Landmark ancient-genome study shows surprise acceleration of human evolution
42 points by unsuspecting 3 hours ago | 19 comments
Related: Ancient DNA reveals pervasive directional selection across West Eurasia [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47791282 (64 comments)

https://x.com/doctorveera/status/2044679999450664967 (https://xcancel.com/doctorveera/status/2044679999450664967)


like_any_other 55 minutes 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.
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greazy 6 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.

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erichocean 12 minutes ago
Humans have, obviously. Just interbreeding with ancient species was enough to do it, even without separate evolution.
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meroes 44 minutes ago
Dogs?
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paulryanrogers 39 minutes ago
Aren't dogs technically one species?
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hooo 8 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?
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like_any_other 35 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
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idiotsecant 2 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.
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A_D_E_P_T 3 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.

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AlotOfReading 2 hours 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.
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nostromo 49 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.

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orsorna 14 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.

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like_any_other 3 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...

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phainopepla2 37 minutes ago
Is it unpopular on the right? Genuine question. I have only seen people associated with the left deny or downplay this.
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jetrink 30 minutes ago
The religious right, specifically. They would say that all people are descended quite recently from Noah and his family.
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burnto 31 minutes ago
Evolution itself has some skeptics among the religious right.
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vomayank 2 hours ago
[flagged]
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mohamedkoubaa 2 hours 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.

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nefarious_ends 36 minutes ago
Seriously what’s the point of this comment
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sho_hn 2 hours ago
And yet you managed to center AI in the discussion.
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