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Deformed prehistoric man suggests inbreeding

Comments

  • #2
    Wibbs
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,217 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    Says a fair bit on a few levels. Population size and availability of potential mates for a start. Given archaics were thin on the landscape it stands to reason I suppose. How thin? Well take Neanderthal folks. They were around for at least 200,000 years and they needed around twice the calories to survive compared to us, yet in all that time they didn't cause the extinctions of large animals we caused everywhere we showed up later on. Clearly they were a rare people in the landscape.

    Even today we do tend to like the novel in sexual selection. The exotic in a group usually garners the most attention and it might be down to that genetic drive to breed out.

    IMH that's why Europeans are so variable among modern folks in obvious appearance, even though genetically they're very close. Waaay closer in genetics compared to African folks and Asians too. They're the most diverse in obvious phenotype among modern people. The old "joke" about "all Asians/whomever look alike" has some basis in reality. Europeans are the oddballs, the outliers in this. You can have white/blonde, through red to brown to jet black hair. The texture of same can run from laser straight to very curly. Skin tone can vary massively and eye colour can go from near silver, through blue, hazel, green, brown, even purple(a la Liz taylor). I'd say it was down to sexual selction pressures in a sparse and close related/"inbred" population. Given that population dynamic men and women would tend to choose the freaky looking fecker as an indication of genetic difference and hence those diffs propagated down to today.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • #3
    Adam Khor
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,279 ✭✭✭Adam Khor


    Wibbs wrote: »
    Says a fair bit on a few levels. Population size and availability of potential mates for a start. Given archaics were thin on the landscape it stands to reason I suppose. How thin? Well take Neanderthal folks. They were around for at least 200,000 years and they needed around twice the calories to survive compared to us, yet in all that time they didn't cause the extinctions of large animals we caused everywhere we showed up later on. Clearly they were a rare people in the landscape.

    Even today we do tend to like the novel in sexual selection. The exotic in a group usually garners the most attention and it might be down to that genetic drive to breed out.

    IMH that's why Europeans are so variable among modern folks in obvious appearance, even though genetically they're very close. Waaay closer in genetics compared to African folks and Asians too. They're the most diverse in obvious phenotype among modern people. The old "joke" about "all Asians/whomever look alike" has some basis in reality. Europeans are the oddballs, the outliers in this. You can have white/blonde, through red to brown to jet black hair. The texture of same can run from laser straight to very curly. Skin tone can vary massively and eye colour can go from near silver, through blue, hazel, green, brown, even purple(a la Liz taylor). I'd say it was down to sexual selction pressures in a sparse and close related/"inbred" population. Given that population dynamic men and women would tend to choose the freaky looking fecker as an indication of genetic difference and hence those diffs propagated down to today.

    Thank you! Now I won´t feel guilty when pointing out how all Asians look the same :pac:


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