Aboriginal Australians, Pacific Islanders carry DNA of unknown human species

[Giordano]

That's because today there is one species of humans, but in the past there were several.

But the more we learn, the more obvious it is that we are a confluence of those species, to varying degrees.

But you are right, skin color is not the distinction. Genes are- Caucasians have Neanderthal genes, Orientals have Denisovan, Africans have neither. And according to the OP, Islanders have yet another mixed in.

Or is the word "race" so charged with negativity that we can't even discuss the difference between peoples? Ought we use a different word? Family? Tribe? Breed? Is "Ethnicity" neutral enough?

Point: I am 2.9% Neanderthal. Also 2.7% Ashkenazim. Is it OK that we discuss dead tribes, but not to discuss my tie to a living tribe of ethnic Jews? Or the lack of all of those in Africans? They are the purist race of all, aren't they?

oo,ooo, Mr Kotter- Haplogroups, that is the scientific term for "race". Cancel the whole discussion, eh?

You can say that you have a genetic tie to Ashkenazi Jews (as do I). But what "race" are you? I am certain you probably have a complex mix of ancestry (I haven't looked myself, but no doubt so do I)..

 

[casebro]

hmm, what about new word haplogroups?

"Hispanic", an avowed ethnic group, meant "from Hispaniola", the Caribbean island that has Haiti and Dominican Republic on it. But how come Mexicans are Hispanic, but Cherokees and Apaches are not? "Race" vs Haplogroup again I guess.

Oh well, OT. Or is it- New world haplogroups are Asian, so have Denisovan?

 

[Graham2001]

Well if you believe Ancient Aliens, the DNA is not of this world:

Giorgio Tsoukalos concludes that Aboriginals are the last culture with direct contact with the aliens, and Duncan claims that the Aborigines came to Earth from outer space.

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/review-of-ancient-aliens-s11e07-the-wisdom-keepers

 

[jaydeehess]

hmm, what about new word haplogroups?

"Hispanic", an avowed ethnic group, meant "from Hispaniola", the Caribbean island that has Haiti and Dominican Republic on it. But how come Mexicans are Hispanic, but Cherokees and Apaches are not? "Race" vs Haplogroup again I guess.

Oh well, OT. Or is it- New world haplogroups are Asian, so have Denisovan?

,,, and I, otoh, have no known relatives from the Caucuses.

Go figure.

 

[jonesdave116]

hmm, what about new word haplogroups?

"Hispanic", an avowed ethnic group, meant "from Hispaniola", the Caribbean island that has Haiti and Dominican Republic on it. But how come Mexicans are Hispanic, but Cherokees and Apaches are not? "Race" vs Haplogroup again I guess.

Oh well, OT. Or is it- New world haplogroups are Asian, so have Denisovan?

'Hispanic' comes from the Latin word for what is now Spain and Portugal. In the sense that it is used in the U.S., it means anyone from a Spanish speaking country, generally those in central America.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

'Hispanic' comes from the Latin word for what is now Spain and Portugal. In the sense that it is used in the U.S., it means anyone from a Spanish speaking country, generally those in central America.

Thanks, I tried to post something about that yesterday and probably hit "back" instead of send.

 

[Bladesman87]

When people talk about race as a social construct the key point is not that are no genetic groupings of populations that can be tied to physical distinctions with geographical groupings. The point is that what is meant by "race" has been continually changing, as has the focus of what that means about them.

I can't do links yet, but in the 19th century people considered the English to be a different race to the French. What's interesting is that French and English populations can be distinguished by looking at the genetics. However people don't make this distinction in general usage. White European, or even more broadly, Caucasian, is considered the race, and nobody looks for a difference between French and English intelligence, or aggressiveness (which is more than noteworthy, both having had large empires that didn't arise from passivity).

What genetics seems to indicate is that if you choose some set of criteria then you can find the markers for that criteria and trace the heredity. But does that mean that your set of criteria is somehow objective and meaningful? Not really.

 

[Aepervius]

What's interesting is that French and English populations can be distinguished by looking at the genetics.

That is not quite the case, or at least not to the geographical degree you ascribe it, as people from Bretagne for example have a close affinity to the UK population and vice versa.

e.g.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17536756

RESULTS:

The French Basques' mtDNA pool shares some common features with that of the Spanish Basques, such as the high frequency of haplogroup H. However, the French Basques exhibit a number of distinct features, most notably expressed in the prevalence of haplogroups linked with the Neolithic diffusion in Europe. In Brittany, Finistère shows closer affinities with Britain and Scandinavia than the two other departments of Brittany.
CONCLUSION:

The mtDNA haplogroup composition of the French does not differ significantly from the surrounding European genetic landscape. At a finer grain, microgeographical differentiation can be revealed, as shown for the French Basque country and for Brittany.

And with freedom of movement, those difference are probably even getting rarer.

 

[The Atheist]

I'm not suggesting that this is a majority view of aborigines. Most don't give a stuff one way or other. But there is a radical rump which will love this.

Good point - I can see how it would play out.

Your radicals spend for too much time with our radicals.

 

[Delvo]

The modern races and the mostly-extinct species are different phenomena, distinguished mostly by time scale. It would be quite simple for one to exist and not the other. There's no contradiction either way. In chronological order:

1. The different species we're talking about separated from each other in an expansion & migration wave which could have started over a million years ago, almost certainly had started by at least a half-million years ago, and was probably over before 200,000 years ago.
2. The current species came into existence in Africa around 150,000-200,000 years ago.
3. Somewhere around 50,000 years ago, that new species expanded from northern Africa to include Eurasia. A rough separation between two groups in Africa (ancestors of the Khoi and San, apparently in the south, and ancestors of everybody else, apparently in the north) might have already happened by then, or might be concurrent with it or relatively soon after it. The other species which still existed til then generally appear to have gone extinct at about the time that the new arrivals from Africa arrived, possibly with a few thousand years of overlap.
4. Other gradual diversifications among the expanding group are more recent, caused by the expansion; skeletal forms in Eurasia don't quite match any modern group when they first arrive, but eventually end up in recognizably region-specific modern forms by about 20,000 years ago.
5. Within the last few decades, some people, for socio-political reasons, have decided to pretend to believe in the fundamentally Creationist position that that last step didn't happen because humans, and humans alone, became magically immune to evolution sometime before then; this meme became particularly common and pushy in online forums as part of the SJW movement within the last decade, while also getting worse and worse in the Creationist-like opposition to factuality with which they "defend" it.

But the concept of race had been invented presupposing that an entire cluster of alleles/traits lump together in a scientifically meaningful way so as to separate people into distinct groups as compared to humans as a whole (e.g. "Negros" have this SET of traits; "Caucasians" have that SET of traits). But it is now clear that these different alleles/traits are not usually linked together biologically

Simply false, although at least in a new way. Usually, when the subject of race denial comes up and I show the actual known allele clustering, the deniers just don't come up with a response to it at all, as if ignoring it would make it go away or people will just not notice it if they avoid highlighting it with responses. This time we have a denier not only directly addressing the subject to explicitly claim it didn't happen instead of just avoiding it, but even bringing it up first, as if pre-emptively! Either way, though, the reality which the deniers deny is the same...

 

[ddt]

hmm, what about new word haplogroups?

"Hispanic", an avowed ethnic group, meant "from Hispaniola", the Caribbean island that has Haiti and Dominican Republic on it. But how come Mexicans are Hispanic, but Cherokees and Apaches are not? "Race" vs Haplogroup again I guess.

Oh well, OT. Or is it- New world haplogroups are Asian, so have Denisovan?

'Hispanic' comes from the Latin word for what is now Spain and Portugal. In the sense that it is used in the U.S., it means anyone from a Spanish speaking country, generally those in central America.

Yes.

And to add: the island of Hispaniola was the first colonized by the Spanish conquistadores. They tried to put use the native inhabitants as slave labour but they dropped dead like flies. Then they imported blacks from Africa. The current population of Hispaniola has genetically very little to do with native Americans, but is descended from a mix of European colonizers and African slaves.

In mainland Americas south-of-the-Rio-Grande the population generally is descended from a mix of European colonizers and native Americans. How much they've mixed or stayed separated as two separate groups, or that the native Americans have been marginalized, varies form country to country. But culturally, the Spanish culture has prevailed.

 

[casebro]

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=12102[/qimg]

Last paragraph way to right mentions East Asians having different sucrose metabolism. Anybody got some extra google-fu to expend on that? Enzyme/Gene SNP or such?

 

[casebro]

...
In mainland Americas south-of-the-Rio-Grande the population generally is descended from a mix of European colonizers and native Americans. How much they've mixed or stayed separated as two separate groups, or that the native Americans have been marginalized, varies form country to country. But culturally, the Spanish culture has prevailed.

Many Mexicans claim great proportions of Spanish ancestry. Which s considered a plus in today's scoiety. Just watch MexicanTV to see the fairer skinned beauties out numbering the Azetcas.

Though here in San Diego, I have met a couple of Mexican guys who knew their Indian heritage. Tara-Humara for one. I think there is less Spanish dilution in Baja. But unless they are affiliated with an American reservation, they are "Hispanic".

Just pointing out a fallacy in race/ethnicity delineation.

 

[ddt]

The modern races and the mostly-extinct species are different phenomena, distinguished mostly by time scale. It would be quite simple for one to exist and not the other. There's no contradiction either way. In chronological order:

1. The different species we're talking about separated from each other in an expansion & migration wave which could have started over a million years ago, almost certainly had started by at least a half-million years ago, and was probably over before 200,000 years ago.

1. 
   And way before that, around one million years ago, homo erectus had fanned out of Africa over Asia. Java Man - one of the earliest finds and the first non-accidental one - and Peking Man bear witness to that. Homo erectus may have existed to 50,000 BP They certainly lived at the same time as Neanderthals, Denisovans and possibly also Homo sapiens.
   
   

   Simply false, although at least in a new way. Usually, when the subject of race denial comes up and I show the actual known allele clustering, the deniers just don't come up with a response to it at all, as if ignoring it would make it go away or people will just not notice it if they avoid highlighting it with responses. This time we have a denier not only directly addressing the subject to explicitly claim it didn't happen instead of just avoiding it, but even bringing it up first, as if pre-emptively! Either way, though, the reality which the deniers deny is the same...

   AFAIK, the above race classification is calculated by comparing the genome sequences of hundreds of people and then asking the algorithm to come up with five clusters. IIRC, if you ask the same algorithm to come up with six clusters, the Andaman Islanders come up as sixth cluster. What is the criteria for determining the number of clusters?

 

[ddt]

Many Mexicans claim great proportions of Spanish ancestry. Which s considered a plus in today's scoiety. Just watch MexicanTV to see the fairer skinned beauties out numbering the Azetcas.

Though here in San Diego, I have met a couple of Mexican guys who knew their Indian heritage. Tara-Humara for one. I think there is less Spanish dilution in Baja. But unless they are affiliated with an American reservation, they are "Hispanic".

Just pointing out a fallacy in race/ethnicity delineation.

Nobody claimed that racism doesn't exist outside the USA.

 

[Giordano]

Last paragraph way to right mentions East Asians having different sucrose metabolism. Anybody got some extra google-fu to expend on that? Enzyme/Gene SNP or such?

I tried in several different ways and I can't find any relevant data. I do know that sugarcane originated in East Asia and sugarcane is the primary agricultural source of sucrose (rather then fructose, the disaccharide in most fruit).

It wouldn't surprise me if there is a selection for the ability to metabolize sucrose such that a greater percent of the population in East Asian has a genetic adaptation to utilize sucrose compared to other populations. Of course not everyone from East Asian with have this trait, and not everyone in the rest of the world will lack it. If true it would relate to prevalence of the allele/copy number polymorphisms, whatever in the overall population, just as lactose intolerance in adulthood tends to show the opposite geographical distribution.

Interesting idea, though. In complete ignorance, and if true, I am guessing a copy number polymorphism for sucrase, the enzyme that hydrolyzes sucrose. This is a total guess at this point.

Is my memory correct and you have had your own DNA analyzed by 23 and Me? If so- do they report copy number polymorphisms?

 

[casebro]

I tried in several different ways and I can't find any relevant data. I do know that sugarcane originated in East Asia and sugarcane is the primary agricultural source of sucrose (rather then fructose, the disaccharide in most fruit).

It wouldn't surprise me if there is a selection for the ability to metabolize sucrose such that a greater percent of the population in East Asian has a genetic adaptation to utilize sucrose compared to other populations. Of course not everyone from East Asian with have this trait, and not everyone in the rest of the world will lack it. If true it would relate to prevalence of the allele/copy number polymorphisms, whatever in the overall population, just as lactose intolerance in adulthood tends to show the opposite geographical distribution.

Interesting idea, though. In complete ignorance, and if true, I am guessing a copy number polymorphism for sucrase, the enzyme that hydrolyzes sucrose. This is a total guess at this point.

Is my memory correct and you have had your own DNA analyzed by 23 and Me? If so- do they report copy number polymorphisms?

'The lack of copy numbers is a major fault with 23+.

My interest is that two of my haplogroups are Asian- Mito, and being a direct male descendant of Genghis Khan. And I am diabetic.

But lemme think, from home brewing knowledge- Fructose and glucose are monoglycerides? Fructose, called levulose too, is make with a left handed twist compared to glucose. Sucrose (sugar) is one glucose and one fructose. (Maltose is two glucoses.) So it isn't sucrose vs fructose, it's a matter of breaking the connection between the glucose and the fructose that makes it sucrose. Which takes an enzyme in living things. So,the E. Asian mod would be that sucralase?

OT- diglycerides of fructose/fructose are called fructans. Yeast can't break them down. It takes a whole nuther species- to make Tequila out of cactus juice.

 

[jonesdave116]

It takes a whole nuther species- to make Tequila out of cactus juice.

I presume that was a joke. You do realise that the whole of the human population has less genetic diversity than a couple of chimpanzee groups that are only a few tens of kilometres apart?
That there is more genetic diversity within H.sapiens in Africa than there is outside it?
If you are joking, fair play - otherwise I'm not sure what you are talking about.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

He was talking about the specialized yeasts and bacteria that break down the sugars in Agave, not human diversity.

 

[Peregrinus]

Nordics, Amerinds, Australian Aborigines and Polynesian Islanders can among them all interbreed and produce fertile offspring, no? Not to exclude various other genetic sources which, it seems, can all interbreed producing fertile offspring. Today's fashionable word salad over race/species has become a bit depressing & irrelevant. Genetic "types" observed in one rather generalized region seem not to be prevented from the possible combining with genetic "types" from another, hence the depressing need for some individuals to seek arbitrary, hence meaningless dividing lines. Show me two "genetically distant" individuals who cannot produce fertile offspring.