I apologize for the long pause after just having started the blog. There are many reasons for this but let's not delve into them.
So many things have happened during these few months so just covering the interesting topics of this period would constitute hundreds of blog posts.
Where should I start? I think I will start with a study that was widely reported and where another blog gave what I thought was some very interesting information but without drawing any hypothesis.
In february a study was published in nature about completely sequenced genomes of four khoi-sans and one bantu from southern africa. The bantu individual happened to be the revered arch-bishop Desmond Tutu which obviously created a lot of interesta and it was gracious of him to take part but scientifically the study of the khoisans could be said to be more important since they have been a little studied group and since they are not closely related with other more studied groups as is the case with the south-african bantus who are related to the well studied nigerian bantus.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7283/full/nature08795.html
I read a reflection on this study in john hawks weblog. He had read the available material on the net which did not include genotypes for new snps but included were a list of amino acid coding mutations compared to the human reference genome. He had noted that one of the khoisan had an amino acid mutation in the gene fox-p2.
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/genetics/brain/foxp2-bushman-variant-2010.html
This gene has been connected with language ability since people with speech disabilities have had mutations in it. Now a mutation does of course not have to lead to a disability it could also lead to an ability and my thought is that what constitues abilities and disabilities might vary between languages that are widely different.
John Hawks does raise the question whether this gene might be common in southern-africa but he doesn't put forward any hypotheses on what it might do and perhaps he is wise do to so considering the limited data. It was of course only found in one of the individuals.
However what did strike me at once as a layman was whether this mutation might have a connection with the click-languages? Either contributing to their emergence or being the result of countless of generations of that type of speech which perhaps gave it's bearer an even better mastery of the click sounds?
If either would be the case I think it would be a huge discovery at least from a human cultural standpoint.
A low frequencey today of the gene could be explained by admixture with the bantu or other peoples.
An important insight might then be that what counts as a disability for one language might be a great advantage when speaking a totally different language or put another way - "disabilities" or "abilities" might give rise to new languages. My country Sweden has many internationally succesful composers of songs and I have noticed that many of them are not that "verbally gifted" - at least when it comes to speeking indo-european languages (yes, swedish is indo-european). Perhaps they carry a mutation in fox-p2?
måndag 22 mars 2010
onsdag 2 december 2009
I have had much to little time to get going with this blog. So what will I "start" with in this non introductory second post (I'm thinking as i'm writing)?
Ok, lets take an easy subject like human evolution. I'm not interested in the creationist debate on this matter since that is really a non-debate in my world - sort of a quarrel between people with a scientific viewpoint on the matter and people who wishes to align reality according to their beliefs. I don't really look down on the creationists in a genereal sense because I a realize how important faith can be in people's lives (the believers are the fittest right now from the standpoint of genetic survival) but it is a non-debate for me. I am an atheist but that's not the reason. The important thing for me in a positivistic debate is that both sides want to find out the truth with the help of logical thinking and empirical facts and that they are ready to change their viewpoints if the facts change.
However one thing (among many) that interests me about human evolution, especially rather recent evolution (last 40-50000 years), is it's speed. I happen to believe that many genetic scientists and interested laymen (most) have a sped up view on evolution that is not correct. Though I have to qualify that a bit. There has been a discussion about whether the evolution has had the same speed over the ages or whether it has sped up or slowed down. To me it has always seemed logical that more people means more mutations per time unit and thereby quicker evolution. This has not been evident to many. However inspite of this I believe that most "people" (often the same) at the same time have overestimated the speed of human evolution during the last 40 000 years.
Many of these people namely seem to believe that broader ethnicities or really genetic clusters like for instance "northern europeans", "southern europeans" and middle-easterners have developed since the last glacial maximum due to for instance the climatic conditions where they stayed put during most of this time. The bearers of the haplogroups descendning from IJK (It should have a new name now) evolved into these above mentioned groups due to the forces of nature, food sources and sexual selection etc.
However I belive that the cro-magnons who lived in europe 40000 years ago were very close to todays northern europeans genetically, especially those northern europeans who look a bit more "archaic" (I lay no value judgment in that description). Though with archaic I don't mean big, muscular and aggressive looking. I realize that the picture is probably complex with various groups but lets put it this way, I believe that one very important cro-magnoid type was short stubby and with a mild, melancholic and even sad expression.
Let me illustrate this description with a picture of 26000 year old ivory head found in central europe which might have been the top of a walking stick.
By the way if anyone owns the pictures that I post in this blogpost and disagrees to me using them I will take them down if you contact me.
To me this looks very northern european. Not like the nordic stereotype with chiseled features but like a more "archaic" (excuse me) and less known type. Can i muster any living examples of this type? Well how about these three swedish celebs.
1. Tomas Brolin (footballplayer in the national team during the 90s):
2.Mats Näslund (ice-hockey player during the 80s-90s)
3. Bert Karlsson (Record boss and entrepreneur catering to the "common people").
I also think it resembles this widely spread image of a cro magnon skull:
However I have to state here that eventhough I believe that stereotypical northern/northwestern europeans are less admixed than other europid groups I think it's very possible that the progressive northern europid groups arose due to some admixture with non europid groups.
There is an instinct among many humans preferring their ancestors to have been exporters of genes rather than importers. This is of course not true for all individuals but claiming one's own ancestors to be more "pure" (another word that carries some weight, lets say a longer time of evolution without "foreign"/exotic genetic input) can easily be interpreted as some wishful thinking, childish bragging or a way to put down other groups of peoples.
Personally I believe myself to have some non-europid ancestry. Not recent admixture from 100% non-europids but from ancestors who are not 100% europid and I believe this to be the case with the overwhelming majority of northern europeans.
Let me end this post by saying that it might be a mistake to combine genes, culture, history and politics (and more subjects covered here that couldn't fit in the title) in the same blog since some people might think that politics are involoved when I discuss a non political issue. However that is definitely not my intention. I of course realize that no one is completely objective when it comes to choosing topics and intrepreting them but I will really strive to put politics out of the non political topics - if I don't see interesting paralells and possibilities for cross-fertilization, but then I will do so openly. Such possibilities as well as convenience is also the main reasons for me not streamlining the blog.
By the way, my politics, which I haven't discussed are not clear cut and I'm not superconfident about my views. I see politics as a balancing act. Trying to stay on the golden path (one's own - not necessarily the middle of the road in one's society) between less beneficial extremes but at the same time keeping an open mind and realizing that there are many golden paths.
Ok, lets take an easy subject like human evolution. I'm not interested in the creationist debate on this matter since that is really a non-debate in my world - sort of a quarrel between people with a scientific viewpoint on the matter and people who wishes to align reality according to their beliefs. I don't really look down on the creationists in a genereal sense because I a realize how important faith can be in people's lives (the believers are the fittest right now from the standpoint of genetic survival) but it is a non-debate for me. I am an atheist but that's not the reason. The important thing for me in a positivistic debate is that both sides want to find out the truth with the help of logical thinking and empirical facts and that they are ready to change their viewpoints if the facts change.
However one thing (among many) that interests me about human evolution, especially rather recent evolution (last 40-50000 years), is it's speed. I happen to believe that many genetic scientists and interested laymen (most) have a sped up view on evolution that is not correct. Though I have to qualify that a bit. There has been a discussion about whether the evolution has had the same speed over the ages or whether it has sped up or slowed down. To me it has always seemed logical that more people means more mutations per time unit and thereby quicker evolution. This has not been evident to many. However inspite of this I believe that most "people" (often the same) at the same time have overestimated the speed of human evolution during the last 40 000 years.
Many of these people namely seem to believe that broader ethnicities or really genetic clusters like for instance "northern europeans", "southern europeans" and middle-easterners have developed since the last glacial maximum due to for instance the climatic conditions where they stayed put during most of this time. The bearers of the haplogroups descendning from IJK (It should have a new name now) evolved into these above mentioned groups due to the forces of nature, food sources and sexual selection etc.
However I belive that the cro-magnons who lived in europe 40000 years ago were very close to todays northern europeans genetically, especially those northern europeans who look a bit more "archaic" (I lay no value judgment in that description). Though with archaic I don't mean big, muscular and aggressive looking. I realize that the picture is probably complex with various groups but lets put it this way, I believe that one very important cro-magnoid type was short stubby and with a mild, melancholic and even sad expression.
Let me illustrate this description with a picture of 26000 year old ivory head found in central europe which might have been the top of a walking stick.
By the way if anyone owns the pictures that I post in this blogpost and disagrees to me using them I will take them down if you contact me.
To me this looks very northern european. Not like the nordic stereotype with chiseled features but like a more "archaic" (excuse me) and less known type. Can i muster any living examples of this type? Well how about these three swedish celebs.
1. Tomas Brolin (footballplayer in the national team during the 90s):
2.Mats Näslund (ice-hockey player during the 80s-90s)
3. Bert Karlsson (Record boss and entrepreneur catering to the "common people").
I also think it resembles this widely spread image of a cro magnon skull:
The main reason for different europid genetic clusters is instead according to my analysis, admixture with non europid groups such as ancestral south indians (andamanese and nicobarese), east africans, west africans, proto-native americans (the non europid side - pretty similar in the larger perspective to the ancestral south indians and proto asians according to my theory - though they might have been seperated for tens of thousands of years) etc.
However I have to state here that eventhough I believe that stereotypical northern/northwestern europeans are less admixed than other europid groups I think it's very possible that the progressive northern europid groups arose due to some admixture with non europid groups.
There is an instinct among many humans preferring their ancestors to have been exporters of genes rather than importers. This is of course not true for all individuals but claiming one's own ancestors to be more "pure" (another word that carries some weight, lets say a longer time of evolution without "foreign"/exotic genetic input) can easily be interpreted as some wishful thinking, childish bragging or a way to put down other groups of peoples.
Personally I believe myself to have some non-europid ancestry. Not recent admixture from 100% non-europids but from ancestors who are not 100% europid and I believe this to be the case with the overwhelming majority of northern europeans.
Let me end this post by saying that it might be a mistake to combine genes, culture, history and politics (and more subjects covered here that couldn't fit in the title) in the same blog since some people might think that politics are involoved when I discuss a non political issue. However that is definitely not my intention. I of course realize that no one is completely objective when it comes to choosing topics and intrepreting them but I will really strive to put politics out of the non political topics - if I don't see interesting paralells and possibilities for cross-fertilization, but then I will do so openly. Such possibilities as well as convenience is also the main reasons for me not streamlining the blog.
By the way, my politics, which I haven't discussed are not clear cut and I'm not superconfident about my views. I see politics as a balancing act. Trying to stay on the golden path (one's own - not necessarily the middle of the road in one's society) between less beneficial extremes but at the same time keeping an open mind and realizing that there are many golden paths.
måndag 16 november 2009
Right now, at this very moment, it feels like I have waited much to long to start this blog – finally a steady home on the internet for my ideas and viewpoints. My mind has been a nomad on countless internet foras before I took this step and that has felt good in all it’s unpretentiousness (though I have written a lot of pretentious posts) and greater degree of anonymity, but now I feel that it’s time to gather the tribe of views in the same land.
I wonder whether the strongest reason for this is that I search the light (your attention and acclaim) or whether it’s because I want to be a small flickering light unto the nations – probably both i guess, though in a rather humble way – I convince my self.
I have a feeling that I will at times regret this blog – but probably not for it’s effect on the world (though I’m not certain of that) and I guess that’s the only thing that a righteous blogger should care about.
I worry that my editorial level will vary a lot, but I hope that you will have forgiveness with that.
I feel that one of my weaknesses as a scribe is to overelaborate and thereby becoming unbearably pretentious. You might ask yourself sometimes – is he serious or is he kidding? I’m mostly serious, I have to say, but at the same time, rather self reflective and not without a sense of humour – I think.
Another partial weakness of mine is having a rather compulsory need for precision in my written viewpoints, resulting in an excessive use of qualifications in my sentences as well as subseqent overusage of parantheses where I qualify the already qualified sentence. I will try though, not to bore you to death with that.
I guess this is not a very typical blogpost since I intend for my blog to be more outward than inward looking but I guess that I somehow felt a need to explain my presence on the net and why I chose to take up this space.
Anecdote about this first post. I managed to delete the first version just when I had written the last word – so this is the more pretentious and less spontaneous follow up written in a bit of controlled anger.
I wonder whether the strongest reason for this is that I search the light (your attention and acclaim) or whether it’s because I want to be a small flickering light unto the nations – probably both i guess, though in a rather humble way – I convince my self.
I have a feeling that I will at times regret this blog – but probably not for it’s effect on the world (though I’m not certain of that) and I guess that’s the only thing that a righteous blogger should care about.
I worry that my editorial level will vary a lot, but I hope that you will have forgiveness with that.
I feel that one of my weaknesses as a scribe is to overelaborate and thereby becoming unbearably pretentious. You might ask yourself sometimes – is he serious or is he kidding? I’m mostly serious, I have to say, but at the same time, rather self reflective and not without a sense of humour – I think.
Another partial weakness of mine is having a rather compulsory need for precision in my written viewpoints, resulting in an excessive use of qualifications in my sentences as well as subseqent overusage of parantheses where I qualify the already qualified sentence. I will try though, not to bore you to death with that.
I guess this is not a very typical blogpost since I intend for my blog to be more outward than inward looking but I guess that I somehow felt a need to explain my presence on the net and why I chose to take up this space.
Anecdote about this first post. I managed to delete the first version just when I had written the last word – so this is the more pretentious and less spontaneous follow up written in a bit of controlled anger.
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