chadn737

Increasingly I disagree with this sentiment. We may not get the exact animal forms, but if homoplasy and convergent evolution have taught us anything, its that evolution does reinvent the wheel...quite often in fact.

1) The claim that there are mutations found in no other known species is far fetched. If they sequenced Mitochondrial DNA then that requires them to have some idea of the composition of the sequence. Most likely they used primers targeted to mitochondrial sequences, amplified it, and sequenced that. The other approach would be to sequence all the DNA and then pull out the known sequences that match mitochondrial DNA. That they sequenced mitochondrial DNA tells you that they are starting with known sequences. Finding new mutations is not that surprising. Furthermore, given the age of these skulls, there is a new problem. DNA degrades overtime and ancient DNA is often highly degraded, requiring incredible care to avoid contamination. The sequences retrieved contain many errors from degradation and even the sequencing method itself. If these were not properly handled or controlled for, then you will have a great deal of false positives. 2) You can't infer chromosome counts from mitochondrial sequence. To be honest, you can't even really get it from genomic sequence alone, not with present sequencing methods. Given todays sequencing methods, unguided de novo assembly will give you many numerous scaffolds, but not entire chromosomes. Chromosome count still requires some sort of visual method, such as karyotyping. This is not really possible with highly degraded DNA, such as that from ancient samples. The article made it very clear that they sequenced mitochondrial DNA. It would be impossible from such data to infer chromosome number or make the claim that there could be no interbreeding. 3) I'm sure they simplified it, but the way they discuss it, it still seems like they haven't even attempted a phylogenetic analysis yet. Never mind my extreme skepticism of all the other claims. This is the "Big Foot" genome all over again.

Hmm the "geneticists" who sequenced the genome of "Big Foot" is in Texas. In reality the samples were just contaminated, degraded, and then poorly analyzed. Anyone want to make a bet with me that the person doing the sequencing is Melba Ketchum? Its BS.

Um yeah.....I'll believe it when they actually release the data. 1) No mention of the number or types of mutations. The statement "It had mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) with mutations unknown in any human, primate, or animal known so far." is far fetched indeed. Sure it may have novel mutations, but there is really no way to make the claims he is making from such data. 2) Its mitochondrial....how they can claim that it couldn't even breed with humans is beyond me. That's not something that one can determine easily at a genetic level, especially not from mitochondrial data. 3) Based on the snippets of his interview, it doesn't even sound like he has made a phylogenetic analysis, making his claims of whether or not it will even fit into an evolutionary tree more BS.

Actually yes you did: Yes you did. You said "Yes it can. 8% of children born in the US are the children of illegal immigrants...thats quite a bit. " in response to "Even if they were completely ineducable, could 3% of the population really make that big a difference to the test scores?" That's the trouble with arguing badly on a discussion site. We can all see exactly what you said, and you look silly if you later try to claim you didn't say it. I quoted the entire context of the response, so tell me how I misinterpreted it. So you admit it has an effect, but now you are just trying to dismiss the fact that there is an effect. Nice. If something explained 49% of the effect, would that make it irrelevant? 13% is not insignificant or irrelevant. This is irrelevant. Why I chose something has no impact on the argument that the US faces different challenges than small homogenous nations. This line of questioning is obviously a witch hunt. However...I chose it for simplicity sake and the fact that there is easily accessible data on the matter, such as the studies and statistics I cited earlier. Furthermore, there is a more direct association of other factors like socioeconomic status and language barriers with immigration, particularly illegal immigration. It's much harder, if impossible, to find statistics on factors such as cultural attitudes towards work and learning in rural regions. I could give anecdotal tales about the culture of the rural Midwest and its effect on education, but I hate anecdotal evidence and I cant reference it. So theres your answer....quite irrelevant to the discussion, but I fully expect that it will somehow be twisted into an ad hom argument. And how something accounting for 13% of the difference is a bad way to illustrate my point is beyond me. In many fields, finding a single factor that explains even a couple of percentage points is considered significant. There are a lot of genetic studies that report alleles that explain 1-2% of the variance and that is significant.

As explained here: "I am not talking about what CAN happen. I am talking about practical reality. Reality is that sex is the primary means of reproduction. Last I checked, turkey basters didn't exist for most of human history. Even in today's magical world of artificial insemination, the majority of the world still makes children by sex. The fact that there are alternatives is really irrelevant in a biological context because thats not how we typically reproduce and its certainly not how we reproduced a thousand or more years ago. So is homosexual attraction an inhibition to that? Would it have been inhibitory throughout human history. The fact that heterosexual men have more children than homosexual men, as was shown in the Samoan study I posted earlier, says yes. Even if we assume that in many cultures and times homosexuals still married had kids by sex (which they did), the question still remains whether or not they would have had as many offspring if their attractions inhibited in any way the regularity of sex with the opposite sex. That has evolutionary and genetic implications for homosexuality as a trait. " And as I explained here: "So...right there it is in that post....I say that it is possible, but that it makes it less likely. That last sentence..."Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether"...that means that we can avoid sex using artificial methods. That is the proper context...so once again, you have taken me out of context and argued against a strawman. That's quote mining my friend. And no, how many people are born each generation is the point. Its evolution, its genetics. The effective population size and the rate of reproduction...these factors are part of what drive how we evolve and human demographic shifts. To understand homosexuality in the scientific context, we really need to understand it from these perspectives." I suppose I really do have to spell things out explicitly. The ability to procreate without having sex is a recent invention in human history. Turkey basters full of sperm were not being used during the period of human history most relevant to our evolution and current genetic structure. I'm here to discuss the Biology of homosexuality, which requires us to think in terms of its evolution and genetics. That you can impregnate a woman today without ever seeing her is irrelevant to the evolution of this trait, because it was not a factor for nearly all of human history. It is quote mining my friend, you can't correct errors that don't exist.

I did answer it, which you would know if you bothered to read what I actually say rather than jumping to conclusions. "I brought this specific issue up only to make the point of the complexity of the cultural factors at work in the US compared to very homogenous, low population nations" 1) I never claimed it was a majority cause. That is a strawman. 2) And as our subsequent calculations have shown, it does have an effect. That this effect only accounts for a part of the difference does not make it insignificant or irrelevant. 3) I brought it up to illustrate a point. You jumped to conclusions because you seem to just quote mine posts rather than trying to comprehend what is actually said. That you are doing this now in two threads tells me that you are someone more interested in attacking strawmen rather than the actual claim.

It's quote mining when you ignore the rest of the post which qualifies that statement. Its not my fault you don't read what I actually say: "It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. A 40 year old virgin CAN reproduce, but his odds of doing so sure aren't helped by him remaining a virgin. Its obvious that a homosexual CAN reproduce. However, if being homosexual makes it less likely for you to have sex with a member of the opposite sex, then you are less likely to conceive. Its pretty simple and I am not sure what the controversy over this point is. Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether, but that is really irrelevant in the context of its evolutionary history and current population genetic structure."

Thats a fascinating question. It would explain at some things certainly... The problem is...this is a very hard hypothesis to test...likely near impossible.

Genetic variation. They may be similar at some level, but they still differ genetically and those differences account for the variation. These variations have been selected for over time or due to historical events, bottlenecks for example, have driven different populations towards their present day structure.

The 8% figure was for illegal immigrants. I actually made that very clear when I first brought it up: " 8% of children born in the US are the children of illegal immigrants" I also made it clear when I referred to the children of immigrants, that this was for all immigrants, not just illegal: "In the US, students with a migrant background....not illegal immigrants per se...just migrant period" I don't have data on how illegal immigrants alone score, so the difference in scores is only valid for immigrant children as a whole, requiring us to use the 23% figure to be accurate. I am not sure where the disconnect in communication is coming from then, because its all right there in the original posts....just as earlier when you said I was claiming that this was the only effect. If there is some aspect of it that I can change to avoid such obvious miscommunications, then I will. If its not me, then its you. Either way, I am getting annoyed at the quote mining of my posts. As for why I brought it up....again, that is in my posts: "I brought this specific issue up only to make the point of the complexity of the cultural factors at work in the US compared to very homogenous, low population nations like Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and even Canada." I am highlighting only a singular factor NOT because it is the only factor, but to illustrate a point about how the US differs in important aspects other than mere test scores. Again...its in my previous posts. I really don't know where the disconnect is coming from because I don't know how to make it any clearer.

This is not the first time you have quote mined me. If you read the full context of my post, its clear that this is not what I said: "It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. A 40 year old virgin CAN reproduce, but his odds of doing so sure aren't helped by him remaining a virgin. Its obvious that a homosexual CAN reproduce. However, if being homosexual makes it less likely for you to have sex with a member of the opposite sex, then you are less likely to conceive. Its pretty simple and I am not sure what the controversy over this point is. Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether, but that is really irrelevant in the context of its evolutionary history and current population genetic structure." So...right there it is in that post....I say that it is possible, but that it makes it less likely. That last sentence..."Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether"...that means that we can avoid sex using artificial methods. That is the proper context...so once again, you have taken me out of context and argued against a strawman. That's quote mining my friend. And no, how many people are born each generation is the point. Its evolution, its genetics. The effective population size and the rate of reproduction...these factors are part of what drive how we evolve and human demographic shifts. To understand homosexuality in the scientific context, we really need to understand it from these perspectives.

There is a major flaw in the calculations you just did. The 8% of US children applies only to illegal immigrants. The paper where we get these figures from does not calculate the scores for illegal immigrant children, but of all children with a migrant background. Once again, it helps to actually read what is stated. That number is actually much larger than 8%. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 23% of US Children have immigrant parents...legal or illegal. In that study, 559/3242 = 17.24% of the children in the study. So my previous calculations would be an underestimation of the effect, not an overestimation. Your calculations, however, make an even bigger underestimation because you assume the 8% figure. If we redo the calculations you just did (I am not convinced this is a valid method of comparison) we end up with 1.7/13 = ~13% of the difference. Nearly 3 times higher than what you calculated. That leaves 87% of the difference unexplained. Secondly, you still seem to not understand the argument that I was making. As I pointed out several times, I don't think that the effects of immigration alone can explain this. I never meant it too. My only real point was that the US has a larger and more complex cultural situation than most of the nations that are ranking high. The use of immigration, which I am all for (I have to make such disclaimers because people tend misconstrue such things), was simply to illustrate the complexity of education in the US compared to other places of the world. It was never my intention to explain 100% or even 10% of the difference with immigration. Let me restate my original argument. We compare the US to these other nations and assume that the US is failing, but are we really? It is such comparisons with nations like Finland that has policy makers wanting us to copy Finland and apply it universally to the nation. While I am certain we can learn something from Finland, my problem is with the assumption that what works in Finland, works equally well in Massachusetts as it does in West Virginia, as it does in Southern California. A nation like Finland has a population of 5.4 million (~a million less than Massachusetts). 96.6% of its citizens were born there. Finnish is the native language for over 90% of its residents. It has only 1.2 million children. Massachusetts has ~1.5 million children Massachusetts as a state is larger in both population and number of children and more diverse than Finland. The needs that Massachusetts has educationally are not going to be identical to Finland. If the needs of Massachusetts is not identical to Finland, then what about a state like Arizona or New Mexico? What about a state like Texas or Alaska? We can't even compare the needs of southern California to those of Northern California. We cannot treat the US and its educational success, failure, and/or needs as if it were a singular entity that can be fix by universal policy measures from on high. We can learn a lot about improving education from other nations, but the idea that we can copy them in mass and universally will not solve anything. Such scores, obscure the complexities of the United States. Even if we ignore the different cultures due to recent immigration, the cultures of the South differ vastly from the cultures of the Midwest, West Coast, North East, etc. These scores treat different parts of China differently, that is not an attempt to put down China. Rather I think it highlights the fact that within a very large and diverse nation like China, you have a lot of variance. Obviously what works in Shanghai is not being applied or doesn't work in other parts of China. So why do we make the same mistake with the US. People have gotten that the wrong impression of what I have tried to argue, but I am only trying to illustrate that it is not reasonable to think of the US in such universal terms.

Did I say "lack of physical attraction prevents conception"? The answer to that would be no. I am not talking about what CAN happen. I am talking about practical reality. Reality is that sex is the primary means of reproduction. Last I checked, turkey basters didn't exist for most of human history. Even in today's magical world of artificial insemination, the majority of the world still makes children by sex. The fact that there are alternatives is really irrelevant in a biological context because thats not how we typically reproduce and its certainly not how we reproduced a thousand or more years ago. So is homosexual attraction an inhibition to that? Would it have been inhibitory throughout human history. The fact that heterosexual men have more children than homosexual men, as was shown in the Samoan study I posted earlier, says yes. Even if we assume that in many cultures and times homosexuals still married had kids by sex (which they did), the question still remains whether or not they would have had as many offspring if their attractions inhibited in any way the regularity of sex with the opposite sex. That has evolutionary and genetic implications for homosexuality as a trait.

This is a homework question?

You are right about what an insertion, missense, and nonsense mutations are. If you are looking for an example of a nonsense mutation, try searching for diseases similar to sickle cell anemia centered in the mediteranean. The first thing that comes to mind is such an example. Then let me know what you find. So with a splice mutation. Are you familiar at all with what an exon and intron is? Exons are the coding part. Introns can be thought of a "spacer" between two exons in a very simplistic sense. Its a lot more complicated than that, but in understanding this, just think of it as a spacer separating two exons. In order to create the final coding sequence, you have to cut out the intron between the two exons and combine the two exons into one piece. Now there are sequences in the intron that tells the cell that this is where the intron starts and stops and how it should be cut out. If you had a mutation in one of these sites, what do you think would happen? Yes. Technically the trinucleotide repeat of Huntington's is a form of insertion. However, be careful, sometimes people make a distinction between the two.

Yes, the situation he describes is not at all clear. That is the simplest explanation and if he meant something else, then he has left out crucial details. Dawkins does give credit, but unfortunately, his metaphor (the selfish gene) has become so popular that many outside of science credit him with the science. There is a thread on this site on the Selfish Gene that goes for 5 pages without a single mention of Hamilton. That is symptomatic of the problem, that people confuse Dawkins book as the basis.

Try explaining what you think these different mutation types are and I will help you with any misunderstandings. You can think of an insertion as the opposite of a deletion. Missense and nonsense mutations are actually classified both as nonsynonymous mutations, its just that what they change the codon to differes. A splice site has to do with its effect on alternative splicing. As far as huntington's...heres your hint, some types of mutations are subcategories of other types and can be classified in more than one way. Those are all the more hints I am willing to give without further input from you.

It does if you never have sex with a member of the opposite sex. A 40 year old virgin CAN reproduce, but his odds of doing so sure aren't helped by him remaining a virgin. Its obvious that a homosexual CAN reproduce. However, if being homosexual makes it less likely for you to have sex with a member of the opposite sex, then you are less likely to conceive. Its pretty simple and I am not sure what the controversy over this point is. Sure, we can now avoid sex altogether, but that is really irrelevant in the context of its evolutionary history and current population genetic structure.

Studies in Samoa shows that it does. If a lack of attraction to the opposite sex keeps you from having sex with them, it does reduce reproductive capacity.

Yes....the trouble with discussion sites is that we have the record. We now have a record of you quote mining me. Lets look at the rest of that post and see how well you can read: "So I think it reasonable that this will have an effect on scores. Is it the only reason...certainly not. I brought this specific issue up only to make the point of the complexity of the cultural factors at work in the US compared to very homogenous, low population nations like Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and even Canada. This again is why the China stats are cherry picking. If you were to treat China like the heterogenous and large population nation that it is....like we treat the US....rather than cherry picking its high performers...then we would have a different result for China." So no....that's not what I claimed. You took me out of context and the quoted portion makes that clear. EDIT: Now having settle the fact that you quote mined me, we can actually calculate from the previous study the effect of that these scores had in the study. The mean for all students, based on an observation of 3242 students was 496. So 3242*496=1608032 total The mean for migrant children, based on an observation 559 students was 464.9. So 559*464.9=259879.1 total Now we subtract the migrant from the rest. 3242-559=2685. 1608032-259879.1=1348152.9 That gives us an average for non-migrant children of 502.1 So the effect of migrant children dropped the score by 6 points. So based on those stats, it does have an effect, however a very minor one. However, I made it clear in my posts that I never considered this the only factor and that I used it only to illustrate a point about the cultural complexity of the US. You quote mined me and falsely accused me of xenophobia.

There maybe some tradeoff in evolving heightened abilities in one sense. For instance, loss of many of our olfactory receptors coincided with the evolution of trichromatic vision. http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0020005

At the university level, you are getting the cream of the crop with international students, especially at the graduate level. So I am weary of comparing the average first year US student to international students coming to the US because the latter has already undergone a selective process.

1) I never claimed that migration was the sole or even primary factor. I have pointed out in all my posts that this is merely an example of the cultural complexities of the US compared to other regions. 2) While Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have significant number of migrants, my original point actually dealt with the effect of illegal immigration. All three of those nations are isolated in the sense that they are either surrounded by oceans, or share only one border...Canada....with the US. As I showed in earlier posts, the number of illegal immigrants and children of such families are very disproportionate in comparison to Canada. This is significant. While most of the immigrants to Canada are legal, and more likely to be of higher socioeconomic status, educated, and speak the language, the exact opposite is true of illegal immigration. This creates a very different cultural dynamic due in the immigration alone. This is probably why children of migrants in the US score so much lower than children of migrants in Canada. Canada is not drawing on the same pool of migrants as the US. This actually makes sense why Germany's situation is even worse. Many German immigrants are from Turkey and Arab speaking nations and also likely to even struggle in the context of German culture and language when it comes to education. In fact, that was a major point of the paper I posted, that language barriers were typically the most significant and universal barriers faced by migrant children. 3) Let me again reiterate that I am not saying this is the primary cause. I am merely pointing out one area where the US diverges significantly from many of the top scoring nations. We want to point to these scores and claim that it is a failure of the education system. I don't think its so simple.

Why would I agree that such methods are unreliable? This isn't a survey of engagement in sexual behavior. They are surveying attitudes towards the children of offspring. The homosexual individuals in the study are not hiding anything, so I have no idea why this would be unreliable because it is associated with homosexuality. You in fact give no real reason why we should distrust these studies. The language you are using is not specific and nothing more than an attempt at poisoning the well. That Japanese study was not "neutral"....it showed no difference between androphilic and gynephilic individuals. The Samoan study also is not so clear cut. Androphilic men were not less "needy" nor did they have increased overall generosity towards family members. So we have 3 studies against and one study for. That is very inconclusive result. While you maintain that the "homophobic norms" may play a role, an equally valid explanation is that it is the uniqueness of the Samoan culture that gives rise to such behavior...having nothing to do with evolution. These are not comparable strategies and I think you have misunderstood the obvious implications of your bird example. Birds laying fewer eggs in bad years allows them to allocate greater resources to a fewer number of young, thus ensuring the survival of one's own young. Its entirely selfish and unlikely to have any relation to the reproductive success of other birds. This strategy also makes no sense in the context of homosexuals. First off, assuming that the homosexual does not reproduce, you have a complete loss of reproductive potential in the homosexual (this is true in studies of Samoan homosexuals where it is accepted). The offspring of the birds still has reproductive potential. Secondly, the homosexual individual consumes resources. The idea that they represent a reduction in competition for resources makes no sense. You are consuming the same resources as having a heterosexual individual while eliminating reproductive potential....as an evolutionary strategy, it doesn't work out. Furthermore, in the Samoan study, there was no evidence that homosexuals had a difference in their "neediness" which would indicate that they use less resources than heterosexual members. The Samoan study is not so clear cut, as I pointed out above. They do not have a reduction in neediness (ruling out your reduced competition hypothesis), nor do they differ in general generosity towards family members. 1) Strawman. I never claimed that these studies were evidence for heterozygote advantage. I point to these studies, because they show stronger evidence for the role of female fecundity, which is contrasted to the rather scant and contradicting evidence of kin selection in homosexuality. 2) It does not fit with an expectation of greater support. In some of the studies, they only looked at number of sexual partners, finding that siblings of homosexuals often had greater number of sexual partners. Its a huge leap to suggest that such behavior is based entirely on an expectation of greater support. As I pointed out above in the Samoan study, homosexuals have no reduction in "neediness" (i.e. the amount of resources used from family members) than heterosexual members, which clearly contradicts the argument that it has anything to do with resource competition. 3) The study found no difference because non-whites had elevated fecundity across the board. However, the increase fecundity has been observed in Samoa as well....as well as the effects of fraternal birth order. It is interesting then that we find evidence for fecundity and fraternal birth order across societies, but evidence of kin selection has been limited to only one culture. This would suggest that it is the latter two, not kin selection, that is the better explanation. 4) I am not assuming that the modern estrangement of gay men to be an evolutionary norm. However, I think it equally fallacious to extrapolate from the singular example of Samoa to the evolutionary history of humanity.