moore2moore
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If someone had posted here that mtDNA Haplogroup M had been present in Europe, they would have likely experienced the Internet Age equivalent of being shouted down.
Why? Challenging the orthodoxy is never fun, for the person posting the new idea -- or for the people being challenged. However, the latter form a majority, so they often band together to make people who challenge the orthodoxy seem crazy, wacky, or that they don't understand science.
However, no one has a monopoly on fact, and good scientists approach their work with a bit of humility. :heart: They only accept the orthodoxy if it has been proven, for years, beyond a reasonable doubt. Within the field of Physics, for example, there has been no real orthodoxy, on many subjects, for decades. This scientific skepticism is the mark of a mature field and mature scientists.
A few months ago, I posted a series of monographs here on how an understanding of demographics is necessary to truly understand aDNA. The principles I posted were:
1. Many, old haplogroups existed in Europe at one point in time, even, of course, Neandertal haplogroups.
2. The fact that those HGs are not found in the modern world can give very false impressions of the mechanisms for HG spread.
3. These false impressions include thinking that a HG originated somewhere where it did not.
4. Or that there was a mass slaughter / genocide / conquering event that occurred, when no such event did.
5. The more likely explanation is always boring demography: certain groups simply started with a significantly smaller population size.
6. Furthermore, there is about a 12.5% chance with each generation that a male has no male offspring, or a woman has no female offspring.
7. Couple a small initial population size with this randomness, and you can explain much of the current distribution of haplogroups.
In other words, many current HG distributions are simply explained by who came later in time and who came with greater numbers. Not the highly dramatic "genocide / mate selection" theories that dominate the orthodoxy on this board.
Now comes an exhaustive study of Ancient DNA by Posth et al. Hundreds of samples of ancient mtDNA.
Lo and behold, the authors find that Haplogroup M existed in Europe for quite some time. But its initial population size was tiny. (Perhaps these were the female equivalent of the Y DNA HG C men).
Their tiny initial numbers, combined with the randomness of being there for many generations, and each generation giving a ~12% chance that you would not have an offspring of the same gender (needed to give the appearance you survived) -- have made it so Ancient DNA scientists for 20 years now -- and the Orthodoxy -- never even considered that Haplogroup M would be found in Europe.
This rewrote the entire tale of the peopling of the world. The authors emphasize the same caution and the same model that I did (and got laughed at for).
The take away? Be respectful of "weird" people. Be respectful of different ideas. Think things through; model them in your head. Appearances are not always accurate.
You can read my explanation of the model here.
I reviewed the various theories here.
You can read the landmark study here.
Why? Challenging the orthodoxy is never fun, for the person posting the new idea -- or for the people being challenged. However, the latter form a majority, so they often band together to make people who challenge the orthodoxy seem crazy, wacky, or that they don't understand science.
However, no one has a monopoly on fact, and good scientists approach their work with a bit of humility. :heart: They only accept the orthodoxy if it has been proven, for years, beyond a reasonable doubt. Within the field of Physics, for example, there has been no real orthodoxy, on many subjects, for decades. This scientific skepticism is the mark of a mature field and mature scientists.
A few months ago, I posted a series of monographs here on how an understanding of demographics is necessary to truly understand aDNA. The principles I posted were:
1. Many, old haplogroups existed in Europe at one point in time, even, of course, Neandertal haplogroups.
2. The fact that those HGs are not found in the modern world can give very false impressions of the mechanisms for HG spread.
3. These false impressions include thinking that a HG originated somewhere where it did not.
4. Or that there was a mass slaughter / genocide / conquering event that occurred, when no such event did.
5. The more likely explanation is always boring demography: certain groups simply started with a significantly smaller population size.
6. Furthermore, there is about a 12.5% chance with each generation that a male has no male offspring, or a woman has no female offspring.
7. Couple a small initial population size with this randomness, and you can explain much of the current distribution of haplogroups.
In other words, many current HG distributions are simply explained by who came later in time and who came with greater numbers. Not the highly dramatic "genocide / mate selection" theories that dominate the orthodoxy on this board.
Now comes an exhaustive study of Ancient DNA by Posth et al. Hundreds of samples of ancient mtDNA.
Lo and behold, the authors find that Haplogroup M existed in Europe for quite some time. But its initial population size was tiny. (Perhaps these were the female equivalent of the Y DNA HG C men).
Their tiny initial numbers, combined with the randomness of being there for many generations, and each generation giving a ~12% chance that you would not have an offspring of the same gender (needed to give the appearance you survived) -- have made it so Ancient DNA scientists for 20 years now -- and the Orthodoxy -- never even considered that Haplogroup M would be found in Europe.
This rewrote the entire tale of the peopling of the world. The authors emphasize the same caution and the same model that I did (and got laughed at for).
The take away? Be respectful of "weird" people. Be respectful of different ideas. Think things through; model them in your head. Appearances are not always accurate.
You can read my explanation of the model here.
I reviewed the various theories here.
You can read the landmark study here.