New Type of Ancient Human Found—Descendants Live Today?

Wouldn't this make it even more possible for the population disparities necessary for a 95% swamping of non-African populations by the genetic information from the more dense, more central, and more largely populated African regions?Don't smaller populations serve to magnify the impact of these disparities on the genetic makeup of the population as a whole?Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Of course, but physical differences do not indicate speciation. Look at early and late erectus skeletal differences.When we look at Neanderthal and sapiens, we are likely just looking at the same species at different times in its evolution, just like with early and late erectus.Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

What makes you think it is the same species?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Hi, Jon. Are all arguments against OoA to be based on claims that OoA relies extensively on a notorious scientific faux pas?Universal negative claims and arbitrarily-defined terminology are very strange criteria for scientists to use as the bases of major scientific theories, wouldn't you agree?However, you seem hell-bent on overturning a remarkably successful theory of human origins based on exactly such criteria. Even if OoA was originally formulated to include a universal negative claim ("nobody, anywhere has a non-African ancestor") and even if it was strictly dependent on H. sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans being distinct species based on the biological species concept, what is your objection to simply letting it relax these assumptions?We do this all the time in science. Theories change over time. They're supposed to change. We get no where by coining a theory as "any deviation from that other theory," because then we end up in an absurd situation of rejecting OoA simply because it didn't meet somebody's semantic criteria for the words "species" and "migration," and because it got shoehorned into a crotchety absolution.By parallel, consider this:Would you argue that the theory of universal common descent holds that no organism did not evolve from the first life-form on Earth?
Would you then argue that any of the following would require us to entirely reject universal common descent:

1. Discovery of alien life not related to earth life
2. Discovery of a life-form that was unequivocally created by God
3. Successful creation of a novel type of life-form in the laboratory
4. Discovery that some life on Earth fits into a separate tree of life that traces to a different common ancestor?

Or, would you agree that a simple relaxation of the "universal" part would suffice?The point is that the out-of-Africa migration happened. This is evidenced by remains of anatomically modern humans that coexisted with anatomically-distinct Neanderthals in Israel up until about 60,000 years ago. It is also evidenced by the switch from genetic divergence to genetic convergence between populations around the proposed time of the out-of-Africa migration, by the dominance of the gene pool by the African lineage of humans, and by the continued pattern of human migration as an important component of population genetics.It is contested only by a proposed mechanism for which there is little, if any, evidence in the remains of hominids, and which has no precedent as a explanatory mechanism for such a broad-scope phenomenon as it is being proposed to explain.Spurious demands for conformity to a specific definition of "species" for each isolated population, and discovery of trace amounts of interbreeding do not serve as evidence against an ancestral migration out of Africa.Whether we eventually decide to change the name of our paradigm from "Recent African Origin" to something that more suitably acknowledges the minority role of genetic admixture is immaterial to me. What is important to me is that we not overturn a very successful paradigm based on whimsical population genetics models and trace evidence that can be easily assimilated into the current paradigm.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

It may relax these, but then where does that get us? We may assimilate as we wish, but then where does that get us?Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Hi, Jon. To the point where we realize that evidence of interbreeding is not a valid reason to question whether or not there was an out-of-Africa migration.----- To the point where we realize that there really isn't that great a difference between a 100% explanation and a 95% explanation.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

And what of the point of an alternate theory with verified predictions? This has me a little confused. Could you expand?Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Hi, Jon. It becomes a non-point, because, after hybridization is assimilated into the migration model, the alternate theory has no verified predictions that aren't already contained within the current, successful model.This is important, because the ideas of "an out-of-Africa migration" and "no hybridization with other hominids" have become so conflated as to cause people to think evidence against one is also evidence against the other. They are, in fact, two separate claims, and either one could fall without bringing the other down with it.When we permit the out-of-Africa model to allow some hybridization, we avoid conflating evidence of interbreeding with evidence against migration.Opponents of OoA are ready to jump all over the model as a whole because one of the more dubious claims associated with it was defeated. It's like failing to beat one's opponent in the ring, and then declaring victory over the whole team after shooting his pet dog in retaliation.----- It gets us to realize that we don't have to overturn an entire successful model on the basis of a tiny deviance from the model's expectations, even if that tiny deviance is in the direction expected by an alternate model. It gets us away from the idea that a tiny hiccup in a scientific theory is a silver bullet.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

What predictions does the MR model make that differ from an OoA model with very limited interbreeding with Neanderthals and others?

Well, my claim was regarding the continuity of regional traits. The main issue is that the old OOA model proposes a replacement with no continuity of regional characteristics (especially genes). Certainly, we can alter the old model to include the new evidence of such continuity. However, the MH model (old and new) does propose such continuity, both morphological and genetic.Granted, we can conceive of OOA and MH models that are not only compatible but almost identical. But, of course, using such models makes debating one against the other pointless. So, clearly, the debate must be made involving the incompatible versions of the models, and this means regional continuity for MH and none for OOA. If you want to say that OOA and MH are identical in regards their proposals on regional continuity (and not adhere to the full-replacement scheme), then there's really no debate as far as the discovery laid out in the OP is concerned.Doing this, however, requires alteration of the OOA model to incorporate what is a prediction in the MH model, so that, as was originally the theme of this discussion, the discovery in the OP of regional continuity is a point in favor of the MH model.Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Like I said, the discovery in the OP does not disprove OOA. The reason it adds support to MH is because it verifies a prediction made by the MH model. This cannot be said of the OOA model, since its traditional form was against regional continuity. Yes, OOA can be altered to fit this new evidence, but a theory that makes accurate predictions is stronger than one which must constantly shim-shammy around to keep up with new discoveries.Since OOA and MH are both compatible with the other available genetic evidence (e.g., mtDNA), verification of predictions is all we have for judging the strength of each of the theories (especially since both are likely wrong anyway).Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Hi, Jon. But, you've been arguing as if it does. You've presented several reasons why it's more compatible with a diffusion/hybridization model than it is with a migration model.Sure, "disprove" is probably too strong a word for what you've been arguing, but you have been using it as the key component of a case against OoA. I'll amend my previous analogy to the following:

quote:

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It's like failing to beat one's opponent in the ring, and then calling it a draw when you go shoot his pet dog in retaliation.

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----- But, does it really verify a prediction made by MR? Look at it more realistically: did MR predict admixture, or did it predict substantial amounts of admixture? Realistically, 5% of one exceptional regional population doesn't verify anything except the most skeletal, minimalistic interpretation of MR.For all intents and purposes, MR is essentially useless as an explanatory model for the ancestry of modern humans. There's no real call to resurrect it over 5% of one unusual population.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

And this is what we see with 95% of the genome. Only 5% of the regional DNA is kept which seems very discontinuous to me. It would seem to me that the major driving force was replacement with regional additions making up a small percentage of the resulting genome. This seems to be what you have been arguing for, the same results no matter which model we use. That is just it. The MH model does not predict that 95% of the wordwide human genome would be replaced by African DNA in a very short time period. The OoA model does predict this.

Not really; I've mentioned that I find diffusion and gene flow more plausible and inline with other evidence, but I don't think I've made the argument that the evidence from the OP is more compatible with either gene diffusion or migration. Depending on the degree of 'absoluteness' in any given diffusion or migration model, the new evidence can be incorporated rather effortlessly into either. In fact, I've admitted to it several times that the OOA model is perfectly capable of incorporating the evidence of regional continuity. I am guilty of going off-topic from the original theme. Some of my posts were not in the vein of which theory's predictions are better confirmed by the new evidence, but were simply arguments in favor of MH and against OOA. However, strictly on the topic of the discovery from the OP, I would definitely not argue that it disproves or casts doubt on the OOA model beyond simply strengthening an alternative model. I think 'admixture' is the wrong word to use in terms of the MH model. The degree to which various erectus traits in Asians, for example, survive to the present day should not be seen as a measure of the degree to which Asian sapiens can be linked to Asian erectus. That we see few pure erectus characteristics in Asian AMH is no more evidence against Asian erectus being ancestral to Asian sapiens than the lack of pure Australopithecus traits in any modern sapiens is evidence against Austra. being ancestral to AMH. In evolution, we do not expect daughter varieties to be identical to their ancestors. So, to really get to the heart of this issue, we cannot rely on present genetic/skeletal evidence; instead, we have to look at the skeletal(/behavioral?) evidence from the period that sapiens is believed to have replaced erectus. Absolutely false.Jon

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Why is this a problem for an MH model?

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Check out No webpage found at provided URL: Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr