Coyne, Craig and Swamidass

[anon46279830]

@jongarvey

I’ve wondered about how significant the low Neanderthal representation is in estimating the extent of hybridisation.

It is insignificant. And the data suggests to me at least that most of the hybridization is an error that nature is in the process of correcting. I predict that when Joshua and RTB recalculate the figures taking the amount they can document into account it is not going to change his original findings much.

@jongarvey

So does the low proportion of Neanderthal genes reflect that hybridisation was rare, or that something in the hybridization process and its subsequent history dis-favour the survival of the Neanderthal component? There are a lot of X and Y chromosomes that became “genetic ghosts” in human history, so might not there be more Neanderthal ghosts than is currently assumed?

Both according to the research in the link below. That link got static because of my defining the term “human” as only our species, but the rest of it is just going right off the research. One of the studies even answers your question about genetic ghosts. Not regarding the admixture from 55K ago, there may be many dead ends. But among the living they detected no admixture from the 12,000 years humans and neanderthals were living side by side in Europe. They knew about genetic ghosts and calculated that in that period of time there could have been no more than 120 hybridization events that left survivors or else they could have detected it in living Europeans. Please see link below…

The Case that Neanderthals were not Human - Genetics

The evidence suggests that Neanderthals were not human. There are several categories of evidence for this, but I’d like to focus on the very strong genetic evidence which points to this conclusion after just one point from morphology. Of course humans have been changing somewhat for a while. Our modern globular brain shape did not even work its way into our phenotype until after 36,000 years ago, a date which some would say was near or after the date Neanderthals went extinct. I am not even convinced that the physical brain is what truly makes us human. But to the extent that it is brain shape may be even more important than brain size. Hominid brain size did not change much in almost half a million years while what humanity has accomplished from the time modern brain shape occurred to the present is orders of magnitude greater than those of other hominid groups given that same amount of time with a similar brain capacity. Scientists tell us that all living Eurasians have an average …