On Mon, 28 Jun 1999 21:09:04 -0500 Glenn R. Morton wrote:
GM>I am posting a slightly modified note I sent to another list in partial
>answer to Stephens note about the neanderthal. It is in another post. I
>will respond to a few, not all of Stephen's [...] charges.
I am resolved to try to keep my debates with Glenn on the *issues*, not
personalities. Therefore I will from now on delete any comments that I
consider to be ad hominems and any other personal matters that I consider
irrelevant, from my replies to Glenn's posts. In fact I will do it to *all* my
replies to *anyone's* posts!
[...]
>SJ>Dr Stringer: 1) refutes Glenn's allegation about him not having
>>an open mind;
GM>What do you expect him to say? Did you expect him to say, 'yep my mind is
>as closed as a steel trap?"
Later in this post Glenn admits that he was wrong about Stringer not
allowing any interbreeding and apologises. So I presume that Glenn also
admits he was wrong here about saying that Stringer did not have an open
mind?
SJ>2) rejects Glenn's claims about the OoAH;
GM>What claims. This is rather nebulous.
This is just my abstract. The "claims" are below.
SJ>and 3) points
>>out that Glenn is wrong about this fossils's muscle insertions
>>being uniquely Neandertal
>>
>>I call upon Glenn to live up to the high standards of conduct
>>that he enjoins on other Christians, and publicly retract his
>>baseless allegations about Dr Stringer. It would be nice if
>>Glenn also retracted or moderated his claims about the OoAH and
>>this fossil's muscle insertions.
GM>I will double check on this.
OK. Thanks to Glenn for being willing to check on this.
>On Thu, 24 Jun 1999 21:00:10 -0500, Glenn Morton wrote:
>>SJ>No doubt. But the fact is that the "other reports" weren't "bad" for
>>>the Out-of-Africa hypothesis (OoAH) side either. But this report is a
>>>little better for it.
[...]
>CS>I have NEVER said that Neanderthals could not have interbred with modern
>>humans (e.g. see Stringer & Gamble pp. 72, 193; Stringer, C.B. 1992
>>Replacement, continuity and the origin of Homo sapiens. In G. Brauer and
>>F.H. Smith (eds) Continuity or replacement? Controversies in the evolution
>>of Homo sapiens. Balkema: Rotterdam, pp. 9-24; Stringer, C.B. and Brauer, G.
>>1994 Methods, Misreading, and Bias, American Anthropologist 96: 416-424),
>>but did want to see good evidence for it having occurred on any detectable
>>scale. However, the mitochondrial DNA results of Cann, Stoneking & Wilson
>>ten years ago certainly suggested there COULD have been complete replacement
>>of archaic humans by "Out of Africa" moderns.
GM>I do stand corrected here. Stringer does allow some interbreeding. My
>apologies to Dr. Stringer.
Thanks to Glenn for this correction.
GM>So Stephem, if your expert says that
>Neanderthals can interbreed and thus are the same biological species as us,
>are you willing to state publically that Neanderthals are us?
Glenn is still labouring under an overly-simplistic view of what a
species is. Here is what a current Biology textbook says a species is:
"What makes a species a species?...the question of 'What is a species?' has
been a problem for biologists for many years and there is still no universal,
generally agreed definition....An additional problem for biological
definitions of species is that some populations may be more or less
reproductively isolated, by whatever means, but still occasionally exchange
genes. Exchange of genes can occur between closely related and very
similar species or between more distantly related and dissimilar species. For
example, Eucalyptus obliqua ('messmate', which is classified in the 'ash'
group of eucalypts) hybridises with E. baxteri (a member of the
'stringybark' group) where the habitats of these two species overlap (Fig.
32.8). On morphological evidence, the two species are not each other's
closest relative and are recognisably different. Their ability to interbreed is
not used as a criterion for 'lumping' them together as a single species."
(Knox B., Ladiges P. & Evans B., eds., "Biology," 1995, p708)
Therefore, itt does not follow that if "Neanderthals can interbreed"
with us, that they are "the same biological species as us. I gave
Stringer's more accurate definition of "species" below. The key word
is "normally". Thus if Neandertals could interbreed with Modern Humans
(which has not been shown), but *normally* did not do so, then they
would be regarded as closely relasted, but different, species.
But obviously if one *defines* species simplistically as being *able*
to interbreed and Neandertals *did* interbreed with Modern Humans,
even if only rarely (it has not been shown they interbred at all),
then *by definition* Neandertals and Modern Humans would be the same
species.
But then one wouldn't have accomplished anything except a self-delusory
verbal `sleight-of-hand'. On that basis there wouldn't really be
species called wolves and dogs, or lions and tigers, or horses, donkeys
and zebras, either because each of these can interbreed with members of
the same group, but *normally* do not do so.
wolves and dogs, or lions and tigers, or horses, donkeys and zebras QQ
Indeed, then it could not really be said that Cro-Magnons then were the
same as Modern Humans now becuase todays Modern Humans would then be a
mixture of Neandertals and Cro-Magnons.
>SJ>The fact is that only if hybridisation was common would the OoAH be
>>threatened and the MR/RCH supported. If hybridisation was comparatively
>>rare, then the OoAH would need little or no modification.
GM>By stating that OoA would need little modification, one ignores the fact
>that neither would the multiregional theory require much modification.
>Such invasions as the africans into europe become nothing more than part of
>the gene flow process.
Now this *is* wrong! The "multiregional theory" (MRt) postulates that
interbreeding was the norm. On this basis Neandertals simply interbred
with Modern Humans and were absorbed. Thus hybrids would be the norm
and the MRT would predict *plenty* of fossils with part-Modern
Human/part-Neandertal features, especially since it is claimed that the
evidence of hybridisation could last for thousands of years.
But the Out-of-Africa theory (OoAt) postulates that interbreeding was
*not* the norm. Modern Humans replaced Neandertals by out-competing
them and the Neandertals simply went extinct. Thus the OoAt would
predict few if any hybrids. The fossil record to date resoundingly supports
the OoAt, with or without this new fossil.
>GM>They believe
>>that Neanderthals were so different that they were an entirely separate
>>species. And if a separate species, then by definition,
>>Neanderthals and humans could not interbreed and produce fertile
>>offspring.
>SJ>This depends on one's definition of species. Some taxa classed as
>>separate species can interbreed, but rarely do in nature, as Glenn
>>himself says at the foot of this message...
>>The true definition of species is a bit more complex...:
>
>>"In fact, a species is usually designated as a group of
>>Organisms which normally do, or could, interbreed to produce fertile
>>offspring (that is, ones which can in turn successfully breed). Closely
^^^^^^^
>>related, but different species, may interbreed, but either this is not
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>their normal behaviour, or the hybrid offspring cannot reproduce in
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>the long term - such as the mule, the sterile offspring of a male
>>donkey and female horse. Even when they meet, closely related
>>species show differences in behaviour, physical appearance or scent,
>>which deter interbreeding." (Stringer C., & McKie R., "African Exodus,
>>1997, p51)
GM>By this definition, coyotes wolves and dogs are the same species.
No. They they are "closely related, but different species". The
emphasis is on the word "normally".
GM>They
>breed out here in the southwest all the time. Same goes for wolves and
>coyotes. Bednarick states:
>
>"Wolves can breed
>with coyotes, a whole population of mixed descent exists in parts of North
>America. So they produce certainly fertile offspring."Robert G. Bednarik,
>"Origin of Dogs," Artefact 1997, 20, pp.81-82, p. 82
Bednarick still calls then "wolves and coyotes". Perhaps Glenn could say
whether Bednarick classifies them as different species.
>SJ>If it turns out that Neandertals and modern humans *could* have
>>fertile offspring but rarely did so, then they could still be classified
>>as a closely related but different species. Dr Stringer agrees with this:
GM>Theologically your point is uninteresting. The issue is can we exclude
>from humanity
This is Glenn's usual play on the word "humanity". He thinks that by defining
words like "species" and "humanity" to include what he wants, he has
somehow accomplished something. All he has accomplished is in his original
definition. One could define "humanity" as being in the genus Homo, and hence
Homo erectus was "human" by that definition. Or one could define "humanity"
as sharing 98% of our genes, and then chimpanzees would be "human"! But like
governments printing more money, all that would have been done is the value
of the terms so defined would be lessened.
GM>someone with whom we can produce fertile offspring?
Glenn has not shown that this is even offspring, let alone "fertile offspring."
To show fertile offspring he would need a graded continuum of fossils
showing more Neandertal features and less Modern Human features (or
equal of both), gradually blending over time into more Modern Human
features and less Neandertal features.
GM>If humans
>produced even one fertile child with Neanderthal, then we MUST include them
>as human. .
See above. Glenn is making tautological claims (ie. claims that are true *by
definition. If "species" are defined by the minimal standard of being able to
produce fertile offspring, then *by definition* if a fertile offspring is
produced, its parents would be deemed to be the same species!
Similarly if "human" is defined by the minimal standard of being able to
produce fertile offspring with a Modern Human, and IF this fossil is a
fertile offspring of a Neandertal and a Modern Humans then by *definition*
Neandertals would be human.
But if it turn out to be that this is a N-MH hybrid, then Glenn's victory will
be pyrrhic, because then "humanity" will need to be redefined on non-
physical terms.
GM>There are lots of women I have never produced a child with and
>you can't claim that we are different species.
Producing a child *may* be evidence of being the same species, but that
does not mean that not producing a child is evidence of not being the same
species!
>SJ>Not really. Behind this wise saying is the truth that a rule that has only
>>minor exceptions is established as a *rule*. It may not be a *law* of
>>nature, but it is a *rule*. And the rule that this N-MH hybrid would
>>establish (if it holds up as a hybrid), would be that certain Neandertal
>>characteristics would be detectable if there was interbreeding with Modern
>>Humans. If such characteristics are rarely detected, then it is
>*devastating*
>>for the Multiregional/Regional Continuity Hypothesis (MR/RCH), which
>>posits that such mating should be common, but leaves a slightly modified
>>OoAH as the only game left in town.
GM>It is not really devastating to MR. MR does not guarantee that every
>variant will leave offspring. or even leave a lot of offspring.
Note Glenn's use of the strong word "guarantee" to protect the weak MR
theory! Scientific theories rarely "guarantee" anything.
If the MRt claims: 1) that the entire Neandertal population of Europe was
absorbed into Modern Humans; and 2) evidence for this could persist in N-
MH features in a fossil 6,000 years after the absorption, then 3) then the
MRt, if it was to be a testable scientific theory, would surely predict that
there would be *abundant* evidence of hybrid N-MH features wherever
Modern Humans and Neandertals co-existed; and 4) if little or no such
evidence of N-MH features are found, then the MRt would be falsified.
>>GM>Out of Africa (OoA)
>>>hypothesizes that all modern humans are descended from a
>>>group of people who came out of Africa about 120,000 years ago.
>SJ>My understanding is that it *began* 100,000 years ago:
>
>>"This date, of course, perfectly accords with the idea of a separate recent
>>evolution of Homo sapiens shortly before it began its African exodus about
>>100,000 years ago." (Stringer C. & McKie R., 1997, p114).
GM>This time it is your turn to be wrong. I cite Johanson for the earliest
>modern humans. It is actually older than I stated.
>
>"Chris believes that Omo I may be the oldest modern skull and skeleton
>because its postcranial bones are more modern in morphology than any
>specimens from Klasies. The uranium series dating technique, which was
>applied to shells from the same sediment layer where the skull was found,
>produced an age of 130,000 years. Chris stressed that this date should be
>verified by other dating techniques, but he pointed out that the sediment
>layer containing the skull was nearly two hundred feet beneath a layer
>radiocarbon-dated to almost 40,000 years ago." ~ Donald C. Johanson, Lenora
>Johanson, and Blake Edgar, Ancestors, (New York: Villard Books, 1994), p. 239
Glenn should read his own quotes! Johanson is quoting *Stringer's* date:
"Geological investigations and dating have shown that the two skulls are
about 130,000 years old, yet despite their antiquity they are both clearly
identifiable as Homo sapiens, our own species. At the time of their
discovery, scientists generally believed that our species had only emerged
in the last 60,000 years and many considered the famous Neanderthal Man
to be the immediate precursor to ourselves. The Omo fossils thus provided
important evidence that this was not so." (Stringer C. & McKie R.,
"African Exodus," 1997, p3)
Glenn is getting confused with the *origin* of Modern Humans and when
they began to leave Africa.
>SJ>Thus if it turns out that there was some rare interbreeding, then the OoAH
>>is still OK. But the MR/RCH requires that interbreeding be *common*.
GM>Fine, let MR be wrong.
Do I take it that Glenn here concedes that the Multiregional Theory is "wrong"
and that the Out of Africa is right?
GM>My point has always been that if we can interbreed
>with Neanderthal then they are like us.
We already know that "Neanderthals...are like us". What Glenn wants to say is
that Neanderthals *are* us!
GM>We can't exclude them from the human family
Glenn continues the same play on the word "human." He defines "human" to
include Neandertals and then says "We can't exclude them from the human family."
Obviously, if we have *defined* them that way!
GM>and that means that the history of Adam's race
Glenn's agenda used to be that Noah's Flood was the infilling of the
Mediterranean 5.5 million years ago. The problem was that only
Australopithecines were around at that time, so Glenn used to maintain that
Adam was an Australopithecine (or Homo habilis or Homo erectus). The
problem (apart from the fact that the Biblical description of the Flood does
not match the Mediterranean infilling), is that Australopithecines were too
primitive (so were and H. habilis H. erectus) and H. habilis and H. erectus
did not even exist 5.5 mya!
If Glenn *is* still pushing this broken barrow, then that would explain his
desire to grasp any straw to push "the history of Adam's race" back 5.5
million years.
The fact is that if this turns out to be a N-MH hybrid, it would not
necessarily tell us anything about Adam's race. For example: 1) if one held
a Young Earth view, one would already hold that Neandertals were the
same; 2) If one held a Old-Earth/Old Adam view, one could hold that the
Modern Human who allegedly had offspring with this Neandertal 24,000-
30,000 QQ years ago was an aberrant result of the Fall; 3) If one held an
Old-Earth/Young Adam view one could hold that Adam hadn't been
created yet; 4) If one held a symbolic view, one would regard "Adam" as a
symbol for "everyman" and one would not be worried about this at all.
GM>goes further back than you are willing to let happen.
How does Glenn know what I am "willing to let happen"? In fact I do not will
anything to happen. If something *really* happened, I would change my views
to accommodate it.
>GM>Modern men, in this view totally replaced all earlier populations.
SJ>Agreed. But this could still be done if interbreeding was rare.
GM>So are you saying that interbreeding is possible? If so what is your basis
>for rejecting them from humanity?
I have *already* said that "interbreeding is possible" And see above for my
answer to Glenn's "humanity" word-play.
>SJ>The link that Glenn provides no longer works. My understanding is that
>>paternal inheritance of mtDNA is far from having been proved. It is well
>>known that paternal mtDNA does occasionally pass over into the fertilised
>>cell, but that does not mean it survives into future generations.
GM>Stephen, you are grasping for straws here.
Well if I am they are pretty big "straws"!
GM>Take a look at these two very recent articles.
>
>"It seems liekly that paternal mtDNA molecules might make a small, albeit
>significant, contribution to mtDNA lineages, particularly if measured over
>prolonged time periods of evolutionary history." ( E. Hagelberg et al,
>"Evidence for Mitochondrial DNA Rcombination in a Human Population of
>Island Mwelanesia," Proc. Royal Soc. Lond. B (1999) 266:485-492, p 489-490)
What exactly does "It SEEMS LIKELY that paternal mtDNA molecules
MIGHT make a SMALL, albeit SIGNIFICANT, contribution to mtDNA
lineages, particularly IF measured over prolonged time periods of
evolutionary history" mean? (my emphasis).
This is so vague, it is not even wrong! I am not prepared to waste time
debating something that MIGHT have happened. When they actually make
a testable claim that is independently verified by then it will be worth
discussing.
>"It is generally accepted that, in higher plants and animals, mitochondria
>are inherited from one parent, usually the mother, and that their
>inheritance is therefore clonal. This dogma appears to have arisen out of
>the belief that paternal mitochondria do not penetrate the egg. However,
>it is now well-known that paternal mitochondria do enter the egg and
>survive for several hours in mammals. Since mitochondria alaso contain the
>enzymes necessary for homologous recombination, it seems possible that
>there is recombination between mitochondrial lineages and that the
>inheritance of mitochondria is not clonal.
>"Phylogenetic trees constructed using mitochhondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences
>condtain many homoplasies, i.e., back or parallel changes at a site).
>Homoplasies are either due to repeated mutation or to recombination." Adam
>Eyre-Walkeer, Noel H. Smith and John Maynard Smith, "How Clonal are Human
>Mitochondria?", Proc. Royal Soc. Lond. B (1999) 266:477-483, p. 477
Again all this says is, "IT SEEMS POSSIBLE that there is recombination
between mitochondrial lineages". It is old news that "paternal mitochondria
do enter the egg.":
"A few of the mitochondria, too, can escape the doom awaiting the great
majority of their companions by being passed on to the next generation,
carrying with them their little loops of DNA. The mitochondria, however,
are confined to the cytoplasm of the cells, not the nuclei. Only if a little of
this cytoplasm is passed on to the next generation can a few of the
mitochondria be passed on as well. Here is where the unusual nature of
mitochondrial inheritance becomes obvious. The egg passes cytoplasm
filled with mitochondria to the next generation, while the sperm does not.
Sperm start out as normal cells, but they quickly lose most of their.
cytoplasm and shrink down to become little more than a package of
chromosomes with a frantically waving tail attached. Most of the
mitochondria are lost as well, and the few that are left are located at the
base of the sperm's tail where they supply the ATP needed to drive the
sperm in its single-minded quest for the egg. Eggs are huge balloonlike
cells, with a voluminous cytoplasm richly endowed with all the materials
needed to start the embryos development after fertilization. When sperm
and egg fuse, the ordinary nuclear chromosomes carried by the sperm are
passed safely to the egg. But the shreds of mitochondria in the sperm are
usually left outside the egg, along with their tiny mitochondrial
chromosomes. Almost always only the plentiful mitochondria of the egg,
carrying their little chromosomes with them, are passed on to the child. If
the child is a girl and has children of her own, her mitochondrial
chromosomes will be passed on-at least to the following generation. If the
child is a boy, then whether or not he has children, his mitochondrial
chromosomes will be lost." (Wills C., "The Runaway Brain," 1994, pp22-
23)
But however this turns out, it will not affect the Out of Africa theory
one bit. The Mitochondrial Eve theory and the Out of Africa theory are
two different things.
>SJ>Besides this article Glenn cites wrongly confuses the Mitochondrial Eve
>>hypothesis with the OoAH.
GM>If you couldn't read it, then how do you know what the article says?
I was working off the excerpt which Glenn's posted. I checked the link
twice, both from work and from home on two different days, but it
returned a "Not Found" error both times.
>SJ>I don't need to prove or disprove the "mtDNA paternal inheritance" claims.
>>First, it has yet to be shown that paternal mtDNA has any last inheritable
>>effect.
GM>Wrong. See the two articles:
I *did* "see" Glenn's "two articles"! Neither of them, say is that it is now
"shown that paternal mtDNA has any last[ing] inheritable effect." All they say
is it MIGHT and that it is POSSIBLE. That is too vague at this stage to be
discussed intelligently.
And in any event, Glenn chopped off my second point which was:
"Second, even if it did, it would no bearing on the OoAH."
[...]
Steve
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"'Social Darwinism' is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly
concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event, tarnishing
Darwin's image. But his notebooks make plain that competition, free trade,
imperialism, racial extermination, and sexual inequality were written into
the equation from the start- 'Darwinism' was always intended to explain
human society." (Desmond A. & Moore J., "Darwin," [1991], Penguin:
London UK, 1992, reprint, pp.xix)
--------------------------------------------------------------------