prima facie absurd as even the most simplistic armchair observation reveals. Anyone who denies that Korean people have a genetic distadvantage in basketball must be acting in bad faith, and if th…

Why did you change your example of Asian shortness from Chinese to Korean when rewriting this comment? Did you look up statistics for Chinese basketball players and decide there were too many of them playing at an elite level to support your narrative? If so... you do realize that Koreans and Chinese are different ethnicities but the same race, right? And that all of them play basketball?

> Did you look up statistics for Chinese basketball players and realize there were too many of them to support your narrative?

No. I realize that there are many tall Asians, as well as that there are many tall Asians who play basketball. These two facts are not relevant to my argument.

I changed the example from Chinese to Korean (not that it matters because the argument works the same with either), because China is larger and more heterogeneous, Beijing's average height is quite a bit taller than Korea's average height for example. It's easier and safer (less prone to nitpicking) to make the point by using Korea as the example.

Re: Humans are more closely related than we commonly think

#60

Post by nabla9 »

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…

If you take the Bible at face value it contradicts itself. It all depended on the fan interpretation to to make sense. If you are non religious and think about the old testament just as what it was, its easier to understand the contradictions.

(1) In Genesis 1 the god creates animals before the man. He creates man and woman and tells them to be fruitful and multiply.

(2) In Genesis 2 God creates Adam before animals. Adam and Eve are put into special place called Eden and are not aware of their sexuality until they sin.

Judaism is folk religion of the Israelites, not universal religion. Old testament tells the story from the point of Jewish tribes. in it's current form it was created around (538–332 BC). Israelites “God’s chosen people” in the old testament. All the interaction with the god and men is actually about Israelites and God, not the humanity and God.

One way to think this is that genesis 2 is the general creation myth, Genesis 2 is the story of how God created two first Jews. Jewish people started to separate religiously from other Canaanites between 1200 and 1000 BCE, so maybe you can put the Adam and Eve myth there.

Post reply on HN