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I am very skeptical - they have 99.7% identical DNA, but supposedly an extremely different phenotype.

by Smithalicious 5y ago

krapp 5y ago
The similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA is about the same IIRC.
- gpm 5y ago
  Googled this, quite a bit less is shared with a chimp. https://thednatests.com/how-much-dna-do-humans-share-with-other-animals/ https://thednatests.com/how-much-dna-do-humans-share-with-ot...
  - krapp 5y ago
    If you consider 98.8% to be quite a bit less than 99.7% then fair enough. It's still a lot.
gpm 5y ago
Eh, it's not that different. Humans have ineffective fur, and disorders exist that create a lot more of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis Claims about skeletal differences are probably pretty well supported by physical evidence, and again, it's a reasonably small difference in size and scale. Differences in facial structure seem likely just from differences in skeletal structure, our face maps pretty closely to skeptical structure. But also, we can see pretty wide genetic variation in facial structure in humans, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Pastrana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Pastrana Humans are pretty cannibalistic already, I don't buy his evidence that neanderthals were, but a human could survive on an almost entirely meat diet, no reason to think neanderthals weren't more inclined to. Pupil shape seems like the farthest out there, but there is variation in pupil shape within the human population too. It's plausible... again I don't really buy his evidence as proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloboma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloboma In general I don't think this article is meant to say "they looked exactly like this", but "they probably looked monstrous", if it turns out there pupils were the same as humans, but also they had sharper more claw like nails, the point wouldn't change in the slightest.
justincredible 5y ago
You also have to consider which genes are expressed.

I am very skeptical - they have 99.7% identical DNA, but supposedly an extremely different phenotype.

krapp 5y ago

The similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA is about the same IIRC.

gpm 5y ago
Googled this, quite a bit less is shared with a chimp. https://thednatests.com/how-much-dna-do-humans-share-with-other-animals/ https://thednatests.com/how-much-dna-do-humans-share-with-ot...
- krapp 5y ago
  If you consider 98.8% to be quite a bit less than 99.7% then fair enough. It's still a lot.

gpm 5y ago

Eh, it's not that different. Humans have ineffective fur, and disorders exist that create a lot more of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertrichosis Claims about skeletal differences are probably pretty well supported by physical evidence, and again, it's a reasonably small difference in size and scale. Differences in facial structure seem likely just from differences in skeletal structure, our face maps pretty closely to skeptical structure. But also, we can see pretty wide genetic variation in facial structure in humans, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Pastrana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Pastrana Humans are pretty cannibalistic already, I don't buy his evidence that neanderthals were, but a human could survive on an almost entirely meat diet, no reason to think neanderthals weren't more inclined to. Pupil shape seems like the farthest out there, but there is variation in pupil shape within the human population too. It's plausible... again I don't really buy his evidence as proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloboma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloboma In general I don't think this article is meant to say "they looked exactly like this", but "they probably looked monstrous", if it turns out there pupils were the same as humans, but also they had sharper more claw like nails, the point wouldn't change in the slightest.

justincredible 5y ago

You also have to consider which genes are expressed.