Assessing the Reasons to Believe Model

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@purposenation, welcome to the forums!

@purposenation

I asked Dr. Ross about his views on the descendants of Adam and Eve. And at that time, at least, he seemed to be of the view that there was no interbreeding with Neanderthals and that RTB had doubts about the reliability of the Neanderthal genetic evidence.

Dr. Ross is not a biologist and wisely defers to Rana and other biologists. I recently invited him to a session on the science of Adam, and gave a lecture on this in attendance. He wisely demurred from participation, even though I invited him.

Reworking the Science of Adam

For the currrent RTB model, it seems the focus should be on their written work:

@swamidass

RTB Model #2

Then there was a change, that @otto pointed too, where Rana and Ross came appreciate and accept the evidence for Neanderthal-Sapien interbreeding. This means that RTB #1 is not really their current model, and we need to careful about not misrepresenting them. They changed the model in Edition 2 of their book, to include Neanderthal-Humans interbreeding as bestiality.

1. Humans = Homo sapiens.
2. Neanderthals are more close mentally to Apes, and are beasts without intelligence.
3. Homo sapiens must arise less than 100 kya, from a single couple
4. Homo sapiens interbreed with Neanderthals, and this is bestiality.
5. A lost record of cities and agricultures

It is possible that this could be consistent with the evidence, but we need do some work to test it, by computing the TMR4A time within the Sapien specific lineage.

That is where, in print, Dr. Ross acknowledges that evidence with Rana. What you are hearing from him in person is probably put in the speculative bin.

Though, if others hold that view, we should be clear the genetic evidence solidly rules out sole-genetic progenitor within the last 500,000 years. That interbreeding with Neanderthals is really helpful, as it brings in additional genetic diversity to allow for the hope of a single couple origin of Sapiens.

@purposenation

I believe he suggested that perhaps Europeans had contaminated the Neanderthal genetic studies and perhaps researchers from Africa (presumably because they have been shown to not have interbred with Neanderthals) should investigate Neanderthal specimens as to be sure not to contaminate the genetic record.

Just for the record, that is not terribly plausible for a range of technical reasons. How does he even know that it wasn’t Africans or Asians that were handling the material?