Why didn't God save Neanderthals?

[Hans_W]

…
…
From the abstract in this last paper: “We show that Neandertals shared more genetic variants with present-day humans in Eurasia than with present-day humans in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting that gene flow from Neandertals into the ancestors of non-Africans occurred before the divergence of Eurasian groups from each other.”

Interesting post. Thank you.
Looking forward to read the book. There are a couple of talks by Svante Pääbo on YouTube.

 

[LogisticsBranch]

Regarding the question of interbreeding, here are some informative links which address this from a Catholic position.

Link to article published in Crisis Magazine online: crisismagazine.com/2014/d…e-really-exist

Additional article
hprweb.com/2014/07/time-t…genesis-story/

Informative Catholic website drbonnette.com/

The new expanded third edition of the book *Origin of the Human Species *by Catholic author Dr. Dennis Bonnette includes the article “The Myth of the “Myth” of Adam and Eve” as Appendix One. Appendix Two is “The Philosophical Impossibility of Darwinian Naturalistic Evolution”

http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Human-Species-Third-Edition/dp/1932589686/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=14124676 70&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=Origin+of+the+human+spe cies++Bonnette

Grannymh, I’m a Catholic and don’t agree with what you have posted.

From the National Human Genome Research Institute:

Darwin at 200: How Geneticists View Him Today
"February 12, 2009, marked the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and the 150th year since publication of his seminal work, On the Origin of Species. The renowned 19th century naturalist made observations on plant and animal life that set science on a new course, introducing evolution as the unifying concept in all of genetics and biology. Students of U.S. history will note that the date is also the 200th birthday of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) observed Darwin’s life and accomplishments at events at the NIH’s Bethesda campus and at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Hear what geneticists at NHGRI have to say about Darwin’s ideas, science and legacy."
. . .]
genome.gov/27529500

 

[grannymh]

Grannymh, I’m a Catholic and don’t agree with what you have posted.

Are you objecting to Catholic doctrines in the articles?

 

[Hans_W]

Grannymh, I’m a Catholic and don’t agree with what you have posted.

From the National Human Genome Research Institute:

Darwin at 200: How Geneticists View Him Today
"February 12, 2009, marked the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and the 150th year since publication of his seminal work, On the Origin of Species. The renowned 19th century naturalist made observations on plant and animal life that set science on a new course, introducing evolution as the unifying concept in all of genetics and biology. Students of U.S. history will note that the date is also the 200th birthday of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) observed Darwin’s life and accomplishments at events at the NIH’s Bethesda campus and at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Hear what geneticists at NHGRI have to say about Darwin’s ideas, science and legacy."
. . .]
genome.gov/27529500

You are not the only one. Pope Francis is on our side as well (so have all the popes since Pius XII in 1950).

Granny keeps pushing her retired philosophy professor Dr Dennis Bonnette who has a strong liking for the so-called theory of Intelligent Design. I have pointed out numerous times that Bonnette’s “The Philosophical Impossibility of Darwinian Naturalistic Evolution” is nonsense. You can’t disprove the theory of evolution with philosophical arguments, but Granny doesn’t seem to understand that.

 

[CarmelJerome]

Modern humans of European/Asian descent share 1-4% of our DNA with neanderthals and there is strong evidence humans interbred with neanderthals at one point around 40,000 years ago. It has been determined neanderthals also had the FOXP2 gene associated with language development and speech. Furthermore neanderthals used tools and created what we would consider very primitive art. They would most likely have the intellectual capacity to ask “Why am I here”? What makes our species within the great apes and other primates more special than others or more special than the now extinct Homo neanderthalensis, a separate species? We surely destroy the planet, cause other species to become extinct, and slaughter eachother at the greatest rate of any species in the animal kingdom.

The Second Person of the Trinity did not become a Neanderthal, but became the man Jesus of Nazareth. We will never know what the Neanderthals were about, but they seem to be all the rage because, as with every.novel branch of science, genome - related business is generating endless speculation about matters of no import at all.

 

[grannymh]

Because we are in the Philosophy Forum,

may I respectfully point out to our gentle readers,

that there is a major philosophical difference between plants, ants and the human person. This philosophical difference is based on Genesis 1: 26-27 and the point “The Second Person of the Trinity did not become a Neanderthal, but became the man Jesus of Nazareth.” found in post 86 by CarmelJerome.

The Catholic Church is guided by the wisdom of the promised Holy Spirit, Chapter 14, Gospel of John, The Catholic Ecumenical Councils are listed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition, Index of Citations, page 720. When one scans this Index beginning on page 689, one finds all kinds of philosophical thinking. To get a handle on this, it is best to start with CCC 20-21 which gives the important explanation of small print.

When it comes to natural science which is a gift from God, one recognizes that human nature is both material and spiritual the union of which forms a single philosophical unique peerless nature, that of ourselves.* CCC* 362-368 and *CCC *1730-1732. The realm of natural science is the material/physical. It is philosophy which points to spiritual Divine Revelation.

In the Catholic Church, Divine Revelation trumps.

 

[OneSheep]

Modern humans of European/Asian descent share 1-4% of our DNA with neanderthals and there is strong evidence humans interbred with neanderthals at one point around 40,000 years ago. It has been determined neanderthals also had the FOXP2 gene associated with language development and speech. Furthermore neanderthals used tools and created what we would consider very primitive art. They would most likely have the intellectual capacity to ask “Why am I here”? What makes our species within the great apes and other primates more special than others or more special than the now extinct Homo neanderthalensis, a separate species? We surely destroy the planet, cause other species to become extinct, and slaughter eachother at the greatest rate of any species in the animal kingdom.

Science, May 7, 2010 and last reviewed April 4, 2012

From the National Human Genome Research Institute:

“Neanderthals lived in many parts of Europe and western Asia before disappearing 30,000 years ago. The Science article presented a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome composed of more than 4 billion nucleotides from the bones of three female Neanderthals who lived some 40,000 years ago in Europe. These sequences were compared to those from five present-day humans from China, France, Papua New Guinea, southern Africa and western Africa. This provided the first genome-wide look at the similarities and differences of the closest evolutionary relative to humans, and maybe even the ability to identify, for the first time, genetic variations that gave rise to modern humans. An analysis of the genetic variation showed that Neanderthal DNA is 99.7 percent identical to present-day human DNA.” (NHGRI Researchers Win AAAS Prize for Neanderthal Genome Analysis)
genome.gov/27543529

Hi Logistics,

Hopefully your quote answers and clarifies the OP. Modern humans “share” much more DNA with the Neanderthals than 1-4%, it is more like our genomes differ less than 1%, as the analysis showed. We share 65% of our genome with chickens, and 24% with wine grapes!

ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/07/125-explore/shared-genes

And yes, many (most? I don’t remember) modern humans have a bit of Neanderthal DNA, which scientifically proves the neanderthals were not a different species. The definition of “species” in the first place is that they are a group individuals that can produce viable offspring that can reproduce. Neanderthals were a different race or subspecies, not a different species.

Therefore, God did “save” Neanderthals, so to speak. They just sort of lost their separate identity. Who knows? In a a thousand years the same may be true for other modern races.

Now as far as the spiritual aspect of origin, many people find a great deal of importance in believing that some of the scientific findings are false. To me, these opinions are to be respected, and their opinions are of no consequence to the spirituality of those who see the truth of the science, and vice versa. The Catholic Church does not condemn either position. If the science of genomics compromises ones’ faith in some way, perhaps it is better for that person to ignore the science.

:twocents:

Have a great day.

 

[wmw]

Here is a responsible article: usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2005-02-08-skeletons_x.htm

Scholars debate link between Neanderthals, homo sapiens
By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY Posted 2/8/2005 10:13 PM Updated 2/9/2005 3:24 PM

NEW YORK — Over wintry days that hearkened back to past ice ages, scholars met recently to debate the long-running riddle dogging the study of human origins.

  A reconstructed Neanderthal skeleton, rear, and a human skeleton.

AP
Do people today share any ancestry with the extinct human race we call Neanderthals? Or did they die out completely?

Put another way, “Did Neanderthals and modern humans … do it?” asked anthropologist Jim Ahern of the University of Wyoming. That question, repeated in various ways, formed the basis of the two-and-a-half-day conference here last month.

Most conferees argued Neanderthals likely represent a branch of humanity that died off. But questions remain.

Held at New York University, “Neanderthals Revisited: New Approaches and Perspectives” asked researchers to tackle the place of Neanderthals — the heavy-browed and muscular early humans often stereotyped as cavemen — in human history.

Neanderthals lived mostly in Europe and the Middle East from at least 200,000 to 28,000 years ago, before disappearing mysteriously from the fossil record just as modern-looking humans moved into those regions. Whether people today owe any ancestry to these earlier folks has roiled paleoanthropology for decades. The goal of the meeting, said NYU anthropologist Terry Harrison, one of the co-organizers, was to look for common ground between scholars on both sides of the debate.

The debate is central to disagreement over the “Out of Africa” model for human development. Largely based on fossils and modern genes, that model suggests modern-looking people, Homo sapiens, appeared in east Africa as early as 150,000 years ago and moved outward before 80,000 years ago.

The less-popular “multi-regional” model holds that as modern-looking humans encountered populations outside Africa, such as Neanderthals, they interbred.

For two days at the meeting, the scholars looked at new ways of analyzing old bones, discussing CT scans of Neanderthal fossil skulls, mechanical differences between humans and genetic data. A third discussion, open only to scholars, ended the meeting.

“A strong consensus has emerged that Neanderthals are a distinct evolutionary entity from our own, that most would view as a different species from modern humans,” Harrison said. Among the findings:

• Genome Quebec Innovation Center researchers conclude Neanderthals could have contributed 0.1% of their genes to modern humans, and possibly none.

• Neanderthals were “very good” homebody hunters, sticking close to one region to find bison, deer and other prey. Early modern humans ranged far and wide on their hunts, in contrast, reported University of New Mexico researchers.

• An up-to-date reconstruction of a full Neanderthal skeleton shows striking differences in overall appearance — from a huge nose to an extra-thick torso to the way they walked — from early humans, said Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History. “I’m sure no self-respecting Neanderthal female would fancy a Homo sapiens male,” Tattersall said

“Obviously, not everybody agrees,” Harrison said. Among people calling on researchers not to close the books on a Neanderthal-human link was Ahern, who noted that some Neanderthal traits, such as thick brows and long skulls, do pop up now and then in modern people. And Chris Stringer of London’s Natural History Museum called for caution, noting that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals likely overlapped territories for thousands of years.

Even so, Harrison suggested that researchers will increasingly turn their attention to the root causes of the widely-observed differences between people and Neanderthals. Debate aside, he said, “we are exploring in increasing detail the biology, behavior, evolution and extinction of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, and along the way, learning important lessons about our own evolutionary history.”

 

[Thorolfr]

Here is a responsible article: usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2005-02-08-skeletons_x.htm

This article from 2005 in USA Today is already a little outdated. As stated elsewhere in this thread, the Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010 by Svante Pääbo, director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. This tells us a lot more about how we are related to Neanderthals and shows that many of us have Neanderthal DNA.

Ancient DNA testing has improved immensely since 2005.

 

[wmw]

Science has new hypothesis all the time. This is how science works and it should explore these new possibilities. Yet, the very idea of connecting one’s theology to what most likely will be completely left on the cutting room floor like a bad movie in another 7 years is silly.

Science is a search for truth, but it is very bad about rating the truths it professes as to how long they will last further theories. Popular reporting of science loves to run with the latest and most sensational hypothesis for sales and loves to confuse the unwary that these are solid facts. These newest statistical genetic models of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution made in the last few years from a few samples are quite untried by the test of time and not to be trusted as even overturning the findings of 2005 on a scientific basis.

To begin to overturn your world view on a such a sketchy hypothesis is bad theology. I am with the Pope that further investigation is needed by the scientific community. It does not mean he is contemplating any need to modify the theological teachings of the Church and neither should we need to adjust our beliefs to each sensational headline or new hypothesis even if this hypothesis is good science at present.

 

[Hans_W]

Science has new hypothesis all the time. This is how science works and it should explore these new possibilities. Yet, the very idea of connecting one’s theology to what most likely will be completely left on the cutting room floor like a bad movie in another 7 years is silly.

Science is a search for truth, but it is very bad about rating the truths it professes as to how long they will last further theories. Popular reporting of science loves to run with the latest and most sensational hypothesis for sales and loves to confuse the unwary that these are solid facts. These newest statistical genetic models of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution made in the last few years from a few samples are quite untried by the test of time and not to be trusted as even overturning the findings of 2005 on a scientific basis.

To begin to overturn your world view on a such a sketchy hypothesis is bad theology. I am with the Pope that further investigation is needed by the scientific community. It does not mean he is contemplating any need to modify the theological teachings of the Church and neither should we need to adjust our beliefs to each sensational headline or new hypothesis even if this hypothesis is good science at present.

Good point. But from time to time we can stop and take stock. It is unlikely that new evidence comes up proving that the sun goes around the earth, that the earth is not 4.6 billion years old, that evolution didn’t happen, or that Neanderthals did not interbreed with Homo Sapiens out of Africa. And we need to leave it to the expert in the relevant field to tell us what knowledge is secure and what is tentative. And yes, science reporters for popular publications are not a reliable source.

 

[OneSheep]

I am with the Pope that further investigation is needed by the scientific community.

Good Morning wmw.

The Pope said that further investigation is needed by the scientific community? I can’t find this.

Pope Francis?

Thanks

 

[wmw]

My poor paraphrase. A quote would be:

“…methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God.”

 

[wmw]

From an article reporting on a scientific report submission both published April 1 2014.

In their paper, Khrameeva and her colleagues noted that speculation regarding some Neanderthal-H. sapiens gene flow through sexual reproduction is “appealing.” And experts in the field generally agree that the idea is plausible, even if it’s not their favored explanation.

“I would contend that it is most likely due to shared common ancestry,” Robert Lowery, a phylogeneticist at Indian River State College in Fort Pierce, Florida, told The Scientist in an e-mail. “Introgression from Neanderthals to humans—and much more likely, from modern humans to Neanderthals—is still a possibility.” Lowery was not involved in the work [on lipid metabolism-associated gene variants].

Hawks also acknowledged the introgression possibility and calls it the “much simpler” explanation. But, he said, “Neanderthals are ancient relative to us, and maybe these things just show up because they’re ancient, not because we specifically got these from Neanderthals.”

 

[Ridgerunner]

Modern humans of European/Asian descent share 1-4% of our DNA with neanderthals .

Just a quick observation here. Supposedly we share 90% or so of our DNA with primates, and even a very high percentage with canids. How can it possibly be that we share only 1-4% of our DNA with obvious humanoids with whom “homo sapiens” appears to have produced fertile offspring?

Perhaps it’s just my ignorance of what snippets of DNA they’re talking about, but to me, something is wrong with this whole thing about relationship with neanderthals.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Okay. Here’s an article saying we share 40% of our DNA with cabbage. And only 1-4% with neanderthals, then?

Either there’s something we don’t know about what the “1-4%” scientists are talking about, or somebody is pulling somebody’s leg.

chemistry.about.com/od/lecturenoteslab1/a/10-Interesting-Dna-Facts.htm

 

[Thorolfr]

Perhaps it’s just my ignorance of what snippets of DNA they’re talking about, but to me, something is wrong with this whole thing about relationship with neanderthals.

You would have to understand what they mean by saying that some humans have 1-4% of their DNA from Neanderthals. I haven’t read any of the studies in question so don’t know the science behind that statement, but just to make an educated guess, it probably means that some modern humans have DNA segments with specific mutations in them that did not arise in the evolutionary tree for Homo sapiens sapiens.

All human beings have many hundreds or thousands of DNA mutations in their chromosomes, each one of which they have inherited from a specific ancestor who lived many thousands of years ago and which distinguish them from other human beings not in their line of descent. For example, I’ve done a lot of DNA testing and had more than 10 million base pairs of my Y-chromosome sequenced which shows that I have specific mutations that arose in specific individuals living in Scandinavia and all their direct paternal descendants of which I am one have inherited those mutations from them. People who are not of Scandinavian descent do not have those mutations and those mutations are used to define what are called haplogroups. So I have DNA segments that distinguish me from people now living who do not have any ancestors from Scandinavia. I also have blue eyes, another mutation which I and all other blue eyed people inherited from a single individual who lived between 6000 and 10,000 years ago.

So my guess is that there are specific DNA segments with certain mutations that are found in the Neanderthal genome and which arose in their evolutionary tree but not in that of Homo sapiens sapiens (the genome of ancient Homo sapiens sapiens have been sequenced) and which only some modern humans with ancestors who migrated out of Africa also have. But modern humans in Africa do not have any of those DNA segments with those mutations. This would demonstrate that the interbreeding only took place with human populations that migrated out of Africa. That’s just a guess based on what I’ve learned about DNA studies.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You would have to understand what they mean by saying that some humans have 1-4% of their DNA from Neanderthals. I haven’t read any of the studies in question so don’t know the science behind that statement, but just to make an educated guess, it probably means that some modern humans have DNA segments with specific mutations in them that did not arise in the evolutionary tree for Homo sapiens sapiens.

All human beings have many hundreds or thousands of DNA mutations in their chromosomes, each one of which they have inherited from a specific ancestor who lived many thousands of years ago and which distinguish them from other human beings not in their line of descent. For example, I’ve done a lot of DNA testing and had more than 10 million base pairs of my Y-chromosome sequenced which shows that I have specific mutations that arose in specific individuals living in Scandinavia and all their direct paternal descendants of which I am one have inherited those mutations from them. People who are not of Scandinavian descent do not have those mutations and those mutations are used to define what are called haplogroups. So I have DNA segments that distinguish me from people now living who do not have any ancestors from Scandinavia. I also have blue eyes, another mutation which I and all other blue eyed people inherited from a single individual who lived between 6000 and 10,000 years ago.

So my guess is that there are specific DNA segments with certain mutations that are found in the Neanderthal genome and which arose in their evolutionary tree but not in that of Homo sapiens sapiens (the genome of ancient Homo sapiens sapiens have been sequenced) and which only some modern humans with ancestors who migrated out of Africa also have. But modern humans in Africa do not have any of those DNA segments with those mutations. This would demonstrate that the interbreeding only took place with human populations that migrated out of Africa. That’s just a guess based on what I’ve learned about DNA studies.

Given that there are definite physiological features shared by northern Europeans and Neanderthals, and the absence of any evidence that Neanderthals were not simply human beings of a physiognomy only mildly different from that of some groups of people living today, it seems to me there is little or no reason to think of them as anything other than human beings of a “different race” from those who came into Europe later.

If I’m not mistaken, I think there have been remains attributed to “Neanderthals” other than just in Europe.

It’s kind of amusing how the artists’ renderings of Neanderthals have changed over the decades; from the clearly apelike to that of a more-robust-than-usual person of northern European descent more prevalent in today’s renderings.

 

[randomusername]

Whether Neanderthals have souls or not depends on when Adam and Eve were made. At some point with Adam and Eve, humans turned from intelligent ape beings to sentient ones with souls. Whether this happened before or after Neanderthals split off I have no idea of.

 

[Thorolfr]

Given that there are definite physiological features shared by northern Europeans and Neanderthals, and the absence of any evidence that Neanderthals were not simply human beings of a physiognomy only mildly different from that of some groups of people living today, it seems to me there is little or no reason to think of them as anything other than human beings of a “different race” from those who came into Europe later.

I’m not an anthropologist and don’t know in detail how they decide that one group of hominids is sufficiently distinct from another to be given a separate name. But modern humans are classified as Homo sapiens sapiens and Neanderthals are classified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Our respective branches are thought to have separated about 600,000 years ago. The two are certainly much more different from each other than any modern “race” of humans is from another modern race.