all humans share same parents 200kya

[zetreque]

I find this hard to believe and has some questionable statements.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... claim.html

[wolfhnd]

Yes they ignore the real complications of how species don't arrive on the scene all at once. Cross breeding, out breeding, inbreeding, punctuate isolation, and all the other messy aspects of breeding just don't make a good story. Punctuated equilibrium is a confusing concept because no mother ever gave birth to a new species and if she did it end there because who would the offspring bread with?

Darwin was not so much a biologist as a naturalist and he gave us a theory of species not a geneticists account of evolution. He created a organic system theory without telling us how all the pieces fit together in detail because he didn't know. Today we know how many of the pieces fit together but seem to ignore the organic system. It could be a reductionist problem but more likely it's our distaste for grand narratives.

[Forest_Dump]

There is a whole whack of things worth commenting on here. For starters, I would be skeptical too of some of the claims but I want to read this more and possibly the original article at some point this week. For now, a couple of brief points.

First it might be worth bearing in mind that a period of rapid evolutionary change such as might occur in the punctuated equilibrium of hominids could refer to a period as brief as 50,000 years. That is a blink of an eye in geological time.

A lot of the claims coming out of DNA research are at least somewhat flavoured by limitations in the sampling. This came up this summer when "her" daughter got her DNA done in one of those popular places. There were surprises, for example, in some expected or suspected relationships either not being strongly represented or not being there at all. First, one known related population hasn't been sampled very much, if at all. Second, it is possible one or more of the suspected populations just didn't emerge in the sample of DNA looked at by the commercial firm. And, of course, since the father didn'the necessarily have ancestry with those groups, thanks to the magic of recombination, it is possible mom has those connections but none were passed down to the daughter (although granted that wouldn't apply with mitochondrial DNA).

Lots of stuff to take into account and with conclusions like this I want to hear the critiques from people who are better at it than me.

[BadgerJelly]

The “Daily Mail” are not exactly renowned for presenting mainstream science.

Maybe there is something to this or maybe some “journalist” grabbed a story that was obscure enough in its findings to be interpreted any which way the reader chooses. It may well be that other scientists will be taking a serious look at this, and maybe not.

Don’t forget that people sensationalise data in order to gain more funding. In this respect the scientists have their hands tied. They want to be honest yet they need to get funding.

From my understanding we’ve known for a while that there was a severe bottle-neck around this period. Were the studies made aiming to deduce this or were they looking for data about something unrelated? That is also something that happens a lot. If the data disproves an idea then people need to find something “useful” in the data to gain further funding too.

Mmmm ... maybe I’m wearing my “cynic hat” today! Haha!

[zetreque]

I am glad to see people here looking critically at this because I did discover this linked on an already questionable website. There is a chance this science is in the same circles as flat earthers. I sure hope they aren't trying to misunderstand human evolution now.

[doogles]

I'm also sceptical about this article.

There is a suggestion that human life has existed in cycles, is wiped out and then appears again.

No fossil evidence of any kind has been found to support the notion.

Although logically, if Homo sapiens did evolve, we would have to have a common ancestor of some kind somewhere in time.

[Forest_Dump]

There are always a number of ideas to keep in mind. For example, mathematically, humans only have to go back a few thousand years before it becomes impossible not to have multiple shared ancestors. When getting into some of these kinds of studies, however, I generally start by taking into account some simplifications used that may have escaped the journalists. When counting back to find common ancestors, usually it is assumed that all have an approximately equal number of offspring and the timing between generations is the same. However once you start looking into multiple species, those kinds of generalizations become more tricky to support. Clearly once you start thinking about species that have large numbers of offspring per year, you have to think differently than you do with species that have a smaller number of offspring per decade (aka r-selected vs. k-selected species).

[TheVat]

https://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/wp-con ... educed.pdf

Original paper.

[wolfhnd]

My observation is that if you can't find flaws in every scientific paper dealing with something as messy as biology you probably aren't looking hard enough. That said we all have are own interests and will not be spending hours backing up our critiques. As pointed out above we have shared ancestry and we now know some our genes come from what were formerly consider distinct species. What is more interesting is our differences not what we share. In medicine uncovering how how the body works is often by studying bodies that don't work.

The fascination with a common ancestor may be as simple to explain as people's fascination with their own genealogy. For reasons I have never fully understood people will spend inordinate amounts of time researching their family tree. The positive side is it connects people to history the negative side it reinforces the feeling of uniqueness. In cases like the one in the OP I detect a bit of speciescentrism. I'm very sceptical that human uniqueness has as much do with how special the species is and rather how special the culture is.

[Forest_Dump]

An interesting post but of course for me it also immediately raises questions about the extent to which cultures can be called unique or discrete. Just as human populations tend to be very genetically diverse and very fuzzy around the edges, cultures are even more so and more often than not and simply imaginary constructs (Imaginary Communities a la Benedict Anderson) manufactured for different reasons.

[wolfhnd]

An interesting post but of course for me it also immediately raises questions about the extent to which cultures can be called unique or discrete. Just as human populations tend to be very genetically diverse and very fuzzy around the edges, cultures are even more so and more often than not and simply imaginary constructs (Imaginary Communities a la Benedict Anderson) manufactured for different reasons.

I do have trouble staying on topic, but the conversation had already shifted away from the OP to why it may be misleading.

You would be better able to answer that question than I. How fast did Clovis Point technology travel between groups or did the original group just expand? Why hang on to the same technology for three thousand years?

Innovation seems to take place in the core where traditions would be expected to be more stable than the fringes? How diverse are cultures, at various stages of population density they seem remarkably similar to me, the differences being largely an accident of geology.

The debate we would be having, if I believed in debate, would be over the degree or kind narrative. It's a difference in perspective I have had most of my life where most people believe humans are a different kind of animal while I see the distinctions more one of degree. The key to understanding my perspective is to imagine what humans would be like in the absence of culture. Environment determine how genes are expressed and environment determines how culture is expressed. My hypotheses, if it worthy of such a designation, is primarily useful in determining what limitations genetics and culture place on innovation. The need to "control" emotion or instinct is one example of how the nature of being human limits not so much what we can understand but what culture is necessary to understanding. I'm not bright enough to work that out but it feels like common sense to me.

[doogles]

https://phe.rockefeller.edu/news/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Stoeckle-Thaler-Final-reduced.pdf

Original paper.

Although this paper was largely beyond my comprehension, I understood enough of the gist of it to perceive that the journalist's interpretation of it in the OP was quite misleading.

It's a good example of why we should check the original rather than the second-hand versions of scientific research.

My vague 'take' on the paper was that mitochondrial DNA is reasonably stable within and between species.

Could this be because the expression of mitochondrial DNA genes has more to do with individual cell function than total organism function (allowing for the . It occurs to me that the cell biochemistry of all species from reptiles upwards is very similar. In fact our knowledge of human biochemistry and its application to human medicine has been heavily based on animal experimentation.

If this is so, then nuclear DNA has to be the source of genes responsible for 'within' and 'between' species variations.


Just a thought.

[Forest_Dump]

For starters, mitochondrial DNA is the DNA found in mitochondria. Mitochondria is kind of the motor of the cell and traditionally was thought to be handed down only from the mother through the egg (i.e unfertilized)and are therefore not subject to the mixing you see during miosis (recombination). Since mitochondria have very limited function, you don't see mitochondrial DNA expressed in the phenotype of the bigger critter. As a bit of a different tangent, yesterday I heard some rumour that some mitochondrial DNA might actually some from the father, presumably the mitochondria motoring the supermarket cell. Sounds reasonable actually but I would also want more info.

As to Clovis, I am not sure that Clovis did hang on for 3000 years but that may vary from place to place. In fact, in eastern North America local variants of Clovis, where referred to as that, typically lasted only 300 to 500 years. There are all kinds of variants of fluted points through both space and time. But does Clovis really count as a descriptor of a culture? The spear tip probably had non functional significance but it also worked. Could some Martian refer to our culture as the people who used round wheels?

[wolfhnd]

As to Clovis, I am not sure that Clovis did hang on for 3000 years but that may vary from place to place. In fact, in eastern North America local variants of Clovis, where referred to as that, typically lasted only 300 to 500 years. There are all kinds of variants of fluted points through both space and time. But does Clovis really count as a descriptor of a culture? The spear tip probably had non functional significance but it also worked. Could some Martian refer to our culture as the people who used round wheels?

Lol

Well I couldn't think of another example other than Clovis of a technology that was stable across the periphery and core that was apparently uniform and at least partially arbitrary. I use culture and technology as if they were kind of interchangeable. So Clovis captures to some degree captures the relationship between geography and culture. It didn't change because there was no pressure from other cultures and suited the environment but under similar conditions a similar technology may have developed else where in the world? If we go back far enough people were fairly uniform other than perhaps outward appearance and the availability of material.

[Forest_Dump]

I don't really mean to be hard on you because, particularly when I am talking about archaeology, culture usually does mean technology and is signified by something simple like a style of spear tip. But then this is because the further back in time you go, this is all we have to work with. You don't get much preservation of language, values, morals, etc., and have difficulty guessing at things like religion, etc., and basically all those other things that are contained within "culture" (humanity's extrasomatic means of adaptation). But then, as I said, there really isn't any single definition of culture nor is there any single viable definition of any single culture. Truth be told, I do think there is a lot of relevant value in a set of ideas written by Dawkins regarding how a population like a species is really an arbitrary conglomeration based on assumptions of reproductive isolation from the next most closely related population but is itself really in a constant Flux so that in 50000 or so generations someone will probably have to call it something else to distinguish the accumulated change not seen from one single generation to the next.

By the way, argumentso could definitely be made as to whether populations, cultures, etc., are more stable or variable in the center or periphery. Tell me again which you are arguing and I will give cases to the contrary.

[Forest_Dump]

F. Barth argued that ethnic group identity was defined and expressed most strongly at the boundaries because this was where contact and interaction with other groups occurred and therefore this was where defining the distinction was most important. Consequently peripheral populations tended to be far more conservative as though allowing any semblance of change would threaten their common identity and historical connections particularly with the core to which peripheral populations may not have frequent communication to. Paradoxically, peripherals may be where change is most common precisely because it is there that there is the most exposure to different ways of doing and thinking about things. Very similar kings of processes can be argued at the biological level. At the periphery of a biological group there may be opportunities for variations to develop and expand into new econiches. However and again paradoxically at the periphery variation may be more heavily suppressed because there are resident and more well adapted competing populations already dominating most of the seemingly available alternate econiches..

[wolfhnd]

As it relates to the original post and why people are so focused on genetics it is the common fallacy that genes make us who we are in a kind of production line assemblage. While it is obvious that you are not going to get a human without a human set of genes it is less obvious that you are not going to get a human without a human culture. It's a theme I keeping coming back to because traditional we got it all backwards. Culture drove the development of big brains not the other way around. It the last 20,000 years or so the process seems to have been reversed as relative brain size seems to be decreasing (maybe) presumably because of changes in culture. It is also the case that genes appear to recreate the conditions for a kind of reevolution during development where the environment controls the expression. All of which in my mind confirms the supposition that what makes the human mind special is largely external to the brain. What I call species-centrism is of course the product of the natural preference for members of your own species.

Reducing the concept from the species to the individual you get the idea that you are who you are because of your parents, which is obviously true, but you also inherit you parents culture. If you were raised by wolves you would get the wolves culture and because of that culture your brain would actual develop differently. None of which is particularly insightful accept at the psychological level level where Freud gets too little credit. We are who we are because our culture tells us who we are. Again as it applies to the original post most cultures tell us we are who we are because of who our ancestors were. Which isn't exactly true displaying a kind of genetic determinism that is built into our instincts.

I can further illustrate the power of this instinct by noting that Western culture has taken a decidedly dim view of genetic determinism because of racism and Nazis etc. You could say that tribalism has become taboo but where this new taboo is strongest so has tribalism become strongest in the form of identity politics and intersectionality. How we identify who our kin are is now political. It's a change in the expression of the instinct not the instinct itself. We have a strong preference for finding out who are kin are. The way we go about that is determined by the environment (culture). Now we have media as in the OP telling us that we are all one family because it is a powerful message. Our culture having assigned an almost religious like respect for science the media is using science to make the message authoritative and in the process diminishing the science itself.

[doogles]

wolfhnd, one of your paragraphs caught my attention in your recent post -- "Reducing the concept from the species to the individual you get the idea that you are who you are because of your parents, which is obviously true, but you also inherit you parents culture. If you were raised by wolves you would get the wolves culture and because of that culture your brain would actual develop differently. None of which is particularly insightful accept at the psychological level level where Freud gets too little credit. We are who we are because our culture tells us who we are. Again as it applies to the original post most cultures tell us we are who we are because of who our ancestors were. Which isn't exactly true displaying a kind of genetic determinism that is built into our instincts.".

I self-published a book in 2009 called Animals, Brains, and Cultures in which I have addressed everything you mentioned in this paragraph. It is available at Amazon. While working in close association with animals for over 40 years, I constantly noted similarities between all species in behavioural traits, biochemistry and physiology from reptiles upwards. I relied heavily on my own primary observations but checked as many other references as well during those decades. It was virtually 40 years in the writing. There would be more than 200 references cited.

When I was about half way into it, it occurred to me that I had virtually come up with the same principles as Freud, and was tempted to use his 'id, ego and superego', calling the book something like "Freud re-visited", but realised that my view departed from Freud's in that I rely heavily on sensory-imaging as part of the 'ego' and 'superego'. Freud was a 'visual imagery' denier; he regarded day-dreaming as an early sign of mental illness. I finished up with a four-part component of behaviour -- the 'primitive' which embraces our instinctual drives and which accounts for more than 80% of our behaviours, 'sensory-imaging' -- which is the accumulated information we obtain from our own environment via our primary sensory inputs, 'rationalising' -- which is the internal ability we have to build sensory images in our brains on other sensory images (psychologists tend to use the word 'representation' rather than 'images'), and fourthly 'self-image' which is somewhat of a composite of the first three. The latter is very real if you consider the number of suicides related to damage to self-images.

Anyhow it's there with its hundreds of references if you are interested in a theory that synthesises the ideas of hundreds of thinkers and scientists over the millennia.

It finished up as a universal (across species) theory of motivation and behaviour, and incorporates all things you mentioned in that paragraph.

[wolfhnd]

wolfhnd, one of your paragraphs caught my attention in your recent post -- "Reducing the concept from the species to the individual you get the idea that you are who you are because of your parents, which is obviously true, but you also inherit you parents culture. If you were raised by wolves you would get the wolves culture and because of that culture your brain would actual develop differently. None of which is particularly insightful accept at the psychological level level where Freud gets too little credit. We are who we are because our culture tells us who we are. Again as it applies to the original post most cultures tell us we are who we are because of who our ancestors were. Which isn't exactly true displaying a kind of genetic determinism that is built into our instincts.".

I self-published a book in 2009 called Animals, Brains, and Cultures in which I have addressed everything you mentioned in this paragraph. It is available at Amazon. While working in close association with animals for over 40 years, I constantly noted similarities between all species in behavioural traits, biochemistry and physiology from reptiles upwards. I relied heavily on my own primary observations but checked as many other references as well during those decades. It was virtually 40 years in the writing. There would be more than 200 references cited.

When I was about half way into it, it occurred to me that I had virtually come up with the same principles as Freud, and was tempted to use his 'id, ego and superego', calling the book something like "Freud re-visited", but realised that my view departed from Freud's in that I rely heavily on sensory-imaging as part of the 'ego' and 'superego'. Freud was a 'visual imagery' denier; he regarded day-dreaming as an early sign of mental illness. I finished up with a four-part component of behaviour -- the 'primitive' which embraces our instinctual drives and which accounts for more than 80% of our behaviours, 'sensory-imaging' -- which is the accumulated information we obtain from our own environment via our primary sensory inputs, 'rationalising' -- which is the internal ability we have to build sensory images in our brains on other sensory images (psychologists tend to use the word 'representation' rather than 'images'), and fourthly 'self-image' which is somewhat of a composite of the first three. The latter is very real if you consider the number of suicides related to damage to self-images.

Anyhow it's there with its hundreds of references if you are interested in a theory that synthesises the ideas of hundreds of thinkers and scientists over the millennia.

It finished up as a universal (across species) theory of motivation and behaviour, and incorporates all things you mentioned in that paragraph.

Thanks for replying. It wasn't until I was 60 that I started to put my views on human nature together. Most of my life I devoted to things not people or other animals. For most of my life I spent every waking moment on making the material world "better". That may be true for most of my generation and the preceding one. Now it seems we need someone like Jordan Peterson to explain to our childern and grandchildren the common sense reasons that our culture is worth preserving or more precisely how to make life as meaningful as possible.

[TheVat]

Note: Member Wolfhound has requested account deactivated. Per member, this does not relate to any particular recent postings.