Research Suggests One To Three Men Fathered Most Western Europeans

Taco Cowboy writes "'While the distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroups in Africa took 12 thousand years to spread, those in Europe started from around 3rd millennium.' The speed of spread of the European haplogroups was totally astounding, to say the least. 'There was no R1b found in Europe before a Bell Beaker site from the 3rd millennium BC and today many Europeans (most in western Europe) belong to this haplogroup. 'We used coalescent simulations to investigate the range of demographic models most likely to produce the phylogenetic structures observed in Africa and Europe, assessing the starting and ending genetic effective population sizes, duration of the expansion, and time when expansion ended. The best-fitting models in Africa and Europe are very different. In Africa, the expansion took about 12 thousand years, ending very recently; it started from approximately 40 men and numbers expanded approximately 50-fold. In Europe, the expansion was much more rapid, taking only a few generations and occurring as soon as the major R1b lineage entered Europe; it started from just one to three men, whose numbers expanded more than a thousandfold.'"

Comments

Those Fuckers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Busy busy busy.

Re:Those Fuckers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Take this in the context of how Kurt Vonnegut meant it in Cat's Cradle, and it's not off-topic, flamebait, or a troll at all.

Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

This proves it! Noah and his sons have been found through genetics.

What now atheists? You better hope it doesn't flood again.

Re:Proof!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

So did most Europeans. It's one of the reasons that European history is such an unmitigated meatgrinder from about the moment the Roman Empire started to lose it, right up until the US and USSR got serious about stocking up on nukes. (or, um, I mean, the humanitarian ideals of the UN and EU ushered in a new era of peaceful cooperation. I, um, must have made typo there. Or maybe my keyboard firmware is misanthropic.)

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

You jest, but you're actually closer than you think. Japheth was the son of Noah that moved north into Europe. Shem moved east. Ham moved south. All of them left roots in areas at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.

Also, if you had read the Bible's account of the flood, you'd know that there won't be another flood. God concluded a "rainbow covenant" with Noah and his family, promising that he would never bring that kind of destruction on the earth again. All future destruction the Bible speaks of will be of people only. The flora and fauna will be left intact.

Re:Proof!

[maxwell demon]

So up to two sons of Noah's wife weren't actually his?

Re:Proof!

[SuricouRaven]

That always struck me as a bit of an empty promise. God said he'd never destroy the world by flood - but he still has fire, massive tectonic activity, meteor impact, quantum vacuum collapse, wandering microsingularity, atmopheric poisoning, extreme heat...

Re:Proof!

[Chas]

Luckily I'm not an atheist.

I'm a lapsed Catholic (all of the guilt and none of the Sunday social commitments!) and a militant agnostic (I don't know AND NEITHER DO YOU DAMMIT!)

Re:Proof!

[jellomizer]

Now many bible stories probably have a source of truth to them... However I doubt they are rarely as grandiose as the stories make them out to be.

However if a story in the Bible is shown to be true or false, it really doesn't but a final clinch in is their a god or not belief.

Now did Noah build a massive boat. Or was a merchant, with a set of connecting rafts, and when a big flood came he got lucky, he had enough supplies to wait it out and get to a safe spot... Perhaps in Europe were there wasn't much population...
That stated, Europeans probably came from a small group of nomads who have been out casted from their home land... (The family of Kian?) and probably made their own society there, growing over time.

Re:Proof!

[larry bagina]

Yep. My research suggests that global warming is really God's anger at the hippies.

Re:Proof!

[maxwell demon]

Luckily I'm not an atheist.

I'm a lapsed Catholic (all of the guilt and none of the Sunday social commitments!) and a militant agnostic (I don't know AND NEITHER DO YOU DAMMIT!)

Then you're not a true agnostic. Because a true agnostic knows not only that he doesn't know whether there is a god, but also that he has no way of knowing if someone else does know it.

Re:Proof!

[dicobalt]

The article makes claims that the world is more than 6000 years old. It actually tries to assert that people were around 70 thousand years ago. How crazy is that? This article can be further discredited because it uses things such as science, and math. Clearly the authors have an agenda.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

What now atheists? You better hope it doesn't flood again.

I'm an atheist who lived through the Colorado floods this year, you insensitive clod!

Re:Proof!

[maxwell demon]

And when has one of those things completely depopulated the earth of humans down to about 7 or so?

He didn't say it happened. He only said that God's promise doesn't cover it.

Re:Proof!

[GrumpySteen]

Except that this gene is primarily found in Western Europeans and is non-existent in Asians and other races on the planet. The flood that supposedly took out everyone on the planet would have left everyone sharing the same genetic code which is absolutely not the case here.

Re:Proof!

[sjwt]

Lol, loving all the comments below taking this seriously..

sure it would make sense if we had a passage reading "And 20,000 of the best bitches boarded the arc to keep Noah and his boys busy!" and "Gawd turned his back to all the fornication that he had outlawed"

Re:Proof!

[ShanghaiBill]

So did most Europeans.

So did most humans. Throughout history, nearly all tribes and nations have felt themselves superior to their neighbors. There was nothing particularly "European" about tribalism and war. In fact, tribalism isn't even a specifically human trait. You can see the same behavior in a pride of lions, a troop of chimpanzees, or even between anthills. It is a predictable emergent behavior of social Darwinism.

Re:Proof!

[PPH]

Luckily I'm not an atheist.

Luckily I'm not Western European.

Re:Proof!

[Chas]

Sorry, the "True Scotsman" argument doesn't work with me.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

Common theme in the Bible. At least one of the sons of Josephs wife weren't actually his.

Re:Proof!

[ColdWetDog]

What. You think Noah looked throughout all of the ark? That was a pretty big boat. Cubits and cubits of horseshit, zebra shit, rotifera dung etc.

I'll bet there were more than a few extra humans hiding away in that thing. And would they have stuck around once the ground dried up? Of course not. They would have high tailed it away from the rest of the group.

Problem solved.

Re:Proof!

[khallow]

Because a true agnostic knows not only that he doesn't know whether there is a god, but also that he has no way of knowing if someone else does know it.

No. Because there still is the possibility of some sort of definitive proof. Although how you would show that an omnipotent, omniscient god exists to an organism which is inherently extremely limited in what it can perceive or do sounds rather impossible to me. There's only so much input a human can receive over a finite life span and only so many internal state changes (including thinking) that the human can do over that life span.

Re:Proof!

[ColdWetDog]

Or perhaps older humans looked out over some vast ancient flood plain and realized it was a flood plain. A couple of nibbles off some fun mushrooms and a bag of fermented something or other and the prefrontal cortex goes wild....

Re:Proof!

[lister king of smeg]

Lol, loving all the comments below taking this seriously..

sure it would make sense if we had a passage reading "And 20,000 of the best bitches boarded the arc to keep Noah and his boys busy!" and "Gawd turned his back to all the fornication that he had outlawed"

nah the fornication laws came several hundred years later to mosses, gods last command to humanity before the flood was be fruitful and multiply so...

Re:Proof!

[maxwell demon]

Since there is no evidence for the claim that nobody knows whether there is a god, that claim can only be believed on faith. But faith is the antithesis of agnosticism.

Re:Proof!

[maxwell demon]

So how would you definitely proof that there is no one who knows whether a god exists? OK, apart from the obvious option of killing everyone and then stating that since there's no one left, there's no one who could know anything – but then, in that case it won't matter any more anyway ;-)

Of course you'll also get into the problem of defining exactly what "knowing" means, and if you are not careful, you'll easily define it in a way that no human is able to know anything. Of course in that case, the statement that no human knows whether a god exists is trivially true, but just as trivially meaningless.

Indeed, in the case that an omnipotent god exists, that omnipotent god should have the power to let anyone whom he wants to know it know that he exists. Therefore if you could proof that nobody can know if a god exists, then you would, by this very act, have disproved god, and therefore could no longer logically be an agnostic, but an atheist.

But that means that to proof that nobody knows whether a god exists, you'd have to do the proof without denying the possibility that they could possibly know. However, since you can't know what happens inside someone else's mind, how could you exclude that they gained that knowledge somehow?

Re:Proof!

[swillden]

So did most Europeans. It's one of the reasons that European history is such an unmitigated meatgrinder

Steven Pinker's "The Better Angels of Our Nature" (which also thoroughly discusses the demons of our nature) argues that the idea that a belief in God's favor caused the violence is false. Tribalism and lack of empathy (the evolution of empathy, especially empathy for people outside of your closest circle, is fascinating and non-obvious) were the cause of the unmitigated meatgrinder, and it wasn't just Europe, it was everywhere. In fact, recorded European history is mild compared to the pre-history archaeology shows us came before it.

I could try to summarize the arguments, but I wouldn't do them justice. I highly recommend the book.

Re:Proof!

[ProfessionalCookie]

hence, anthropogenic :)

Re:Proof!

[khallow]

So how would you definitely proof that there is no one who knows whether a god exists?

Well, an existing god for starters would probably know that. You have to bootstrap from the supernatural side and make the supernatural, natural. Nobody seems inclined to do so at the moment.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

a belief in God's favor... Tribalism and lack of empathy

If god favors my group, then the other groups are not favored and are therefore inferior and unworthy of my concern. His reasoning why a belief in god's favor does not cause violence is the reason why it causes violence.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

But logic requires faith that it does not change and will continue to, or still does, work. Really everything comes down to faith in perception eventually. So, again, your view on agnosticism is somewhat askew.

Re:Proof!

[maxwell demon]

Of course that only applies for monotheistic religions. In polytheism, it's easy: Our god favours us, and the other tribe's god favours them.

Re:Proof!

[lgw]

Didn't Sting make a song about that? Someone had to shovel all that manure, and Noah was the wealthiest man on Earth, wasn't going to be him!

Re:Proof!

[DexterIsADog]

Now many bible stories probably have a source of truth to them...

Really? Care to name any, and any objective proof whatsoever that they have this "source of truth"? If not, you're just hand waving as much as the pope.

Re:Proof!

[swillden]

a belief in God's favor... Tribalism and lack of empathy

If god favors my group, then the other groups are not favored and are therefore inferior and unworthy of my concern. His reasoning why a belief in god's favor does not cause violence is the reason why it causes violence.

No. Seriously, read the book.

What it boils down to is that such logical deduction isn't how people work at the level where what sort of violence we're comfortable with is decided. The logical arguments are a veneer laid over the top to justify the lizard-brain reactions to "otherness", and the psychological infrastructure that's been built up to determine who is "other", which is based primarily on familiarity. At the end of the day, whether god was invoked or not, the same evaluation of otherness occurs and the same impact on empathy or the lack thereof.

For a modern example which easily cuts out the religious question, look at discussions on immigration. I often have a very different perspective on it from others around me, and I can see exactly where that perspective arose, my own life experiences. I spent years living and working in southern Mexico, with people from all walks of life, and specifically trying to build empathic rapport with them. As a result, my attitude about immigration and global competition in general is that all of the people in other countries have just as much right to my job as I do, and if they can do it better, or cheaper, or faster, then they should. Because to me they're not "other". This is not the case for the majority of Americans, at least, so I often get blank stares of complete incomprehension when I make such statements, and a response of "their lives aren't my problem, and my government should be protecting me". It boils down to foreigners being perceived as "other".

Now, I'm not holding myself up as any kind of paragon. I fully recognize that there are groups around me that I perceive as "other", and my reactions to them are much less empathic than they should be. Of late I've become strongly aware of this as my daughter has moved herself to such a group, and it's difficult for me to reconcile my conflicting reactions. Rationally, I recognize that they are not "other", and she certainly isn't, but my brain isn't wired to think that way, and at 45 years of age it's hard for me to re-program (particularly, when I am both emotionally and rationally quite certain that her choices will lead to unhappiness, but that's just a complication, not the core issue).

Re:Proof!

[kilodelta]

Well, their god may have promised never to use floods again, recent evidence in the Philippines to the contrary. That said, there are numerous references to death by fire in the Bible. That's not going to leave much either.

Re:Proof!

[swillden]

Of course that only applies for monotheistic religions. In polytheism, it's easy: Our god favours us, and the other tribe's god favours them.

A very valid point... and one that highlights the fact that it's not the religion that generates the violence. Whether the argument is that my god favors me and not you so I'll kill you, or that my god hates your god, so I'll kill you, or you oppose the rise of the proletariat, so I'll kill you, or you're a dirty thieving gypsy, so I'll kill you, or... the rational justifications are endless, but they're only justifications. The real issue is tribalism and lack of empathy for others.

One of the points that Pinker really pounds on in the book is that lack of empathy was endemic in the past (in the future they'll probably say the same of our age; we say it of times just a few generations past). For example, a few hundred years ago I might not only have thought nothing of murdering the heathen, even torturing him to death in order to save his soul, but I would also have thought nothing of brutal punishments and tortures for people of my own village who I perceived to have done wrong, or to have offended me or my family. In the past, governments routinely used horrific tortures like breaking on the wheel for relatively minor crimes, or even just political disagreements, even though the tortured was part of the torturer's "tribe".

Re:Proof!

[lgw]

Of course you'll also get into the problem of defining exactly what "knowing" means, and if you are not careful, you'll easily define it in a way that no human is able to know anything.

The best definition for "knowledge" is "justified, true belief". Can you be justified in believing God exist? Sure, if you've met him or whatever. Can you be justifies in believing no god exists? That's a tricky one - it seems likely that the origin of the universe hides behind an event horizon, and so we'll never be sure how the universe itself happened. Can you be justified in believing that one specific deity as described by one specific faith does not exist? I think so - surely most of them are wrong.

It's possible to justify belief that "if a god exists, he must be the kind of god whose existence doesn't directly affect the ongoing operation of the Universe". I don't think we know enough yet to claim that, but it seems possible we might one day know enough.

Of course, you'll never be able to rule out God as described by Spinoza/JMS "the universe itself is God, and intelligent life is its self-awareness".

Re:Proof!

[Zontar The Mindless]

I've also found that *being* an immigrant tends to alter your perspective on such matters considerably.

(For extra credit, try doing it twice.)

Re:Proof!

[ShanghaiBill]

Of course that only applies for monotheistic religions.

There are no monotheistic religions. Christians believe in God, Jesus, Satan, angels, saints, prophets, etc. with various degrees of miracle making and magic. Moslems and Jews believe in much the same. The old testament (Genesis 6:1-4) even says that gods came down to the Earth and had sex with human women, breeding giant demigods.

Re:Proof!

[lgw]

Now did Noah build a massive boat. Or was a merchant,

Well, there seem to be multiple accounts of the boat-builder story, so I give it a lot of credibility. Every civilization has it's "preppers", it's survivalists, whether building boats or bunkers. With all of the survivalists, and all of the disasters afflicting mankind through the ages, eventually one of them was bound to get it right, and prepare for exactly the disaster that happened. A series of events so unexpected that we're still talking about it 10000 years later!

Re:Proof!

[Zontar The Mindless]

Lol, loving all the comments below taking this seriously..

So you read from bottom to top, eh? Most people do it the other way round. Thus:

'above' = previous/before;

and

'below' = upcoming/next.

(Det var så lite, så!)

Re: Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

So lets pick some more animals and get a different answer; Gorrilas, Bonobos and Wild dogs, and now for fun, Mice who socially are the closest to us. Mice build houses and Alpha males can cooperate, also live as families in big groups with NO wars. Humans are very violent by nature, probably explained by non seasonal mating.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bible's account is not about the human race as we see it but about the history and development of specific tribes living in those areas. In their mind, they were and possibly are the only humans alive.

Re:Proof!

[wonkey_monkey]

There are no monotheistic religions. Christians believe in God

who is a god

Jesus, Satan, angels, saints, prophets, etc.

who are not gods. Hmm.

But okay, let's say you're right and everyone else in the world is wrong about monotheism. All you've done is show that three religions aren't monotheistic (in your terms). What about Eckankar? Rastafari? Tenriyko? Zoroastrianism? The Baha'i Faith?

Did you bother to look into those or did you just want to take a cheap shot at the Big Three?

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Seriously, read the book.

What it boils down to is that such logical deduction isn't how people work at the level where what sort of violence we're comfortable with is decided. The logical arguments are a veneer laid over the top to justify the lizard-brain reactions to "otherness", and the psychological infrastructure that's been built up to determine who is "other", which is based primarily on familiarity. At the end of the day, whether god was invoked or not, the same evaluation of otherness occurs and the same impact on empathy or the lack thereof.

I tend to get cynical when people base their convictions on "a book" rather than "an idea", so forgive me when I say that to me this just sounds like a whole load of hogwash designed to sidestep the actual issue, that of responsibility. Whether you invoke god or not certainly makes a difference, the pivotal one: those who do invoke (a) god refuse to take responsibility for their actions until after they're dead, those who don't invoke a god bear the responsibility in the earthly realm.

Re:Proof!

[CrimsonAvenger]

In the past, governments routinely used horrific tortures like breaking on the wheel for relatively minor crimes, or even just political disagreements, even though the tortured was part of the torturer's "tribe".

I suspect that the phrase "pour encourager les autres" applies....

Re:Proof!

[Charliemopps]

God, the first politician.

Re: Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just because they don't have opposable thumbs ...

Re:Proof!

[swillden]

The reason I'm pointing you at the book is that the ideas are not simple, and the very thorough research supporting them is something I cannot reproduce in a slashdot post. Not everything can be reduced to simple language in a few paragraphs.

Re:Proof!

[swillden]

In the past, governments routinely used horrific tortures like breaking on the wheel for relatively minor crimes, or even just political disagreements, even though the tortured was part of the torturer's "tribe".

I suspect that the phrase "pour encourager les autres" applies....

Absolutely. But the point is that those sorts of encouragements are no longer even thinkable, because we empathize too much with the wrongdoer. This is a big change, and it's completely independent of questions of religious belief.

Re:Proof!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Dude, he is asking you to read the book because the idea here is long and involved and Steven Pinker does a much better job of explaining it. He is not holding that book to be scripture and accepted without question. To conflate the GP with fundies is condescending

Re:Proof!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

You missed Collataralized Debt Obligations, interest rate swaps and derivatives. They are far more damaging .

Re: Proof!

[PlusFiveTroll]

>Mice build houses and Alpha males can cooperate, also live as families in big groups with NO wars.

You are really clueless and completely wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Calhoun#Mouse_experiments

The size of human social structures are an order of magnitude larger than mouse structures.

Ants on the other hand, which form colonies that rival humans, war between colonies is very common.

Re:Proof!

[Tablizer]

people in other countries have just as much right to my job as I do, and if they can do it better, or cheaper, or faster

But our cost of living is higher in the US, in part because such countries have minimum safety, labor, human-rights, and pollution regulations & standards. We cannot compete with their cost of living advantage if we stay in the US. We could lower our standards in the US, but then we become a 3rd-world country. Do we really want to lower our standards to theirs? This is why it's often called a "race to the bottom".

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Atheists would just build arks - oh the irony!

Re:Proof!

[jbolden]

I think we sympathize with different kinds of wrong doers. We are much more generous to pick pockets. But we will starve millions with sanctions because they won't support us against their government.

Re:Proof!

[Yosho]

I'm a lapsed Catholic (all of the guilt and none of the Sunday social commitments!) and a militant agnostic (I don't know AND NEITHER DO YOU DAMMIT!)

Actually, a better description of your position would be agnostic atheism. Theism is a declaration of whether you worship a supernatural entity or not; clearly you do not, so you are an atheist. Gnosticism is a declaration of whether the existence of supernatural entities is knowable or not, so you are also agnostic. The two terms are compatible with one another.

Re: Proof!

[budgenator]

Oh come on, obviously you have never actually read the Bible, not only is there nowhere where in the Bible where it says there is only one God, there are several verses that speak to gods as in a pantheon. Most of what " Christians" believe either isn't in the Bible or is obviously a blatant political motivated miss-translation.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, men in this family were always idiots. Imagine that when certain Joseph was puzzled how his wife got pregnant when he never had sex with her, she persuaded him she never slept with anybody else either. He went around and told this story to everybody...what a laughing stock this guy must have been.

Re:Proof!

[swillden]

So we're entitled to a higher standard of living? Why? Forget the "them" and "us". We're all people, and we all deserve the same opportunity to make what we can of ourselves.

Re: Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are correct. And you can get it from the commandments alone. Why would it have "no other gods before me" instead of "there are no other gods"?

Re:Proof!

[swillden]

I think that's more a result of the fact that we consider them "other". Different color, language, culture, religion... they're strange and therefore not us, and therefore we have little empathy for them as people and our ideological interest in their government following the form we'd like and doing what we want is stronger. At least we're no longer willing to simply massacre them out of hand, though.

On the other hand, to my moral sensibilities "starve millions with sanctions" is an odd phrase; do we really equate refusing to trade with someone with forcibly depriving them of sustenance? After all, we're not taking anything from them, we're just refusing to give something to them, something we have no obligation to provide. And it's not like the countries aren't capable of feeding their people, it's just that their corrupt governments and institutions don't care to bother. So do we really have a moral obligation to trade with them?

I have to think about whether you're oversensitive, or I'm deficient.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you mean "No TRUE R1b Carrier" argument? After all, it is one of the places where R1b is most greatly concentrated.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that when one is WHITE, one is expected to exist and compete as an atom, an individual absolute with no assistance from any entity outside oneself. Meanwhile, the NON-WHITE is permitted to exist and compete in whatever form said non-white may have. There are ETHNIC CREDIT UNIONS but no WHITE CREDIT UNIONS. there are ETHNIC COMMUNITY CENTERS but no WHITE COMMUNITY CENTERS. Therefore, unless you have your life ahead of you paid in full via inheritance and/or windfall, you remain JUST AS "OTHER" as before you attempted to renounce WHITE PRIVILEGE.

Sometimes the truth is racist but it does not undo the fact that it is the best representation of reality. You remain just as "other" to them despite the fact that you renounced viewing them as "other".

Good fences make good neighbors.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to be infected with cholera, tuberculosis, malaria, pertussis, and every thrid-world communicable disease. Then you will reconsider you words.

Hygiene is intrinsically racist. It interferes with karma.

Re: Proof!

[femtobyte]

The experiment quoted only indicated the breakdown of social structures after straining resource availability through sufficiently high population density. Prior to this, the "culture" wasn't in a state of war and turmoil.

Human social structures may be an order of magnitude bigger, but we've also got a few orders of magnitude bigger brains. This includes the critical ability to intellectually analyze the functioning of social structures and make changes, rather than rolling along with instinct until all hell breaks loose. Those who consider a state of war and brutality to be inevitable among humans are those who want to deny the existence of human minds, and their ability to analyze and alter social arrangements (denial of which is usually prompted by the brain-denying party profiting from a current state of violence and dysfunction).

Re:Proof!

[swillden]

I got typhoid fever when I was in Mexico, does that count?

Re:Proof!

[swillden]

The problem is that when one is WHITE, one is expected to exist and compete as an atom, an individual absolute with no assistance from any entity outside oneself. Meanwhile, the NON-WHITE is permitted to exist and compete in whatever form said non-white may have. There are ETHNIC CREDIT UNIONS but no WHITE CREDIT UNIONS. there are ETHNIC COMMUNITY CENTERS but no WHITE COMMUNITY CENTERS. Therefore, unless you have your life ahead of you paid in full via inheritance and/or windfall, you remain JUST AS "OTHER" as before you attempted to renounce WHITE PRIVILEGE.

Sometimes the truth is racist but it does not undo the fact that it is the best representation of reality. You remain just as "other" to them despite the fact that you renounced viewing them as "other".

Good fences make good neighbors.

I'm glad I don't live in your head.

Re: Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there are constant references to man-made gods, most famously the golden calf.

Re:Proof!

[MillerHighLife21]

Totally agree on immigration. The biggest issue with illegal immigration is that most taxes in the country are only paid by legal citizens (excluding sales based taxes) so it's effectively cheaper to live and work in the US illegally than legally. The Fair Tax that would eliminate the income tax, replace it with sales tax and pay out a monthly stipend to every legal US citizen to offset that tax against basic needs.

It pretty much turns immigration into a non-issue.

Re: Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

In the story, all of nature would have been wiped out if not for the technology and actions of man, who built the ark. Anthropogenic salvation.

Re:Proof!

[JWSmythe]

What now atheists? You better hope it doesn't flood again.

No problem. We'll be the ones setting up to survive, while you're praying. And anyone on *my* ship who praises god for saving them will be kicked overboard.

Pay attention. If you believe your god has anything to do with a natural disaster, that means your god is trying to kill you. If anyone from anything but your specific sect of your specific religion helps you, then it means your god intended you to die.

Don't worry though, the Mormons will give you a posthumous baptism, so you'll be one of them for all eternity.

Re:Proof!

[Chas]

Uh. Sorry. You're barking up the wrong tree.

I never claimed that "nobody" knows whether there's a God (or even a god).

I simply said that "I don't know. And you don't either."

That's a little general knowledge about humanity as a whole and basic statistics.

Re: Proof!

[wonkey_monkey]

God's sarcastic tone doesn't come across in the written text.

Re:Proof!

[aliquis]

What now atheists? You better hope it doesn't flood again.

Your god is such a bastard.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

Some Christians have asserted that Muslims worship a different god. Does that make them polytheists? The first of the Ten Commandments includes a line, "Thou shalt have no other gods above me." That implies that there are other gods. A tribe that follows one god can recognize that another exists and then try to destroy that other god. The one tribe could also resent that the other tribe's god favors "them" instead of "us" and try to destroy that other tribe. While the polytheistic Romans under the Caesars allowed conquered peoples to keep their own gods, the imposed the belief in Caesar as god upon them. The Jews were exempted, but for anyone else, if a Roman soldier asked you if Caesar was god and you said no you could be charged with the crime of atheism, tried and executed.

Re:Proof!

[Maritz]

Doesn't sound at all like hogwash. The idea is in the book, shame that has to be explained.

Re:Proof!

[Maritz]

I save in a credit union and am "white". Also there's lots of community centres here but not very many 'ethnic' people. In other words, what you say can be safely disregarded. Phew.

Re:Proof!

[ILongForDarkness]

No I think this just proves ancient Europeans lead the world in inbreeding.

Re:Proof!

[ILongForDarkness]

Sorry led my spelling sucks because of my inbred heritage.

Re:Proof!

[larpon]

Who's your daddy?

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

We naturally put people into packages. Notice how we talk about people by region, religion, caste or distinguishing features. We dehumanize them into a thing. Look at what we are doing right now to Muslims, Iranians, 1%'ers, tea party/liberals, socialists, etc. We wrap them into a group rather than think of them as people. Look at all the propaganda from WW2 about the Japanese depicting them as inhuman monsters and depicting Americans as noble (and the reverse was true from the other side).

This has been a big cause of the atrocities of recent wars. Once you have dehumanized them you aren't killing people anymore, you are killing this evil monster or thing.

Re:Proof!

[doccus]

This proves it! Noah and his sons have been found through genetics.

Well, that *is* how it appears...

Re:Proof!

[doccus]

...But.. there's also the possibility that aliens used three templates to hybridize the european strain.. let's fgace it.. light skinned folks are poorly suited to theis planet.. evolution would surely ALWAYS defer to darker skinned types.. meaning there's Earthlings and Martians on the same planet ;-)

Re:Proof!

[lsatenstein]

This proves it! Noah and his sons have been found through genetics.

What now atheists? You better hope it doesn't flood again.

For that kind of multiplicative spread, Noah and his sons must of had two dozen wives each.

Re:Proof!

[Jason Levine]

I remember first encountering this back in High School when I made a joke about Jehovah's Witnesses and someone in the class claimed to be a Jehovah's Witness. Whether they were or weren't, I realized that I had rationalized making fun of a group simply because they were "an other." Years later, on a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, I saw a piece that explained how Hitler approached the Jehovah's Witnesses and basically told them "sit quietly while we do this and you won't be harmed." They didn't feel they could morally do this and protested. Thanks to this, they were persecuted alongside Jews, Gypsies, etc. Those two experiences taught me that every "Other" group is comprised of individuals. Some are going to be bad, yes, but some are going to be good. I try my best not to assign labels to whole groups based on the actions of a few individuals. (Sadly, this is a lesson that my father didn't learn and I'm constantly rolling my eyes when he gets talking about how SOME GROUP is ruining America. It doesn't help that he listens to some particularly bad right-wing radio/TV commentators.)

Re: Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there are constant references to man-made gods, most famously the golden calf.

Isn't the entire bible a set of references to a man-made god?

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot war mongering tea-baggers.

Re:Proof!

[Anonymous Coward]

(Det var så lite, så!)

For the uninformed, this translates into:
Come see the loveli lakes with mee and my seester!

Or at least that's what my Mexican buddy who raises llamas told me...

Re: Proof!

[maxwell demon]

miss-translation

Misogynist! ;-)

Re:Proof!

[maxwell demon]

I've once heard that originally, besides the god Yahweh there was a goddess whose name I forgot. Yahweh was the god of war, and the goddess was the goddess for fertility.

Re:Proof!

[maxwell demon]

Yeah, men in this family were always idiots.

You recognize that according to the bible, we all are in his family? So at least if you're a man, you might want to reconsider that statement. ;-)

Re:Proof!

[chilvence]

Well, I've travelled alot, and I've seen "British Grocery Shops" In far flung places. Holy shit, even one or two Anglican Churches. There's your white ethnic community centre there, fuck face.

Re:Proof!

[haruchai]

I used to live about 2 blocks away from a Ukrainian credit union and we once rented a hall in a Latvian community center.
FYI, if the sign above the bar in a Latvian joint says "limonade", it means soft drinks, not actual lemonade.

Sources ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Article seems to indicate itself as source .... Selfy !

Re:Sources ?

[maxwell demon]

Well, that way they get their first citation right on publication. ;-)

On The Female Side It Was Just One

[JohnPerkins]

...your mother.

Re:On The Female Side It Was Just One

[drinkypoo]

According to science, we're all brothers (and sisters, and whatnot) descended from the same greatest grandmother, Mitochondrial Eve. So in that sense, it was your great (etc.) grandmother, and mine too. Burn?

Finding out that most Europeans are descended from just a handful of people is not shocking, for a variety of reasons.

Re:On The Female Side It Was Just One

[BitZtream]

It also means that at least 1/3rd of the population is some kind of royalty, possibly 2/3rds or all of them!

Re:On The Female Side It Was Just One

[jamstar7]

According to science, we're all brothers (and sisters, and whatnot) descended from the same greatest grandmother, Mitochondrial Eve. So in that sense, it was your great (etc.) grandmother, and mine too. Burn?

Finding out that most Europeans are descended from just a handful of people is not shocking, for a variety of reasons.

Yes, yes, yes, my family tree needs some serious pruning. I'm kinda busy at the moment, though...

Re:On The Female Side It Was Just One

[drinkypoo]

It also means that at least 1/3rd of the population is some kind of royalty, possibly 2/3rds or all of them!

Given that royalty seems to have traditionally run around fucking everything that wiggled, that seemed like a safe bet, anyway. If you study European history it seems like there should be more royal bastards and progeny of royal bastards than everyone else put together, by now. Also, I can't help but think about how the royalty then went on to enshrine inbreeding. I guess you return to your roots, or in this case, trunk.

Re:On The Female Side It Was Just One

[benjfowler]

Sure.

And some Guardian-reading idiot leftie will use that to justify why we should throw open our borders to all comers.

Re:On The Female Side It Was Just One

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're willing to go back far enough, then certainly everyone is. This article provides a mathematical answer to the question of whether Jesus was descended from King David. Spoiler: Everyone in the Holy Land at the time of Jesus would be.

Re:On The Female Side It Was Just One

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't lie! Your family tree is about as branched as a steel fencepost and I know about steel fence posts. I'm from Texas. ;)

This would explain a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

In regards to the constant bickering and wars, it all makes sense! Three families? That is a shit ton of brothers fighting over stupid shit

Re:This would explain a lot

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

In regards to the constant bickering and wars, it all makes sense! Three families? That is a shit ton of brothers fighting over stupid shit

They don't even need three... The Habsurgs, in all their imbred glory, managed to keep south-western Europe in a state of more or less constant dynastic turmoil for a few centuries...

Re:This would explain a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

At least do them the courtesy and get their name right.

Re:This would explain a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure Carlos II pronounced Hapsburg as "Habsurg", when he wasn't drooling too much to speak.

Noah

[globaljustin]

This proves it! Noah and his sons have been found through genetics.

Isn't this really what this is all about? Not the research, but **why** the research is noteworthy...

There are **alot** of people who believe the Torah, New Testament, etc not as litteral truth but as mythology which can represent truthful stories under a layer of abstraction.

I don't believe science can prove OR disprove a god or buddah or FSM or anything beyond the natural world. Supernatural is unprovable scientifically by definition....**super** natural.

Why not talk about the mythology?

Are we projecting (because the Noah story is still widely told) onto this finding if we compare it to the Torah's account of Noah and the repopulation of the world after?

There are several ancient maps showing **very testable** notions of population distribution. If these are anywhere near accurate in explaining human population distribution why not do more science based on it?

Is anyone really concerned about proving god exists somehow? what's the downside if the ancient mythology correlates with modern science?

Re: Noah

[ScentCone]

The more interesting thing is the number of people who think "alot" is a word, perhaps being the opposite of "alittle."

Re:Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

what's the downside if the ancient mythology correlates with modern science?

A lot of atheists suddenly forced to correctly word their assertions that INSERT RELIGIOUS EVENT did not happen and instead have to reword it to RELIGIOUS EVENT has scientific explanation - insert long winded scientific explanation of chain reactions that sounds just as outlandish as "a wizzard did it" to most people.

Re:Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

not as litteral truth but as mythology which can represent truthful stories under a layer of abstraction.

So they accept that it's not actually the truth, but still choose to believe that much of anything in a book filled with exaggerations, outright falsehoods, and feel-good messages is true?

Re: Noah

[maxwell demon]

The more interesting thing is the number of people who think "alot" is a word, perhaps being the opposite of "alittle."

"A little of people"? Doesn't make sense to me.

Re:Noah

[GrumpySteen]

Not really. This is a gene that's particular to Western Europeans. Not Asians, Aficans or any other race on the planet. The flood that supposedly took out everyone on the planet except for Noah and his crotch fruit would have left everyone sharing the same genetic code which is not the case.

Evolution theory, on the other hand, predicts that beneficial genetic mutations will spread exactly like this.

Re:Noah

[fustakrakich]

...what's the downside if the ancient mythology correlates with modern science?

One of the biggest industries on the planet would cease to exist. It would create economic chaos. Next thing you know, nihilism... and anarchy!

Re:Noah

[khallow]

insert long winded scientific explanation of chain reactions that sounds just as outlandish as "a wizzard did it" to most people.

No. I imagine the usual explanation is that someone came up with a great story which didn't really happen the way that they claimed.

Re: Noah

[ScentCone]

The more interesting thing is the number of people who think "alot" is a word, perhaps being the opposite of "alittle." "A little of people"? Doesn't make sense to me.

You're missing the point. The GP used a non-existent word ("alot") but probably wouldn't use a similarly constructed non-existent word ("alittle"). The fake word "alittle" was presented to cause that person to stop for a second and think about the word they're typing. A "lot" is a measure of quantity, usually used to imply a non-small number of something. Like, "I suppose I could take just the one, but since they're a bargain, I'll take the whole lot." A follow up would be, "Did you see what he bought? He went shopping for one, but bought a lot." Not "alot," but "a lot" ... where "a" is singular a refers to quantity one lot. Like saying he bought "..a bunch of bananas, not just one." But if someone asks how many bananas you bought, would you say, "abunch" or "a bunch"? A bushel of corn, or "abushel?" A pair of socks or "apair?"

Re:Noah

[Rick Zeman]

This proves it! Noah and his sons have been found through genetics.

Isn't this really what this is all about? Not the research, but **why** the research is noteworthy...

There are **alot** of people who believe the Torah, New Testament, etc not as litteral truth but as mythology which can represent truthful stories under a layer of abstraction.

The problem with that is the stories were presented as literal truth until proven otherwise and then they conveniently became mythology buried under abstraction.

Re:Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

> what's the downside if the ancient mythology correlates with modern science?

Please remember that religion gave us the "the Breast Ripper" as the answer to adulterous women whilst atheists think it more humane to ask for her number.

Re:Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe science can prove OR disprove a god

Designing an experiment to prove that God exists is trivial:

Say you have a bunch of amputees, you pray for some of them to grow limbs again... and they do. And those you didn't pray for do not. And say you repeat these experiments all over, and they give the same results. In that case and providing that the experiments were performed properly, it would be reasonable to assume that God does in fact exist.

What is impossible by definition is to prove that god DOESN'T exist, because it's a non-falsiable affirmation. Say the aforementioned experiment fails. Can you conclude that god does not exist?? of course not, he might just decided not to take an action regarding the patient's limbs.

Re: Noah

[maxwell demon]

Of course that doesn't proof that there is no word "alot". For example, "cannot" would be more logically written as "can not". With all other words it's separate "I must/I must not", "I may/I may not", "I might/I might not", "I shall/I shall not" etc. So from pure logic you'd also conclude that it's also "I can/I can not". But it isn't. It's "I can/I cannot".

The only way to see whether "alot" is a valid word is to consult a (sufficiently recent) dictionary.

Re: Noah

[Arker]

I have not seen anyone writing 'alittle' or heard it spoken either. I rather suspect this actually has more to do with a/an being effectively a prefix in most spoken English, and perhaps also on analogy with 'another' which is comprehensible as 'an other.'

Re: Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be "a follow-up."

"Follow up" makes "follow" a verb, you pedantic twat.

Re: Noah

[Deadstick]

I rather suspect this actually has more to do with a/an being effectively a prefix in most spoken English

I'd say it has a lot more to do with ignorance. Trying to apply uniform principles to a creole like English is like pushing on a rope.

Re:Noah

[Zontar The Mindless]

One of the biggest industries on the planet would cease to exist. It would create economic chaos. Next thing you know, nihilism... and anarchy!

You mean there'd be no more hookers, and people would just start fucking in the streets whenever the mood came over them?

Re: Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious? there's no such word as alot.

Re:Noah

[Zontar The Mindless]

I really wish I had not Googled that.

Re: Noah

[umafuckit]

Are you serious? there's no such word as alot.

No, but "allot" does exist, which probably fans the confusion.

Re: Noah

[ScentCone]

Excellent! I love corrections that bring some special bitterness to the conversation in ironically self-referential ways.

Re: Noah

[wagnerrp]

"Can not" and "cannot" are two completely different meanings. "Can not" means you are physically able to not perform the action, but there is still a choice in the matter. "Cannot" means you are unable to perform the the action. It's the same as the difference between "may" and "must".

Re: Noah

[ScentCone]

No, but "allot" does exist, which probably fans the confusion.

It might ... though the verb "allot" and its noun-form variation ("allotment") aren't seen in very common usage. People type "alot" because they're typing sounds they hear in conversation without actually thinking about the words they're using. Like "their/there/they're." Many people utter sounds from familiar phrases, lazily drop a syllable or so, and say they opposite of what they mean. The classic, of course, is "I could care less" - when they mean the exact opposite ("I couldn't care less"). This is a sign that that someone isn't thinking about what they're typing - it's like a mockingbird imitating another bird. Just making sounds.

Re: Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course that doesn't proof that there is no word "alot". For example, "cannot" would be more logically written as "can not". With all other words it's separate "I must/I must not", "I may/I may not", "I might/I might not", "I shall/I shall not" etc. So from pure logic you'd also conclude that it's also "I can/I can not". But it isn't. It's "I can/I cannot".

The only way to see whether "alot" is a valid word is to consult a (sufficiently recent) dictionary.

Of course, pedantics and grammar police like you need to be shown that the verb "prove" is not equivalent to the noun "proof".

Re: Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like you are alot of fun at parties...

Re: Noah

[lennier]

The more interesting thing is the number of people who think "alot" is a word, perhaps being the opposite of "alittle."

I like this alot.

Re: Noah

[lennier]

"Can not" and "cannot" are two completely different meanings. "Can not" means you are physically able to not perform the action, but there is still a choice in the matter. "Cannot" means you are unable to perform the the action. It's the same as the difference between "may" and "must".

I can not believe this, but I won't. I also could care less, and do.

Re: Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, not everyone here is anglophone, why get your knickers in a knot over a minor spelling mistake?!?! Jeeez.

Re:Noah

[AvitarX]

No way, that proves that prayer taps our spiritual energy and power.

But anybody knows that it has to do with the connectedness of the universe, and not "God", duh.

Re: Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

It might ... though the verb "allot" and its noun-form variation ("allotment") aren't seen in very common usage.

While I agree with you that the increasing usage of "alot" is unlikely to stem from confusion with "allot", I disagree with you that "allot" isn't in common usage. The word "allotment" is very common here in the UK, and "allotted" crops up frequently enough that most people would know it.

Re: Noah

[ScentCone]

It sounds like you are alot of fun at parties...

I don't remember ever being at a party where someone trying to make a pseudo- academic point about mythology use air quotes and deliberately tried to convey to me that the term "alot" was one word, and being used that way so that I'd take him seriously on the mythology thing. Are your parties like that?

Re: Noah

[Max Littlemore]

If 'a' is a prefix in the case of alot then alot probably means not many or not much. It might even be an a definition of a subset of a lot in which case a better word in english would be allotment (n) or allot (v).

'A' as a prefix doesn't mean 'one'. Another is a strange word in that it is more like the German sytem of gluing words together than it is like English and it uses 'an' where there is less ambiguity about the intended meaning. Alot kind of means "not one lot" or a little.

Re:Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

Name one that was proven otherwise.

Re:Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

I really wish that people would stop using Google (noun) as a verb. Unless they're paying you, of course.

Re: Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

Allitle of that, please.

Re: Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

There wasn't much pizza, but everyone was allotted allitle.

Re:Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe not. When the first gospel was written about 65 AD or so, the Jesus character was portrayed as teaching at times with parables, metaphors and similies. It must not have been unheard of to hold that faith stories, if you will, are not all literally true.

Re:Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell would anyone be concerned about proving gods existance? That would be guaranteed nobel price. It would also pretty much kill all religions on the spot. Or maybe not. But at least you could for certain say they are wrong. And you's know which ones are wrong. Also there would be no point in believing any god related things. I know I exist, I don't "believe" I do. No need for faith, and no need to take advice from some class of old men wearing robes.

Re: Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

People don't like to talk about it. Haven't you heard: "alittle knowledge is a dangerous thing."

Re: Noah

[Maritz]

You went off at the deep end, strongly suggesting that parent's post had about as much semantic meaning as a gong being banged, merely because he contracted 'a lot' to 'alot' which you didn't like. The parties quip was justified I think. No-one cares. And no, people copying other's syntactical mistakes doesn't mean what they say is akin to a mynah bird copying every noise it hears.

Re:Noah

[Maritz]

World created in six days. Want another?

Re:Noah

[rlwhite]

Until the 1600s, the common interpretation was that those were not literal days. The Hebrew word used has an alternate meaning as "a period of time", and the passage uses it before the sun is created. Young Earth is a relatively new interpretation within Christianity.

Re: Noah

[ScentCone]

You're missing the point. He says he deliberately mis-spells "a lot" (and then surrounds it with asterisks) so that people will notice him and take him more seriously. I'm saying that's silly, and erodes his credibility when he's talking academics. As for sound-copying... why else do you think that people say, for example, "I could care less" - ? Obviously they mean the opposite, but those are the sounds coming out of their mouths, and it's not done ironically. What's your theory?

Re: Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

You're missing the point. You lost. Alot is a common word in the American vernacular and before you die, it will be officially accepted by Oxford. Your Assbergers won't let you deal with that though and instead of putting your efforts into making salient and on-topic posts regarding the DNA dissemination of early European man, you're bitching about a word that most every other person on the planet is happy using. That begs the question: Could you care less or would that be the tail wagging the dog? Did you literally put the cart before the horse or did you figuratively jump the shark? Alot of folks want to know!

Re: Noah

[maxwell demon]

Yes, I'm serious. And so is your lack of reading comprehension. Nowhere did I claim that "alot" is a word. Indeed, I did not say anything at all about whether "alot" is a word or not. I only wrote about the invalidity of the parent's method of deciding whether it is (by the existence of other words built the same way, which cannot work because the language is not entirely consistent to begin with), and pointed out the correct way to do it (consult a dictionary).

2, maybe 1 or 3?

[jovius]

Must have been quite a night!

Re:2, maybe 1 or 3?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, I was there.

All thanks to my Tin Can Opener Time Machine. And some bearded man and Russian drinks.
Just don't ask where circumcision came from.

SO....

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth comes out. Most of you are a bunch of inbred bastards.

Re:SO....

[__aaltlg1547]

Explains the preponderance of recessive traits like blond hair, blue eyes and fair skin. You people need to get out more.

Re:SO....

[Arker]

While in some cases you can spot such visual clues, in others you cannot. For instance, most people would assume that Australian aborigines are closely related to some African people. In fact their closest relatives are native Americans and east Asians.

Fair complexion was heavily selected for in certain climates before the advent of cheap and reliable supplies of vitamin D.

Re:SO....

[__aaltlg1547]

But it helped that everybody for 500 miles in any direction was a close cousin.

Racist!

[Anonymous Coward]

This article declares that Africans started with a much larger population base, and only recently completed the transformation (from neanderthol) ! Apes!

It also basically says that 3 dudes started most of Europe! What inbreeding trash!

The facts are completely racist. They are so insulting, the whole study must be disavowed. Everybody knows all races are exactly the same. History will be as our forefathers wrote it, damn the facts!

But it sure makes a whole lotta sense...

Re:Racist!

[AvitarX]

Actually the neanderthal DNA is primarily in Europeans.

Re:Racist!

[maxwell demon]

Which may be because the neanderthal people were primarily in Europe.

Re:Racist!

[__aaltlg1547]

Complete mischaracterization. What the article says is that there was an African expansion from a smallish group in West Africa that spread out and populated most of the continent and that Europe was colonized really quickly in the aftermath of the latest glaciation by people rpobably from the middle east.

The African expansion took longer because there were more people there to compete with the expanding group.

Couple of "Leisure Suit Larry" winners.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats all.

Either impressed all the ladies, or just never got caught.

Traveling salesmen for Flint Mining Corp?

Jake, Fred, we've been found out!

[Dr. Tom]

Dang modern science, guys, they found us! It'll only be a matter of time before they round us up. I mean, it's not like you all should be GRATEFUL to your elders but NO

Summary errors

[__aaltlg1547]

* Bell Beaker site mentioned in summary but not in quoted article.
* Summary says R1b entered after 3rd millienium BC. Quoted article says the European expansion took place roughly 12000 years ago:

In Europe, the expansion was very rapid, taking only approximately 325 (50 to 600) years and ending approximately 12 (6 to 14) KYA,...

No mystery there. The last glacial period ended about 12000 years ago, turning much of Europe from a hard place to live to a much easier place to live. People moved in and expanded greatly.

Re:Summary errors

[lennier]

The last glacial period ended about 12000 years ago, turning much of Europe from a hard place to live to a much easier place to live. People moved in and expanded greatly.

With all the good eating, I'm sure they did. Their population also probably increased as well.

"Do you have any children?"

[Anonymous Coward]

"ALL of them, that I know of!"

define "believe"

[globaljustin]

I'm not playing this game...

define "believe"...

I watch Fox News...when Stephen Colbert is parodying it...but I watch what is happening just like anything else, analyzing and processing it...Fox News is ridiculous!

But I can't say I've never watched it...even in the course of parody...and I've seen that **sometimes** not **everything** they do is bullshit. I've seen a few clips where Colbert or John Stewart are actually giving respect to Fox News and makign fun of someone else.

In that same way, I "believe" what I see as true in **any** text...

So...that's where I'm coming from...I want to know how **YOU DEFINE BELIEVE**

If you want to have a value-added conversation you have to start there...what do you mean by "believe"?

Re:define "believe"

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a moron if you can't figure out what was meant by that word.

Re:define "believe"

[maxwell demon]

define "believe"...

to believe: to assume something is true despite not having sufficient evidence to support that assumption

Re:define "believe"

[rossdee]

> define "believe".

A recent album by 2002
It's available on Amazon $8.99 for the .mp3

I'd give it 5 stars

A bit early for this, isn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying the research isn't mature, just that it's only December, not April first.

I mean, didn't anyone else find it suspicious that the word "rib" was used here, thinly veiled by a numeral "one" replacing the middle letter?

I would would take this with a grain of salt.

berlusconi

[Therad]

Wow, his bunga-bunga parties must really draw a lot of women!

Ahh yes, the No True Agnostic gambit

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily I'm not an atheist.

I'm a lapsed Catholic (all of the guilt and none of the Sunday social commitments!) and a militant agnostic (I don't know AND NEITHER DO YOU DAMMIT!)

Then you're not a true agnostic. Because a true agnostic knows not only that he doesn't know whether there is a god, but also that he has no way of knowing if someone else does know it.

But everyone knows that a true agnostic doesn't know what an agnostic is. Since you believe you do know, then clearly I can not choose the wine in front of you. Being a perceived agnostic, maxwell demon, you would know this and through your education you would learn that man is mortal and try to distance the poison from yourself. You are not a fool so clearly I can not chose the wine in front of me. What were we talking about again? Pass the cheese.

Headline again

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange headline. According to that I also committed all the crimes of my forefathers.

Indo Europeans?

[TarPitt]

The mystery of the origin of the Indo-Europeans may be solved within the next 2 years , and yes I know Discover is not a peer reviewed journal.

The timeframe is correct for the supposed origin of indo europeans in Europe.

Re:Indo Europeans?

[dkleinsc]

Origins of Indo-Europeans within Europe, or introduction of Indo-Europeans to Europe? Last I checked, the current reigning hypothesis was that Indo-Europeans originated near the Caucuses, and spread remarkably rapidly in several directions, probably aided by their successful domestication of the horse and the development of horse-drawn wheeled vehicles such as chariots.

dont forget the wives

[globaljustin]

everyone on the planet except for Noah and his crotch fruit would have left everyone sharing the same genetic code which is not the case.

if you're going to talk about Mythology you should get it right.

the Torah records **8** humans aboard the ark...Noah, his three sons Ham, Shem, and Japheth...and all of their wives.

this is the problem...people who talk about things they know nothing about...these kinds of comments only give fuel to the people trying to put Young-Earth Creationism into textbooks in Kansas...

get it right for fucks sake....**we're** supposed to be the scientific side of the debate!!!

is 8 people enough genetic material? who cares? it wont prove or disprove anything to anyone...

TFA is real science...trying to prove or disprove Mythology is not science

Re:dont forget the wives

[GrumpySteen]

If you're going to reply to a comment, you should get it right. I pointed out that there are many races that do not share the genetic code found in Western Europeans. Noah's sons didn't manage to marry one of every ethnic race on the planet.

Of course you ignored all that and took one sentence out of context to try and make some point.

TFA is real science...trying to prove or disprove Mythology is not science

I didn't respond to TFA. I responded to a post from someone who was claiming that TFA supports the biblical flood.

Re:dont forget the wives

[ceoyoyo]

All but four of those people have a notable lack of y-chromosomes, and the four remaining all share theirs (well, in the context of the bible, perhaps not).

Re:dont forget the wives

[Anonymous Coward]

I responded to a post from someone who was claiming that TFA supports the biblical flood.

Where did I claim that??? (Nor did the parent post) The claim in the parent post was about checking the events against scientific evidence.

My claim was: (Most) atheists can't be bothered to do more than flat out claim that things did not happen and when they bring evidence they fail to take their target audience into account - one of the most important things if you have a message make sure you communicate it in a way your target understands.

About the world being flooded: If it happened it was most likely a local event, now instead of going "LAWL THE BIBBLE IS WRUNG" scientific method can be used to find out if/when and where floods happened that would come close to the description in the Bible (from the perspective of someone living back then + artistic license, that can cover a lot of floods) or whatever else roots this story has. Then you can say at the end it might have been only a story to show the value of preparing for possible future catastrophes or some other morale.

Re:dont forget the wives

[Maritz]

(Most) atheists can't be bothered to do more than flat out claim that things did not happen

That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. There is a claim, 'the biblical flood happened'. The onus is not on a skeptic to prove that it did not happen.

Going back far enough.

[Z00L00K]

Going back far enough you only have one man and one woman that are the basis for Homo Sapiens.

But they may never have met - the lineages for males and females have been on different paths. All the variations we see are from mutations, and maybe in some cases DNA exchange through viruses.

Brown chicken, brown cow

[Oysterville]

Seriously, that's all that they had, so procreation was the only entertainment.

Doubt it.

[Chalnoth]

The problem with claiming that all Europeans came from a small number of people based upon a Y-chromosome study is that such a study, by design, misses many men who failed to leave male descendants. If, for example, I have four children, but they are all daughters, then my Y chromosome dies with me, even though many other of my genes will still live on in my daughters (in aggregate, if I had four children, around 94% of my genes would survive into the next generation).

This means that over time, we lose the Y chromosomes of many ancestral men just due to random chance. Those 1-3 men might well have been traveling in a group of 200 or so, and Europeans may still carry many genes from many of the other men in that group. But because the other members of the group didn't leave behind Y chromosomes, we don't see them in a Y-chromosome analysis.

The study seems to have found good evidence that Europeans are all descended from a small group, but 1-3 men seems to be stretching it.

Re:Doubt it.

[Anonymous Coward]

but 1-3 men seems to be stretching it.

That's what she said.

Re:Doubt it.

[Arker]

Sure, that's exactly why Y-DNA is useful. It's not a problem that a lot of Y gets lost along the way, as long as this happens uniformly you still wind up with a good sample. The prehistoric group that bore these genes was obviously larger than 1-3 men, but it may well have been a few dozen closely related men, so the ones that left no YDNA are still effectively represented by a cousin who did.

(The same thing happens with MDNA as well - a woman who has only sons disappears from that readout and wont be part of either the male or female sample here - but more than likely a close relative of hers will.)

Re:Doubt it.

[donscarletti]

Sure, that's exactly why Y-DNA is useful. It's not a problem that a lot of Y gets lost along the way, as long as this happens uniformly you still wind up with a good sample.

Why would it be lost uniformly? Evolution relies on the fact that better chromosomes would be lost from the genepool at a slower rate because they would lead to greater fitness and worse chromosomes would be lost at a faster rate because they would lead to a lesser fitness. Y-chromosomes would be even more sensitive to this effect since men only have one and so (in my admittedly limited knowledge) it is impossible to be merely a carrier of any of the genes on it, meaning the effects of less capable chromosomes would quickly become manifest.

Re:Doubt it.

[Arker]

"Evolution relies on the fact that better chromosomes would be lost from the genepool at a slower rate because they would lead to greater fitness and worse chromosomes would be lost at a faster rate because they would lead to a lesser fitness."

Because selection does not operate on Y-DNA (or MtDNA.) These genes are passed on directly with no mixing, so the only source of entropy in the signal is mutation. Most, if not all, of these chromosomes actually perform no role and are never activated, so they are doubly insulated from selection.

Re:Bullseye!

[Ol Biscuitbarrel]

Shem, I have taken a woman. Inform the men.

Lucky Bastards!

[Anonymous Coward]

Feeling lucky tonight? *seeding Europe* Yes.

and so ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So a few went North and the rest stayed home.

Next question....

The fact is...

[Anonymous Coward]

All are Cuman, Kypchak, Khazar... therefore, Turkic.

grammar nazi gets +4 Insightful

[globaljustin]

I'm asking for some mods to get a handle on this...

Is this post really being modded up to +4 Insightful b/c of a spelling correction?

If so this is complete lunacy...

Also, how do you know I didn't just mispell it...b/c I do that alot too

Re:grammar nazi gets +4 Insightful

[ScentCone]

It's probably modded up because when someone makes an assertive post that categorizes other people and comments on the state of humanity and research and mythology in an authoritative tone while using extra keystrokes to emphasize the badly used non-word, it undermines the credibility of whatever point was rattling around in there somewhere. It's like lecturing a group of people about what they should be thinking about, but having walked into the room trailing toilet paper.

Re:grammar nazi gets +4 Insightful

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent Troll.

im not debating the premise

[globaljustin]

I'm simply demanding that the sides be accurately represented!

science can't prove or disprove anything that is by definition supernatural

Re:im not debating the premise

[ceoyoyo]

Since this study is about y-chromosomes, the sides were quite accurately represented. The Noah story, as written, can't adequately explain the observed variation in y-chromosomes, even in light of this story that Europeans may be descended from a very small pool. There weren't enough y-chromosomes on board the ark.

Science can't prove or disprove anything. It can put probabilistic limits on conjectures. Chromosomes might do weird things, like mutate massively, on occasion that we haven't observed. Aliens might have done some genetic engineering. God might have created some extra y-chromosomes out of nowhere. Or maybe every non-aquatic species in the world (except unicorns) didn't pile onto a boat.

How long until creationists use this

[Anonymous Coward]

A careless interpretation would probably allow this to be used to support the Eden story.

I don't "believe" anything then

[globaljustin]

by your definition I have zero beliefs...

0

none...

I don't "assume" anything is true without evidence

BTW: your definition of "believe" is non-standard and guaranteed to cause confusion in ANY conversation about religion, science, or spirituality...

this is why people get into so many pointeless arguments...stupid "personal" definitions of common terms

this is why we fail

[globaljustin]

I responded to a post from someone who was claiming that TFA supports the biblical flood.

sigh

I want to say "fuck you asshole" but I wont...

I'll just point out that nowhere did I say that...(see other comments on this thread for a fun definition of 'believe')

I didn't claim that...anyone reading, please understand that it's exactly this kind of crap that causes these discussions to be acrimonous and horribly unhelpful

When we act like GrumpySteen it makes us just as bad as young-earth creationists on the Texas school board

Re:this is why we fail

[GrumpySteen]

I'll just point out that nowhere did I say that...(see other comments on this thread for a fun definition of 'believe')

You didn't say that. this guy said that and my original post was a reply to that guy, not you.

You're obviously too confused to actually read posts in sequential order and have no clue what I'm talking about. It would really be best if you took the time to read and respond intelligently without jumping to wild-ass conclusions that aren't supported (much like the person I responded to), but it seems you aren't willing to do that.

It was probably this guy

[Anonymous Coward]

It was probably this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reOLeLX0Q9U

They were...

[Ashe Tyrael]

...milkmen. Housewives choice, and all that.

Re:They were...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your UID is too high to be making that joke and it's 6 digits!

And what about other haplotypes

[Anonymous Coward]

R1b is not the only haplotype in Western Europe. I myself am a G2a. My father's line (surname Klein) came from Germany and we are all G2a. The latest research I have read seems to indicate this haplotype were common in Europe before the R1b people moved in and killed most of them out. So I guess you can say I and my cousins are survivors from an ancient age.

Re:And what about other haplotypes

[drwho]

I am not R1b either. I am I2a2b, which is not common. But, when all of the non-R1bs are totaled as a percentage of the European native population, we're a pretty sizable lot. Enough so, that saying "most" of western Europeans are R1b is rather deceptive. As far as the 1-3 fathers, well...yes. Haplogroups generally don't converge, by diverge, so that would mean one male ancestor. But how far back? There are also times when there are near-extinction events which cause the TMRCA (time to most recent common ancestor) to move closer to the present. This has been the case with my I2a2b haplogroup, which is likely the oldest in Ireland, but still has a rather recent TMRCA and small numbers.

Extreme speculation based on insufficient data

[laughingskeptic]

Sample sizes of 8 and 13 respectively? Non-random?
The mutation rate in humans is only .003% per genome.
This is like trying to compare two different atomic bomb explosions given data on only 8 and 13 neutrons from each explosion. They don't even have enough samples to compute the genetic equivalent of temperature (what ever that may be), much less make over arching statements about the two populations. When they have done this analysis for at least 300 random samples from each population I would be interested in hearing the results.

Antibiotics

[turgid]

Yeah, well, He's started to take away the effectiveness of antibiotics. HIV and ebola didn't work out so well so he needed another means of attack.

Re:Antibiotics

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well, He's started to take away the effectiveness of antibiotics.

People do that all on their own, without any outside help. From anti-bacterial hand soaps to factory farming.

Re:Antibiotics

[aliquis]

Nah that's humans using it more than necessary on themselves and even worse food stock.

Re:Antibiotics

[Maritz]

Anti-bacterial soap and antibiotics are different. One of 'em kills humans too unless it's kept on the outside.

Being a Western European mutt...

[Nyder]

... I guess it's safe to say incest is the best when you keep in Europe?

thanks for the feedback

[globaljustin]

in an authoritative tone while using extra keystrokes to emphasize the badly used non-word, it undermines the credibility

Hey I appreciate that you gave a real answer...

I know it doesn't matter but I know that my typing style can be grating, and I have been properly instructed in using the English language in print.

I type this way because I choose to...I do it with intention. You don't have to believe me but I do have a reason....

I'm trying to subvert the typical "point/counterpoint" babble that passes for intelligent conversation these days. People don't communicate...they *react* to words with retorts that are equally pre-determined. It is very much like "newspeak" from the oft-cited '1984'

I make my words a bit grating precisely for that reason. I *want* people to pay attention...I am not making the same point everyone else has made. I **DO** believe we can all agree and move forward and I have had some very interesting conversations this way.

Also, I must note, that if GP was bothered by the fact that I speak with authority making interesting points but do it using text are....welll....

why didn't GP just say that???!?!?

Re:thanks for the feedback

[Pulzar]

I make my words a bit grating precisely for that reason. I *want* people to pay attention...I am not making the same point everyone else has made. I **DO** believe we can all agree and move forward and I have had some very interesting conversations this way.

That doesn't make any sense. The conversation ended up being about spelling instead of your point, which is completely opposite from what you wanted it to be.

You don't make your words "grating" by misspelling them, you make them irrelevant... unfortunately.

Following that up with an argument that you did it on purpose certainly doesn't help your cause. It only leads it us even further astray from the topic.

Re:thanks for the feedback

[Anonymous Coward]

I think his point was that your point was a generalisation, spoken with more authority than the point merited, AND you used bad grammar.

He was pointing out your bad generalisation by making another generalisation about your grammar/spelling.

(PS. I can't spell, or do the grammars, so I don't give alot of shit about it [just imagining what the drawing of "alot of shit" would be for that cartoon about alots].)

Re:thanks for the feedback

[Max Littlemore]

I type this way because I choose to...I do it with intention. You don't have to believe me but I do have a reason....

I think your probly just lazy.

he didn't say it either...

[globaljustin]

I love how you took the time to *link* to the comment, but you couldn't just quote the specific words from the post...

**because they don't exist**

that post you linked to...I read it when it was first posted and again now from your link

IT DOES NOT SAY WHAT YOU CLAIM

If it does, then just quote it...you already took the time to type out a hyperlink...just blockquote where that comment you linked to claims that the Genesis account is litteral truth

Lets see it

Re:he didn't say it either...

[GrumpySteen]

I linked to the comment because your previous comment proved that you're too stupid and lazy to read back in the comments.

If you'd bothered to do so, you'd have noticed that this entire comment thread was started by someone saying "This proves it! Noah and his sons have been found through genetics."

So now you've seen it. Asshole.

But... race is just a 'social construct'...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bolshevik Jews told me... over and over and over... while they flooded my country with millions of third worlders... who are clearly destroying it... and all so the unelected, unwanted Jewish parasites can continue to rule over their 'cattle' (goyim).

"this proves..." was a joke

[globaljustin]

I know what started the thread, it was a guy making a joke about the fact that Y-E nuts would use this to say it proves the Bible true...

I get all that...

That was a joke...that everyone gets...I started a thread talking about mythology and science...

where...the...fuck...did anyone say anything that you're complaining about?

the comment you linked to did not say Genesis was true anywhere...the original GP was a joke...

who said it???

who said Genesis was true, therefore provoking your comment?

Were they using Viagra, or Cialis?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought Wilt Chamberlain's record of 3000 different women was impressive, but this just puts his away.

Hard to believe

[PopeRatzo]

Research Suggests One To Three Men Fathered Most Western Europeans

Damn, you'd think they'd have gotten tired of sex after the first million or so.

But I guess they deserve some props. To have fathered most Western Europeans, they had to be some serious playa's, you know? I mean, they put NBA stars to shame.

Re:Hard to believe

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be jealous, Father. If altar boys could get knocked up, Popes like you would have blown those guys outta the water!

if "alot" doesnt matter why correct it?

[globaljustin]

GP seemed to think they were "grating" enough to take the time to correct my spelling of "alot"

and actually you as well have taken the time to type out a response to something you think is "irrelevant"

if my words didn't get noticed, GP would have never corrected my usage of "alot"

Re:if "alot" doesnt matter why correct it?

[ScentCone]

if my words didn't get noticed, GP would have never corrected my usage of "alot"

No. Your use of that mis-shaped phrase (wrapped in asterisks, no less) served to draw my eye away from your intended communication, and to the typing that made me question whether you think about what you say. My first reaction isn't to read the rest of your post, but to dismiss it as having come from someone who doesn't care about his communication. I took the time to respond because I think it's one of those lazy communication tics that it would be nice to see less frequently as it dumbs down discourse and chips away at the value our culture places on thoughtful interaction.

Re:if "alot" doesnt matter why correct it?

[Pulzar]

and actually you as well have taken the time to type out a response to something you think is "irrelevant"

You missed my point. You made "alot" the subject at hand, and the actual point you were trying to make on the topic became irrelevant. We're all talking about your spelling instead of whatever you were trying to say in the discussion.

If your desire is only to get noticed and get replies correcting your spelling, then saying "alot" a lot :) is a successful way of doing it. But if your desire is to get a good discussion on relevant topic going, as you say it is, then this isn't very good.

Data set of 21 guys?

[Anonymous Coward]

If this is so, then it will be interesting to see if the statistics hold up when we have published gene sequences for 210 and 2100 folks.

The conclusion that the statistics for Africa and Europe are different, is iteresting, but I think I'll wait for more data before calling it a fact.

Illiterate press

[Alomex]

I love it how the press reports this result as if the family tree had a single root.

A family tree has two parents, four grandparents eight grandparents, etc. Out of the 2^n ancestors in the n-generation, two branches standout, one the fully male one carrying the Y chromosome and the other the fully maternal line, carrying mitochondrial DNA. There are good mathematical reasons why such lines come to be dominated by a few individuals over the centuries if not millenia yet the press makes it sound like Warren Beatty was alive 100K years ago fathering each and every one of us. As someone else pointed out, if somehow I became Will Chamberlain and happened to father 10K daughters but no male offspring, the Y chromosome line would makes it look like I ws never there though in practice I'd be the (grand) daddy of half of New York within a few generations.

GW

[Anonymous Coward]

And global warming...

From Pippin (The Musical)

[Guppy]

If god favors my group, then the other groups are not favored and are therefore inferior and unworthy of my concern.

Charlamagne: "Oh God -- we who fight in your name and in the name of your Son -- ask for victory in combat tomorrow."

Pippin: "Father, is the Visigoth king praying for victory, too?"

Charlamagne: "Oh yes. Old King Aleric is one of the best prayers in the business."

Re:Good

[stealth_finger]

I'd be more concerned we're all inbred. So 3 dudes, how many women?

Math

[Anonymous Coward]

The complexity of the true maths needed and the level of intelligence to use the maths correctly, the complexity of genetic transmission, the randomness of human migrations, the branchiness of human lineages, makes this likely wrong.
Just as we were told that Neanderthals could not possibly have interbred with modern humans, that there are only a set number of hominid species, etc.

limited to 43,000 ancestors at most?

[peter303]

You have two copies of 21K-some genes. At some point an ancestor will make no contribution. (Of course there is a lot more stuff in the genome than the protein-coding DNA.)

Wow

[edrobinson]

Busy dudes.

Cold Winter Nights

[brunnegd]

Not much else to do on cold winter nights except make whoopee.

Noah

[Anonymous Coward]

Noah, starring Russel Crowe. I think it's time to go to the movies.

Peer Review

[Keybounce]

This is the sort of study that demands peer review.

It is far beyond me to understand the details of this study, and it's claims. But it is absolutely fascinating, if true, even taking the Male-only Y and Female-only Mit inheritance factors into account.

When I see things like

We used coalescent simulations ... The best-fitting models in Africa and Europe are very different. In Africa ... numbers expanded approximately 50-fold. In Europe ... as soon as the major R1b lineage entered Europe ... expanded more than a thousandfold.

then I know enough to know that the assumptions used matter, but also that I don't know enough to evaluate those assumptions.

Re:yuo Fa:il It

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like one of those inbred Europeans got a slashdot account!

Re:Good

[RockDoctor]

I'd be more concerned we're all inbred.

We're all inbred. Live with it.

Or, choose a definition for a particular level of inbreeding to get concerned about and stop worrying about it.

There is an awful lot of ink spilt, and sometimes blood, over this with respect to human breeding, but livestock breeders have a lot of practice at using controlled inbreeding as a tool to increase the representation of a desired stock animal's genes in future generations, prior to expanding the stock. They tabulate levels of relatedness of interest to them, down to 1 part in 16 (6.25% common alleles). From which I guesstimate that 1 part in 32 relatedness is close enough to random for them to not be of interest for the breeders. So, if you tabulate your family trees back to the 5th generation and find no-more than two great-great-grandparents in common between the two people, it's unlikely to be a problem. If you go back to the next generation and find no more than 4 ggg-grandparents in the family tree, it's also not likely to be a problem. For more complex layouts of consanguinity, you'd have to calculate the summed probabilities yourself - and that's where people have messed up repeatedly in the past.