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Comment by throwaway4666 | Hacker News Reader

Seeing how African populations are extremely diverse and we're just seeing the extent of it I would refrain from making such definitive statements.

>To repeat, interest in human populations and such phenotypic differences does not imply scientific racism once you realize the basic scientific principle that humans are animals and consider how animals exist in populations with phenotypic differences.

That's a needlessly stilted PR-like statement that basically hides the meat of the whole 'controversy': behavioral and IQ differences between populations and their genetic origins. Khan has a position, mainstream scientists another. Oftentimes fallacious arguments are invoked involving 'but look at domestic animal breeds' (not unlike your repeated admonition that 'humans are animals' which I will assume is just a boring triviality on your part for the sake of charity).

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> Seeing how African populations are extremely diverse and we're just seeing the extent of it I would refrain from making such definitive statements.

There's no reason to not. Holocene expansion of farming/pastoral populations all over the world (including Africa) has largely homogenized human ancestry into identifiable distinct strands that is in varying proportions. Africa is indeed diverse genetically but it is not magic or anything. It most likely comes from the earlier mentioned multi-regional model within Africa through drift and admixture with highly drifted populations. And almost all of these populations outside of those of North Africa were outside of the Neanderthal range and we have archeological evidence to support this as well. There is no logical reason to believe in an (outside of the obvious example of historic West Eurasian admixture in the Horn/North Africa) African population with non-trace levels of Neanderthal ancestry. High levels of diversity in Africa does not imply a significantly large population with non-trace levels of neanderthal ancestry.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.10.012

>Seeing how African populations are extremely diverse and we're just seeing the extent of it I would refrain from making such definitive statements.

Finding a subpopulation within Africa with more Neanderthal DNA would not overturn the the fact that African populations in general have less of this DNA than elsewhere.

"sub-Saharan Africans have some genetic differences from other clades" is not tantamount to scientific racism and you're doing yourself, them, genetics, and the scientific community a disservice. Neanderthal DNA is not magic fairy dust. The differences between Neanderthal and H. sapiens brain cell organelles in vitro are well known.

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