Now comes some blogger, reporting on results out of the Max Plank Society♠ on sequencing the gnome for Neanderthals (or Neandertals, as the blog post quoted says). At this point I should add a word of caution, given the emphasis on race that was pervasive in Germany in the first half of the last century, and not just during the years of National Socialist rule.
So, at the blog John Hawks Weblog, there is this report that researchers now believe that non-African humans have up to 4% Neandertal genes, or like having a Neandertal as one of one's Great-Great-Great-Grandparents. Actually, for me that is pretty far back. Taking my youngest grandchild, Ben, and going to the Grandfather who died when I was about 4, I am one shy of knowing his Father, who would be Ben's Great-Great-Great-Grandfather. But, still here is the DNA, which suggests that Neanderthals are, in fact, part of our species.
The author of the Blog, talking about scientist R E Green, says:
Green and colleagues show that the Neandertal genome is closer to some humans than others. People whose ancestry lies outside Africa are significantly more like Neandertals than are people who live in Africa today. In this study, the authors include whole genomes from people in France, China and Papua New Guinea outside Africa, and Yoruba and San inside Africa. The Africans are not as close to the Neandertal as any of the non-Africans.So, for all of you who thought that Larry Summers or this Harvard Law School student were Neanderthals, you are probably correct. Well, Neanderthals in part.
Hat tip to Law Professor Ann Althouse.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
Soooooooo...the point is that some things are so easy...a cave man can do it. Well...if you have cave man genes.......
ReplyDeleteThat advertisement is now soooo with it.
ReplyDeleteRegards — Cliff
I'm surprised that a current HLS student would be ignorant enough not to live by the "don't write anything in an e-mail that you wouldn't want on the cover of the Globe" credo.
ReplyDeleteThat said -- as ignorant and as self-absorbed as the writer's statements were, and as much as I abhor the privileged/racist place they came from, I would no sooner try to silence a Lowell blogger writing about Neanderthal roots than I would a law student spouting off pseudo-science about racial superiority.
She should still graduate, she should still practice law, and she can bear the Scarlet (Crimson?) Letter that this will carry over her wherever she goes.
I hope her sights weren't set on the SCOTUS!
Regarding the comment from The New Englander, I think that they don't learn it in High School—witness the passing of nude photos via cell phone—and they don't develop any more street smarts in college. I do think that HLS could have handled it with a lot less splash in the papers. But, that is on the Law School.
ReplyDeleteRegards — Cliff
While I am perhaps as guilty or even MORE guilty of it, I am continuously amazed at the human predeliction for castigating that which is not agreeable to the individual's zeitgeist, but at once canonizing their own viewpoint, limited as it is by what is always a less than worldly perspective.
ReplyDeleteI can barely wait for the revelation that those with CroMagnon genes are somehow more (XXXX) or less (XXXX) than someone with Neandert(h)al cell history. THAT will light off a whole new hystrionic debate and forever brand (who are probably) normal folks who (unfortunately) utter a hypothesis within earshot of another human.
Given our raw nerve current social environment with all its trappings of political correctness, one of the unintended consequences (objectively speaking) is to stiffle any meaningful intellectual discourse about who we are, where we came from, and perhaps where we might expect to go.
In a piece I no longer have access to, op ed author David Brooks discusses a fairly broad amount of research that points to the fact that we seem to be what we are no matter what the socio/economic/political environment in which we are born and grow. While many will decry either the findings of that research, or its public discussion, or more likely....both......the demographics apparently don't lie. Swedes born in Sweden who remain there experience an approximately 6.7% poverty rate, while Swedes who are born in Sweden but emmigrate to the US in their early youth experience an approximately 6.7% poverty rate. Similar "anomalies" are found in comparisons of environments in which other ethnicities/cultures live with regard to economic status, education levels, life expectancies, etc.
So, by individuals and groups lashing out at suggestions of this or that apparent TENDENCY within a culture or ethnic group, I think we necessarily eliminate potential understanding and where possible, rationally inspired improvements.
But.....its much more satisfying to brand people who brand people for branding people. Even a cave man can do it.
yes! where XXXX = guilty of it
ReplyDelete:-)
"While I am perhaps as guilty or even MORE guilty of it, I am continuously amazed at the human predeliction for castigating that which is not agreeable to the individual's zeitgeist, but at once canonizing their own viewpoint, limited as it is by what is always a less than worldly perspective.
I can barely wait for the revelation that those with CroMagnon genes are somehow more (XXXX) or less (XXXX) than someone with Neandert(h)al cell history. THAT will light off a whole new hystrionic debate and forever brand (who are probably) normal folks who (unfortunately) utter a hypothesis within earshot of another human."