5 comments

  • idiotsecant 9 minutes ago
    This comment section will be full of rational and well meaning discourse for sure.
  • like_any_other 1 hour ago
    Is there any species, other than humans, that is found all across the globe (i.e. geographically separated), and has not differentiated into subspecies? Wolves, elephants, tigers, bears, and foxes have all been categorized into multiple subspecies each, distinct but able to interbreed.
    • greazy 15 minutes ago
      The definition of what constitutes a species is a human construct.

      Two birds living in the same locale but divided by a mountain range therefore not naturally breeding with each other would classify as a different species, even if they could breed with each other.

      So your question is hard to answer.

    • renewiltord 9 minutes ago
      They have to be. The snail darter is genetically identical to another animal and is a separate species. Most likely different humans are as well.
    • erichocean 21 minutes ago
      Humans have, obviously. Just interbreeding with ancient species was enough to do it, even without separate evolution.
    • meroes 54 minutes ago
      Dogs?
      • paulryanrogers 49 minutes ago
        Aren't dogs technically one species?
        • hooo 18 minutes ago
          This distinction seems more arbitrary over time. Growing up I was taught different species couldn’t interbreed. But what about Neanderthal and Sapiens?
      • like_any_other 44 minutes ago
        I don't think you could have chosen a worse example. Dogs are themselves a subspecies, and are split into many different breeds, of wildly different character and physiology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog#Taxonomy
        • idiotsecant 11 minutes ago
          Breeds and species are different things. Parent post is making a (very good) point that dogs can pretty much all breed with one another.
  • A_D_E_P_T 2 hours ago
    Not that surprising when you consider, as the paper does, the explosion of very meaningful traits such as the ability to digest lactose and various anti-malaria adaptations e.g. Sickle Cell and the Duffy-null mutation.

    It's just controversial for obvious reasons. The notion that human groups may have meaningfully evolved in different ways over the past 10,000 years, and may still be evolving, is an unpopular one on both ends of the political spectrum.

    • AlotOfReading 1 hour ago
      The reason no one wants to talk is that these discussions are always co-opted by racists wanting to affirm their beliefs, regardless of the underlying science. Reich in particular is borderline deliberate about attracting those sorts with his lab's research, because of how badly he chooses to handle the topic and terminology of race.
      • MontyCarloHall 0 minutes ago
        >Reich in particular is borderline deliberate about attracting those sorts with his lab's research, because of how badly he chooses to handle the topic and terminology of race.

        Sorry, do you have any examples? His views that I've read [0, 1] are not just scientifically rigorous but also quite deftly navigate the politics that some consider extremely controversial.

        [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-r...

        [1] https://sackett.net/reich_who_we_are_and_how_we_got_here.pdf

      • nostromo 59 minutes ago
        Science is about truth not social outcomes.

        People keep wondering why trust in scientific findings is in free fall. A big part of it is because many scientists have become comfortable lying when they feel it’s for a noble cause.

        • orsorna 23 minutes ago
          I really don't care if the people around me have physiological differences from me. It would be wonderful to explore that and such differences. But as OP pointed out the discussion gets co-opted by people who would kill others over physiological differences. How is such a viewpoint conducive to a peaceful society where millions of people with physiological differences exist?

          For good reason, the wider community isn't able to have a productive conversation about it. I wouldn't even call that a noble reason, but a necessary one, unless you would be okay with inviting people that want you dead into discussion on scientific consensus.

          • like_any_other 13 minutes ago
            > people who would kill others over physiological differences

            Most of them just want to enforce borders. And then the dogma that we are all the same is co-opted by people who would see their ethnic group wiped out, as they are told that they don't even exist except as a meaningless social construct, and their desire for ethnic self-preservation is therefore illegitimate - there is nothing to preserve!

            The same rhetoric targeting Palestinians: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/perpetuating-the-myth-of-a-p...

    • phainopepla2 46 minutes ago
      Is it unpopular on the right? Genuine question. I have only seen people associated with the left deny or downplay this.
      • jetrink 40 minutes ago
        The religious right, specifically. They would say that all people are descended quite recently from Noah and his family.
        • FunHearing3443 5 minutes ago
          Not all of us. Many are evolutionary or old earth creationists that generally don’t have an issue with many aspects of evolution.
      • burnto 40 minutes ago
        Evolution itself has some skeptics among the religious right.
  • vomayank 1 hour ago
    [flagged]
  • mohamedkoubaa 1 hour ago
    "To supercharge the search, Reich, Ali Akbari, a computational geneticist at Harvard Medical School, and their colleagues amassed the largest-ever collection of genomic data from ancient humans — from a total of 15,836 individuals from western Eurasia — including more than 10,000 newly sequenced genomes."

    Without commenting on the content of this sentence or article, I will say that it is refreshing to see sentences like this in the wild after being regularly and constantly subjected to LLM slop.

    • nefarious_ends 46 minutes ago
      Seriously what’s the point of this comment
    • sho_hn 1 hour ago
      And yet you managed to center AI in the discussion.