Sunday, December 2, 2012

Did Neanderthal Genes Cause the Advancement of Human Civilization?Let's look at the facts: modern humans made basically zero progress for over 163,000 years. They didn't invent much. They didn't develop any significant societies. They didn't build much of anything. They were basically hunter-gatherers that did not make any technological progress for 163,000 years. To put that in perspective, virtually all of human progress has been made over the last 37,000 years.

The traits of modern humans could be summed up as very traditional, stable, with a low capacity/tolerance for risk, innovation, change and progress. In short, they were temperamentally too stable and too disinclined towards free thought or creativity to make any recognizable progress over the first 163,000 years of their existence on this planet... Modern humans were also trapped mostly in Africa because their rivals -- the Neanderthals -- occupied Europe and Asia and could basically kick the living crap out of them if they ever dared to venture into this Neanderthal territory, because Neanderthals were extremely combative, powerful, and skillful warriors. In fact, Neanderthals were the total opposite temperament of modern humans. Neanderthals were wild and relentlessly creative to a fault. They were innovative, but because they couldn't stop innovating, battling, and moving on to the next new thing they could not maintain any progress. Think of a tribe that was 100% ADHD and bipolar -- no stability -- complete and utter madness. Without any stability their abundant creations, breakthroughs and innovations would be short-lived and forgotten by subsequent generations. Their attention could not be held for long enough to create a lasting legacy. Neanderthals were Uprisers -- radical change agents who couldn't stop changing.

Just as easily as they would rise up against other tribes -- they probably rose up against each other at the expense of their own progress...Neanderthals & Modern Humans Collide: Technology Explodes.

Then something miraculous happened. About 37,000 years ago Neanderthals likely intermingled with modern humans, because boom - all of a sudden there's a new gene in the human genome, the DRD4 7R gene -- which has been a prime suspect for originating from Neanderthals for some time now. This gene is associated with risk-taking, sensation-seeking and novelty-seeking, and correlated with openness to new experiences, intolerance to monotony, and exploratory behavior -- you know... Neanderthal stuff. (According to the human genome the DRD4 7R gene suddenly showed up about 37,000 years ago, spread due to natural selection and is unlikely to be of modern human origin, due to the "highly unlikely recombination mutation events required" to generate the 7R version from the modern human 4R version of the gene according to a recentYale School of Medicine publication.)