New type of ancient human discovered in Israel • Hacker News Board

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#91

Post by nir » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 5:14 PM UTC

stormdennis wrote: post #76

rpmisms wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Immaterial. You're telling a person what to think about their home country.

They made a plea (which you support), that simply because they are from there, that they therefore know the history better than someone from outside. That does not follow.

I wouldn't say I know history of this area better than all Europeans, but definitely better than the vast majority. I wouldn't confuse Nesher the town with Nesher the factory, for instance, since having lived not far from the latter I know it's not anywhere near Ramle.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#92

Post by hutzlibu » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #62

throwawaygal7 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers I've seen are something like as low as a few thousand for European population, but more like 5k for African populations Of course, these are model populations based on idealized breeding right- I believe the way these estimates work is that they represent the idealized minimum bound for a real population that was likely magnitudes greater but had lots of deaths. And as others have pointed out I believe th…

Then there is "Mitochondrial Eve", a single individual from whom entire sections of humanity descend!

From Wikipedia:

"Cann, Stoneking and Wilson did not use the term "Mitochondrial Eve" or even the name "Eve" in their original paper; it appears to originate with a 1987 article in Science by Roger Lewin, headlined "The Unmasking of Mitochondrial Eve."[19] The biblical connotation was very clear from the start. The accompanying research news in Nature had the title "Out of the garden of Eden."[20] Wilson himself preferred the term "Lucky Mother"[21] and thought the use of the name Eve "regrettable"

It is unfortunate, that biblical myths still try to influence research. But it is popular.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#93

Post by AlotOfReading » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

HelloNurse wrote: post #66

kingsuper20 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We'll see if the inflation in ancient human species stands up to scrutiny. Not in that business, but could it be simply that a new way of measuring taxonomy is needed? From the outside, it appears that the whole business inherits from a Victorian need for orderly tree structures.

While not a tree, there is an indisputable orderly structure: the directed acyclic graph of individuals descending from other individuals. Then we can collapse nodes to obtain species that evolved from one another or more realistic arrangements, respecting some constraints (for example, if A is an ancestor of B and B is an ancestor of C, putting A and C in the same species should imply that B belongs to that species…

The problem is that grouping individuals -> species is highly nontrivial. Even your constraint fails with bidirectional admixture. Imagine individuals from species A interbreed with people of species B. The admixture survives in B for a couple hundred thousand years and then back-admixture occurs, producing descendants in A who have intermediate ancestors of a different species. This is a common pattern in genus Homo, which is part of why human taxonomy is insanity. Bonus points if you can explain how to decide which species name to give to the immediate descendants of the admixture event from A->B.

There's an older paper by Holliday on this subject that you might find interesting: https://doi.org/10.1086/377663

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#94

Post by wizzwizz4 » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 5:50 PM UTC

shahar2k wrote: post #87

nir wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let's say you're right and Zionists are all colonizers (of which nation?), does it justify deporting Jews who as you say lived in these parts of the Mideast for thousands of years?

every time I think about walking into these kinds of conversations ... I realize that I would much rather not have mud on my shoes There's a concept in anthropology called the paradox of the periphery, where people who are farther from their origin / homeland tend to get statistically more religious or extreme in their relation to that homeland.... I feel like that applies to people who are farther from the issue in…

It is an obvious issue with simple solutions! Problem: disputed territory (I mean, duh). Solution: allocate the territory.

Of course, it gets a bit harder if you restrict yourself to ethical, viable solutions, but it can't be that hard. https://xkcd.com/793/

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#95

Post by AlotOfReading » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:11 PM UTC

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #78

Can you sequence DNA from something that old?

We've sequenced human DNA that's older, but only from pretty miraculous finds. Once you get past a thousand years, you're well into serious degradation territory and have to start pulling out the aDNA tricks. However, the authors of this paper have stated they looked for DNA and couldn't find any.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#96

Post by sharikone » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:30 PM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #94

shahar2k wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every time I think about walking into these kinds of conversations ... I realize that I would much rather not have mud on my shoes There's a concept in anthropology called the paradox of the periphery, where people who are farther from their origin / homeland tend to get statistically more religious or extreme in their relation to that homeland.... I feel like that applies to people who are farther from the issue in…

It is an obvious issue with simple solutions! Problem: disputed territory (I mean, duh ). Solution: allocate the territory. Of course, it gets a bit harder if you restrict yourself to ethical, viable solutions, but it can't be that hard. https://xkcd.com/793/

Also relevant: https://xkcd.com/787/

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#97

Post by kazinator » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:35 PM UTC

rpmisms wrote: post #70

stormdennis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, as an Israeli, you were indoctrinated in both school and most likely, the IDF. The ethnic of cleansing of the Palestinians was already 50%. completed by the time any outside Arab forces arrived on the scene. The seven armies you speak of never numbered as many as the zionists/Israelis were able to put in the field. The only one that the zionists (who were British trained via the armed police forces) ha…

This feels like mansplaining. I'm not sure what the correct term is, but watching a Brit tell an Israeli that they don't know their own country's history is surreal.

You don't think it's plausible that a foreigner F and local L can be found, such that F is better versed in L's country's history than L?

I believe that if I were to read a pamphlet on US history, and then go to the USA and quiz random people on it in the street, within fifteen minutes I would find someone born there who knows jack shit.

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#98

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

HelloNurse wrote: post #66

kingsuper20 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We'll see if the inflation in ancient human species stands up to scrutiny. Not in that business, but could it be simply that a new way of measuring taxonomy is needed? From the outside, it appears that the whole business inherits from a Victorian need for orderly tree structures.

While not a tree, there is an indisputable orderly structure: the directed acyclic graph of individuals descending from other individuals. Then we can collapse nodes to obtain species that evolved from one another or more realistic arrangements, respecting some constraints (for example, if A is an ancestor of B and B is an ancestor of C, putting A and C in the same species should imply that B belongs to that species…

[deleted]

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#99

Post by stormdennis » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 7:16 PM UTC

shahar2k wrote: post #87

nir wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So let's say you're right and Zionists are all colonizers (of which nation?), does it justify deporting Jews who as you say lived in these parts of the Mideast for thousands of years?

every time I think about walking into these kinds of conversations ... I realize that I would much rather not have mud on my shoes There's a concept in anthropology called the paradox of the periphery, where people who are farther from their origin / homeland tend to get statistically more religious or extreme in their relation to that homeland.... I feel like that applies to people who are farther from the issue in…

It's the Israelis who tend to say it's complex. The Palestinians don't

Re: New type of ancient human discovered in Israel

#100

Post by stormdennis » Fri, Jun 25, 2021, 7:19 PM UTC

nir wrote: post #91

stormdennis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made a plea (which you support), that simply because they are from there, that they therefore know the history better than someone from outside. That does not follow.

I wouldn't say I know history of this area better than all Europeans, but definitely better than the vast majority. I wouldn't confuse Nesher the town with Nesher the factory, for instance, since having lived not far from the latter I know it's not anywhere near Ramle.

Yes I got that wrong.