Genographic Project

Says the guy who bench presses 380.

That's 380 Kg, thank you very much.

You silly sapiens are so envious.

Because you lugs keep absconding with our women.

You call it absconding; we call it dating.

Of course, going clubbing has a very different meaning for us.

This is a really old picture.

Looks like Albert Einstein after a hard night of clubbing.

"He equals MC too"

I have a question though.

If Neandertals and Homo Sapiens could interbreed, and their offspring were fertile, that means they're pretty closely related. There's a broad variation in the sizes and shapes of people today -- how do they know their genome was that different? What percentage overlap is there between HS and HN? How does this compare to the normal variation seen in the general population?

Neanderthals (HN) and Denisovans (HD) could interbreed with sapiens because they were all humans, sharing a close common ancestor.

The estimates are that most people carry from 1-4% Neanderthal DNA, with an average of 2.1%, but there are some who believe that it could be as high as 10-20%. No HN or HD DNA is found in those whose ancestors left Africa more recently (about 40,000 years ago), nor is it found in populations whose ancestors never left Africa.  Interestingly, there is no HN mitochondrial DNA found in sapiens.

For a long time, the cause of the extinction of the Neanderthals has been discussed. Now, there are some who think that HN never went extinct, but rather that the species was subsumed by sapiens.

This is a pretty good article.

Wikipedia wrote:

No evidence of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA has been found in modern humans.[11][12][13] This would suggest that successful admixture with Neanderthals happened paternally rather than maternally on the side of Neanderthals.[14][15] Possible hypotheses are that Neanderthal mtDNA had detrimental mutations that led to the extinction of carriers, that the hybrid offspring of Neanderthal mothers were raised in Neanderthal groups and became extinct with them, or that female Neanderthals and male Sapiens did not produce fertile offspring.

Or, like interracial couples today, black men are over twice as likely to have a white wife as the reverse. Call this anything you like but it is a fact.

What does that have to do with anything?

Neanderthal men and Sapiens women, but almost never Neanderthal women with Sapiens men. It's the same phenomenon I'd reckon. The article makes it out to be biological -- which sounds unlikely to me -- rather than selective preference.

And I don't know why that is. Maybe women are attracted to power and strength, and men are attracted to delicacy.

They offered three plausible biological reasons for the lack pf HD mtDNA;

• Neanderthal mtDNA had detrimental mutations that led to the extinction of carriers
  
• that the hybrid offspring of Neanderthal mothers were raised in Neanderthal groups and became extinct with them
  
• female Neanderthals and male Sapiens did not produce fertile offspring
  

None of these preclude the mating of sapiens males and HN females, nor do they indicate an unbalanced sorting of the matings. Don't know why you choose to arbitrarily discount these and choose instead to make it some kind of racial thing.

Because:
1. MItochondrial DNA was not a deleterious mutation for Neanderthals, so why jump to the conclusion that is was for the closely-related Sapiens?
2. Females and infants of Neanderthals went extinct but males did not?  Ridiculous.
3. The product of a male Neanderthal and a female Sapiens is fertile, but the product of a female Neanderthal and a male Sapiens is not?  Again, that's ridiculous and counter-scientific.

These are not three plausible explanations, they're three patently absurd desperate attempts to avoid the obvious (but politically incorrect) explanation that self-selection is at play.

You have managed to misstate all three of the points I made. When two separate species interbreed, it is common to have problems with the offspring, especially with regard to fertility. I don't know why you so strongly reject this. We see this today in the interbreeding of equine and cat species.

You wrote, "Females and infants of Neanderthals went extinct but males did not? Ridiculous." I didn't write that, nor did the authors of the article. In fact, there is a strong belief that the majority of the HD DNA in modern humans was passed down through the female line, as the males were likely infertile.

As for your idea that all interbreeding was male HD and female sapiens, owing to their physical differentiation, that is ascribing a modern cultural trend - a learned behavior - to an ancient society. The rejection of this idea is hardly political correctness.

Are ligers and tigons both sexually fertile?

That depends of which articles you read. Some say that the hybrids are often infertile. All say that they have shortened life spans and are susceptible to many diseases, with cancers being common. My point in mentioning them, however, was to illustrate the great difference that can be found in offspring depending on which parent was the male.

And are lions and tigers more distantly related than Sapiens and Neandrthalis?

The fact that apparently so many of us carry HN genes, whereas lions and tigers do not interbreed in the wild, would argue yes.

Interbreeding of species is almost unknown under normal circumstances. I guess a question is what constitutes a species. Are we and the Neanderthal different species? Are lions and tigers different species? Or just very different members of the same species.

And what about 40,000 years ago? Were there ancestors of today's lions and tigers that lived in the same place and interbred? We don't know.

All we do know is that interbreeding of species can lead to serious problems in the offspring.

And I say that's bullshit. You said we all carry HN genes (1-4% of our genome, except sub-Saharan Africans).  That's evidence of successful interbreeding. On a massive scale.

Actually, I didn't say it. I was merely repeating what some paleontologists say. Others say that there was no interbreeding and that what appears to be HD DNA in sapiens is actually genes passed on to both Neanderthal and sapiens from a much more ancient common ancestor. Biologically, that may be possible, but to me the lack of those genes in other African populations makes in very unlikely.

I haven't drawn any conclusions from what I've read, but I do find it very interesting. The lack of Neanderthal mtDNA I find particularly interesting - in the sense that it's an intriguing puzzle. If, in fact, the mating was as selective as you have suggested, I would still expect to find at least some mtDNA ("Don't the girls get prettier at closing time?" Sing along!).

There isn't enough grog in the world!

Oh, come on. Don't be like that. She has a great personality!

And what a coincidence: her sister's name is Grog.

Would her sister be up for a 3-way???

The definition of species is somewhat arbitrary. One of the classic methods of distinguishing species was the inability of different species to breed together. Obviously, that isn't absolute thing, but it dates back quite a way. We need a biologist to explain the nuances of modern classification in light of current knowledge of genetics.

Good point, Richard.
The definition of species seems fine: "A species is the largest group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring"

Then there are subspecies: "Organisms belonging to different subspecies of the same species are capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring, but they do not interbreed in nature due to geographic isolation or other factors."

Rather than consider changing the definitions, I think they should - if interbreeding between sapiens, Neanderthals, etc., is definitively proven, which it hasn't been - then the move should be to reclassify those human groups as subspecies.