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On a darker note, one could almost see it as a form of mercy that none of the other species survived into the era of civilizations. Given our willingness to ens
by NeoBasilisk 7y ago
On a darker note, one could almost see it as a form of mercy that none of the other species survived into the era of civilizations. Given our willingness to enslave other humans, I can only imagine what would have been done with "lesser" humans.
- Taniwha 7y agowell they sort of did - modern Europeans are now acknowledged to carry some Neanderthal DNA (estimates go somewhere between 1.5-20% depending on how you count) People who think that Neanderthals/etc were "lesser" humans (for whatever bogus reasons) probably also need to conclude (for the same reasons) that Europeans are also lesser humans
- f2f 7y agoadding australian aborigines, who some consider to be the oldest human civilization, dna-wise https://www.history.com/news/dna-study-finds-aboriginal-australians-worlds-oldest-civilization https://www.history.com/news/dna-study-finds-aboriginal-aust...
- Taniwha 7y agoYou forget about Africa which seems to have the largest genetic diversity of Homo Sapiens (the prehistoric dispora seems to have been a genetic narrowing point) - that means wider tails on bell curves - it's why they have the tallest and shortest populations, the fastest (and probably slowest), etc etc
- inawarminister 7y agoYeah, the Khoisan seem to be the FIRST population group to diverge from mainstream homo Sapiens (or was it the other way around?), and IIRC supposedly compose half of humanity by numbers back 100,000-20,000 years ago. It seems Ice Age Central and Southern Africa were the best biome for hunting-gathering humans. Of course, post-agriculture most humanity lives in (East and South) Asia, except in Cyrus' age where a third of humanity lives in West Asia and Eastern North Africa. Persia ruled 1/3rd of humanity then, the most out of any empire after that. Except perhaps China of some periods
- ummonk 7y agoThere is no such thing as oldest, dna-wise. Not like dna is frozen in time for some people but not others.
- ralfd 7y agoWhat is meant here is "most divergent" genetics, but that sounds potentially loaded and less nice than "oldest". See also the genetics of the San people here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_people#Genetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_people#Genetics
- kenver 7y agoYou reminded me of this Sam Harris tweet https://twitter.com/samharrisorg/status/429007702803492865 https://twitter.com/samharrisorg/status/429007702803492865 One of his observations was imagining what a disaster it would have been if this finding had gone the 'other' way.
- defen 7y agoPoorly-aged tweet - in Who We Are and How We Got Here Robert Reich talks about the strong evidence for the existence of a "ghost population" that interbred only with the ancestors of modern sub-Saharan Africans. It's a ghost because we don't have any physical remains like we do with Neanderthals and Denisovans, but there is an ancient genetic signature that exists only in that population. More generally - because people use motivated reasoning, you could just as easily spin the Neanderthal finding the opposite way. "Neanderthal ancestry is a secret superpower that makes Asian and European people special!" or whatever. Once you have your conclusion, you can spin the facts to fit your narrative.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago> People who think that Neanderthals/etc were "lesser" humans (for whatever bogus reasons) probably also need to conclude (for the same reasons) that Europeans are also lesser humans The strongest real inferiority argument is that we survived and they didn't. But if they/we are still here then that's right out the window.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- subdane 7y agoGiven our propensity for war and genocide, I wonder if humans just killed off all the other near species?
- mc32 7y agoEither we outcompeted them or they were more docile and we took advantage of that, or they kept retreating till they could retreat no more (if they feared interaction).
- AnthonyMouse 7y agoThat's assuming homo sapiens were actually their undoing. They may have just died out on their own. Or they haven't at all. Consider that people of European and Asian ancestry typically share some Neanderthal DNA, and the DNA difference between humans and chimpanzees is ~1%. Maybe they're just us.