Sleeping With The Enemy

[MsGuy]

So OK, the title is a bit misleading (in the context of MER), but this New Yorker article intoduced me to a different way of looking at human evolution, in particular the development (maybe) of a genetic basis for our 'insane' behavior patterns.

It doesn't hurt that the guy who pioneered this field apparently plays for our team.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/15/110815fa_fact_kolbert?currentPage=all

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oh my MSGuy you read New Yorker too.. So hot.. I don't believe in evolution.. It's incomplete and biased..

So OK, the title is a bit misleading (in the context of MER), but this New Yorker article intoduced me to a different way of looking at human evolution, in particular the development (maybe) of a genetic basis for our 'insane' behavior patterns.

It doesn't hurt that the guy who pioneered this field apparently plays for our team.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/15/110815fa_fact_kolbert?currentPage=all

[lookin]

Interesting article. Especially the part about how we humans, before driving the neanderthals into extinction, fucked them first. Even more interesting is that no one had predicted it before seeing the genetic proof.

Bet no one here is surprised.

[MsGuy]

Lookin, given my 64 years observing human behavior, you would be hard put to get me to believe humans did NOT fuck them. If its got a hole that fits and you can pin it down long enough to put it in, somebody is fucking it. The only question for me was whether the species were cross-fertile.

Some paleontologists have been pushing crossbreeding based on scattered intermediate skeletons found decades ago, both in the Near East & Spain, but there was real resistance to the idea. Most folks in the field just weren't personally comfortable with the idea, so they found ways to explain away (or just ignore) the evidence. Some people seem to find the idea of humans being descended from multiple cross-breeding species creepy.

[MsGuy]

Hito, I love you to death and really have no problem with your Christianity, but you can be religious without having to reject everything we know about biology (and a good chunk of what we know about chemistry). Your friends, kind as they are, are just wrong to tell you that you must.

Kisses and hugs to you even so.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Well I don't agree everything with today's Christianity either. The theory of evolution, if you look into it closely, has a lot of problems with it. I only accept some part of it. We need to study more and come up with a better story. BTW a biology professor at Ursula Goodenough "The sacred depths of nature" is a great book.

You had a seminal moment in your life when you were able to see what you had not seen before. Why does it have to only happen once, MsGuy?

Hito, I love you to death and really have no problem with your Christianity, but you can be religious without having to reject everything we know about biology (and a good chunk of what we know about chemistry). Your friends, kind as they are, are just wrong to tell you that you must.

Kisses and hugs to you even so.

[MsGuy]

You had a seminal moment in your life when you were able to see what you had not seen before. Why does it have to only happen once, MsGuy?

These days I figure I'm doing exceptionally well if I can find my cell phone without having to wait for someone to call.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oh my MsGuy I have a real excuse to call you every day and night. I will probably say that it came to my mind you lost your phone... What number should I call?

These days I figure I'm doing exceptionally well if I can find my cell phone without having to wait for someone to call.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oh Dr Goodenough is at University of Washington... I accidentally omitted that in my previous post. I need a husband to type for me..

[lookin]

The only question for me was whether the species were cross-fertile.

If I'm understanding the article correctly, they were indeed.

Before modern humans “replaced” the Neanderthals, they had sex with them. The liaisons produced children, who helped to people Europe, Asia, and the New World.

The leaky-replacement hypothesis—assuming for the moment that it is correct—provides further evidence of the closeness of Neanderthals to modern humans. Not only did the two interbreed; the resulting hybrid offspring were functional enough to be integrated into human society. Some of these hybrids survived to have kids of their own, who, in turn, had kids, and so on to the present day. Even now, at least thirty thousand years after the fact, the signal is discernible: all non-Africans, from the New Guineans to the French to the Han Chinese, carry somewhere between one and four per cent Neanderthal DNA.

Africans, therefore, would be the only ethnic group who are 100% human. The rest of us are part neanderthal.

Goes to show, if you look hard enough, there's no telling what you may discover in a pair of genes.