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timtyler comments on The Psychological Diversity of Mankind - Less Wrong
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"More specifically, they suggest that this could have been caused by interbreeding between "modern" humans and Neanderthals."
Probably bunk, IMO. An entertaining story, but lacking supporting evidence.
Actually, there is genetic evidence now.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100506141549.htm
There are genes lacked by Africans that are shared by Neanderthals and non-Africans. Interbreeding seems the most likely explanation for this pattern.
I wasn't doubtful about interbreeding - that is all over the news. I was doubtful about interbreeding being the cause of the cultural explosion. Like I said, no evidence. In fact, contrary evidence, since Neanderthals were largely a European phenomenon.
Neanderthals were also in the Near East.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Neanderthal_sites
You have a point about the cultural explosion, though. Africans don't seem to be less cultural than non-Africans, despite the fact that they don't seem to have any links to Neanderthals. It occurs to me that this lack of a link, after all this time, exemplifies how slow gene sweep is in a population as numerous, long-lived, and spread out as humanity.
Where on Earth have you been for the last couple of days? : ] Hiding in a Croatian cave?
That being said, we currently have no reason to believe that this interbreeding had any phenotypic effects on the human lineage.
I am not aware of any evidence that "the "big bang" in cultural evolution that occured about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago" was caused by interbreeding with Neanderthals. That is probably bunk, IMHO. An entertaining story, but lacking in supporting evidence.