Scientists Sequence Neanderthal Genome For First Time

http://www.reasons.org/press_releases/20060601.shtml ^

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks, but this isn't going to be a science thread. Maybe blam wants it.

[js1138]

placemarker

[blam]

"Thanks, but this isn't going to be a science thread. Maybe blam wants it."

Thanks PH, no.

[truthfinder9]

Realize that until a few years ago, most scientists still thought modern humans and neaderthals were closely related. This has completely changed especially with genetic studies.

[43north]

I'm not so sure his liver isn't alive. In fact, I heard that the Defense Department has dibs on it after he dies. They want to analyze it to find the secret to its indestructability and to see if such a substance could have military applications...

[aimhigh]

Isn't the common evolutionary speculation that we merely had common ancestors with them?

evolutionary speculation. Aptly put.

[VadeRetro]

When "Futz" Rana says "not related," he means "separately created." That is, no common ancestor at all.

A mainstream scientist will say "not related" about this finding and only mean "not as related as some people were claiming." In particular, not a direct contributor to the gene pool of modern humans.

To ignore the two "not related"s being vastly different historical and physical conditions is to fall into a fallacy of equivocation. Evidence for the latter "not related"-ness is in no wise evidence for the former.

[David Allen]

I'm not espousing it, just repeating it.

I don't buy the development of modern man as represented, anyway. We popped up about 35,000 years ago, and eradicated entirely Neanderthal - who had been here over 100,000 - in 5000 years.

Why?

[VadeRetro]

There would seem to be a problem with that idea in that you'd figure any common ancestor of both modern man and the neanderthal would be further removed from us than the neanderthal. If we can't be descended from neanderthals because the genetic gap is too great, which is what we hear, then how could we be descended from something even further removed?

A silly objection! Hint to the un-hintable: You're talking about this kind of thing.

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Both lineages have diverged from a starting point removed in time from the last examples of either. Some of the differences between humans and neanderthals arose along the human line. Some arose along the neanderthal line. You might as well be protesting you can't have common ancestors with your sixth cousin because you don't seem all that related.

The fossil record is increasingly showing us this history. H.s. idaltu would be one example of a recent addition. There's nothing unthinkable about it and the evidence for it is better now than it ever was. The only question, and it's still a little bit open but closing fast, is whether humans and neanderthals had completely speciated by the time neanderthals went extinct. It's looking more and more as though this is the case.

[SunkenCiv]

Just adding this to the GGG catalog, not sending a general distribution.

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