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I wondered this about Neanderthals, now Denisovans: in what sense are they extinct if their progeny still walk the Earth?
by mtdewcmu 12y ago
I wondered this about Neanderthals, now Denisovans: in what sense are they extinct if their progeny still walk the Earth?
- meric 12y agoThe same sense dinosaurs are extinct while their progeny still walk/fly on earth.
- mtdewcmu 12y agoThat is a different sense. Totally different timescales, and dinosaurs were many species.
- netcan 12y agoI think it captures the general fuzziness of it all. "Species" don't really exist. All the classifications and taxonomies are fuzzy, to various degrees. Even parent-offspring is a tricky concept. Is the Tasmanian Devil facial cancer a new species? Did it evolve/mutate from tasmanian devils? Is it an offspring of a specific devil?
- sliverstorm 12y agoEasy. Tibetans are humans, with a small contribution of special adaptations from another species. A human that has one Neanderthal gene is not a Neanderthal. Therefore, Neanderthals are still extinct.
- mtdewcmu 12y agoHow many Neanderthal genes make a Neanderthal?
- sliverstorm 12y agoMore than half at least, as a mule is neither donkey nor horse
- swombat 12y agoWe have 50% genetic similarity with bananas - does that make us nearly bananas? More to the point, we have 96%-98.8% (depending on how you calculate it) similarity with chimpanzees. Presumably our similarity to Neanderthals would be very close to 100% "More than half" is a very poor measure unless you define "more than half" of what. I think it's a fair point to make that Neanderthals are not entirely extinct - a good portion of their genes just are. I guess one way to look at it is, assume that there are some genetic markers that make someone look asian. Now genocide everyone who's "pure" asian, i.e. has more than 50% of those markers. Would you consider "asian people" to be "extinct" then, even though most if not all of their genetic markers are sill in circulation in the human gene pool? [*] http://genecuisine.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/human-dna-similarities-to-chimps-and.html http://genecuisine.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/human-dna-similari...
- dredmorbius 12y agoI have had many co-workers I suspect of being mostly banana. Literature I'm seeing suggests humans and neanderthal were related subspecies. I suspect one measure of "not existing" is when there's no clearly distinguishable neanderthal clan or trait cluster. Though there are people who have features which look strongly neanderthalic. I've been reading bits and pieces of various aspects of anthropology and human evolution. It seems that cro-magnon man were likely an early sub-species or tribe which settled across northern Africa, as far out as the Azores, and along what's now the Spanish-France border region. All of which now show similar linguistic roots. And suggest that the Basque language, unrelated to others in Europe, is derived from cro-magnon. The Roma people migrated from India toward southeastern Europe. And there's solid anthropological evidence of settlements in what is now the Black Sea, living on what was then dry land, prior to it being flooded and inundated about 5600 BC. Now if only there were a flood myth in human tradition ....
- sliverstorm 12y ago"More than half of the distinct genes", is what I would have written if I was thinking more carefully. If the notion of "extinct" is as fuzzy as you propose, that implies Homo erectus is not extinct, as we descend directly from them.