Aspies For Freedom

I am from the Mediterranean area.  Is there any connection with Neanderthal or Cro-magnoid groups with the Mediterranean...?

Sorry Ian, I cannot think of one for you just now. You will just have to 'celebrate the diversity' for the moment.

Ellen, I feel the same way about paracetamol and it makes my urine smell foul.

I think that ethno-specfic medicine will become more popularized, and I will look into what you have posted when I have time.

I have been to ayurvedic doctors, an iridologist and had myself tested for food intolerances and they all seem to draw similar conclusions for me.

I cannot eat meat and I have some trouble digesting milk. No doubt there is a genetic factor here.

I also avoid the nightshade family (tomato, potato, chilli, eggplant, tobacco).

Om Namaha Shivaya is one of the oldest prayers.

Nightshade family are from America. Perhaps that is why we avoid them as we are not biologically accustomed to them.

I have a Roman nose, as in, a large nose with a distinctive "bump" about 1/3rd of the way down.

"Online surveys indicate that probable Neanderthal traits / genes like flat foot, crooked tooth / underbite, Rhesus factor, hair color, freckles, factor V leiden and hemochormatosis are several times more prevalent than in the non-autistic population. Random, controlled, survey's could confirm or reject these findings."

Cro-Magnon man and Neanderthal man experienced similar selection pressures, which is why they were both robust and 'white'-skinned. So similar data could prove the Cro-Magnon connection.

Some Jewish people show traits which are called 'Armenoid', and this is not a Cro-Magnoid nor Neanderthal sub-racial grouping.

In Europe autism is more prevalent in the most Cro-Magnoid population of Finland.

Is autism more common in Ireland than in England? This would suggest a Cro-Magnoid connection also, because Ireland's 'Bruennid' population is Cro-Magnoid.

Ireland is about half Keltic-Nordic half Bruennid.

Looking at the the picture thread, I was interested to see how good looking we all are, and maybe it is just me, but there does appear to be a CM influence in many of the photos posted there. In men you can see a more defined brow-ridge, and in women, well... they are (sort of) rounder-faced and have bigger tits than Nordoids!!! They had to survive an Ice Age, you see...

You do realize this is just scientifically-baseless speculation, don't you? Additionally, modern humans and Neanderthals diverged over 300,000 years ago and no modern, reputable literature I can think of still refers to them as subspecies of each other. Neanderthals have rightfully been granted full species status based on morphological and genetic studies.

It is likely that most Homo species could have hybridized with each other and produced viable offspring. While it is commonly taught that different species cannot produce offspring with each other or any offspring they do produce will be nonviable, that is now known to be completely false with most species.

Take for example the following North American colubrid snake genera: Lampropeltis, Pituophis, and Elaphe. All of the species in these genera are thought to have originated from a single Elaphe species that migrated to North America from Asia about 10,000 - 15,000 years ago. Since then, they have diversified into many vastly different forms, from small, colorful, and semi-fossorial milksnakes to the the lean, semi-arboreal ratsnakes to the giant, heavy-bodied bullsnakes.

All of the species in these genera will hybridize with each other and produce perfectly fertile offspring, despite their almost unbelievable differences in size, body shape, scale morphology, diet, temperament, habitat, etc. Even in the wild these hybrids are not too rare (see wild Lampropeltis x Pituophis cross here), and in captivity hybrids between these species have given rise to multiple popular "breeds" in the snake-keeping hobby. And yet, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single herpetologist who would want to lump all of these taxa into a single species, even though they can all breed and produce fertile offspring.

This isn't just the case among reptiles, either. It is common in mammals, birds, fish, and most other groups of animals out there. As a birder I can testify to the difficulty in identifying many wood-warblers in the genus Dendroica simply because they don't seem to care too much whether the bird they breed with in the spring is a member of their own species or not, and their children will eventually go and backcross with one of their parent species as well. As an aquarist I have seen the damage that fertile hybrids from the family Cichlidae do to the hobby, tainting pure captive lines of species that are critically endangered or even extinct in the wild.

Among mammals, there are plenty of fertile intergeneric hybrids as well. Most breeds of domestic cattle (Bos taurus) developed in North America have American Bison (Bison bison) blood in them to improve their hardiness when it comes to extreme temperatures, diseases, and drought conditions. Several breeds of domestic cats (Felis catus) have ancestors that belonged to the genera Prionailurus or Leptailurus in order to increase their size and introduce "wildcat" coat coloration into the line.

The main thing that seems to determine if hybrids will be fertile or not is the number of chromosomes of the parents. If they have different amounts of chromosomes (such as horses and donkeys or humans and chimpanzees), then the gamete-producing process of meiosis in the hybrid offspring is usually a bit messed up, rendering that individual sterile. I don't know if it is known how many chromosomes Neanderthals or other extinct human species had, but if it was the same we would probably be able to produce fertile hybrid offspring with them with no problems at all.

They illustrate this possible theory:

Do we have reason to suppose that black people, sub-Saharan Africans in particular are a mixture of homo sapiens and homo erectus?

After all, sub-Saharan Africans have an average cranial capacity which is 5 cubic inches smaller than the average European. Rather small, like homo erectus.

A rather cruel supposition do you not think?

I do not agree with it, but it is compelling, as homo erectus was black.

I'm not even sure why I am even humoring your nonsense by replying to it, but here are some things you may want to consider:

1. There is absolutely no reason to suppose that blacks are a mixture of Homo sapiens and Homo erectus. All modern humans share at least 99.9% of their DNA, so even if the two species hybridized with each other their genetic contribution would have been insignificant. Furthermore, any hybridization of these two species in Africa would have occurred before Homo sapiens[/i] migrated out of that continent and diversified, so if blacks are hybrids then that would mean we all are.

2. Five inches of difference, if that is even true, is hardly significant given the huge amount of variation in normal human brain size (the average size, by the way, is about 85 cubic inches the last time I checked). Brain size has little to do with intellectual abilities; this has been known to science for a long time. That is why people with primordial dwarfism who have brains 25% as large as an average human brain generally have perfectly normal intelligence, and why Homo floresiensis was able to make stone tools and use fire with a brain the size of a chimpanzee's. Albert Einstein's brain was below average in size; it was studied extensively after he died and it was stolen.

3. Adding to that, Homo neanderthalensis had a brain that was on average larger than a modern human's, and yet we're the ones who are still here today. As stated before, there are much more important things than brain size when it comes to determining an individual's intellectual abilities.

3. There is no direct evidence that Homo erectus was black. We don't have mummified specimens. For all we know, they could have been light-skinned and dark-haired like modern Pan species. And if they were black, what the hell does that have to do with anything at all? The only thing skin color can tell us about a person is how much sunlight their ancestral home had. Just because some populations of modern humans have dark skin and some species of extinct humans had dark skin doesn't mean one is "less evolved" than the other. Each one has optimally adapted to its own habitat over long periods of time. It is likely that our forest-dwelling ancestors even farther back (10+ mya) had light skin like most other primates. By your reasoning, would it be fair to argue that light-skinned humans are more "primitive" than dark-skinned humans?

I just realized that two of them are numbered 3. I fail at life.

Maybe because I will also be respecting you and taking you seriously? Rather novel for this forum, but why should we not start a mini-trend?

I am guilty of using a relativist argument:

"If neanderthalensis could breed with sapiens, then so could erectus"
"Therefore they were different races, not species"

Still, it is just something I want to put out there. Nothing personal against anyone.

Nevertheless, it is hard to prove either way, is it not? According to my hypothesis, erectus, neanderthalensis and sapiens were different races, not species. The man who left Africa could have been more sapienoid than erectusoid, the one stayed behind, more erectusoid than sapienoid. Yes, we are all descendents of hybrids, but in varying proportions. That is the hypothesis. Then you have separate developments. Racial differences occur in often harsh environments, their end results would be fatal and are never actually completed.

Example: Blondism, the end result of which is fatal albinism.

There is a correlation between brain size and IQ, in today's human population, another bone of contention of course.

That is what I am going by, not primodial dwarfs (cute though!) and Albert Einstein. I am looking at the analysis lots of a wider field of data, so I think that you might be at fault in this particular instance. I am also being relativist in looking at the current human population and comparing it to erectus, but then, according to my hypothesis which is that erectus, neanderthalensis and sapiens were different races, that is perfectly reasonable...

You have picked out extreme examples though, if you were writing an academic paper, you would hardly use arguments like that would you?

Cro-Magnon man also had a larger brain than modern man, he needed it.

Just as well, it was fr....eeeeee......zing!!!!!

So, we have another factor in the equation and that is temperature.

Autistic people often show extreme sensory tolerance to cold temperatures.

There are certainly some people who try to make these arguments, if you look at those first three pictures and the video, you can see the inference.

Certainly it is likely that white people evolved as such as a result of forest-dwelling and that extreme blondism occured as a result of Northern adaptation and food availablility.

I do not indulgence in the sort of skin colour racism and accusations of primitivism and inferiority/superiority, but you can find fora where this is endemic.

My special interest is meta-Germanic preservation and my forum is occasionally invaded by racist Indians and others who come to call us 'primitives' and 'savages'.

I could care less, I am just interested in preservation and conservation and being proud and accepting of my primitive ancestry is part of that.

Northern/Central Europeans are largely Cro-Magnoid and nordoid going on what evidence we have so far. You may find this website interesting:

http://www.nordish.com

There is a race gallery on this website which shows the differences between these two meta-groups.

Personally I think that it is unlikely that neanderthalensis and Cro-Magnon man interbred, although we did share similar selection pressures for a time, which would account for similar and subsequent developments.

I think that it is likely that the genes which create autism are rather like the genes which create sickle-cell anaemia in populations which are afflicited by malaria, and that Ice Age conditions were a selection pressure which encouraged their prominence in the Upper Paleolithic survivors who genetics live on in the Cro-Magnoid populations of today.

I have a deep affilliation for Cro-Magnoid cultures and their gentle ways of living and natural tendency towards parity and mutual respect between the sexes. Finnish,  Irish and Berber peoples are very interesting to me. Beautiful artisan traditions, and the most incredible women.

In the 'primitive' Cro-Magnoid Guanche culture of the Canary Islands, women were held in such esteem that insulting a woman whilst being armed was a crime punishable by death.

Interesting is it not?

Anyway Natalie:

You did say that.

As I demonstrated before, whether or not two related populations of organisms can breed with each other and produce fertile offspring has very little to do with whether or not they belong to the same species. Did you read my paragraph on the snakes? Do you think the 90 or so species and subspecies in those genera should be classified as a single species? I do think it could have possible for the different human species to successfully hybridize with each other IF they had the same number of chromosomes, but as far as I know scientists have not figured out how many chromosomes the other species had. And even if they could interbreed, that by no means implies they actually did!

There is not one faintest shred of valid scientific evidence that supports your "hypothesis". What are you doing to actively test this hypothesis anyway? That's what scientists do, after all.

The "end result" of blond hair is not albinism. I don't know where you even got that from. Blond hair is the result of inheritable, codominant hypomelanism and/or hypoerythrism and completely unrelated to albinism.

Funny, I could swear you did the exact same thing by explicitly comparing the brain size of MODERN AFRICANS to that of Homo erectus.

Please post modern, reputable, and peer-reviewed archaeological evidence for these claims. Last time I checked, it wasn't possible to determine what happened when a man insulted a woman 30,000 years ago. Also, there is no evidence the Canary Islands were inhbited before about 3000 years ago, and the people who did settle there were likely North Africans and not Cro-Magnons.

Yes, I did say that.

Yes, I do. Taxonomy needs an update. In human terms they would be considered different races. Is there not a new growing system of taxonomy based upon genetics?

I am just suggesting that it might be possible to test the reactions of both the ill and the better informed, and I am not a scientist.

Try to think of blondism, in evolutionary terms, as a process which is never completed. If blondism were to complete entirely, it might result in a dangerous degree of blondism resulting in albinism, of a different type to the one which you refer to.

Never mind eh?

How? I was suggesting that modern Africans might be the descendents of homo erectus. Of course, I do not believe that myself.

We have something in common in this, but I think that you were pretty cheap with yours, using primodial dwarves and Einstein as your examples, and sadly cranial capacity in the human population today does correlate with intelligence, not just IQ, but with reaction time testing too...

...not that I even mentioned intelligence and brain size until you brought it up!

I merely suggested that evidence of Africans' descendancy from a homo erectus racial population might be borne out by their comparitively small brain size.

The smallest average brain sizes in Africa are today found in Zimbabwe.

The smallest in the world are those of the ill-fated and tragic Australids.

The Guanches were Cro-Magnoid, not Cro-Magnon. The Spanish invaders wiped their culture out, but it was groovy, (that is a scientific term dear) very groovy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanches