Neanderthal DNA Project Claims First Genome

[Minimalist]

I think that what we call "species" were actually just variations on HE

Variations perhaps caused by "isolation" as per Darwin? I can live with that.

[Digit]

Ditto.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Once HE arrived on the scene, it might be more accurate to speak of new traits than of new "species."

I'd rather call that variants. But even Darwin classified what I call variants as different species: his finches.
And subsequent 2 million years of hominid migration, where different variants would connect and disconnect with/from other variants along their dispersion trails, and cross-breeding between all those variants at various points in time, did much to muddle the picture.

[jw1815]

I think that what we call "species" were actually just variations on HE

Variations perhaps caused by "isolation" as per Darwin? I can live with that.

Yes, by isolation, per Darwin. I usually think of them in terms of gene pools rather than as "variations" or "variants."

You can see traces of some traits of "extinct species" of humans in people today. So, did the traits really get lost? Or just become modified and less frequent due to the muddled intermixing that RS described? Did species of humans go extinct or did some human traits become extinct or simply modified?

Consider some of the criteria used for classifying "species" of early humans, e.g. skull shape, brow ridges, height, cranial size, the numbers of teeth and their shapes.

Yet, it’s “normal” for HSS to be 5’1” or 6’4”. And the cranial size of HSS today doesn’t determine intelligence. Einstein’s cranium wasn’t larger than most modern HSS craniums.

Or, consider teeth. That’s a trait often used for categorizing species of animals. Adult HSS are defined as having 32 teeth. But some people only have 28 because they lack the third set of molars known as wisdom teeth. Then there’s a cusp formation called Carabelli’s Trait that’s found primarily among Europeans. The sinodont trait (shovel teeth) is found among Native Americans and people in some parts of Asia. So, if future physical anthropologists were unaware of these differences among human beings, would they classify skeletal remains with these varying traits as separate species?

[Digit]

All your comments jw are those which over the years have convinced more than anything else that HSS is a hybrid.
I've had heated debates on the subject of brain size versus intelligence with certain people and all the criteria normally used, such as with Einsten, will not stand!
On a brain body mass ratio as a standard the European House Mouse scores higher than we do!
Take Einstein, this is possibly a continuation of the debate on Nazereth but I include it here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence

...I do not, as and Askenasi, do this to score possible points but simply to demonstrate that mere brain size, body/brain mass ratios fail to explain this.
The only thing that does is inbreeding, natural selection.
This info has offended some as it was released at about the same time as the existance of a so called 'intelligence' gene was reputedly discovered in Europeans and found to be absent from Africans.
If these are facts, then recognising them is helpful in understanding why we are, supposedly, the most intelligent species on this planet.
I have argued in the past that I can see little advantage in intelligenge as a survival factor, I doubt Einstein could run any faster than the rest of us, and the survival chances of a heavily pregnant women would seem equally slim on occasion.
I think we need to look again at this subject.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

On a brain body mass ratio as a standard the European House Mouse scores higher than we do!

Ah!


That explains the Republican Party.

[Digit]

Oooh you're nasty Min!

Roy.