[HN Gopher] Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceler...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human
       evolution
        
       Related: _Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection
       across West Eurasia [pdf]_ -
       https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47791282 (64 comments)
       https://x.com/doctorveera/status/2044679999450664967
       (https://xcancel.com/doctorveera/status/2044679999450664967)
        
       Author : unsuspecting
       Score  : 106 points
       Date   : 2026-04-17 22:30 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | A_D_E_P_T wrote:
       | Not that surprising when you consider, as the paper does, the
       | explosion of very meaningful traits such as the ability to digest
       | lactose and various anti-malaria adaptations e.g. Sickle Cell and
       | the Duffy-null mutation.
       | 
       | It's just controversial for obvious reasons. The notion that
       | human groups may have meaningfully evolved in different ways over
       | the past 10,000 years, and may still be evolving, is an unpopular
       | one on both ends of the political spectrum.
        
         | AlotOfReading wrote:
         | The reason no one wants to talk is that these discussions are
         | _always_ co-opted by racists wanting to affirm their beliefs,
         | regardless of the underlying science. Reich in particular is
         | borderline deliberate about attracting those sorts with his lab
         | 's research, because of how badly he chooses to handle the
         | topic and terminology of race.
        
           | nostromo wrote:
           | Science is about truth not social outcomes.
           | 
           | People keep wondering why trust in scientific findings is in
           | free fall. A big part of it is because many scientists have
           | become comfortable lying when they feel it's for a noble
           | cause.
        
             | orsorna wrote:
             | I really don't care if the people around me have
             | physiological differences from me. It would be wonderful to
             | explore that and such differences. But as OP pointed out
             | the discussion gets co-opted by people who would kill
             | others over physiological differences. How is such a
             | viewpoint conducive to a peaceful society where millions of
             | people with physiological differences exist?
             | 
             | For good reason, the wider community isn't able to have a
             | productive conversation about it. I wouldn't even call that
             | a noble reason, but a necessary one, unless you would be
             | okay with inviting people that want you dead into
             | discussion on scientific consensus.
        
               | like_any_other wrote:
               | > people who would kill others over physiological
               | differences
               | 
               | Most of them just want to enforce borders. And then the
               | dogma that we are all the same is co-opted by people who
               | would see their ethnic group wiped out, as they are told
               | that they don't even exist except as a meaningless social
               | construct, and their desire for ethnic self-preservation
               | is therefore illegitimate - there is nothing to preserve!
               | 
               | The same rhetoric targeting Palestinians:
               | https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/perpetuating-the-myth-of-
               | a-p...
        
               | orsorna wrote:
               | >And then the dogma that we are all the same is co-opted
               | by people who would see their ethnic group wiped out
               | 
               | Are you referring to certain people? People sympathetic
               | to Palestinians? I mean yeah obviously it's wrong to
               | preach equity for me but not for thee, but I'm not really
               | going to get into a pissing match about Israel/Palestine,
               | sorry, because that's deflection from my point.
               | 
               | So there are two choices here:
               | 
               | 1) Allow scientific discussion on physiological
               | differences or avoid it. Particulary, physiological
               | differences that don't necessarily effect health outcomes
               | but also performance metrics.
               | 
               | 2) Do not allow such discussion, and declare an axiom:
               | normalize physiological differences across homo sapiens.
               | 
               | You're right to call the latter dogma, although not in
               | the pejorative sense.
               | 
               | You brought this infamous conflict up to propose that
               | because option two can be used by bad actors, then we
               | should not normalize option two, and freely discuss
               | physiological differences between people.
               | 
               | If you are of a group that has physiological differences
               | scientifically proven to be inferior, you are immediately
               | in an outgroup. You will experience discrimination.
               | Because few (and I'm being generous, perhaps no one
               | truly) can talk about physiological differences without
               | building and holding prejudice. Pragmatically that is
               | just not the case. It's why endless ethnic conflicts
               | exist.
               | 
               | I simply cannot formulate an argument for why this should
               | ever be allowed. It sounds like a horror show if you're
               | on the receiving end. A horror show minorities of many
               | types live through every day.
               | 
               | To lay "ground rules" so that we do not scrutinize our
               | fellow brothers and sisters on unalienable traits is an
               | ethical imperative to prevent us tearing each other
               | apart. This then leaves only one line, the line where
               | people are more than happy to discriminate based on these
               | unalienable traits, and I think it's perfectly acceptable
               | to ostracize them since they encourage ripping each
               | other's throats out, willingly or as a useful peon.
        
               | like_any_other wrote:
               | Nobody talks about "performance metrics" when
               | distinguishing between Sumatran and Siberian tigers. What
               | happens instead is humans try to preserve their
               | populations and distinctions. "It's all the same" is
               | corrosive to preservation.
        
               | orsorna wrote:
               | Superiority is absolutely a distinguishing feature when
               | preserving their populations and distinctions. It's why
               | racial genocides even occur.
        
               | coderenegade wrote:
               | The problem is that if you don't stick to truth and make
               | an attempt at objectivity, others will step in to fill
               | the void. This is how you sow division and undermine
               | trust in science.
        
               | orsorna wrote:
               | I'm having a very hard time understanding a society where
               | research is openly conducted on innate physiological
               | differences between people, and bad actors don't use this
               | official research to practice open discrimination. The
               | lesser of the two evils is to draw a line and tell people
               | to just accept these differences.
        
             | teamonkey wrote:
             | Scientists are not lying. Reich is notable in his field and
             | no-one is disputing his genetic research.
             | 
             | What scientists are wary of is how any discussion in the
             | field gets jumped on and twisted into ammunition to
             | reinforce racist beliefs, whether the science actually
             | supports this or not.
        
               | Nesco wrote:
               | "What scientists are wary of is how any discussion in the
               | field gets jumped on and twisted into ammunition to
               | reinforce racist beliefs"
               | 
               | Yet nothing ruined the reputation of the scientific
               | establishment more in recent time than their tendency to
               | change their behaviours and adapt their beliefs for
               | political motives
        
               | teamonkey wrote:
               | There are always those trying to discredit scientists who
               | do not reinforce their personal beliefs.
        
           | MontyCarloHall wrote:
           | >Reich in particular is borderline deliberate about
           | attracting those sorts with his lab's research, because of
           | how badly he chooses to handle the topic and terminology of
           | race.
           | 
           | Sorry, do you have any examples? His views that I've read [0,
           | 1] are scientifically rigorous and terminologically precise,
           | deftly navigating the politics that some consider extremely
           | controversial. To wit, one of my favorite passages from [1],
           | which deals specifically with terminology:
           | But "ancestry" is not a euphemism, nor is it synonymous with
           | "race." Instead, the term is born of an urgent need to come
           | up with a precise language to discuss genetic differences
           | among people at a time when scientific developments have
           | finally provided the tools to detect them. It is now
           | undeniable that there are nontrivial average genetic
           | differences across populations in multiple traits, and the
           | race vocabulary is too ill-defined and too loaded with
           | historical baggage to be helpful. If we continue to use it we
           | will not be able to escape the current debate, which is mired
           | in an argument between two indefensible positions. On the one
           | side there are beliefs about the nature of the differences
           | that are grounded in bigotry and have little basis in
           | reality. On the other side there is the idea that any
           | biological differences among populations are so modest that
           | as a matter of social policy they can be ignored and papered
           | over. It is time to move on from this paralyzing false
           | dichotomy and to figure out what the genome is actually
           | telling us.
           | 
           | This particular passage is on p. 253 of [1], but everything
           | in Chapter 11 ("The Genomics of Race and Identity," pp.
           | 247-273) is well worth the read.
           | 
           | [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetic
           | s-r...
           | 
           | [1]
           | https://sackett.net/reich_who_we_are_and_how_we_got_here.pdf
        
             | AlotOfReading wrote:
             | It's unfortunate that the URL happens to be buzzfeed, but
             | there was an open letter to Reich by other academics about
             | his terminology in the book you're quoting [0]. The short
             | of it is that social categorizations we believe in like
             | race intersect with genetics in a very complicated way.
             | Reich is a world-class expert in genetics. He simply
             | commits the same error as many other other experts in
             | discounting the complexity of subjects he's adjacent to,
             | but not directly an expert in.
             | 
             | I get that this is a high standard to hold him to (and I
             | sure as heck don't meet it myself), but he should do better
             | given his visibility in public discourse.
             | 
             | [0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bfopinion/race-
             | genetics...
        
               | dmitrygr wrote:
               | > race intersect with genetics in a very complicated way
               | 
               | Please explain the complications. Use scientific terms
               | only.
        
               | tsimionescu wrote:
               | The biggest complication is that the current notion of
               | human race is largely based on skin color (with a few
               | adjacent physical traits), which has very little to do
               | with population genetics. In particular, black skin color
               | is a dominant genetic trait, meaning that you can easily
               | have individuals and even entire subpopulations that are
               | black skinned, but have much more genetic similarity to
               | traditionally white skinned populations (being
               | descendents of a few black skinned individuals who
               | married into a larger white skinned population) - while
               | they would still be categorized as "black" in terms of
               | race. Conversely, genetically isolated black skinned
               | populations are also often lumped together as "the black
               | race".
               | 
               | Another major complexity is that some races are defined
               | more by genealogic ancestry than by genetic ancestry or
               | easily identifiable physical characteristics. For
               | example, people are normally considered Jewish if they
               | have a Jewish mother. This leads to many genetically
               | disparate subpopulations being lumped together as a
               | Jewish race.
        
               | MontyCarloHall wrote:
               | The crux of that letter is the "need to recognize that
               | meaningful patterns of genetic and biological variation
               | exist in our species that are not racial." This is true.
               | However, this does not mean that there aren't also
               | meaningful patterns of genetic and biological variation
               | that _do_ stratify according to ancestry (not race!). The
               | letter tries to handwave this away, claiming that  "[f]or
               | several decades billions of dollars have been spent
               | trying to find such differences. The result has been a
               | preponderance of negative findings despite intrepid
               | efforts to collect DNA data on millions of individuals in
               | the hope of finding even the tiniest signals of
               | difference." This is simply not true, as studies like the
               | subject of this discussion demonstrate.
               | 
               | The letter also states that "[t]he public should not cede
               | the power to define race to scientists who themselves are
               | not trained to understand the social contexts that shape
               | the formation of this fraught category." Also true! This
               | is exactly why Reich explicitly avoids discussing "races"
               | but rather populations and ancestries, which are
               | rigorously defined strictly in terms of genetics. With
               | respect to population structures and ancestry, Reich is
               | indeed an expert.
               | 
               | I'll add that very few of the signatories of that letter
               | have any experience, let alone expertise in genetics.
               | Here are the first few:                 Jonathan Kahn,
               | James E. Kelley Professor of Law, Mitchell Hamline School
               | of Law            Alondra Nelson, Professor of Sociology
               | and Gender Studies, Columbia University; President,
               | Social Science Research Council            Joseph L.
               | Graves Jr., Associate Dean for Research & Professor of
               | Biological Sciences, Fellow of the American Association
               | for the Advancement of Science, Section G: Biological
               | Sciences, Joint School of Nanoscience & Nanoengineering,
               | North Carolina A&T State University, UNC Greensboro
               | Sarah Abel, Postdoc, Department of Anthropology,
               | University of Iceland            Ruha Benjamin, Associate
               | Professor, Department of African American Studies,
               | Princeton University            Sarah Blacker,
               | Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for
               | the History of Science, Berlin            Catherine
               | Bliss, Associate Professor, Social and Behavioral
               | Sciences, UC San Francisco
               | 
               | Out of the 67 signatories, I counted approximately 5 who
               | might have sufficient genetics expertise to offer a
               | meaningful scientific counterpoint to Reich's work (this
               | is being charitable, as I included titles like "Professor
               | of Biological Sciences," which is no guarantee.) The rest
               | were in fields like anthropology, sociology, law, and
               | history.
        
               | AlotOfReading wrote:
               | This is simply not true.
               | 
               | Yes, because it's not an argument the letter is making.
               | Everyone can name a meaningful genetic patterns of
               | genetic variation that follow ancestry like lactase
               | persistence. The argument is in the second paragraph:
               | But his skillfulness with ancient and contemporary DNA
               | should not be confused with a mastery of the cultural,
               | political, and biological meanings of human groups.
               | 
               | It's not an argument that Reich gets the science wrong,
               | so other geneticists being on the list is neither here
               | nor there. When he says things like:
               | But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no
               | longer possible to ignore average genetic differences
               | among "races."
               | 
               | in NYT opinion pieces, it's that he's not understanding
               | how terminology interacts with public discourse. The next
               | paragraph goes on to use the unclear term "west african",
               | not exactly a great example of careful language either.
               | 
               | The list is mainly people in fields that deal with these
               | things, as you'd expect.
        
               | MontyCarloHall wrote:
               | >Yes, because it's not an argument the letter is making.
               | 
               | It literally is though. The full quote from the Buzzfeed
               | piece is:                 Reich's claim that we need to
               | prepare for genetic evidence of racial differences in
               | behavior or health ignores the trajectory of modern
               | genetics. For several decades billions of dollars have
               | been spent trying to find such differences. The result
               | has been a preponderance of negative findings despite
               | intrepid efforts to collect DNA data on millions of
               | individuals in the hope of finding even the tiniest
               | signals of difference.
               | 
               | >The argument is in the second paragraph:
               | But his skillfulness with ancient and contemporary DNA
               | should not be confused with a mastery of the cultural,
               | political, and biological meanings of human groups.
               | 
               | Reich never purports to make cultural or political
               | arguments, just biological ones.
               | 
               | >When he says things like: But as a geneticist I also
               | know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore
               | average genetic differences among "races."
               | 
               | Note that he put "races" in quotes. The point he was
               | making here is that sometimes genetic ancestries can
               | intersect quite well with traditional notions of "race"
               | [0]. But often times they do not, especially in the case
               | of admixed populations [1].
               | 
               | [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-32325-w/fi
               | gures/1
               | 
               | [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12859-019-
               | 2680-1/...
        
               | AlotOfReading wrote:
               | Note that he put "races" in quotes.
               | 
               | I know, but we both see how a random member of the public
               | could easily read it. My argument, after all, is that the
               | way he communicates is sloppier than it should be for the
               | subject matter and prone to public misunderstandings.
        
               | vintermann wrote:
               | > "need to recognize that meaningful patterns of genetic
               | and biological variation exist in our species that are
               | not racial." This is true.
               | 
               | There's an implicit assertion in that statement, that
               | we're currently _not_ recognizing that meaningful
               | patterns and variation exists. But that 's nonsense. We
               | are all perfectly aware that some groups digest lactose
               | better, some are less vulnerable to skin cancer, some
               | drop like flies to common tropical diseases, some
               | completely dominate long distance running competition
               | etc.
               | 
               | So there's got to be some particular differences he's
               | referring to that he thinks are papered over. He should
               | spell out which.
        
               | GorbachevyChase wrote:
               | Fortunately, there are many wise laymen such as yourself
               | in the internet to correct him.
        
               | dmitrygr wrote:
               | > but he should do better given his visibility in public
               | discourse.
               | 
               | Why? He presented real verified science. Anyone who is
               | offended or does not like it ... well, too bad... the
               | world does not care. Facts are facts. He does not owe you
               | or anyone else comfort. He presents cold hard truth, and
               | sometimes truth hurts. Tough.
        
               | timmg wrote:
               | Not the person you were replying to, but: did you read
               | that letter?
               | 
               | It is horribly argued. It's mostly poor analogies and
               | non-sequiturs. It's no wonder Buzzfeed was the only place
               | they could get to publish it.
        
             | jltsiren wrote:
             | I haven't read much from Reich, so I don't know his
             | position. But I've understood that the current best
             | practice in human genetics is to explicitly justify the
             | population descriptors chosen for each study, rather than
             | using any fixed set of descriptors given from the outside.
             | 
             | There are two main types of genetic descriptors: those
             | based on genetic similarity and those based on ancestry
             | groups. Genetic similarity is quantitative, and individual
             | samples often have multiple labels attached to them.
             | Ancestry groups are discrete categories based on
             | quantitative measures. If it's appropriate to use
             | descriptors based on genetic ancestry groups in a study,
             | it's usually also appropriate to drop samples that don't
             | fit neatly in any single group.
             | 
             | Sometimes it's more appropriate to use descriptors based on
             | environmental factors, such as ethnicity or geography.
             | Environmental descriptors tend to be correlated with
             | genetic descriptors, but they are not the same.
        
           | naasking wrote:
           | > The reason no one wants to talk is that these discussions
           | are always co-opted by racists wanting to affirm their
           | beliefs
           | 
           | So? People need to stop undermining science and openly
           | sharing information because some people have bad ideas.
        
         | phainopepla2 wrote:
         | Is it unpopular on the right? Genuine question. I have only
         | seen people associated with the left deny or downplay this.
        
           | burnto wrote:
           | Evolution itself has some skeptics among the religious right.
        
           | jetrink wrote:
           | The religious right, specifically. They would say that all
           | people are descended quite recently from Noah and his family.
        
             | FunHearing3443 wrote:
             | Not all of us. Many are evolutionary or old earth
             | creationists that generally don't have an issue with many
             | aspects of evolution.
        
       | mohamedkoubaa wrote:
       | "To supercharge the search, Reich, Ali Akbari, a computational
       | geneticist at Harvard Medical School, and their colleagues
       | amassed the largest-ever collection of genomic data from ancient
       | humans -- from a total of 15,836 individuals from western Eurasia
       | -- including more than 10,000 newly sequenced genomes."
       | 
       | Without commenting on the content of this sentence or article, I
       | will say that it is refreshing to see sentences like this in the
       | wild after being regularly and constantly subjected to LLM slop.
        
         | sho_hn wrote:
         | And yet you managed to center AI in the discussion.
        
         | nefarious_ends wrote:
         | Seriously what's the point of this comment
        
       | like_any_other wrote:
       | Is there any species, other than humans, that is found all across
       | the globe (i.e. geographically separated), and has not
       | differentiated into subspecies? Wolves, elephants, tigers, bears,
       | and foxes have all been categorized into multiple subspecies
       | each, distinct but able to interbreed.
        
         | meroes wrote:
         | Dogs?
        
           | paulryanrogers wrote:
           | Aren't dogs technically one species?
        
             | hooo wrote:
             | This distinction seems more arbitrary over time. Growing up
             | I was taught different species couldn't interbreed. But
             | what about Neanderthal and Sapiens?
        
               | chrisweekly wrote:
               | Funny tangent: this comic has strong feelings about such
               | distinctions, using "dog" as the canonical example:
               | 
               | https://youtu.be/dNLLXZgN4Mc?si=SUhHZ2uzMZ7jgejI
        
           | like_any_other wrote:
           | I don't think you could have chosen a worse example. Dogs are
           | themselves a subspecies, _and_ are split into many different
           | breeds, of wildly different character and physiology:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog#Taxonomy
        
             | idiotsecant wrote:
             | Breeds and species are different things. Parent post is
             | making a (very good) point that dogs can pretty much all
             | breed with one another.
        
         | erichocean wrote:
         | Humans have, obviously. Just interbreeding with ancient species
         | was enough to do it, even without separate evolution.
        
         | greazy wrote:
         | The definition of what constitutes a species is a human
         | construct.
         | 
         | Two bird populations living in the same locale but divided by a
         | mountain range therefore not naturally breeding with each other
         | would classify as a different species, even if they could breed
         | with each other.
         | 
         | So your question is hard to answer.
        
           | nelox wrote:
           | I've often dreamt of breeding with that mythical bird far,
           | far away.
        
             | greazy wrote:
             | If you do cross the barrier, you could successfully mate
             | with that mythical bird!
        
           | John7878781 wrote:
           | > Two bird populations living in the same locale but divided
           | by a mountain range therefore not naturally breeding with
           | each other would classify as a different species, even if
           | they could breed with each other.
           | 
           | Really? I thought the requirements for species classification
           | were: (1) must be able to reproduce and (2) offspring must be
           | fertile.
           | 
           | Is it less objective than that?
        
             | Archelaos wrote:
             | Polar bears can have furtile offspring with grizzly/brown
             | bears. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly%E2%80%93p
             | olar_bear_hyb...
        
               | rolph wrote:
               | the reproductive incompatability, is based on
               | physiological range.
               | 
               | in general, there are multi organizational levels of
               | reproductive incompatability.
               | 
               | in this case, the geographic distance, orogenic blockade,
               | and ecological confounds of arctic conditions preclude
               | easy mingling of U.arctos x U. maritimus.
        
             | whycombinetor wrote:
             | Interfertility is not an equivalence relation, does not
             | form equivalence classes
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species
        
             | rcxdude wrote:
             | There are a lot of subtleties. Ring species are a
             | particularly fun one: you can have a population that live
             | around some natural obstacle (like a large body of water)
             | where individuals can breed successfully with individuals
             | near to them but not with ones further way (like directly
             | across the barrier), in a continuum of variation.
        
               | lemonberry wrote:
               | "Ring species are a particularly fun one"
               | 
               | This is really interesting, thank you. I've never heard
               | of "ring species" before.
        
             | joshuahedlund wrote:
             | Sometimes it's hard to objectively tell whether two animals
             | don't appear to reproduce because they are unable
             | genetically, or technically able still but behaviorally
             | unwilling in normal natural circumstances, or we don't know
             | but we just haven't observed it for that particular combo,
             | etc
        
             | bluebarbet wrote:
             | Thought experiment. Three populations, A, B, and C, divided
             | geographically along a line. Individuals from group A can
             | breed successfully with those from B but not with those
             | from C. Individuals from group C can breed successfully
             | with those from B but not A.
             | 
             | How many species are there? This is why the term "species"
             | can never be entirely objective. I remember the eureka
             | moment I had when I finally understood this (admittedly
             | somewhat simple) point.
        
               | naasking wrote:
               | It can even be more subtle, it's entirely possible that
               | _some_ rare members of A can C breed, and _some_ members
               | of C and B would not be able to breed. The  "fertility"
               | relation can only be decided between two individuals, not
               | groups. Group-level fertility is a statistical average of
               | individual fertility.
               | 
               | That said, I don't think that means that "species" is
               | entirely subjective or meaningless.
        
               | lukan wrote:
               | Is that based on a real example or hypothetical?
        
               | usrnm wrote:
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species
        
               | afpx wrote:
               | Even within one species, not every individual can
               | successfully breed with every other.
        
           | stainablesteel wrote:
           | my understanding of what classifies something as being a part
           | of the same species is the fact that they can make children
           | that are viable to have children themselves
           | 
           | horses and donkeys can breed to make mules, but the mules
           | usually cant reproduce, this is the same with tigons and
           | ligers but sometimes the females are viable
           | 
           | so if they can produce children that can produce children,
           | they're the same species. where this line is blurred, so is
           | the species line. geographical barriers have nothing to do
           | with it.
        
             | Vaphell wrote:
             | > my understanding of what classifies something as being a
             | part of the same species is the fact that they can make
             | children that are viable to have children themselves
             | 
             | things are a bit more complicated than that, because having
             | fertile offspring is not a transitive property. Ring
             | species: population A can mate with B, B with C, C with D,
             | and D with E, but A and E cannot mate, even though they are
             | part of the same continuous chain.
             | 
             | Ensatina eschscholtzii salamanders in California exhibit
             | this non-transitive behavior. Populations at the ends of
             | the coastal ranges can interbreed with their neighboring
             | populations, but where they meet in the south, the "ends"
             | of the ring do not interbreed.
        
             | rolph wrote:
             | if you consider that geographic barrier is an environment
             | of immediate lethality, or infecundity, that is
             | physiological incompatability, and would be a speciation.
             | 
             | if you consider that geographic barrier, simply precludes,
             | interaction between individuals, then you will have founder
             | effect, thus one population will be genetically decended
             | from a sample of the larger population.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founder_effect
        
           | matt-attack wrote:
           | Seems to me, that we divide other animals based on some of
           | the most minor of phenotypic expressions. The slight
           | coloration of a bird's crest, shape of some lizard's nose.
           | 
           | Yet with Homo sapiens we seem to be allergic to the idea that
           | our drastic swings in physical attributes could possibly
           | qualify as a different species (we obviously call them
           | "races"). But they plainly diverged from each other due to
           | geographic and reproductive isolation and adaptation to
           | environments. Which is precisely what causes species to
           | diverge into new ones.
           | 
           | Are we supposed to pretend that Africans DONT have black skin
           | due an adaptation to their environment?
           | 
           | Do other animals get divided into races? I know dogs have
           | "breeds" and we don't consider those species. But I don't
           | hear about "races" in other animals.
        
             | pegasus wrote:
             | > Seems to me, that we divide other animals based on some
             | of the most minor of phenotypic expressions
             | 
             | It might seem like that to you, but you'd be wrong.
             | Taxonomy prioritizes genetic distance and reproductive
             | isolation over superficial visual traits that humans happen
             | to find striking. While phenotypic variations like skin
             | color or facial structure are highly visible, they
             | represent a microscopic fraction of the overall genome and
             | do not indicate the deep divergence required to define a
             | new species.
             | 
             | And from a genetic standpoint, Homo sapiens is remarkably
             | homogeneous. Two humans from opposite sides of the planet
             | are generally more genetically similar to each other than
             | two chimpanzees from the same patch of forest. Traits like
             | skin color (an adaptation for UV protection) or nose shape
             | (an adaptation for humidity/temperature) are rapid
             | evolutionary adjustments. They change quickly on an
             | evolutionary timescale without requiring a fundamental
             | split in the species' lineage.
             | 
             | In contrast to other animals, because humans never stopped
             | breeding with one another, we never had the chance to
             | "drift" far enough apart to become different species.
             | Geographic distance in humans has historically acted as a
             | filter, not a wall.
             | 
             | So there's your answer. Because of this unique genetic
             | homogeneity (and not because of some imagined woke
             | censorship), speaking of human subspecies would be
             | scientifically mistaken.
        
           | pegasus wrote:
           | > The definition of what constitutes a species is a human
           | construct
           | 
           | That makes it sound like the boundaries between species are
           | arbitrary, but they are not. Sure, there are corner cases
           | where things become debatable, but those are the rare
           | exceptions, not the rule.
           | 
           | > Two bird populations living in the same locale but divided
           | by a mountain range therefore not naturally breeding with
           | each other would classify as a different species, even if
           | they could breed with each other.
           | 
           | This is only the case if the separation has been there long
           | enough for the two groups to develop distinct genetic markers
           | or physical traits (like the beak shape or plumage mentioned
           | in the original comment). The deeper reason they are
           | classified as different species it that they are de-facto on
           | different _evolutionary trajectories_. Which doesn 't happen
           | for human populations because historically, whatever obstacle
           | divide us, we find a way to get around it.
        
           | rolph wrote:
           | "The definition of what constitutes a species is a human
           | construct."
           | 
           | speciation is reproductive incompatability.
           | 
           | geographic isolation is more like founder effect than
           | speciation.
        
         | renewiltord wrote:
         | They have to be. The snail darter is genetically identical to
         | another animal and is a separate species. Most likely different
         | humans are as well.
        
         | yabutlivnWoods wrote:
         | > ...distinct but able to interbreed
         | 
         | I mean people won't like the idea but that's not my point; what
         | you describe variety in superficial traits while maintaining
         | common traits
         | 
         | Applied to humans; skin color, eyes, dwarfism,
         | hypertrichosis... can still interbreed
         | 
         | When it comes to categorization and taxonomy in leaky
         | abstractions like languages the boundaries get a bit hand wavy
         | and usually land on whatever fits the prevailing social
         | desirability bias of the day
        
           | like_any_other wrote:
           | > you describe variety in superficial traits
           | 
           | The same selection pressures that produced the variety of
           | "superficial" traits also act on "non-superficial" traits -
           | nature does not recognize this distinction.
        
             | yabutlivnWoods wrote:
             | You cherry picked one idea from my post. I was not
             | addressing nature but human social tropes.
             | 
             | What is a subspecies and species is random gibberish of the
             | living humans
        
         | api wrote:
         | Not many. Part of why we are like this is extreme mobility.
         | Even before modern times we were always good at getting around
         | and seem to have a desire to roam. Or at least enough of us do
         | to mix up those gene pools.
        
           | like_any_other wrote:
           | If that were true before modern times, distinctions in
           | appearance never could have developed.
           | 
           | Edit as reply because "pOsTiNg tOo FaSt":
           | 
           | > Before modern times there was enough mixing to keep
           | speciation from occurring but not enough to fully homogenize.
           | 
           | I see. Is there some quantitative genetic similarity measure,
           | by which it was determined that it was worth categorizing
           | foxes and wolves and bears into distinct
           | subspecies/breeds/whatever taxonomical categories, but not
           | humans? I assume that's what your "speciation did not occur
           | [enough to merit taxonomical distinction]" is based on.
           | 
           | I.e. by what measure are a Pygmy and a Norwegian more similar
           | than a Sumatran and a Siberian tiger [1]?
           | 
           | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47812581
        
             | api wrote:
             | It's not binary. Before modern times there was enough
             | mixing to keep speciation from occurring but not enough to
             | fully homogenize.
             | 
             | If our modern world continues for thousands of years
             | eventually our differences will start to dissolve.
        
         | showerst wrote:
         | How about Taraxacum officinale, the common dandelion?
         | 
         | It's not quite all across the globe but pretty close, and is so
         | adapted that it is not considered invasive any more in most
         | places.
        
           | chrisweekly wrote:
           | Or, it's equally invasive everywhere.
        
             | cwmoore wrote:
             | Lol everywhere there are manicured lawns?
        
         | SloppyDrive wrote:
         | We dont categorize humans that way; not because humans are
         | different but because of cultural norms.
         | 
         | The generous idea is that "subspecies" does not provide an
         | anthropologist a useful lens to look at humanity, therefore we
         | do not classify.
         | 
         | The alternative is that "subspecies" is too close to "race" for
         | scientists, publishers, and funding bodies to touch, so its
         | deliberately ignored.
        
           | verisimi wrote:
           | I agree - cultural educating trumps scientific definitions.
        
             | vjjsejj wrote:
             | It's not like those scientific definitions are particularly
             | consistent or stable, though. In a large part it's still a
             | matter of convention when it comes to non human species as
             | well
        
             | vintermann wrote:
             | Science, or you, can make up whatever definitions they
             | wish. The question is not if a definition is "true", but
             | what it's useful for.
             | 
             | Sure, you - or scientific authorities, whoever they might
             | be - can declare that there are multiple modern human
             | species. The question is, what are you intending to use
             | that definition for?
             | 
             | That applies to other branches of the tree of life, too.
             | There's not some objective genetic distance measure which
             | says what's a species and what is not. It can vary widely
             | on different parts of the tree. But it's driven by
             | pragmatism - sensible biologists will not waste time
             | arguing whether some mushrooms should be one species or
             | two, if they otherwise agree on the facts.
             | 
             | If you can't say plainly and clearly what the purpose of
             | your delineation is, and it's in your own part of the tree,
             | of course people are going to have their suspicions.
        
           | scotty79 wrote:
           | I think cultural norms enforced over generations can lead to
           | altered genetic variability.
        
         | IncreasePosts wrote:
         | Do humans not fit the standards for being broken into multiple
         | subspecies? I assumed that they would but "the science
         | community" is too scared of the implications when idiots learn
         | about it.
         | 
         | I look at a sumatran tiger and a Siberian tiger and I see a lot
         | less variance than I see when I look at a pygmy, a Norwegian,
         | an sentinel islander, and a han Chinese person
        
           | krapp wrote:
           | >Do humans not fit the standards for being broken into
           | multiple subspecies?
           | 
           | No. Multiple human subspecies did once exist (examples being
           | Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo Erectus, and Homo
           | Floresiensis) but only our species, Homo Sapiens, remains
           | (with traces of Neanderthal DNA so there was some
           | interbreeding.) However race is a cultural and social
           | construct. Different human races are not different human
           | subspecies. A Pygmy, a Norwegian, a Sentinel Islander, and a
           | Han Chinese person are all the same species. The superficial
           | variations in average height, skin color, etc. do not vary
           | enough to constitute species differentiation - humans share
           | 99.9% of their DNA, and the vast majority of genetic
           | variation exists _within_ populations (in other words, within
           | "races") and not between them.
        
             | MrBuddyCasino wrote:
             | But the DNA of the sumatran tiger and a Siberian tiger is
             | also over 99% identical?
        
               | beloch wrote:
               | The DNA of humans and chimps is 98.8% identical.
               | 
               | The percent difference between genomes of species is one
               | of those tricky measures that doesn't really give good
               | intuition. I find it much more useful to think in terms
               | of the time since two species shared a common ancestor.
               | 
               | e.g. For humans and chimps, that's several million years.
               | For Sumatran and Siberian tigers, it's around a hundred
               | thousand years.
        
               | IncreasePosts wrote:
               | What's the most recent common ancestor between an North
               | Sentinel islander and a Norwegian? Mitochondrial Eve is
               | 150kya
        
               | vjjsejj wrote:
               | Probably less than 40k? Since it took a while for modern
               | humans to leave Africa.
        
               | MrBuddyCasino wrote:
               | I don't think the out-of-africa hypothesis is defensible
               | in light of recent archeological findings, and,
               | incidentally, DNA complexity analysis.
        
               | iknowimarat wrote:
               | Out of africa remains defensible but more and more people
               | will come to the conclusion that the chinese hyporhesis
               | of the multiregional origin is somewhat true so we will
               | get a hybrid i guess
        
               | zozbot234 wrote:
               | The problem is that "Out of Africa" is an uninformative
               | name. The outflow from Africa was well underway 100k
               | years ago or even 200k years ago, and there was no
               | inherent break between that ongoing outflow and what
               | happened 40k years ago when (inasmuch as we can
               | reconstruct today) behaviorally modern rather than
               | 'archaic' humans began to migrate out, which we now call
               | "Out of Africa". So it's hard to even tell apart the
               | "recent Out of Africa" and the "multiregional" hypotheses
               | in a way that might help settle a debate.
        
               | vjjsejj wrote:
               | > it's around a hundred thousand years.
               | 
               | So not that far away since modern humans began splitting
               | up into separate subgroups outside of Africa? Of course
               | there have been quite a bit of intermixing since then
               | (more so in Eurasia than the more isolated parts of the
               | world before the modern times, though)
        
               | scotty79 wrote:
               | What percentage of DNA do all mammals share? And what all
               | mammals except platypus?
        
             | red75prime wrote:
             | > the vast majority of genetic variation exists within
             | populations
             | 
             | This particular argument (I am not talking about anything
             | else) always looked to me as "inkblot defense" (Cephalopods
             | muddy water to defend themselves).
             | 
             | Genome is discrete. A single nucleotide polymorphism can
             | have far-reaching consequences. So it's a bit like arguing
             | that this collection of pentagons is not statistically
             | different from this collection of hexagons because radius
             | variation within collections is greater than between
             | collections.
             | 
             | One day I've got into trouble by pointing to another
             | genetic adaptation (EPAS1 SNPs) rather than the poster
             | child of genetic differences: an SNP in the 6th codon of
             | the b-globin gene. But that's another story.
        
               | scotty79 wrote:
               | Species is a fuzzy concept, much like class of radius
               | variation.
        
             | vjjsejj wrote:
             | Well humans and chimpanzees share almost 99% of their DNA
             | despite being quite distant relative so that number is
             | somewhat deceptive. Not disagreeing with the overall point
             | of course
        
             | scotty79 wrote:
             | In the age of AI we probably could do better in dvivding
             | humans by pattern of variation rather than amount of
             | variation.
             | 
             | But who cares about such divisions if we all can
             | interbreed?
        
             | naasking wrote:
             | > However race is a cultural and social construct. [...]
             | The superficial variations in average height, skin color,
             | etc. do not vary enough to constitute species
             | differentiation
             | 
             | Species is also a social construct. Calling race a social
             | construct isn't the persuasive argument people seem to
             | assume.
             | 
             | > the vast majority of genetic variation exists within
             | populations (in other words, within "races") and not
             | between them.
             | 
             | This is is a fallacious argument, because there is no such
             | thing as the "average Norwegian" and the "average Pygmy",
             | and so you cannot even construct a meaningful sentence like
             | "the average Norwegian and the average Pygmy are more alike
             | than any individual Norwegian is to any other Norwegian".
             | People need to stop using this silly argument.
        
               | krapp wrote:
               | It's the established scientific consensus. Obviously it
               | isn't convincing to racists, but no argument would be
               | given that racists don't approach the subject in good
               | faith to begin with.
               | 
               | I think you're being too pedantic, though, because the
               | statement "the average Norwegian and the average Pygmy
               | are more alike than any individual Norwegian is to any
               | other Norwegian" is perfectly sensible within the context
               | of this thread and relative to the supposition that
               | genetic variability between human populations is a valid
               | basis to justify a biological definition of race and
               | further classifying human races as subspecies. That
               | species is also a social construct is true, and you seem
               | to think that it disproves the premise, but it really
               | doesn't because species is a social construct in the
               | sense that all scientific classification is a social
               | construct. But when people say that race is a social
               | construct, they mean it was created to justify white
               | supremacy, slavery and colonialism, and that (unlike
               | species) it serves no useful scientific purpose. You're
               | intentionally omitting necessary context to create a
               | false equivalence between race and species.
               | 
               | Here are some actual scientifically credentialed papers
               | and statements supporting the thesis that race has no
               | biological basis. I doubt anyone will bother reading them
               | but here they are just for the record. Further reading is
               | easy to find.
               | 
               | https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8604262/
               | 
               | https://bioanth.org/about/aaba-statement-on-race-racism/
               | 
               | https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/evolutionary-
               | human-s...
               | 
               | https://www.sapiens.org/biology/is-race-real/
        
               | zozbot234 wrote:
               | > But when people say that race is a social construct,
               | they mean it was created to justify white supremacy,
               | slavery and colonialism
               | 
               | Yes, the modern context of what we call race today is
               | inherently linked to notions like _limpieza de sangre_
               | and _casta_ in post-conquest Latin America - the true
               | prototypical example of structural racism, where for
               | several centuries and over several generations a  "white"
               | appearance was conflated with a socially elite status and
               | a "racialized" appearance with poverty and
               | marginalization. The Moors in Medieval, Renaissance and
               | early modern Europe were of African origin, and sometimes
               | even had what we would now call a Sub-Saharan appearance,
               | but they were not considered "Black" in racial terms
               | because that was not a notion that existed in that
               | specific milieu.
        
               | naasking wrote:
               | > It's the established scientific consensus.
               | 
               | So was the fact that ulcers weren't caused by bacteria.
               | "Established scientific consensus" is another argument
               | people need to stop using.
               | 
               | > You're intentionally omitting necessary context to
               | create a false equivalence between race and species
               | 
               | No, I'm not equating race and species, I'm refuting the
               | argument that race being a social construct makes it
               | meaningless or scientifically useless by pointing out
               | that species is also a social construct while being
               | meaningful and scientifically useful. Therefore the
               | argument that it's a social construct is a red herring.
               | 
               | > But when people say that race is a social construct,
               | they mean it was created to justify white supremacy,
               | slavery and colonialism, and that (unlike species) it
               | serves no useful scientific purpose.
               | 
               | So you agree that calling it a social construct is
               | completely besides the point, and people are not saying
               | what they mean and merely polluting discussions with
               | pointless red herrings.
               | 
               | Now whether race serves a useful purpose is highly
               | debatable. There are plenty of statistical associations
               | with race that are used to this day, eg. race as a risk
               | factor in sickle cell anemia. If your argument is that we
               | usually have _better_ classifications than race in many
               | circumstances, then sure, but note that this _still_
               | doesn 't prove the intended point that race
               | classifications are _useless_ , which is a claim that
               | they never have any use.
               | 
               | Edit: > the statement "the average Norwegian and the
               | average Pygmy are more alike than any individual
               | Norwegian is to any other Norwegian" is perfectly
               | sensible
               | 
               | Just want to be clear that this is still a fundamental
               | category error. These are completely unlike measures and
               | equating them properly yields different conclusions, eg.
               | using pairwise genetic distance measures. See the paper,
               | "Human Genetic Diversity: Lewontin's Fallacy" for where
               | this misunderstanding originated.
        
         | samsartor wrote:
         | My understanding is that humans have very limited genetic
         | diversity compared to most other animals, because of the
         | population bottlenecks we've been through. And further, that
         | diversity is mostly between individuals, not between groups.
         | The distinction is easy to see in cats vs dogs: they both have
         | similar overall genetic diversity but two Chihuahuas have
         | virtually all the same genes (the small angry ones) while two
         | tabby cats are more distinct. The two cats have different
         | combinations of big/small nice/mean smart/dumb, but the genes
         | average out to the same "typical" kind of cat in both cases.
         | 
         | Because humans get around so much, and because we think
         | interesting-looking people are hot, the diversity is spread
         | pretty broadly across the whole population. The average
         | european person and the average east asian person are a little
         | bit different genetically, but way less different than any two
         | real europeans or two east-asians are to one another.
         | 
         | In short, the distributions of individuals overlap so much that
         | the trendlines are pretty close to useless. And historically
         | speaking, the people who tried to make a hard distinction out
         | of those trendlines had awful motives.
        
           | ralfd wrote:
           | > The average european person and the average east asian
           | person are a little bit different genetically, but way less
           | different than any two real europeans or two east-asians are
           | to one another.
           | 
           | This is always touted as an "racism-is-not-only-immoral-it-
           | is-scientifically-wrong" argument, but it is a fallacy.
           | 
           | Example: The average height (a trait with very high
           | heritability) of Dutch men is 6'0 feet (183 cm) and the
           | average height of Philippine men is 5'4 (163 cm). This means
           | the height difference between these two groups is 20 cm. And
           | it is obvious that the difference inside one group MUST be
           | larger, for example there are 6'4 Dutch basketballers but
           | also certainly Dutch 5'2 horse riding jockeys.
           | 
           | And depending on context both of these insights are useful.
           | For example if you manage a basketball team it is much more
           | effective to consider people as individuals, simplified you
           | should hire very tall people (regardless if they are Dutch or
           | Philippines) who can throw precisely a ball into a basket.
           | But the diversity between population groups points to real
           | information too! If you sell shoes to both countries you
           | shouldn't provide the same one-size-fits-all and assume to
           | catch the same percentage of the market.
           | 
           | Plus the overlap in one metric is expanding into separable
           | clusters the more dimensions are used:
           | 
           | https://i.sstatic.net/r6cWd.jpg
           | 
           | Take a Dutch and Philippine who have the exact same height:
           | Their own respective brothers (heck, even twins) will not be
           | the same perfect match, instead being a bit taller or
           | smaller. But the more variables you consider (weight, muscle
           | composition, leg length, head radius, hand size, form of
           | earlobe .. etc) you will find that holistically seen two
           | brothers truly are much more similar to each other than to a
           | stranger.
        
             | daveguy wrote:
             | None of what you said refutes _the fact_ that genetic
             | diversity is just as different within two people of the
             | same ethnicity as it is between different ethnicities.
             | 
             | You listed a handful of traits from a handful of genes. And
             | from that you make an argument about relative distributions
             | of entire genomes of entire populations. Do you realize the
             | fact that brothers are genetically similar compared to a
             | stranger in no way implies the similarity or difference of
             | entire populations?
             | 
             | Even the traits you mention are just a handful of
             | _physical_ traits. There are about 20,000 protein encoding
             | genes and 180,000 non-encoding. Protein encoding genes code
             | for the structures in our body. The other 180,000 genes
             | code for all kind of dynamics -- the rna that turns genes
             | to proteins, how proteins are expressed in different cells
             | to make them different cells, how relative expression
             | levels change in response to external stimulus, etc. So,
             | the set of genes to consider is clearly all 200,000 genes
             | and not just the 20,000 protein encoding genes much less
             | the handful of protein encoding genes responsible for
             | something like eye color.
             | 
             | Unfortunately for racists but fortunately for the vast
             | majority, the world is a great big melting pot with all the
             | different ethnicities producing all kinds of variety. So
             | much that the blend complexity long ago surpassed any tiny
             | set of visible trait uniformity.
             | 
             | I honestly don't know how so many people fall for these
             | simplistic illogical racist arguments. But it makes me
             | happy to know that racists are about 200,000 years to late
             | to shove the entire human race into tiny little boxes based
             | on physical traits.
        
               | pfdietz wrote:
               | > None of what you said refutes the fact that genetic
               | diversity is just as different within two people of the
               | same ethnicity as it is between different ethnicities.
               | 
               | Note, however, that this does not imply there are not
               | significant genetic differences between different
               | ethnicities. Differences that are selected for will be
               | cloaked in a sea of non-significant differences.
        
               | daveguy wrote:
               | Definitely. I'm not saying there aren't average
               | differences. We literally see different physical traits.
               | But physical traits are a minute fraction of all the
               | complexity that is the human genome. And all of those
               | physical traits are always mixing fluidly between _and_
               | within groups.
               | 
               | My point is, there are clearly wide swaths of genetic
               | traits that we have in common with any other ethnicity
               | compared to what may be the average of a broad
               | distribution. Humans are inherently mosaic.
               | 
               | Personally I believe it's why our species is so
               | resilient. But that's a stronger statement, so just a
               | belief.
        
               | pfdietz wrote:
               | Yes, and there are also wide swaths of genetic traits
               | that we have in common with other species. But it would
               | be senseless to propose we're the same as chimpanzees.
               | The point is it doesn't take much in the way of genetic
               | differences, as a fraction of the total genome, to make a
               | very large difference in phenotype.
        
               | daveguy wrote:
               | Well, if the phenotype or trait due to any random gene
               | was the differentiation between race, species, or
               | anything else besides that specific trait, you might have
               | a point in support of OP. But unfortunately for racist
               | ducks there are so many differences, _and similarities_ ,
               | that have nothing to do with hair color or height. Any
               | given swath is it's own mosaic of combinations, no matter
               | what we label it.
        
             | masfuerte wrote:
             | A few hundred years ago Europeans were very much shorter
             | too. The Chinese have increased in height within just the
             | last couple of generations. In both cases this isn't
             | because their genes changed, it's because their diets
             | changed. Diet also explains the difference between the
             | Netherlands and the Philippines.
        
               | bilbo0s wrote:
               | The height thing is a bad example. Generally in genetics
               | you like to focus on things without so many confounding
               | factors. That's why the article focuses on attributes
               | like baldness, MS, and lactose intolerance.
        
           | cineticdaffodil wrote:
           | I ve read this in a breathless ("help my ideology is under
           | attack by reality") voice and it took a page away fro
           | interesting discussions.
           | 
           | My pet theory is that the species inherited a loop
           | deformation by default from our ancestors, defacto splitting
           | the species planetwide into three subspecieses. One adapted
           | to peace, one adapted to strife, one adapted to all out
           | carnage. The obvious benefits of various adaptions of what we
           | perceive as mental sickness, but what are actual adaptions to
           | the loop communicating themselves. In this small moment where
           | one (peacetime) insanity is uprooted to replace with a
           | (wartime) insanity, might we be free in the anti gravity of
           | the situation to discuss complex answers before the yikes of
           | you silence us for the rest of the cycle? Thanks for the gag
           | in all these years, that helped and did nothing.
        
           | pfdietz wrote:
           | However, with a population of 8 billion and a genome of 3.1
           | billion base pairs, the entire space of single nucleotide
           | mutations is produced in just a few generations. So any such
           | useful single nucleotide mutation is going to become
           | available regardless of past bottlenecks.
        
           | pegasus wrote:
           | Good points. On the bottleneck hypothesis, a new study came
           | out in 2024 arguing that the 900kya population loss was, if
           | not a statistical artifact, more likely a genetic sweep or
           | genome takeover via adaptive advantage. Whatever might be the
           | truth in this case, it is true that human evolution,
           | especially on the cultural plane, has gone through a bunch of
           | major leaps which have had the effect of one small population
           | eventually dominating the global genetic pool. Basically, a
           | winner-takes-all dynamic. One example would be the Proto
           | Indo-Europeans who have replaced male lineages throughout
           | Europe and beyond. There are other such examples as well,
           | like Neanderthal extinction.
        
             | rolph wrote:
             | you want to be a little careful.
             | 
             | genetic bottleneck does not imply population loss.
             | 
             | it is about unavailability of large gene pool.
             | 
             | this can be population loss, but can also, be a loss of
             | compatability between individuals, due to genomic
             | modification, such as but not limited to chromosomal
             | fusion.
             | 
             | https://www.johnhawks.net/p/when-did-human-
             | chromosome-2-fuse
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertsonian_translocation
        
         | abc123abc123 wrote:
         | So have humans. There are white, red, black, brown, yellow
         | people, and they live in their own happy places on the planet,
         | except for the fact that we now move them around by plane, boat
         | and goat.
        
         | liveoneggs wrote:
         | I think subspecies is: "doesn't generally interbreed" and
         | "generally lives apart"
        
         | throwup238 wrote:
         | Many researchers now refer to neanderthals as _Homo sapiens
         | neanderthalensis_ , a subspecies of modern humans.
         | 
         | It doesn't get talked about much because it's a sideshow
         | without an easy resolution, but the question of modern and
         | archaic human speciation is far from a settled problem and many
         | of the species formerly considered to be separate are now often
         | lumped in as subspecies.
        
           | summa_tech wrote:
           | First, I like your username. Second, I think it may be a
           | problem of ebb and flow of scientific discourse (shifts in
           | how we apply the definition of species) more than reflecting
           | underlying reality, which - as you said - has no easy
           | resolution.
        
             | throwup238 wrote:
             | It's not the ebb and flow so much as avoiding pointless
             | academic bikeshedding. A bunch of very competitive explorer
             | archaeologists named the separate species based on
             | morphological skeletal differences decades before we even
             | knew about DNA and now as the evidence accumulates, the
             | question has gone from hard facts to a debate what is a
             | species vs subspecies. Nobody really cares about the latter
             | because it makes no functional difference to the research,
             | so they let the problem lie until new interesting evidence
             | presents itself. We know the species could interbreed,
             | which is what matters to us now, not whether their taxa is
             | three words or two (which is what this boils down to, some
             | people write one way, some people the other and both know
             | what each other is saying)
        
           | usrnm wrote:
           | > now refer to neanderthals as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
           | 
           | What do you mean "now", they definitely were called that 30
           | years ago, when I first learned about them
        
       | NelsonMinar wrote:
       | Every time I read about ancient DNA work, it's about Reich's
       | research. Can anyone expert in the field shed light on that? He
       | certainly seems to have a successful research group. And he's a
       | good communicator, I got a lot out of his 2018 book. Who else
       | should I be reading or reading about?
        
         | rolph wrote:
         | chromosomal fusion as the explanation for the "loss" of a
         | chromosome pair, in humans.
         | 
         | https://www.johnhawks.net/p/when-did-human-chromosome-2-fuse
         | 
         | also , independent confirmation of observations, are gold for
         | research, however needless repetition of effort is not.
         | 
         | thus when someone is prolific,or uncannily mad about a topic it
         | tends to be dominated by that persons submissions, and often
         | any other contributors are on that lead researchers team.
        
       | vivzkestrel wrote:
       | funny how racists on twitter havent learnt that skin color is a
       | function of natural selection, how do we get this message to them
       | in a non offensive yet informational enough way to change their
       | perceptions of colored people
        
         | Rekindle8090 wrote:
         | Are the twitter racists in the room with you now?
        
       | Mikhail_K wrote:
       | From the article:
       | 
       |  _We finally observed signals of selection for combinations of
       | alleles that today are associated with three correlated
       | behavioural traits: scores on intelligence tests (increasing
       | 0.74+-0.12), household income (increasing 1.12+-0.12) and years
       | of schooling (increasing 0.63+-0.13). These signals are all
       | highly polygenic, and we have to drop 449-1,056 loci for the
       | signals to become non-significant(Extended Data Fig.10). The
       | signals are largely driven by selection before approximately
       | 2,000 years , after which tends towards zero._
       | 
       | That's the part that the speech police is afraid of.
        
         | zozbot234 wrote:
         | > That's the part that the speech police is afraid of.
         | 
         | Why? This article just focuses on changes in West Eurasia
         | (probably because that's what they had data for), but the bulk
         | of changes that resulted in behavioral modernity surely
         | occurred in Africa - where the genetic variability for them to
         | occur was and still is far greater than elsewhere - and
         | plausibly similar changes occurred in other regions such as
         | Central Eurasia, Southeast Eurasia etc. West Eurasia was a
         | backwater.
        
           | ralfd wrote:
           | > and plausibly similar changes occurred in other regions
           | 
           | Sure. But did ALL regions change? And did they change to the
           | same destination? When the environments differed so much? It
           | is easy to see how answers (or the questions themselves)
           | could be politically contentious.
        
           | Mikhail_K wrote:
           | > the bulk of changes that resulted in behavioral modernity
           | 
           | > surely occurred in Africa
           | 
           | "Surely" without examining the actual evidence is almost
           | surely wrong.
        
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