Mr Hammer wrote on Dec 9^th, 2017 at 10:48pm:


If I controlled Australia, Hammer you'd be in for a big surprise, Hammer.  A big surprise.  Australia is happy, vibrant and alive, Hammer, despite the best efforts of people like you and Soren and Herbie.   

Grendel wrote on Dec 8^th, 2017 at 8:45pm:


I disagree. They can integrate/assimilate. Anyone is capable of doing so. It might be harder but it’s not impossible.

Bertie wrote on Jan 3^rd, 2018 at 7:43pm:


"Race" is a social construct.  There are more differences genetically within the various "racial" groups than between them.  "Race" as used by racists is something they have constructed out of superficial physical differences between groups of people who have adapted through evolution to different environment needs.   Anybody who believes in the concept of "race" as used by racists is being fooled by them.   There is only one "race" the Human one.   We are all members.  We are all basically Genetically identical and all come from the same ancestry.    We originated in Africa and spread from there.   We are all Africans in origin. 

The research suggests that humans might not have evolved in Africa and then left, as has long been thought to be the case, researchers Xinzhi Wu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Sheela Athreya of Texas A&M University told the New Scientist. The similarities suggest that the early modern humans might not have been isolated in one place as their characteristics evolved, the scientists say, instead sharing characteristics across the world.

Scientists say the species, which is known only from a lower jawbone and a single tooth, may prove that modern man originated in Europe and not Africa.

[CHRISTOPHER STRINGER:] At the moment, I'm looking again at the whole question of a recent African origin for modern humans—the leading idea over the last 20 years. This argues  that we had a recent African origin, that we came out of Africa, and that we replaced all of the other human forms that were outside of Africa. But we're having to re-evaluate that now because genetic data suggest that the modern humans who came out of Africa about 60,000 years ago probably interbred with Neanderthals, first of all, and then some of them later on interbred with another group of people called the Denisovans, over in south eastern Asia.

If this is so, then we are not purely of recent African origin. We're mostly of recent African origin, but there was contact with these other so-called species. We're having to re-evaluate the Out-of-Africa theory, and we're having to re-evaluate the species concepts we apply, because in one view of thinking, species should be self-contained units. They don't interbreed with other species. However, for me, the whole idea of Neanderthals as a different species is really a recognition of their separate evolutionary history—the fact that we can show that they evolved through time in a particular direction, distinct from modern humans, and they separated maybe 400,000 years ago from our lineage. And morphologically we can distinguish a relatively complete Neanderthal fossil from any recent human.

A further big surprise was that not only were there distinct humans in Siberia maybe 50,000 years ago, but when whole genome scans were done against modern humans, it turned out that there was one group of living humans that seemed to be related to the Denisovans, that had Denisovan DNA in them, and these people are down in Australasia. They're in New Guinea, Australia, and some neighbouring islands, so that's also very unexpected.

We end up with quite a complex story, with even some of this ancient DNA coming back into modern humans within Africa. So our evolutionary story is mostly, but not absolutely, a Recent African Origin.

How does it actually work, this "we are all Africans, remember" thing?