Spencer Wells: Building a family tree for all humanity

[Al3xX420]

good lecture. thanks WhyEvolutionIsTrue.

[juuonse]

He sounds like Simon Cowell... I keep expecting him to go mental on some stupid audience member or scientist :D

[RealPinkDreams]

Socially, emotionally, politically , religiously , geographically and culturally our aim is one but scientifically and biologically we are not one and we weren't one at all ( thats should WELLS focus on )

[farang]

If I am hearing correctly, we now know how the "pure Neandertal" became extinct: waves of invasion @ 60,000-40,000 years ago from Africa. Outhunted or killed in battles over hunting ground from large waves of people while they had a smaller population hanging on in the icier regions. But their DNA lives on...in Europeans and Asians...but not in Africans...and if Erectus left no DNA legacy...how come the oldest Erectus remain is from Asia, and only Asians have that shovel-shaped incisor?

[Cackem]

@farang "how come the oldest Erectus remain is from Asia" Source please? Your facts will all be invalid without a reference.... ya cunt.

[UnheardSage]

@Cackem My fact: you have no control over being a foul-mouthed, ugly just for ugliness' sake jerk. Source? Your comment.

[Cackem]

@UnheardSage Me Gusta Ahoyhoyhoyhoyhoyhoy! :D:D:D

[farang]

So, the Max Plankt Institute DNA evidence that Africans have no Neandertal DNA, and Asians and Europeans do, is bogus? Asians and Europeans have @ 5% Neandertal DNA: fact. What Ted labels "our distant cousins" were 99.5% the same as us. Your neighbor is 99.5% the same as you: we are them. Africans are not. 5% compared to a larger percentage of African DNA in Asians and Europeans indicates an older origin. One Neandertal uncovered has red hair: they were around 200,000 years ago in Europe. Rusty

[TheDarkchild31]

ITS ABOUT TIME THIS CAME OUT AND THERE R GOING TO B ALOT OF ANGRY WHITE PPL THAT IS NOT GONNA AGREE WITH THIS OH WELL U CANT ARGUE WITH SCIENCE LMAO!!! GET OVER IT!!!

[imRyRy]

@TheDarkchild31 I find it more interesting how blacks will somehow use this as an argument. And I find it even more interesting that you still assume only whites can be racist, which in turn makes you a racist.

[heavenelevengirl]

@derman077 Don't say that! He's my Dad!

[McCray2338]

I do not know if you all are pretending to be stupid because you do not want to admitt that we have a common ancester who was African or if you all really are that stupid??? Either way all I have to say is lord bless the pale Africans who migrated to Europe jajaja chao y espero que no son stupidos:)

[MusicStudyMan]

Naming the genetic mother & father of the human race Adam and Eve makes as much sense as aming gravity the "God force" Why do they do this????

[adi87tya]

Sorry - it's not technically the first man. He was more accurately the ancestor of one of the first groups that left Africa.

[charronfamilyconnect]

IF I could add 1 more comment regarding analyzation of DNA Y chromosone markers in the labs, Is there a way of determining sequence in reality? I ask this cause they run billions of DNA sequencing tests to look for the markers then when they find the Y Chromosone marker they make their assumption. It seems arbitrary to me & doesn't seem to have any exact sequence to it. I mean does this really prove the sequence of actual migration or is it possible migration was sporadic across the world?

[charronfamilyconnect]

In the video Series The journey of man: I am curious how the asumption is made from the onset that Africa is the cradle of civilization? I thought science was not biased. Why the immediate assumption & how do we know man didn't end up in Africa with few dozen people at the end of the final migrations instead of at the beginning? does the genetic sequence of the DNA come up in sequential order? Is it possible they got the order in reverse? Just curious. Thanks!

[adi87tya]

@charronfamilyconnect There's also archeological evidence which overwhelmingly points to human origin being in Africa.

[charronfamilyconnect]

@adi87tya Perhaps your right, but honestly we may never know. The earth has undergone so many changes over millions of years. Maybe the area of the world where we originated from doesn't exist anywhere on the map anymore. Maybe its miles under the earths crust, buried with molten lava? So maybe AFrica is the more recent area where we can trace our roots but may not be the original place of origin. Shit maybe we come from Mars?

[ayomaroshi]

Find an Asian wife online lushfmlk.info

[98bigbutt]

This must have pissed off religious people and the Neo-Nazi and the KKK organizations.

[aegisforex]

Why do geneticists assume that homosapiens from 60k years ago looked anything like modern Africans?

[CapricousCapricorn1]

@aegisforex

It's not assuming. They have found fossil and reconstructed homo erectus man. Why are you assuming? Hehe. Dumb. They did look like Africans, less evolved but definitely like an African, go to wikipedia and look at the picture of the sculpt of homo erectus.

[waitingformusic]

You can read Summer Toys = Brian Aldiss

Amazon/Supertoys-Last-All-Summ­er-Long/dp/1841490946

This is the book that preceads the A.I movie.

[waitingformusic]

18:58 He is not indigenous to a n y w h e r e upon the Earth.

AS HE STATES HIMSELF!

If you look like him, then this phrase applies to you also. Very fucking simple!

He is playing hide and go seek with shit they already know!

Go read Pinocchio or, Issac Asimov = Summer Toys = Kubrick, Speilbergs A.I - The boy and the teddy.

The story is the same. The boy "T H I N K S" and longs to be real!

[waitingformusic]

18:30 Indigenous people. INDIGENOUS does not mean, people who have lived in the same place for a long time. How fucking sad!

Its this type of thinking that sees COLONISATION appear to be a wonderful thing -I.E. Afrikaners in AFRICA. If you were indigenous there would be NO colonisation would there?

18:58 "Where am I indigenous to? Nowhere really" - BANG! There is YOUR FUCKING ANSWER. He is telling you the truth but very clumsily - "MY GENES ARE ALL JUMBLED UP" - Lol. Cont-

[waitingformusic]

NO. You are not apart of any extended "AFRICAN" family and never will be!

There is no we.

These "WHITE EURO ANGLO DUTCH AMERIKAN SOUTH AFRIKANERS" will have you chewing on any all bullshit to make you feel better. You see, its all about your flimsy self esteem and how you can continue to confuse the world.

THERE WERE NO "white" people in any HOT part of the world!

This is very fucking simple. Your IMAGINED ancestors did not have SUN BLOCK. Cont -

[TheDarkchild31]

@waitingformusic  PREACH!!!!

[jimegan47]

I wonder if Doctor Wells has commented on the substantial amount of Neanderthal genes in modern Europeans and Asians? Neanderthals did not go extinct afterall. I think he does a great job merging history and scientific fact.

[melasun07]

@jimegan47 Do you have any articles on this? I know of a geneticist in China Jin Li who says all Chinese came from African homo sapien sapien based on genetics. I'm seriously interested

[melasun07]

@jimegan47 Wait, I think I found something...

[CyberTribalism]

Spencer Wells, is a self hating genocidal.. cunt.

[arizonatsalagi]

@CyberTribalism DNA is powerful

[jcantlie]

Same guy as 'Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey' - which is DEFINITELY worth a watch... fascinating stuff. How anybody can doubt his findings in favor of archaic myth is quite beyond my capacity.

[Zilent2000]

9xxxxxxxxx you sound like a simple racist. Try to separate your irrational feelings from what the evidence shows all of us, no matter the color of our bloody skin.

[MrDezoSinclair]

60 000 years may be the age of CT-M168 mutation. The age of "Adam" may be twice deeper. If I exclude untrustworthy estimations of "Eve's" age, most studies point to time 110-130 000 years ago, i.e. the period of the Eem interglacial.

There must have existed a bottleneck prior to this expansion. Only two human populations may have survived the end of the cold Riss period 190-130 000 years ago, and none seem to have lived in East Africa.

[MrDezoSinclair]

The first of them were the ancestors of Khoisans and Nilotes in South Africa. While the Khoisan people stayed in the south, the ancestors of Nilotes headed north and settled the whole southeastern half of Africa.

The expansion of the second group (BT-M42) followed later. If you look at the distribution of mtDNA lineages that are now tied with Y-haplogroup B (L1, L2, L5, L4), the oldest branches stem from West-Central Africa, not from East Africa.

[MrDezoSinclair]

It seems to me that the branch consisting of L3'4'6 come out from the jungle (or rather steppe-forrests) somewhere in modern Tanzania, and later became a bearer of the first Upper Paleolithic technology.

[mawriz]

You obviously didn't understand a single thing in his explanation. He's not saying that the Homo Sapiens are 60,000 years old. Grow a brain and then watch the video again ok?

[73smiley]

Yes this video is fascinating and informative. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Spencer is incredibly knowledgeable in his field but I was always taught (and im a creation believer) that Adam and Eve were created just roughly 6,000 years ago... hum???

[yunaas101]

he said that

[MrDemeterSinclair]

Y-DNA Adam lived 60 000 years ago?

LOL

And this is supposed to be one of the biggest world experts in population genetics?

[NafeesLACC]

great presentation.

[JohnHasSeriousQ]

Those who can't live among others should live on the moon!

[UnheardSage]

@JohnHasSeriousQ Amen to that! There is only one (1) race on this Earth: The Human Race!

[DavidMTRutten]

Too bad those kits costs 100 bucks each...

If they had been ~20 probably a lot more people would be willing to participate.

[Belzoni5]

Spencer Wells is a good geneticist but he's a bit weak on the fossil record. He shows a slide of three fossils and says they are from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Actually, they are from the site of Koobi Fora on the eastern shores of Lake Turkana which is in Kenya. Louis and Mary Leakey worked at Olduvai many years. RIchard Leakey and colleagues did the work at Koobi Fora.

[madamecarroll]

This dude is really cool I went to one of his lectures, and it was very interesting and informative. He's also a very nice man.

[lorileeandraygotodc]

Amazing and understandable! Great work from dedicated people. I truly believe that humans are all connected to one another. It's nice to see science believes it too!

[kshackleton]

Not only are we humans all connected to one another....science has clearly demonstrated that we are all connected to every other life-form on the planet.

We are cousins...you and I.

[nicolatwo]

Yes, my dog and I are cousins. If we could just all accept that, life for all beings could become much better socially, politically and ecologically.

[MrDemeterSinclair]

I understand that even the virus of my current flu is actually my distant brother. Should I love it?

[nicolatwo]

For MrDemeter: Why are you asking me this question?

[bastardrob]

VERY COOL

[Seeeevyboy]

Thats so damn boring

[ImhotepHoll]

This video has moved me.

[mindwis3]

"he's so dull..i had a hard time not being bored with him..ughh distracting hair "

If only you could stop a video or select a different one, comon youtube !

Lol.

[Mon4ch0]

Thank God for science

[ble86n]

so theres no such thing as 'race' its like different hair colour in families, long time separation,and climate affect traits,anyone see suzuki special on race being manmade concept or the blue eyes,brown eyes experiment by teacher in 60's or where i could find them

[ZululAsha]

@ble86n google "jane elliott"

[DamienZshadow]

Wow, I would've loved to have him as a professor. He's not only so well rounded in his sciences but he has a very good way with words that make the lesson or story he's telling more exciting. What an enticing way to tell a story I've already heard only in a better way.

[melonbarmonster]

Friggin annoying intro music. It's pretentious and stupid.

[effyleven]

"Friggin annoying intro music. It's pretentious and stupid."

Yes. It's pain in the neck, isn't it? Annoying waste of time, and TOO LOUD!

[ogbash]

2000 people, humans almost extinct, fantastic! Another fact that supports 'punctuated equilibrium'.

[McWalker25]

what is ' punctuated equilibrium?'

[ogbash]

google it

"instead of a slow, continuous movement, evolution tends to be characterized by long periods of virtual standstill ("equilibrium"), "punctuated" by episodes of very fast development of new forms."

as I understand it, "acceleration" happens in small (e.g. isolated) populations

[kjg28]

And this "fast evolution" in spurts is often predicated by drastic and sudden environmental shifts that lead many members of a given species to perish (population bottle-neck). The ones that can survive have genetic/evolutionary changes that enabled them to do so.

[trans7trip]

It might have happened in small groups because that would allow the beneficial mutation to spread quickly to the entire group. But I think some think that a large group would be more conducive to accelerated evolution because a large group would provide a larger sampling of mutations, one of which would be beneficial for survival.

[iviewthetube]

Right on ogbash, this is clearly an example of punctuated equilibrium. Our species was put to the test; it was the ice-age that made humans more intelligent. There were two ways humans could have made it through the ice-age -- either grow more hair or grow more smarts. Humans grew more smarts and figured out that we could use the hair of other animals to keep them warm. Intelligence was the niche that allowed man to survive the ice-age.

[dismutased]

60,000 years ago for humans to have first migrated from Africa? This seems insanely recent, considering older (though unverified)records put human migration to Australia at up to 60,000 years ago, which would mean some of the first humans out of Africa arrived in Aust.

Obviously, this goes against my genetics and anthropological training, more recent than 30 yrs ago. ;).

[earthangelrojanie]

dismutased before bible enthusiast says the genesis work only in 6day sunday restday for deity god then it was 6000 year then now its 60,000 year oh bible is also evolving aha

[McWalker25]

haha earthangelrojanie

that's because congress recently passed the "No religious doctrine left behind" Act; the bible gotta keep up with us somehow, right?

[greycloud24]

i wish the scientists who named the genetic "father" and "mother" of the human race did not name them adam and eve. this only confuses christians even more about scientific discoveries. clarity is a major part of science, it is strange that they chose to cloud this matter up.

[notarecordplayer]

it only bothers you if you let it. its a good name for them because thats who those people are supposed to be. but noone really knows whos right or wrong. so you choose science, they choose religion, who cares.

[diegocaleiro]

I never worried about that, Until my comments in this post got me accused of christianity, and other sorts of stupidity.

It really seems to be hard to be american and be always afraid someone is playing the slave of god game again, good luck from Brazil fellows, may Russell, Dennett, Hofstadter be with you!

[alphamain]

@greycloud24 Sorry to say but it is a fact that the first man is named Adam and the first woman is named Eve ... that transcends boundaries and cultures ... their names (similarly pronounced) are found in diverse cultures.

[SHIBBYiPANDA]

@greycloud24 LOL.. I think it's awesome.. More hilarity for us...

[imRyRy]

@greycloud24 I really think you're looking too far into this. On the other hand, what if this sparks a new meaning to the famous names? Atheists who are atheists simply because of rebellion of religion aren't that much more logical that creationists.

[greycloud24]

@imRyRy i don't know any of that type of atheist. and i know quite a few atheists.

[theaggravator]

That's really interesting stuff and yet, totally gay.

[diegocaleiro]

There seems to be a conceptual mistake. Adam might have lived 60000 years ago, and Yet, the diversity could already have been there. People mix up, and Adam genes were better than the genes that his descendents mated with. Still, that does not mean that there was no previous diversity, it just means that OR there was mixed breeding between diverse populations OR no previous diversity.

[theaggravator]

wow, did you come up with that stupid shit all on your own?

[diegocaleiro]

(contnuation....)So, in order to trace back our genetic past, we should not say that all the diversity that exists today comes from adam (the last ascendent of all of men). All the genes in the Y chromosome do. But there could be, say, some languages already, which have their descendents alive. That only require that people who descend from those speakers to have interbreed with descendents of adam. Ergo, diversity could have been there QED.(and Yes, I forgive the accusations of christianity)

[greycloud24]

lol this is a site for intelectuals. you will not find many people dumb enough to convert to christianity around these types of forums. we realize that christianity is completely illogical on many levels. go spread your message to children that don't know better.

[diegocaleiro]

Look people, I am sorry for not being clear, take a look at Dawkins "The ancestor Tale" He explains why genetic adam (not the biblic fellow, of course!) if you go back enough generations could actually be anyone (meaning that everyone who lived, say 200000 years ago is either ancestor of No one, or of All of us, who live today)

(Continues in an answer to the next accusation of christianity that made me laugh)

[greycloud24]

when he is talking about the "adam" and "eve" of our genetic heritage, try to keep in mind that he is not talking about the adam mentioned in the bible. this "adam" had genes that were very simular to ours and thus we can trace human evolution from this hypothetical being. we have not found the skeliton of this "adam" it is simply predicted that this person existed by studying the genetic markers across the world. this "adam" was actually a group of people.

[SpoolDonkey]

another great vid from ted :)

[theaggravator]

another dumb asscomment from SpoolDonkey

[SpoolDonkey]

theaggravator - another retarded creationist that has a personal problem with genetics and evolution due to a lack of basic logic.