Similar Appearance versus Ancestry (16 October 2015, 3 Chessman, 5776)
Tacitus, Agricola 1;11
"... The dark complexion of the Silures, their usually curly hair, and the fact that Spain is the opposite shore to them, are an evidence that Iberians of a former date crossed over and occupied these parts. Those who are nearest to the Gauls are also like them, either from the permanent influence of original descent, or, because in countries which run out so far to meet each other, climate has produced similar physical qualities."
The quotation from Tacitus refelcts ancient understanding on the subjexct of racial morphology. It sums up our understanding of race.
We spoke about this at some length in our work "The Tribes".
If anything we did not go far enough. [It is not that we are revolutionary and unconventional. If anything we are TOO conservative in our approach and unnecessarily diffident towards conventional opinion!]
Here are extracts from what we said in "The Tribes" chapter 2:
Quotes:
The claim may also be made that peoples of the same areas of otherwise entirely different physical characteristics often have the same coloring. A mixed genetic stock of similar but different variations will produce over a long period more often the type that is most adaptable to the surrounding environment. This is not evolution. It is adaptation of an already existing physical entity (i.e. a group of people) to empirical circumstance in accordance with its already existing genetic potential.
.... Jacob was inspired to utilize external influences in order to activate inherent genetic potential since he placed rods only before those beasts that were of mixed parentage and that acted accordingly by maturing earlier. The rods may also have acted as some type of catalyst. This does not mean that no miracle was involved since Jacob apparently succeeded far beyond what he could have been expected to by the Laws of Nature alone. Nevertheless Jacob did act rationally.
In addition to the above we have the proven influence of the environment on physical type. The environment may not be only determining factor but combined with the genetic predisposition it definitely does play a part.
....Intermarriage of the Tribes with different nations combined with other factors must have produced different types, and this with the later influence of varying physical environments is enough to explain the superficial differences amongst the descendants of different Israelite Tribes today.
End Quotes.
To sum up
Peoples look similar to each other either because:
(1) They had the same ancestry; OR
(2) They were influenced by a similar environment;
[OR (3). A combination of both, which is the view we proposed in "The Tribes".]
Regarding (1) everybody agrees with us.
Concerning (2) the implications of scientific findings and numerous proofs support us BUT nearly everyone disagrees or avoids the subject. Even the atheistic evolutionary scientific rationalist mainstream nutcases avoid the issue. If anything, in specific instances, they seem to disagree and tend to ascribe it all to ancestry. To say otherwise seems counter-intuitive.
Now along comes the latest DNA findings from the world of natural science and confirm our understanding.
It may be that already today the reliability of DNA has been disproven. If such is the case the faults in the theory have not been publicized.
We ourselves are very reserved about DNA.
Whatever the case it does say something and to some degree has validity.
Our own beliefs concerning the Lost Ten Tribes being among western peoples do not correspond 100% with DNA findings as commonly understood.
We have explanations for this and new findings may well strengthen our case.
And what revolutionary DNA findings concerning Race do we have?
Wolves and Jackals!
There are African golden jackals and there are Eurasian golden jackals. They look similar, almost the same. Even their coloring is the same.
Their teeth and skull shapes are almost the same.
But according to DNA they are quite different!
One is really a wolf while the other is not.
The wolf in question just happened to fit into a similar ecological niche and so he came out looking the same!
Below are relevant extracts from an article on the subject along with a few illustrations BUT for a fuller explanation please go to the source:
Golden jackal: A new wolf species hiding in plain sight
http://www.theguardian.com/science/grrlscientist/2015/jul/30/golden-jackal-a-new-wolf-species-hiding-in-plain-sight
GrrlScientist
Thursday 30 July 2015 17.02 BSTLast modified on Sunday 2 August 201514.33 BST
EXTRACTS ONLY
A new species of wolf has been discovered in Africa after exhaustive DNA and morphological analyses revealed it is evolutionarily distinct from the Eurasian golden jackal, which it strongly resembles
Same or different? The African golden wolf, Canis anthus, (left) and Eurasian golden jackal, C. aureus (right), were originally thought to be the same species, formerly known as the golden jackal. Photograph: D. Gordon E. Robertson, and Yaki Zander/Klaus-Peter Koepfli & John Pollinger et al./Current Biology 2015
The Canid family -- wolves, coyotes, jackals, foxes, domestic dogs and others -- are so familiar to us, and have been so intensively studied for so long that you might think that we know almost everything there is to know about them. But a paper published today in Current Biology belies that assumption. This paper describes the meticulous research conducted by an international team of experts who report a surprising discovery: a new species of wolf.
According to the authors, two golden jackal populations -- one in Eurasia and the other in Africa -- ... after exhaustive DNA analyses, the authors were surprised to learn that African golden jackals are more closely related to grey wolves, even though there are no grey wolves in Africa and even though grey wolves and African golden jackals look dramatically different. Adding to the confusion, African golden jackals are strikingly similar in appearance to their more distant relative, the Eurasian golden jackal. This strong physical similarity has long been the source of confusion over these animals' taxonomy and evolutionary relationships.
As a result of this study, the authors propose that the African golden jackal be renamed the African golden wolf, Canis anthus.
The evolutionary relationships of canids are poorly understood
The evolutionary relationships, or phylogenetics, of jackals have long been a mess, according to Adam Hartstone-Rose, an Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, who was not part of the study. Traditionally, most taxonomists have recognised three jackal species: the black-backed, side-striped and golden jackals -- all of which live in Africa, with the golden jackal also ranging throughout much of Eurasia.
'The three 'species' were considered close relatives based mostly on their similar body size and morphology', explained Professor Hartstone-Rose in email.
'However, as the first molecular analyses of canids became available, it was obvious that 'jackals' are only similar based on amazing morphological convergences', said Professor Hartstone-Rose.
'Consistent with two previous studies also based on mitochondrial sequences, we find that golden jackals from Africa and Eurasia are NOT each other's closest relative as we would expect if they were the same species', said Dr Koepfli.
This mitochondrial gene tree indicates that the African golden jackal is more closely related to the Eurasian gray wolf, and is distantly related to the Eurasian golden jackal (with up to 6.7 percent divergence).
'In fact, golden jackals from different localities in Africa share a more recent common ancestry with gray wolves', said Dr Koepfli.
Despite their distinct genetic ancestries, African and Eurasian golden jackals look so much alike that most scientists classified them as the same species. Thus, the research team wanted to see if their genetic findings were reflected in the skull and tooth morphologies of African and Eurasian golden jackals. They analysed 45 different skull and tooth characteristics from more than 140 golden jackals from five different geographic regions across Africa and Eurasia.... there are no distinct clusters of data, as you would expect if there were significant species-based differences in skull and tooth morphologies.
Analyses of these morphometric data revealed that despite their genetic distance, the golden jackals have a strong resemblance to each other... These data certainly explain the difficulty in recognising golden jackals as separate species:
'Since the two jackal lineages are not closely related, this morphological similarity may be due to parallel evolution, driven by the ecological circumstances in which these animals live, especially with regards to the competition from other carnivore species', said Dr Koepfli.
Source:
Klaus-Peter Koepfli, John Pollinger, Raquel Godinho, Jacqueline Robinson, Amanda Lea, Sarah Hendricks, Rena M. Schweizer, Olaf Thalmann, Pedro Silva, Zhenxin Fan, Andrey A. Yurchenko, Pavel Dobrynin, Alexey Makunin, James A. Cahill, Beth Shapiro, Francisco Alvares, Jose C. Brito, Eli Geffen, Jennifer A. Leonard, Kristofer M. Helgen, Warren E. Johnson, Stephen J. O'Brien, Blaire Van Valkenburgh, and Robert K. Wayne. (2015). Genome-wide Evidence Reveals that African and Eurasian Golden Jackals Are Distinct Species, Current Biology, published online on 30 July 2015 ahead of print | doi:10.1016/j.cub.2015.06.060(OA)
