On Thu, Sep 14, 2023, 2:56 PM John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In the September 1 issue of the Journal science researchers report they > have found, are using genetic analysis, that the ancestors of the human > race, as well as those of the Neanderthals and the Denisovans, suffer > through a severe population decline that started 930,000 BP (Before > Present) and lasted for 117,000 years until 813,000 BP. This time period > corresponds to a gap in the fossil record when there was almost no evidence > of our ancestors although there are many more fossils of them both before > and after that gap. At its lowest point there were only about 1280 breeding > individuals, every human, Neanderthal, and Denisovan who ever lived is a > descendent of one or all of those 1280 individuals. It is not clear what > caused the decline but whatever it was it doesn't seem to have been a > global environmental event because other species unrelated to us don't seem > to have suffered through a similar apocalypse. > > Genomic inference of a severe human bottleneck during the Early to Middle > Pleistocene transition > <https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq7487> > > If they're right then the human race almost didn't happen, life has > existed on this planet for over 3 1/2 billion years but only in the last > few thousand has a technology producing species shown up, and if things > have been just slightly different it never would have. Perhaps this > explains the Fermi paradox. Life is easy but intelligence is hard. > Most of the time seems to be between single cell and multicellular life. In comparison to the single-cell to multi-cell gap, the rise of many species (whose chief survival advantage is their high intelligence), seems to have been relatively short. We also note it occurs in many separate evolutionary lines (cephalopods, cetaceans, corvids, primates). It's true that if multicellular life is hard that intelligence is hard, but it seems once there's multicellular life, intelligence is easy. Jason > John K Clark See what's on my new list at Extropolis > <https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis> > > h66 > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv2i4rwKOzv9q2%2BYnb_vC2NR18WhKtWYToTLCjJv%3DNL4UQ%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAJPayv2i4rwKOzv9q2%2BYnb_vC2NR18WhKtWYToTLCjJv%3DNL4UQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CA%2BBCJUgh%3DMwGYRxFVpW1u0vfTOy_%2BGhpVwSLqOuYhmhsz0FCRw%40mail.gmail.com.
