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The argument you are making here seems to be that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens are not distinct species - which seems reasonable to me, given that the populati
by mannykannot 8y ago
The argument you are making here seems to be that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens are not distinct species - which seems reasonable to me, given that the populations interbred to the degree they did.
The set of all the descendants of a given species is a valid concept, but it is not the definition of a species (note, for one thing, the awkward self-referentiality if it were.)
- astazangasta 8y agoNone of the extant speciation criteria seem testable across time, so the species distinction between an ancestor and its progeny seems difficult to navigate. This sort of event, of a species vanishing through the slow evolution of its progeny, is called "pseudoextinction" to distinguish from the other, true 'extinction' (the last surviving member of a lineage dies). In this case since we know that Neanderthal DNA lives on in its H. Sapiens descendants we can safely call this "pseudo" rather than a true extinction.