Homo sapiens dropping down to zero?!

[gbrooks9 (GeorgeB)]

@swamidass

Where did I say that? That needs to be fixed if I accidentally said that.

This is where you said that… This text is wrong:

@swamidass

The problem is not the findings of mainstream population genetics at all here. The problem is rather in the inference from this finding to the claim that this means Homo sapiens never dip below a few thousand. If we go back far enough their numbers go to zero. If they can go to zero without contradicting the evidence; so why can’t they go to 2? (of course, the would be interbreeding with surrounding non-sapiens).

Heliocentric Certainty Against a Bottleneck of Two?

The Ecological Fallacy Let’s start with this first claim by Dennis (rephrased by me and approved by Dennis). On face value, we know that this cannot be known with certainty. Some scientists are not even sure if the remains earlier than 300 kya are fully Homo sapien. That means it is entirely reasonable to believe that Homo sapiens go to zero (less than a single couple) in this time frame. Where is the error? The inference that (1) our ancestors never go below a few thousand, so therefore (2) Homo sapiens never go below a few thousand, is an example of the Ecological Fallacy. What applies to a group of things (the group here is “our ancestors”) does not necessarily apply to all the individuals in that group (the individual here is “Homo sapiens”). To be 100% clear, this is not at all a challenge to mainstream population genetics, which makes claims about our ancestors as a whole. All the population size estimates (which are geometric averages over a time window) all include Homo sa…

And you went double-down on the error with this post at BioLogos, where you provide the link to the original posting:

Adam, Eve and Population Genetics: A Reply to Dr. Richard Buggs (Part 1)