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PerformanceNow t1_ja9ixo4 wrote

This was theorized about 20 years ago but people thought the proponents of it were crazy. I thought it made a lot of sense and now it seems that that's what the establishment is agreeing with.

It's amazing how consensus can change

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Kuivamaa t1_ja9tnah wrote

I thought that by now we had a very good idea on how extensive the level of mixing between modern humans and Neanderthals thanks to dna studies. The Homo sapiens that got out of Africa interbred with them at such an early stage that all Europeans and Asians have some Neanderthal admixture in them. Asians have more because their ancestors mixed with Neanderthals again (after european and Asian lineages split) and finally south eastern Asians plus oceanic people also have Denisovan admixture.

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First_Foundationeer t1_jaaw7zm wrote

I didn't know that bit about asian populations. I wondered why I had so much Neanderthal DNA according to 23andme!

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Night_Runner t1_jaa8bp3 wrote

It's not so much that scientists changed their minds, it's more that those who were strongly opposed to the idea either retired or died of old age. It's the same pattern with lots of scientific ideas we take for granted.

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atjones111 t1_ja9uk4t wrote

To people within the anth world this has a commonly known understood and accepted fact/theory for the past 50, it’s just all the non scientific people who doubt it, a certain group of people love to stifle or research and progress, hell we’re just sort of reaching the point where evolution is a commonly held belief

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alphaphilomath t1_jaar59w wrote

I was taking Anthropology courses in the mid nineties and not one of my professors agreed with my opinion that there was no way sapiens weren't hooking up with Neanderthals repeatedly. As if they'd never met a human. So, I'm not sure where those who held that belief were especially 50 years ago, but I didn't meet them.

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atjones111 t1_jaas2vc wrote

It’s not something promoted in intro courses as it opens up a conundrum, that being well what do you call the archaic/modern human that comes from it and so forth, probs not taught in 90s due to evolution bad hysteria then, colleges don’t like losing funding, maybe your profs sucked or were just of the 5% conservative anthropologists, idk odd they would say that

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Point_Forward t1_jab2r9i wrote

Scientists and those trained in the scientific method tend to be conservative in what they admit when there is a lack of evidence one way or the other. In other words, if there isn't good evidence to support it then the default position is disbelief.

It really is a more sensible approach to the accumulation of knowledge, to not get our beliefs ahead of the evidence. It is better to require a high bar to accepting new theories than to too easily accept them.

It's fine for lay people to have pet theories and believe in things and ideas that are fun but not well proven but it isn't a good attitude to have for a professor or expert. If the new models prove themselves correct then the next generation can build on them, but they should be good enough to convincingly beat out the old theories before they are adopted and taught as the mainstream.

That's my thought at least, but it's a point that have a lot of people angry at what is accepted as the mainstream among academics because it seems slow and is skeptical of exciting new claims.

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atjones111 t1_jab3cja wrote

You’re not wrong and that’s a good point, lol I’m even nervous to tell people I’m an anthropologist because they then know I believe in evolution. But yea I agree better to have a high bar to accept theories than a low, because if it’s something that’s true it should be easily replicated with success to prove it, if not you may be grasping on a theory

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flatcologne t1_jaafhxr wrote

It’s not really a shift in academia or anything as much as just advances in genetic sequencing allowing us to see conclusively that the genetic makeup of all modern Europeans is around 1-3% Neanderthal dna

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Yrolg1 t1_jaawbtx wrote

> It’s not really a shift in academia or anything as much as advances in genetic sequencing allowing us to see conclusively that the genetic makeup of all modern Europeans is around 1-3% Neanderthal dna

And the article says a Neanderthal ancestor 4 to 6 generations back. 2^5 = 32, or about 3% of his ancestry.

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GrandBed t1_jab13r3 wrote

The first group of experts thought modern day humans would not have sex with Neanderthals on the regular and just out hunted them. The second group thought humans would have sex with Neanderthals. The first group didn’t seem to understand humans very much.

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wittor t1_jaaczwv wrote

Consensus is basically a synonym for textbook simplifications that hardly match the state of any academic discipline.
Unfortunately, most of the nuances on archeology are lost between school books and cheap speculation in popular books.

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