Caucasians aren't Paleo

[Projectile Vomit]

Interesting article from Yahoo! news:

7,000-Year-Old Human Bones Suggest New Date for Light-Skin Gene

[TylerDurden]

The article is, of course, nonsense. There has already been scientific data showing that red hair appeared 80,000 years ago, at the very least:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1288200/

and red hair tends to go with lighter skin. Interestingly, the ancestor of modern humans and chimps also had white skin, making it clear that genes for white skin existed millions of years ago, at the very least. Come to think of it, chimpanzees and japanese macaques also have pale skin under their fur.


As for claims re genes, the science behind genetics is so bad and so new that no one can anyway take the  claim in the above post  seriously. A classic example was a genetic "test" done on James Watson which supposedly "proved" that he had 16% subsaharan African DNA, despite him having no trace whatsoever of black features on his face etc.. A female scientist did some actual research on the faulty methodology behind the test and recognised that if we were to take that finding at face value one would also have to assume that  the test "proved" that James Watson was also a woman, which is, of course, ridiculous.
What I mean is that  something like the occurrence of  pale skin is far more likely to depend on a combination of different genes plus a variety of  different genetic expressions.

[Projectile Vomit]

The 80,000 year figure in the paper you cited is based entirely on an assumed rate of genetic drift. Maybe it's enough to convince you, but I don't find it particularly compelling. I also find it strange that in your first paragraph you make a claim based on genetics, then in the very next paragraph you tell us how terrible the science behind genetics is. Nothing unusual though...

[TylerDurden]

Nothing illogical about my first citing  a study which safely debunked the article you cited, and then stating that genetics as a whole is a seriously flawed, very new field.  At any rate, the article you cited has further problems which violate common-sense, not just being worse science than the study I cited. For example, it has been shown that the Neanderthals had red hair, and Neanderthals appeared hundreds of thousands of years before Homo Sapiens. Now there is scientific data showing a level of interbreeding between Neanderthals and humans but let us pretend that, for religious reasons or whatever(?), they two chose not to interbreed, there is still the massive problem involved in that earlier hominid species, such as the Neanderthals, already had developed pale skin long before  and, for that matter,  probably blue/green  etc. eyes as well.

http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals/neanderthal-genes-red-hair-and-more

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/318/5855/1453.abstract

[goodsamaritan]

all this is entertainment though.
we may never really know.

unless maybe the aliens who tampered with our ancestors step forward.
then more entertainment!

[PaleoPhil]

all this is entertainment though.
we may never really know.

You might be right, though recent evidence indicates that Eurasian skin genetics may be especially Neanderthal:

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/01/29/your-inner-neanderthal-fossil-bits-neanderthal-dna/
Scientists isolated the parts of the non-African modern human genetic blueprint that still contain Neanderthal remnants. Overall, it's barely more than 1 percent, said two studies released Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science.

However, in some places, such as the DNA related to the skin, the genetic instructions are as much as 70 percent Neanderthal and in other places there's virtually nothing from the species that's often portrayed as brutish cavemen.

Peter Frost suggested an explanation for this discrepancy in the evidence--that most of today's Europeans are not descended from the darker skinned Europeans of the past:

http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-brown-man-with-blue-eyes.html
This leads us to the debate over the discovery of so-called ‘Negroid’ skeletal remains in Europe. Clearly, these individuals were not African, but nor were they like present-day Europeans. They seem to represent an older phenotype that had already lost predominance by Holocene times. ...

This older phenotype must have gradually disappeared as the newer phenotype spread outwards from the plains of northern and eastern Europe.

Peter has presented quite a bit of evidence and persuasive argument for sexual selection being the primary driver of lighter and more variable skin, hair and eye color, thought that doesn't necessarily mean that diet didn't play any role. Some scientists claim that there was additional lightening of Northwest European skin within the past few thousand years, IIRC, which diet theoretically might have been a factor in, though there are other possible causes.

Peter's blog is a good one. I recommend it to anyone interested in the topic. He places evidence above politically correctness and is pretty thorough. Which reminds me that Tyler may like the fact that Peter wrote in the past about the fraudulent behavior of Stephen Jay Gould re: brain size research. Gould's emphasis was the reverse--politics and political correctness over evidence and integrity.

Hmm, I don't know how accurate this is, but I'll bet Tyler won't like this claim:

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/which-parts-us-are-neanderthal-our-genes-point-skin-hair-2D12015074
"The current view is that the branch of our family tree that gave rise to Neanderthals migrated out of Africa first, and then headed for Europe and Asia. They were followed hundreds of thousands of years later by our own branch, Homo sapiens. The latest findings suggest that those new arrivals must have acquired beneficial traits from Neanderthals through interbreeding."

[TylerDurden]

I view the multiregional hypothesis as pretty much proven. The fact we interbred with many other apemen(not just Neanderthals) is a certainty now that we  know that  some humans have homo denisovans DNA in them. I simply do not see modern man as ever emerging from Africa, but having evolved to human status in  many areas of the world. Indeed, the other way round is quite possible, imo, namely that modern man  emerged in countless different places outside Africa(if you count Neanderthals etc. as being on a par with mankind) and then hominised  elements in Africa. Who knows?

[cherimoya_kid]

Geoff, only racists champion the multiregional hypothesis. Even if you're not a racist, you end up making people think you are by speaking positively about that hypothesis.

[goodsamaritan]

Geoff, only racists champion the multiregional hypothesis. Even if you're not a racist, you end up making people think you are by speaking positively about that hypothesis.

Is this perception a USA thing ?

[TylerDurden]

Is this perception a USA thing ?

No, CK's claim is more or less a "liberal retard"-based opinion. Anything  factual that does not fit in with  silly liberal retard notions is automatically labelled "racist" or "politically-incorrect" or whatever, rather than  attempting and then  invariably failing to debunk it scientifically. In actual fact, the multiregional hypothesis  has already won half the battle on the scientific front - in prior times, Out of Africa proponents  routinely tried to claim in the past  that modern humans somehow magically never interbred with other apemen species, but the current evidence re Interbreeding with apemen  like Neanderthals,  Homo Denisovans  and one archaic African prehominid  population  has now  already destroyed that half of the out of africa theory, proving that all modern humans are an interesting combination of various, different apemen/prehominids:-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_human_admixture_with_modern_Homo_sapiens


At any rate, I made my point rather well, which was that characteristics such as red hair or pale skin have been around in the hominid/prehomind DNA for  anywhere up to millions of years ago. Also, I dislike the Out of Africa theory because it in many ways resembles  psychotic Creationist-style thinking re claims of very recent origins, whereas it is clear that our origins go way back to the Neanderthals etc. etc.

What I find amusing is that the above absurd claims re caucasoids supposedly only developing blonde hair and light skin or blue eyes in  very recent times,  could actually be seen to be rather  racist despite the scientists involved  clearly being liberal retards, since, if the claims are true that they are only recently evolved characteristics, then that would suggest that Caucasoids are somehow a "next stage" in evolution.

[TylerDurden]

Incidentally, for those who are unfamiliar with the 2 theories, the Out-of-Africa theory proposed  that humans came from Africa anywhere from 20,000 to 200,000 years ago and completely replaced all previous hominids like the Neanderthals and Homo Erectus. Current findings that show that modern humans are the result of interbreeding with Neanderthals and other apemen species so that debunks half of the Out of Africa theory, just like that. The multiregional hypothesis , on the other hand, claims that hominids came out of Africa c.2,000,000 years ago, intermingled with numerous different apemen species, and then started independently becoming human in various other areas of the world.

[Iguana]

The multiregional hypothesis , on the other hand, claims that hominids came out of Africa c.2,000,000 years ago and then started independently becoming human in various other areas of the world.

That fits rather well with the fact that we seem adapted to foods from all those various areas.

[cherimoya_kid]

That fits rather well with the fact that we seem adapted to foods from all those various areas.

That's irrelevant.  Lions and tigers range(d) from cold arctic areas to the tropics, and everywhere in between.   This is also true of hundreds of different types of migrating birds, which winter in the tropics, and spend summers in cold northern climates.