More proof re the Multiregional hypothesis

[TylerDurden]

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2014/jul/01/features

[TylerDurden]

Here's another paper that debunks the out of africa theory:-

http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=19566#.VJjeqoaVA

[PaleoPhil]

GS already shared an article that featured that 2012 Klyosov paper here: http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/infonews-items/'out-of-africa'-theory-officially-debunked/msg123830/#msg123830
and you even commented in the thread.

What do you make of these critique's of Klyosov's work:

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?1090-Analysis-of-Klyosov-s-Methodology

Here are a couple of examples:

10-01-2013, 11:51 PM #11
GailT

When I say a "large number of people" accept AK's fringe theories, I'm speaking purely of the amateur and genetic genealogist community, where he has a significant following. And intentionally or not, he provides cover for people who, for ideological reasons, refuse to accept the modified Out of Africa theory.

Regarding y-DNA and mtDNA phylogeny, no one in the scientific community accepts AK's fringe theories, and I doubt that academic researchers even know about AK's work, just as most academics are probably unaware of a recent self published paper on big foot DNA. Who has time to study and refute every unscientific conspiracy theory?

AK makes statements about y-DNA phylogeny that are very obviously, objectively, factually incorrect. If you read the papers he has written on ancient human origins and prehistoric migrations (and his response to criticism on the genealogy-dna list), I think there are only two possible conclusions: either he doesn't understand science, or he has some other agenda.

Again, I have no problem with his STR analysis. Many other people have done STR analysis that is about as accurate or uncertain as his. But as far as I know, no one else has tried to use their STR analysis to assert that every scientific study of uniparental DNA, from 1987 to the present, is wrong.

05-27-2014, 05:13 PM #17
jeanL

After careful review of Klyosov 2009a paper, and his 2011 paper, I have come to notice that a lot of these calibrated TMRCA underwent great lengths of data processing, which pretty much defeats the purpose of using random data. Klyosov correction formula for back mutations:

Lamba=Lambaobs/2(1+exp(Lambaobs)) for completely symmetrical

Is pretty much a fudge factor, is a way for him to manipulate the data to fit his calculations. STRs trees aren't symmetric for the mere reason that the mutation rate itself increases with repeat length, so there is a bias for up mutations vs down mutations. Also none of his methods, be it the mutation counting method, nor the logarithmic method are backed by any other methodology, be it modeling mutations as discrete bernoulli distributions, or continuous poisson distributions.

All STRs mutation rates are subject to a constrain, any TMRCA older than 1/mu, where mu is the mutation rate, is due to be underestimated, using the ASD methodology.

[TylerDurden]

Well, I am no scientist so the above critiques  are just mumbo-jumbo to me. It does seem heavily biased, though, with lots of  wild assertions and claims, though, maybe the author of the study I mentioned is also not above reproach either.

The central point, though, was that the questioned  study was not peer-reviewed. Again, I have no idea whether this is true or not. What I can safely state, though, is that peer-review is nowhere near as solid an approval as some gullible people make it out to be. For example,

http://time.com/81388/is-the-peer-review-process-for-scientific-papers-broken/

https://www.genomeweb.com/peer-review-broken

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/23672/title/Is-Peer-Review-Broken-/

Hm,,I had forgotten that GS had pointed to that article before. Interestingly, it seems that the MLTR hypothesis is a little popular in Russia and even more so in  China, while the OoA theory is  still entrenched in the West despite half of it already having been debunked( concerning the former OoA  notion that AMH never interbred with Neanderthals or other  types of apemen, since disproven 3 times(so far)).

[PaleoPhil]

Klyosov actually lives in the USA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatole_Klyosov), having migrated here, though I wouldn't be surprised if the multiregional hypothesis is popular in Russia. I'm a bit surprised that you're defending his work, given some claims he made about R1b (the dominant Y haplogroup of Western Europeans).

Apparently the way his critics know his work is not peer-reviewed is because it is all either self-published or published online at open-access sites that do not have scientific peer review. Yes, peer review is not a guarantee of anything, but self-published material has an even worse reputation than peer-reviewed material. It doesn't prove anything either way, though it is noteworthy.

The Chinese government is indeed desperate to prove that the Chinese do not descend from people from anywhere else than China. They are reportedly working hard to find evidence. It will be interesting to see what they turn up.

[TylerDurden]

I am not defending his work per se, I just included his article as I had come across it at random and had forgotten it had already been mentioned. Obviously it is not  as new as I thought it was.

At any rate, what I find of interest is that Neanderthal man was clearly Caucasoid in appearance. There have  been some claims that the gene for red hair in Neanderthals was somehow different from the gene for red hair in modern man, but, given the sheer lack of knowledge of genetics nowadays I am highly dubious of that claim.  I just do not believe that red hair  somehow evolved twice in  two different populations, especially given OoA claims that red hair/blond hair etc. in modern humans supposedly appeared over only a few millenia in very recent times. To give another example, the Mongoloid peoples were already cold-adapted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongoloid#Cold_adaption

yet they did not develop blonde hair and light-coloured eyes, not even the Eskimoes, even over many millenia.

 Yet, OoA proponents mostly  claim that blond hair etc. all originated due to adaptation to a cold climate, despite Mongoloids obviously being far better adapted to cold environments  than Caucasians.

Hmm, I rather like the above link as it at least disproves the notion that we are all hot-climate-adapted due to some supposed recent African origin.

[PaleoPhil]

What about the red hair on orangutans? Couldn't that have evolved separately?

I think sexual selection and perhaps other factors likely play a larger role in red and blonde hair than climate. Interestingly, my own hair became less red and more brown, closer to that of my siblings, after I started using clay "shampoo" (mostly red and white clays, but also green and grey) upon Inger's recommendation. So hair color is apparently not purely due to genes. Perhaps copper collected in my hair and gave it a more reddish hue and clay removed some of the excess copper?

[TylerDurden]

What about the red hair on orangutans? Couldn't that have evolved separately?

Perhaps, but that sort of evolution involved millions of years to achieve, not the mere millenia that OoA proponents claim for modern man.

Here's an interesting link re orang utangs and humans:-
http://www.news.pitt.edu/news/humans-related-to-orangutans

I think sexual selection and perhaps other factors likely play a larger role in red and blonde hair than climate. Interestingly, my own hair became less red and more brown, closer to that of my siblings, after I started using clay "shampoo" (mostly red and white clays, but also green and grey) upon Inger's recommendation. So hair color is apparently not purely due to genes. Perhaps copper collected in my hair and gave it a more reddish hue and clay removed some of the excess copper?

As a newborn, I had black hair, then, after a few months, I developed bright blond hair(apparently such "nordicism" is a sign of neoteny"). This lasted until I was c,5 years old at which point my hair darkened to a reddish-brown, then a brown colour. However,  as soon as I spend some time outdoors in a hot summer(preferably in a mediterranean climate or hotter) my hair becomes blondish again, though not fully blond like before.

Red hair contains iron. Perhaps those treatments simply got rid of the iron-content of your hair?