The most human humans are in Africa

[edhopper]

Last edited Sun Oct 28, 2018, 02:44 PM - Edit history (1)

Watched the PBS show about Neanderthals, which was excellent.
So Neanderthals left Africa around half a million years ago and flourished in Europe. We (homo sapiens) followed 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. Eventually the Neanderthals became extinct (different theories about why this happened). But what we do know id that some of us interbred with them. We know this is because most people have around 2% of Neanderthal DNA.
That is most people except those in sub-Saharan Africa. The Humans that stayed in Africa kept their DNA intact. (of course there is some European /Neanderthal DNA that has gone back into Africa in the last several thousand years.)
So the long history of racism (alive today) that held black people as less than fully human had it backwards. They are the most human humans.

Of course we are all equally human, but the white supremist think white people are purer.
According to there own deviant ideology they are accually less human that Africans.
I hope people here are smart enough to see that I am not making claims about more or less human.

[vlyons]

1. At some point in our history, we almost became extinct

Down to just a few thousand individuals. That's why all humans are so closely related that we are basically cousins. It doesn't matter our country or origen, language, or outer appearance, we are all 100% plug-compatible. Think about that for a while.

https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c

[edhopper]

5. One of the theories

is that Neanderthals also faced an environmental disaster, perhaps a severe drought, that they did not survive.

[eShirl]

2. but Neanderthals were also human

[MineralMan]

3. Indeed they were. Same species.

The fact that they interbred successfully with a different variety of humans demonstrates that.

[edhopper]

4. Yes

all homo, but different branches with distinctly different genomes.

[Codeine]

6. How can they be more human if Neanderthals

were also human?

[Igel]

7. Because they need to be.

To establish some sort of genetic superiority. "This group is more human than that group, which really isn't human."

We see where that kind of thinking leads, over and over, and yet it's so tempting and satisfying to make that kind of dehumanizing claim and fail to see that it's dehumanizing (which I personally think is a bit worse than being open about racial supremacist claims, to be honest).

[edhopper]

12. Neanderthals

were quite distinct from us, with a completely different genome.

[Codeine]

15. And yet still human.

One could more reasonably make the argument that sub-Saharan populations are more homo sapiens than the rest of us than one could argue that they are more human.

[edhopper]

16. That is

a good way of putting it.

[DavidDvorkin]

8. We are all equally human.

[malchickiwick]

9. A book I read recently investigates our history via DNA. Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Everyone-Ever-Lived/dp/1615194045

BTW OP, it's kind of silly to say sub-Saharan Africans kept their DNA "intact" ... I understand the point but it sounds a little too much like the "just one drop" rules of our racist past. Also, it is simply not true. Sub-Saharan Africa was connected to Asia via active trade along the Swahili coast, and so no doubt obtained some Denisovan DNA.

[edhopper]

13. Yes, mush later

in the last few thousand years, as opposed to the rest of us which was tens of thousands of years ago.

The DNA they have found in some African populations is less than 0.5%.

I was trying to make a point about racism, of course we are all equally human.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. "Modern" humans - Homo sapiens

may actually go back to an earlier period than that - perhaps 300,000 years - https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/07/health/oldest-homo-sapiens-fossils-found/index.html

But yeah, all the "Go back to Africa" goons seem to be clueless... although many of them are getting rude awakenings when they do those 23andMe or Ancestry.com DNA tests.

[tritsofme]

11. There are credible theories saying that the most common recent ancestor of all living humans

lived as late as 300 BC.

The genetic isolation that you imagine, doesn’t seem to exist.

[edhopper]

14. That sounds ridiculous

there were isolated groups of people in Australia, Asia and the Americas tens of thousands of years ago.
No way our common ancestor is from 2300 years ago.

[Crunchy Frog]

17. Sub-Saharan Africans don't show evidence of interbreeding with Neanderthals or Denisovans, but

they do show evidence of interbreeding with other lineages of archaic humans.

That means that we are ALL mutts, and we are all products of interbreeding with our more archaic cousins. Genetically speaking, none of us are "more" or "less" or superior or inferior. It's silly and dangerous to try to classify contemporary humans in that fashion. JMHO.

[Blue_true]

18. Please change your title and premise.

How can strains that are ALL human be more or less? Such thinking plays right into the supremacist mindset.

[edhopper]

20. That is the point

of course we are all equally human, but the white supremist think white people are purer.
According to there own deviant ideology they are accually less human that Africans.
I think people here are smart enough to see that.

[Blue_true]

21. I wasn't smart enough to see it and apparently some other people were not either.

Maybe you should add the paragraph that you just posted to my reply at the end of your OP, it is really illuminating.

[edhopper]

22. good idea.

[Joe941]

19. I bet tRump has a higher percent of neanderthal DNA than most.

[cwydro]

23. Lol. nt