Yo mama's mama's mama's mama: our understanding of human origins
razib.substack.com
razib.substack.com
"Everyone is a descendent of Charlemagne" or
"After a couple of millenia, every human is related."
https://www.sarahwoodbury.com/were-all-descended-from-charle...
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/info%3Adoi%2F1...
Crick and Watson certainly didn't discover DNA as the substrate for Mendelian inheritance, that was known long before. They (in collaboration with Rosalind "don't talk to me about this woman" Franklin) discovered its 3D structure.
Africans do have Neanderthal DNA, up to 0.3%.
The post tries very hard to make it look like 'Out of Africa' is wrong and not the mainstream accepted by the majority of scientists. Admixture doesn't change that.
Also, isn't Razib Khan a "scientific racist"? (Protip: when someone's wiki page has a 'Controversies' tab it doesn't look good) I remember him being huge into 'HBD' despite not being credentialed in any way beyond dropping out of his PhD program to get in on the 'consumer genomics' grift. Not a good look imo.
If you want a real overview of current population genetics check out Graham Coop's lectures, he's a prominent professor in the field and his teaching materials were inspirational for many people. Alas, he does not have a substack, neither does he make contrarian takes for a living (probably due to having a real job)
At least imo, sure misinformation is one thing but if we’re talking about other scientists I assume, not some layman on facebook
Decide for yourself if he is a "scientific racist." Takimag is not shy about stuff like that.
That ancestry comes from later interactions with West Eurasians and is at trace levels compared to the substantial 2-3% in non-Africans. This does not change the point that non-Africans received input from Neanderthals just before expansion outwards.
>The post tries very hard to make it look like 'Out of Africa' is wrong and not the mainstream accepted by the majority of scientists. Admixture doesn't change that.
You've misread the article if you believe that. The point is that the total replacement model of out of Africa imagining a small band of hunter gatherers expanding out of an East Africa giving rise to all of humanity popular in the 2000s was proven wrong. The point was that single locus markers like mtDNA and Y-DNA can create biases that allowed for such a consensus that was changed by the whole genome of the Neanderthal. The ancient DNA we have now suggests a multi-regional model for modern human evolution within Africa.
The remainder of the post (other than the first nitpick) is non-substantive ideological claims that appears to be largely because Razib's politics lean conservative. Interest in human populations and such phenotypic differences does not imply scientific racism once you realize the basic scientific principle that humans are animals and consider how animals exist in populations with phenotypic differences.
I just want to comment on this: opposing 'scientific racism' is an ideological claim now?! The dude has a pretty large record making claims about race and IQ and 'human biodiversity', works in an industry that's banking heavily on grifting money out of rich people with PGSes, and mainstream scientists debunking it are the ones being ideological? I feel like I'm dreaming here, imagine a Philip Morris lobbyist accusing you of being 'ideological' when you point out flaws in their 'actually cigarettes are pretty good for you' studies. (Wait, that actually happened)
No, the trace levels of Neanderthal DNA in Africans is very unlikely to change by gathering more diverse range of cohorts. It is a matter of identifying major strands of ancestry within Africans (by admixture over thousands of years to now be in various African populations) which all are distinguished by a lack of Neanderthal DNA outside of West Eurasian admixture.
And for the last point, I did not condone scientific racism. To repeat, interest in human populations and such phenotypic differences does not imply scientific racism once you realize the basic scientific principle that humans are animals and consider how animals exist in populations with phenotypic differences.
>To repeat, interest in human populations and such phenotypic differences does not imply scientific racism once you realize the basic scientific principle that humans are animals and consider how animals exist in populations with phenotypic differences.
That's a needlessly stilted PR-like statement that basically hides the meat of the whole 'controversy': behavioral and IQ differences between populations and their genetic origins. Khan has a position, mainstream scientists another. Oftentimes fallacious arguments are invoked involving 'but look at domestic animal breeds' (not unlike your repeated admonition that 'humans are animals' which I will assume is just a boring triviality on your part for the sake of charity).
There's no reason to not. Holocene expansion of farming/pastoral populations all over the world (including Africa) has largely homogenized human ancestry into identifiable distinct strands that is in varying proportions. Africa is indeed diverse genetically but it is not magic or anything. It most likely comes from the earlier mentioned multi-regional model within Africa through drift and admixture with highly drifted populations. And almost all of these populations outside of those of North Africa were outside of the Neanderthal range and we have archeological evidence to support this as well. There is no logical reason to believe in an (outside of the obvious example of historic West Eurasian admixture in the Horn/North Africa) African population with non-trace levels of Neanderthal ancestry. High levels of diversity in Africa does not imply a significantly large population with non-trace levels of neanderthal ancestry.
Finding a subpopulation within Africa with more Neanderthal DNA would not overturn the the fact that African populations in general have less of this DNA than elsewhere.
Black Americans? Broad pronouncements like this square... strangely... with the ginger whiskers I see every time I look in the mirror.
What is the value of slightly more Neanderthal DNA, anyway?
Who aren’t Africans, but for the most part are of mixed background of Africans and Europeans in the last 500 years.
> What is the value of slightly more Neanderthal DNA, anyway?
There isn’t any, which is why it’s odd anyone is getting defensive about it. It just validates particular models of human expansion out of Africa.
I don’t think we can confidently state that currently. Given that substantial amount of admixture persisted so many generations, it is quite possible that there has been at least some evolutionary advantage associated with it. The rest of your comment, however, is correct: we have no reason to believe that humans with bigger admixture derive huge value from it today, and no reason to be defensive about not having it.
Again, broad pronouncements like this square... strangely... with my skin color and facial features. I think you'll find it a hard sell to much of this country, within and without the scientific community, that black African-Americans are not... you know, African. To an extent. For different reasons, depending on who you ask, of course.
>Which is why it’s odd anyone is getting defensive about it.
Assuming that you're an American, the notion that you don't understand the defensiveness strains credulity. It validates quite a bit more in the eyes of some.
The average Black American is almost 1/4 European descent due to mixing that occurred recently. My son has light brown hair—because his mom is Irish and Dutch. They’re irrelevant to a discussion of the genetics of Bangladeshis.
> Assuming that you're an American, the notion that you don't understand the defensiveness strains credulity. It validates quite a bit more in the eyes of some.
Those folks need their eyes checked.
The New Yorker published [a decent article](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/can-progressiv...) recently about a geneticist—not a “race scientist”—who has to contend with hysterical, hyperbolic backlash from progressive scholars for simply exploring the genetic components of human behavior. The fear is that her work will somehow rationalize racial and sexual inequalities, so it must be suppressed.
>“There will be no reason to pursue these types of research programs at all, and they can be rendered to the same location as Holocaust denial research.” By the time he wrote again, several hours later, one of Harden’s few supporters among the fellows had changed the thread’s subject line from “new genetics paper” to “Seriously? Holocaust deniers?” Darity responded, “I feel just as strongly that we should not keep the notions that the world is 6000 years old or that climate change is a fabrication under consideration.”
What is that if not pure ideology?
He is a Bengali-American (with a Muslim name) who has repeatedly debunked Hindu nationalist claims about ancient human migrations in and out of India.
Unfortunately, as your comment shows, they have been succesful in maligning him as a racist for speaking the truth.
Could also be your typical sour grapes over a dissenting view on the science. Academia is full of childishness like this (especially but not exclusively as you go further away from stuff that can be unambiguously measured and into the realm of the squishy soft sciences).
This comment is so full of intellectual dishonesty. Razib Khan's controversy is a result of his so called cancellation by Left-liberal media like NYT/Times which are decidedly against Hindu nationalism.
In fact, Razib Khan is the founder of Brown Pundits, which is arguably more center right and has more Hindutva supporters than left-liberals. I found Razib Khan and Omar Ali both to be a prudent and neutral observers of the developments in subcontinent and are more leaning towards Hindutva (in its original spirit)
I'd suggest you take a look at some of his work yourself and make a judgement of how unscientific he really is:
https://vdare.com/letters/vdare-khan-letter-and-sailer-reply...
Here's a paragraph for instance (trust me reading it in context doesn't make it any better)
> Also, I am not sure the blonde preference is as dominant among people from Asia as it is among Europeans, and Asians have not been as culturally dominated by Europeans as Amerindians have. Though certain European features were traditionally praised by Asians (fair skin), others have not been emulated (large noses, reputed body odor due to diet, hirsute body, etc.). In addition, though Japanese may comment on the nice figures that European women have (i.e., Europeans tend to exhibit more sexual dimorphism), they will also comment that many American women are too large and, as they would say in the States, "big-boned." In other words, even if blondeness is preferred by Eurasians, there are other attributes that work against them (their size in comparison to petite Asian women, the perception by many Asians that European women, and Europeans in general, age faster and don't keep their appearance up after the bloom of youth, etc.).
Given that Bangladesh has one of the lowest average IQs in the world, that suggests a strong motivation for Kahn not to make assertions lightly.
The paragraph you point to is blunt, but not “racist” and not inconsistent with what I’ve heard in “just among us Asians” conversations. (You’re very sheltered if you think it’s controversial to point out that East Asians think that Americans are fat and age quickly.)
To put it another way, if a scientist does a study and shows that the Ainu people of northern Japan are statistically taller than the Mbuti people of the Congo, does that mean the scientist is a "scientific heightist"? Wouldn't they need to amend their report with something like "...and therefore, Ainu people are better than Mbuti" or something like that?
The point of knowing this is so you can treat it. You can raise the IQ of a phenylketonuric by not feeding them Diet Coke. It doesn’t seem like the HBD people would be happy seeing this, because they just want to prove someone is inherently superior and someone else isn’t.
Anyway, David Reich argued in the NYT that there are genetic differences between populatons which do influence behaviour and mental traits. It is only a question if we want to find these (or leave the field to racists):
> since all traits influenced by genetics are expected to differ across populations (because the frequencies of genetic variations are rarely exactly the same across populations), the genetic influences on behavior and cognition will differ across populations, too.
The HBD stuff is troublesome and it's certainly worth regarding the author more critically, but I found the bones of what was linked fairly pedestrian and uncontroversial. I suspect that will not be true of the follow-up article about origin models within Africa though.
"Wait this is an elementary mistake. Also he's not really up to date on the science. Who wrote this again? That name rings a bell...oh dear..."
Edit: ah, answered in another comment. It was this part:
> Crick and Watson certainly didn't discover DNA as the substrate for Mendelian inheritance, that was known long before. They (in collaboration with Rosalind "don't talk to me about this woman" Franklin) discovered its 3D structure.
From Wikipedia, it goes back to at least 1927:
... In 1927, Nikolai Koltsov proposed that inherited traits would be inherited via a "giant hereditary molecule" made up of "two mirror strands that would replicate in a semi-conservative fashion using each strand as a template".[186][187] In 1928, Frederick Griffith in his experiment discovered that traits of the "smooth" form of Pneumococcus could be transferred to the "rough" form of the same bacteria by mixing killed "smooth" bacteria with the live "rough" form.[188][189] This system provided the first clear suggestion that DNA carries genetic information.
I would argue that racial genetics science itself is not racist, but it can be executed in bad faith, and has a high potential for misuse.
One can ask the following in good faith, absent of racism:
1) Is there a genetic component to intelligence
2) Is it heritable?
3) Are there differences in these genetics across groups?
What policy conclusions one draws from any conclusive findings is the controversial part.
If wikipedia had existed in the time of Copernicus, Plato, Giordano Bruno, Galileo or Darwin, I do not think they would be without their own large ‘controversies’ section ;)
> Africans do have Neanderthal DNA, up to 0.3%.
He never claimed or hinted that Africans do not have Neanderthal DNA.
He says "non-African modern humans were discernibly more similar to the Neanderthal sample than Africans were", which is factually accurate, given that there's about a 1.5-2.5% gap in the amount of DNA that's shared, at least according to best current knowledge.
> The post tries very hard to make it look like 'Out of Africa' is wrong
No such thing is insinuated.
He makes it explicit that he's talking about the "total-replacement plank of the old out-of-Africa model", and he spends a while talking about how we're all descended from a single male and single female within Africa, it's only the case that certain populations outside of Africa mixed with other hominids and got up to 5-7% of their DNA from them (Neanderthals and Denisovans), which is far more than what Africans have.
Is "having a good look" a core part of your epistemology?
Just to add a little bit.
They discovered the 3D structure, but the structure (specifically, the base pairing) made it quite clear that the mechanism of inheritance was due to each complementary strand serving as a template for information copying.
For me, that was the stunning bit of the discovery.
from the acknowledgments his 2013 paper https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
"Thanks to Razib Khan, Sharon Browning, and Don Conrad for several useful discussions"
you can nitpick the piece but this is from an attack piece on me:
"MANY PROMINENT geneticists familiar with Khan’s work do take him seriously. “I don’t agree with everything that Razib writes, but I think that he does write about population genetics very clearly,” said Graham Coop, a population genetic"
so yes, put your faith in graham :-) you know his work so little you weren't aware i was going to easily pivot in this direction
https://vdare.com/letters/vdare-khan-letter-and-sailer-reply...
Though it's not a distinction many people care about, for me this is always the fundamental context: Homo Sapiens, not 'humans'. There have been many species of humans; only one of them made it to modern times. So--the post isn't on 'human origins', it's on 'Homo Sapien origins'.
>"Today almost everything we had figured out then is wrong. We didn’t understand the origin of modern humans, and we’re still in the process of unpacking all the complexity as more and more findings come to light."
And thanks for the downvote.
The article explains that modern humans actually don't descend exclusively from homo sapiens, but also have lineage from Neanderthals and Denisovans, and that's just of the ones we know. So the article seems to talk about the origin of modern humans as in the people alive today that we'd all consider to be human.
That's why he specifies that now we understand that what we thought in the 80s, that modern humans = homo sapiens, we now know is wrong, as we now know that modern humans involve a more complex lineage. But what we thought of the homo sapiens lineage does seem to be correct though.
At least that's what I understood of the article. Now I don't know how precise and correct and up to date the article is.
The claim that the Bible explains creation does not stand up too well to experiment in this regard.
How can you experiment human origin?
People start believing stories made by <prophet/whomever> and they become facts all of a sudden.
And this single god is the consolidated version of all the deities that had come before then and understandably it's a deity that loves violence and has little to no mercy to those who oppose it. You wouldn't expect people who were oppressed for centuries to create a god that has never-ending love for all humans.
God is an extension of human consciousness that replaces conscience. It's a way to easily delegate responsibilities and defer wrongdoings. It's there so you can contain compartmentalized conflicting thoughts in your head so you don't go insane. You have your god because you can't tell right from wrong. It's like a tick that's attached to your skull and feeds off of your thoughts. Obviously like with any other tick, it's hard to rid of it.
I don't believe in that stuff. But it's a much more cohesive story than believing in an actual Adam and Eve with people living hundreds of years old.
If it happened, science may eventually prove it. Since you believe it to be fact, you should instead, push to dig deeper.