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All Non-Africans Part Neanderthal, Genetics Confirm
- meric 15y agoAre Neanderthals extinct? Not totally. Neither are dinosaurs 1. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird
- bauchidgw 15y agoa w e s o m e
- w1ntermute 15y agoHopefully this is not exploited to "scientifically" explain the inferiority of sub-Saharan Africans vis-a-vis the rest of humanity. One of the unfortunate side effects of the way that newspapers report on scientific research is that journalists' lack of knowledge of the subject matter leads to lots of vague statements that can be easily twisted around to have just about any desired meaning.
- Dove 15y agoThe equality of humanity is not an empirical judgement. It is a value judgement. It rests, not on scientific grounds, but on ideological grounds.
- richardw 15y agoNot in basketball or sprinting. There are huge differences between women and men [1] [2]. Not everyone is equally equal beautiful snowflakes, and that's fine with me. Do the best you can with what you have. [1] http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/28/why-women-are-better-at-everything/ http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/28/why-women-are-better-a... [2] http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm?
- thom 15y agoWhen someone talks about 'equality' in terms of values, they're probably talking more about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and less about ability at basketball or sprinting.
- pazimzadeh 15y agoMen take more risks, they are more at the top and at the bottom of society because it's in their nature to be slightly more extreme. Wouldn't you say that that applies to life outside of sports?
- thom 15y agoAgain we seem to be at cross purposes. One type of equality might be described thusly: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" The other like this: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (and women!) are absolutely inseparably as good as each other at sports, that they are endowed by their Creator with a complete knowledge of the rules of basketball" The latter would be an absurd thing to say, but would be easy to judge empirically. The former is a statement of a certain set of values - widely held, I'd hope, but nevertheless impossible to justify experimentally, beyond the fact that (again, I'd hope) most people have experienced in their lifetimes that it's nice when we all get along with one another. Either way, they use the concept of 'equality' quite differently. I felt Dove actually captured this very succinctly, which is why I'm surprised it's been misconstrued twice now.
- richardw 15y agoLet's go back to the post Dove was replying to, for context. There are many people who would happily grant the abovementioned rights to all, while still considering a subset of the population somehow less inherently able. The parent comment was talking about one type of equality, Dove another (why?), me again the first, you again the second, and then you tell us twice that we're not getting it.
- reinhardt 15y agoThis is an empirical judgement: http://kuvaton.com/kuvei/evolution5.jpg http://kuvaton.com/kuvei/evolution5.jpg
- wearefriends 15y agoI think there are numerous examples of ancient architecture from even before the age of Rome found in Africa. Particularly northeast-africa. Africa is just too big and diverse too be lumped into one category. However I did get a good chuckle out of the jpeg. I do have to agree with the some of the sentiments here. There are examples of Africans who also have the Neanderthal presence in their DNA, again, east-africans. Probably explains why they're so different to other Africans. Though I still don't know whether they're considered sub-saharan africans or not. They are genetically very distinct from surrounding Africans.
- burgerbrain 15y ago"Particularly northeast-africa." I hesitate to say this since I had been planning on staying away from this conversation, but northeast africa is not part of sub-Saharan Africa which this article seems to be concerning (at least according to the Discover writeup, which I only skimmed). https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sub-Saharan_Africa https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Sub-Saharan_A...
- wearefriends 15y agoAh ha! Thank you for that,it was enlightening. I have heard before that East-Africans are considered caucasians. Though I don't know this for sure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race Wikipedia for 'caucasian' seems to suggest they are though. Strange!
- okal 15y agoHey. Just a point of correction - East Africans are just as black as people from the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa. You may find communities along the coasts, such as the Swahili, with significant Arab ancestry but most inland tribes are not different from their Western or Southern African counterparts. The greatest differences occur between language groups. Take the Nilotes for instance - the linguistic group which my tribe, the Luo, belongs to - we tend to be relatively tall and thin, with very dark skin, as compared to the more stout, lighter skinned Bantu groups. These distinctions also exist between the Western African branches of Nilo-Saharan (the Nilotic parent group) and the Bantu communities in the region. Southern African communities are largely Bantu though. In short, the vast majority of East Africans are what you'd call black, no different from any other black populations. PS: "Sub Saharan" is rather long. We really don't mind "Black" Africa.
- richardw 15y agoI love, love love the book Guns, Germs and Steel. It's not perfect but the author throws in so many great ideas as to why certain groups did better than others. None because any group is inherently superior. http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552 http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/03...
- Stingar 15y agoThat's because you're an emo kid and like books that conform to your narrow view of reality.
- randallsquared 15y agoI liked that book, too, but later controversies surrounding Diamond have made me wonder how much I should rely on the narrative presented there.
- richardw 15y agoI think don't rely at all, just add it to the set of things you include when thinking about the issues. The book is awesome because it added so many dimensions to consider that I never had before.
- rbanffy 15y ago> Hopefully this is not exploited to "scientifically" explain the inferiority of sub-Saharan Africans vis-a-vis the rest of humanity. IIRC correctly, Neanderthals had smaller brains.
- burgerbrain 15y agoI believe that is actually a "stupid cavemen" popular myth. From wikipedia: Neanderthal cranial capacity is thought to have been as large as that of a Homo sapiens, perhaps larger, indicating their brain size may have been comparable, as well. In 2008, a group of scientists created a study using three-dimensional computer-assisted reconstructions of Neanderthal infants based on fossils found in Russia and Syria, showing that they had brains as large as modern humans' at birth and larger than modern humans' as adults.[8] On average, the height of Neanderthals was comparable to contemporaneous Homo sapiens. Neanderthal males stood about 165–168 cm (65–66 in), and were heavily built with robust bone structure. They were much stronger than Homo sapiens, having particularly strong arms and hands.[9] Females stood about 152–156 cm (60–61 in) tall.[10] Of course whales have big brains too and they are pretty dumb, so our mileage may vary ;) edit: formatting
- rbanffy 15y agoThanks burgerbrain. It seems I didn't remember correctly (or did - it's been a long time since I last got really interested in this, perhaps the early 90's). And I also have some reading to do ;-). OTOH, in regard to the parent post, reason never stopped a racist before. It's doubtful it will now.
- pazimzadeh 15y agoYep, it's not purely the brain size that matters, it's the ratio of brain size to total body mass. And Neanderthals did indeed have larger brains than humans. They also started wearing pigmented jewelry before we did, in fact we might have learned it from them.
- rbanffy 15y ago
- kylewpppd 15y agoI hope not as well. Lots of the replies seem to be stating a difference between 'science' and 'values', but the fact is there has been a long history of using science or pseudoscience to justify claims of inferiority amongst other humans. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism for some examples.
- ekm 15y agoEven Neanderthal's have African roots,so i do not see why anyone is struggling to make distinctions
- carbocation 15y ago> Even Neanderthal's have African roots,so i do not see why anyone is struggling to make distinctions All life originated with a single common ancestor, but I still find distinctions to be useful. Neanderthals and humans were considered to be different species, so this is a fairly weighty finding. Anyway, making distinctions is perhaps the essence of being human.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- carbocation 15y ago> Yeah,just like being racist is human too Oh, right, I forgot that genetic research was per se racist. Or am I misinterpreting you?
- ekm 15y agoI was just trying to suggest that if subject C is related to subject B,and subject B is related to subject A,then it follows that C is also related to A,both A,B and C are related and there is no need for fine distinctions.
- w1ntermute 15y agoIn that case, humans and bananas are the same, right? No need for fine distinctions. After all, 50% of our DNA is the same. The fact that sub-Saharan Africans are not of partial Neanderthal descent while every other race is does create the possibility that there are fundamental genetic differences between them and all other races. However, proving any such differences would be near impossible. What's racist is to claim that such differences exist when not a shred of scientific evidence for such a claim exists.
- carbocation 15y agoThis is basically a confirmation of Reich's and Paabo's 2010 work sequencing the Neanderthal genome. Interesting and totally consistent with their findings. Also, for those of you who read this article, the Nick Patterson quoted in the article was, in another lifetime, a cryptologist: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DE6D81431F931A25751C1A9609C8B63 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990DE6D81431F...
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- twidlit 15y agovery interesting. I wonder if there are behavioral difference between Non-africans and Africans that can be attributed to the difference in genetic makeup.
- Devilboy 15y agoI heard rumors about this around 2005 but at the time nobody in the field wanted to say anything publicly for fear of being labeled 'racists'.
- carbocation 15y agoSmall-scale sequencing studies in Neanderthal samples were occurring back in 2006, and were being published openly and discussed in the New York Times.
- beefman 15y agoYeah, but only from their women.
- Aloisius 15y agoSoooo... Africans are the only pure blood homo sapiens? Interesting. I have a feeling a lot of supremacists groups are going to start making a point of how superior Neanderthals were soon enough.
- prawn 15y agoI was waiting to see how the CNN-commenting crowd would reconcile their opinions with the common concept of 'cavemen' and its negative connotations.
- bpd1069 15y agoYes, and I imagine a large number of individuals, white supremacists or not, are going to do some mental gymnastics to reconcile this finding.
- kstenerud 15y agoWhat mental gymnastics? We don't know what this DNA does, nor why it was useful in an evolutionary sense to keep it.
- jff 15y agoWell, that very article laid the groundwork in the last sentence: "Variability is very important for long-term survival of a species," Labuda concluded. "Every addition to the genome can be enriching." Basically, he's saying "hybrid vigor". Boom, there you go, supremacists, have fun!
- bugsy 15y agoThat is not what "genetics confirm". I wish people at yellow journalism pseudoscience rag "Discover" would read the darn paper before spouting off on it. The actual study found that Neanderthal DNA is present in a small percentage (not all) of people in each continent. Including Africa. Anyone contemplating downvoting this, for the love of scientific reality please read the actual original paper first.
- carbocation 15y agoThe headline is only slightly off. Even the title of the actual journal article ( http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/7/1957.abstract http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/7/1957.abstract ) is "An X-Linked Haplotype of Neandertal Origin Is Present Among All Non-African Populations" Anyway, the fact that Neanderthal sequence is present in all non-African populations is more important and interesting than whether or not Neanderthal sequence is present in all non-African human individuals. By statistical likelihood, we'd expect the answer to the latter question to be 'no', while the answer to the former is interesting, empiric, and, now, known to be 'yes'.
- bugsy 15y agoThe headline is not slightly off, it is completely inaccurate because the hack "journalist" at Discover didn't read the paper. It is not true at all that "All Non-Africans Part Neandertal". On average world wide, they found a Neandertal chromosome segment present in 9% of the 6092 chromosome samples from all inhabited continents. It's also not true what both titles suggest that no African samples were part neandertal, the supposed neandertal segment (B006) was found in several African samples from their extremely limited sample size that doesn't even cover a small fraction of ethnic populations of Africa. Not only is it present in several African samples they tested, it is likely to be found in others as well should this be extended to a more comprehensive sample of world ethnic groups. As a completely separate topic, the uniquely Neandertal origin of B006 is speculative to say the very least, but it's fine to assume so for the sake of argument, it's just not a definitive claim of fact... yet.
- 15y ago
- maxklein 15y agoOkay, then explain this: There is no fossil evidence of neanderthals in east asia or australia. There is a lot of fossil evidence of neanderthals in europe. If humans mated with neanderthals, then why is there no stronger presence of neanderthal DNA is europeans (compared to asians) in either this study or the previous one?
- carbocation 15y agoNobody is suggesting that Neanderthals were in East Asia or Australia. The theory is that during the exodus from Africa, genetic exchange occurred.
- maxklein 15y agoYes, but don't you get it? AFTER the exodus from Africa, the two populations were living in the same region (europe), but did not inter-mix at all anymore. Otherwise there would be more DNA in the europeans. Why mix when in the middle east and then refuse to mix when in Europe?
- carbocation 15y agoI do not think that human history occurred the way you think it occurred.
- maxklein 15y agoHow did it happen then? It appears you have no idea
- TheSOB88 15y agoThis is a good question and I have no idea why you're being downvoted. I think I've heard there's evidence that interbreeding happened in Europe as well.
- maxklein 15y ago
- com 15y agoApart from discussions on the quality of headline writers in popular and specialist scientific journals, I find it really interesting that the "out of Africa" hypothesis seems to need to merge with the multicentric model of human evolution. Add to that the Denisova hominin sequencing (from the single toe bone that was thought to be Neandertal of a population that may have diverged from the African populations around 900kYA) and possible presence of up to a 4% admixture in Papuan and Melanesian populations. It's exciting times to be interested in human evolution. Remember that a 4% contribution is about what you might expect from a great-great grandparent (although we're talking whole populations here, not specific individuals). My take home: the different clades of humans/hominins have been able to recognise enough of themselves in others that they were able to mix and interbreed. Early human prehistory wasn't just genocides and extinctions due to overspecialisation and ecological change. Awesome!
- Luyt 15y agoBrian Dunning did a Skeptoid episode about a related issue: 'Neanderthals in Present Day Asia' http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4040 http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4040 A snippet: "Really quick history lesson on Neanderthals. They are not an ancestor of modern humans. Homo neanderthalensis is descended from a separate branch that split off from the evolutionary tree about 516,000 years ago, according to some research published in Nature. Mitochondrial DNA studies have shown conclusively that Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens evolved separately. As the Cro-Magnon Homo sapiens moved in across Europe about 45,000 years ago, Homo neanderthalensis was pushed out into little corners of the world. The last known population died out in the vicinity of Gibraltar about 24,000 years ago, thus ending their approximately 300,000 year existence. [...] So now we've got a fair handle on the landscape of evidence in front of us, and now we can take a skeptical look at what we've got. Basically, nothing. We have some vaguely plausible hypotheses — yeah, I suppose it's possible that relic Neanderthals and Gigantopithecus or even some descendant of Paranthropus could survive in remote parts of Asia — but that's all we really have, a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a provisional explanation for these stories of wildmen in captivity and bearing children."
- andrewflnr 15y agoWith this and other discoveries regarding Neanderthals in mind, does it still make sense to call them non-human in any meaningful sense? I would think the fact that we all interbred would be enough to knock down the species barrier, but I don't know for sure.
- william42 15y agoI've usually seen Neanderthals described as Homo sapiens Neanderthalensis, meaning that they are considered the same species.