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There are a number of claims of unique Chinese hominids and they’re typically related to the “multiregional origin theory” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mult
by AbrahamParangi 3y ago
There are a number of claims of unique Chinese hominids and they’re typically related to the “multiregional origin theory”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_origin_of_modern_humans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_origin_of_mode...
This theory holds that humans in different parts of the world are primarily descended from local hominids vs the commonly accepted theory that humans are all primarily and recently descended from a population somewhere in East or South Africa with a small amount of admixture with local hominids.
Most people consider the multiregional origin theory highly motivated reasoning and also completely garbage science.
- pringk02 3y agoIt's interesting that it is the widely believed theory in China, or at least it was often stated to me as fact when I lived there. Seems to stem from the discovery of the Peking Man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Man
- nisegami 3y agoI can absolutely see certain groups refusing to believe their distant ancestors were from Africa and grasping at any alternative explanation.
- dtx1 3y agoI mean my family has lived for at least 300 years in a region close to where the neanderthals were first discovered. I assume I have some of those genes in me
- masklinn 3y agoIIRC every human population (possibly non-African?) has some Neanderthal DNA. I believe Asian and Oceanian groups also have Denisovan DNA.
- adrian_b 3y agoAll the non-African humans have a little Neanderthal DNA, and indeed some groups from East-Asia and Oceania also have a little Denisovan DNA.
- AbrahamParangi 3y agoIndeed, we all do! I don't think there is a single extent human population without some archaic admixture. If you're interested in further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbreeding_between_archaic_and_modern_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interbreeding_between_archaic_...
- dudefeliciano 3y agoApparently East Asians have more neanderthal DNA than Europeans so I'm not sure the region of initial discovery really matter that much. Also Neanderthal 1 is 40000 years old, your family may have arrived in the region even a 1000 years ago and be completely unrelated to it.
- nerdponx 3y agoIt works the other way too though. There's a good chance that at some point along those thousand years, somebody had kids with somebody else who had older ancestry in the area, and so on.
- BurningFrog 3y agoThat assumes their family only bred with each other, which I very much hope isn't the case!
- kjkjadksj 3y agoMost europeans do have significant amounts of neandertal DNA, but the likelyhood of your people 300 years ago being in the same place in europe that long ago, even a thousand years ago, is slim. There’s been massive migrations and demographic shifts. The most “ancient” population in Europe I believe are thought to be the Basques.
- decremental 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- rsynnott 3y agoAs I understand it, it's somewhat encouraged by the government. China's the sort of place where, if the government has a preferred wacky theory, one may be inclined to smile and nod rather than arguing.
- ausudhz 3y agosomewhat similar to the demonization of communism that the west pushed for decades? Apparently there are many people that are more incline to just smile and nod rather than arguing. Probably the geographical location of these is not really important. They're equally distributed across the globe
- joenot443 3y agoThis is a wildly off-base comparison to make, I'd be impressed if your comment stays up for long.
- ausudhz 3y agoI don't understand why people get so emotional when you mention the word communism It was a simple comparison point on the previous comment that, by my standard was also wildly off base (given that he said dumb to a whole country basically) the fact is that the west seems to be so attached (weirdly) to communism despite even those who implemented it already abandoned. Are you scared of ghosts or what?
- nradov 3y ago[flagged]
- JuanPosadas 3y agoThat's nothing compared to the 20 million per year that died under capitalism.
- greatpostman 3y agoThere’s actually a decent amount of evidence that points to it. I’m too tired to find it now, but humans didn’t descend from apes, instead we have a common ancestor that goes way further back
- AbrahamParangi 3y agoYou might want to debug your process for figuring out which information sources to trust because "humans didn't descend from apes" is about on the level of "birds aren't real"
- defrost 3y agoMaybe reread the comment and ask yourself whether they may have meant humans are not descended from monkeys or any other primate living today. We do share a common ape ancestor with chimpanzees. It lived between 8 and 6 million years ago.
- Aachen 3y agoI also, like the person above, heard we're not descendants of apes and, while it seems odd, took that as my best available knowledge. I never considered that this makes a ton of sense: of course we didn't evolve from apes, after which the apes just stopped evolving and froze their DNA and never had mutations again. Of course they'll be different from their ancestors. But that doesn't mean that our common ancestor was an alligator or something and we developed all ape-like features independently of each other. That's what I took it to mean (when I heard this, idk, maybe as a teenager more than ten years ago), but your comment makes a lot more sense.
- screye 3y agoIsn't that kind of true ? East-Asians have a minority contribution from Denisovans and Europeans from Neanderthals. > primarily descended from local hominids More like 'secondarily' descended from local hominids, but there was mixing for sure.
- AbrahamParangi 3y agoWell, it's true in that the predominate theory is "humans are all primarily and recently descended from a population somewhere in East or South Africa with a small amount of admixture with local hominids" but the multiorigin theory is pretty much always brought up in the context of implying that different human populations are actually different species.
- nloum 3y agoMaybe it's a good thing to consider different races to be different species. I personally think it will cause people to be more open-minded towards the plights of animals. Acknowledging diversity doesn't mean we have to hate the other kinds.
- nwsm 3y agoI wish I was as optimistic as you. I personally think people would be too preoccupied planning the elimination of the other human species to consider animals with greater respect. That being said, Noah Yuval Harari has very forward thinking writing along these lines. He uses the context of potential AI superior to our own intelligence, and how they will treat humans, to advocate for animal rights.
- jon_richards 3y ago> two humans differ, on average, at about 1 in 1,000 DNA base pairs (0.1%). Human genetic diversity is substantially lower than that of many other species, including our nearest evolutionary relative, the chimpanzee. > Groups of chimpanzees within central Africa are more different genetically than humans living on different continents > Our genetic homogeneity implies that anatomically modern humans arose relatively recently (perhaps 200,000 years ago) and that our population size was quite small at one time (perhaps 10,000 breeding individuals). > approximately 90% of genetic variation can be found within [continents], and only about 10% of genetic variation separates the populations. Calling us different species is laughable. We’re the genetic equivalent of putting 2 rabbits in a box and opening it up to find 300.
- canjobear 3y agoAs populations from different regions have different levels of admixture from Neanderthals and Denisovans, the multi-regional origin hypothesis is validated.
- flir 3y agoThat's the Assimilation Model. Both Multiregional and Out of Africa were wrong (or more accurately, incomplete), but Multiregional was probably a fair bit more wrong.
- narrator 3y agoXi Jinping has been on a quest to strengthen the ethnic identity of China, specifically the Han Chinese ethnic group, and this is probably part of it. If you look at the immigration policies of China, you'll find that they are some of the most restrictive in the world[1]. It is almost impossible for a Non-Chinese person to become a Chinese citizen. From what I've heard from people who know people in the Xi Jinping administration, they are embracing ethno-nationalism with incredible zeal. There's also a lot of ethnonationalist propaganda in China right now and western commentators have taken notice[2]. From what I've heard through sources, they're preparing for a future where it's eventually a zero sum game between China and the rest of the world, especially with regards to dwindling energy and other natural resources. For example China built six times as many coal plants as the rest of the world combined last year [3]. There is a huge denial of this in the west as westerners believe that racism and communism are incompatible, and at least China says it's communist. [1]https://www.crownrelo.com/intl/en/article/four-toughest-places-get-citizenship-and-how-approach-them https://www.crownrelo.com/intl/en/article/four-toughest-plac... [2]https://thediplomat.com/2023/06/riding-the-tiger-ethno-nationalism-and-chinas-foreign-policy/ https://thediplomat.com/2023/06/riding-the-tiger-ethno-natio... [3]https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2023/03/02/1160441919/china-is-building-six-times-more-new-coal-plants-than-other-countries-report-finds/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/npr/2023/03/02/1160441919...
- rafram 3y ago> There is a huge denial of this in the west as westerners believe that racism and communism are incompatible, and at least China says it's communist. I don’t think westerners put a lot of stock in China’s claim to be communist, nor do I think many westerners would deny that it’s an ethnonationalist country.
- rgrieselhuber 3y agoI don’t really care about this issue but to clarify, “most people” (argumentum ad populum btw) means “most people in the West” I assume?
- dmix 3y agoIsn't most science like this coming out of the west generally?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gaoshan 3y agoMost people outside of China. Not just "the West".
- rgrieselhuber 3y agoI'll take your word for it. Still doesn't address the logical fallacy in the first place.
- AbrahamParangi 3y agoMost people meaning most people who have an informed opinion, because the evidence (archaeological, genetic, etc.) is so ridiculously in favor of the out of Africa theory. You have to be at the denial level of “evolution is just a theory” to think otherwise.
- keepamovin 3y ago> Most people consider the multiregional origin theory highly motivated reasoning and also completely garbage science. But I don't get it ~~ what's the motivation to branch off as distant rather than share some common ancestor? Who and why would want to promote that? I don't get it.
- blueblob 3y agosupremacists
- PurpleRamen 3y agoMy bet would go to racism. China seems to very guilty on that regard, and racism against Africa and especially black people seem to have rose again on the last years.
- coding123 3y ago...Completely garbage science... When someone dismisses something because of political reasons outright, it make me believe the other guy
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- AbrahamParangi 3y agoIt is no skin off my back if you believe “the other guy” but you do yourself a disservice.
- m0llusk 3y agoMy understanding, sorry for not having links at the ready for all this, is that many studying this currently think that Cro Magons, Neanderthals, and Denisovans all mixed to varying degrees at various times and emerged from a complex mix of pre humans like Homo Naledi. This makes the ancestry of Homo Sapiens more complex than simple lines of descent. Genetic analysis of these groups suggests that there was a third group that mixed with Neanderthals and Denisovans which has not yet been identified. None of this relates to the multiregion origin theory that you mention.
- contingencies 3y agoA counter-example within China's borders is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Deer_Cave_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Deer_Cave_people which is both a recent discovery and has Australian scientists behind it.
- goodbyesf 3y agoFrom your wiki: "In its revised form, it is similar to the Assimilation Model, which holds that modern humans originated in Africa and today share a predominant recent African origin, but have also absorbed small, geographically variable, degrees of admixture from other regional (archaic) hominin species" > Most people consider the multiregional origin theory highly motivated reasoning As if the Out of Africa theory isn't highly motivated? > and also completely garbage science. But genetic evidence has proven that we all have different hominin dna. Science backs the revised multiregional model. This reminds me of the clovis theory. The agenda driven people always front run any criticism of the clovis theory because they were on the wrong side of history and science.