No Diversity in Humans, it was Toba or just Sex?

"Modern humans display less genetic diversity than great apes, a puzzling finding given our much larger census population size (1, 2). Interestingly, recent studies have shown that modern humans are not the only hominins characterized by comparatively low levels of genetic diversity. The variability of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA is on par with that found in modern humans (3–5). More importantly, the effective population size of the common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals was recently estimated at 9,999 (95% CI: 9,603–10,335)*, concurring with Noonan et al.'s (6) assumption that the effective population size of the common ancestor was similar to that of modern humans, ≈104. Why are all 3 of these Pleistocene hominin populations characterized by levels of genetic diversity that are lower than those found in extant great apes?" - Culture, population structure, and low genetic diversity in Pleistocene hominins

The lack of diversity in Humans is that kind of thing that makes any evolutionist anxious for a "Natural" explanation, something in the environment that made it happen!

The Toba catastrophe theory is exactly that, the environmental cause that the holly Natural Selection must explain. Species, Sexual Selection, who cares? In the end, all it matters is Natural Selection! This is the way it must be...

I will give my own explanation for what caused the lack of Diversity in humans to the point of being almost clones (virtually identical DNA). This means that you will end up with two causes, that I named like this:

• The Toba cause;
• The Sex cause.

The Toba cause:

Simple putted, 75.000 years ago, a Supervolcano in Indonesia called Toba, erupted, causing an extreme change in the environment that led to the death of many modern humans almost to the point of extinction, and doing so, made a genetic bottleneck that eliminated the human diversity that existed before. Simple, practical, all questions answered... or so it looks like.

But not all questions were answered:

• Why modern humans, and only modern humans, lost their diversity the way they did?
• How it proves that modern humans had more diversity before the eruption in the first place?
• Why modern humans never had recuperate a bit of that diversity considering that the event happen half way the existing time of modern humans?
• Why modern human with an astronomical population size had never catch up a bit of diversity?
• Why ancient stone tools in southern India were found above and below a thick layer of ash from the Toba eruption and were very similar across these layers?

Many studies dismiss this cause, like the following:

"The Youngest Toba Tuff (YTT) eruption, which occurred in Indonesia 74,000 years ago, is one of Earth's largest known volcanic events. The effect of the YTT eruption on existing populations of humans, and accordingly on the course of human evolution, is debated. Here we associate the YTT with archaeological assemblages at Jwalapuram, in the Jurreru River valley of southern India. Broad continuity of Middle Paleolithic technology across the YTT event suggests that hominins persisted regionally across this major eruptive event." - Middle Paleolithic Assemblages from the Indian Subcontinent Before and After the Toba Super-Eruption

The reason for this hypothesis is the same as the Red Queen one. The fanaticism of Natural Selection over everything else, including Sexual Selection.

The Sex cause:

As I have been arguing in my Posts, with references to many scientific studies and publications, Sex reduces genetic diversity. So, to explain why humans lack all that wonderful diversity that pure Naturalists love so much, the Sex cause is a good place to start.

First of all considerate the following hypothesis:

• Sex is the mechanism of speciation that defines and standardizes the respective Species;
• Sexual Selection opposes Natural Selection as the first decreases diversity while the second increases it.

Supported by:

"We reviewed arguments from a diverse assemblage of biologists—ecologists, cancer biologists, population geneticists, paleontologists, molecular biologists, genome theorists, epigeneticists—who implore that sex reduces genetic variation." - Root Gorelick Henry H. Q. Heng, 2010.Sex Reduces Genetic Variation: A Multidisciplinary Review

In this moment I answered all the previous questions but one:

• Why modern humans, and only modern humans, lost their diversity the way they did?

To start with, you should see what distinguish humans (homo) from other animals:

• Upright walking and consequent liberation of the hands;
• Ability to make tools that overcame physical limitations;
• Capacity to change the Environment.

Slowly but steadily, and contrary to other animal, Natural Selection lost its initial grip on humans, leaving it to Sexual Selection alone that without opposition was able to destroy the preexisting diversity.

So simple, isn't it? Ok, I will explain slowly, step by step...

1. Homo habilis;
2. Homo erectus;
3. Homo neanderthalensis;
4. Homo sapiens (modern humans).

Homo habilis is the human species that started to lose body hair, and a good cause for it was clothing. I know that there are studies that point out the beginning of clothing 70.000 years before, but there are also other studies that say that Neanderthals used clothes, many thousand years before, so the clothing I talk here are simple furs from other animals. This means that the use of clothing was not out of reach to the Homo habilis and certainly is hand to hand with its lose of body hair.

It must be said that Natural Selection is a more critical kind of thing (life and death) than Sexual Selection, and body hair needed to protect us from cold, found its critical purpose in night and winter. So, clothing was only needed to eliminate this critical purpose of body hair, the one that really matters to Natural Selection.

This doesn't meant the end of the Natural Selection grip on humanity, no. With the decreasing of body hair close to nothing, Homo erectus changed its skin color from white to black. Yes, Natural Selection gave up body hair to Sexual Selection but took black skin color in exchange (promoted by the African Savannah). Nevertheless, the bargain was positive to Sexual Selection, better black than hairy.

With humans able to tool making, use of caves as shelter and fire making, soon Environment started to be a very different thing, acting less directly on the human animal. The relationship between humans and Nature changed from a direct to an indirect one, convergent to an environmental alienation as we have today.

With an human environment more and more alienated of the real one, new challenges emerged. In this new alienated environment, intelligence become decisive to a new and complex courtship that gave birth the Homo sapiens, well capable of the most mystified and sophisticated relationships decisive in the breeding race dictated by an ubiquitous ruler, Sex.

There is no better example of this lose of grip from Natural to Sexual Selection than the reverse of the skin color bargain as soon as Homo emigrated to north, first as Neanderthals and later as modern humans (see Why we born Racist!). This and many other traits were lost in favor of Sexual Selection, until very little remained of the original human diversity, in an alienation process that lasted more than 2 million years.

In conclusion, the greatest triumph of humanity as a Species was not hairless or even intelligence, but the lost of its diversity through environmental alienation, the triumph of our species over the rule of Natural Selection greedy to disrupt the loved dominant standard called homo sapiens.

This could end here, but a ruler is a ruler, and Sexual Selection makes its own victims from all those who don't comply with its standard...

Schopenhauer, Darwin and Me

There are three books that made a century, those books are:

1. The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer, 1818;
2. On the Origin of Species, Darwin, 1859;
3. The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud, 1900.

One interesting thing is that both time gaps are of 41 years, but there is something much more important that this curiosity, starting with the oldness of each one.

Philosophy - A Guide to Happiness: Schopenhauer on Love

Schopenhauer was a philosopher, but it could be saw as a naturalist like Darwin. Contrary to Darwin, Schopenhauer focus his attention only on Humans, despite that, his observations are singular. Schopenhauer explains how individuals follow instincts in the best interest of Species wrongly believing as their how interests.

The problem with Schopenhauer is that he put Nature and Species in the same bucket, his Will to Life is a product of Nature, he isn't able to make the distinction between Nature and Species, or at least, he doesn't establish a connection between the two like he was able to establish between Individuals and Species.

On the other hand, Darwin was able to establish the relation between Species and Nature, but he was unable to see the relationship between Species and Organisms, for him, Species and Organisms were the same thing, When he saw fossils, he saw species, he was unable to make the distinction.

Darwin with his work much more robust and scientific, was able to overshadow Schopenhauer, however what really killed his work was Freud. Freud never gave any model of life, contrary to Schopenhauer and Darwin, what he did was spread a bunch of interesting examples, and for each one he tried multiple and distinct explanations, and doing so, the concept of The Will of the Species was grounded until today. Ego, Super Ego and Id, are examples of the complex and obscure theories that Freud produced against a simple and clean view of how things really work. Freud is the paradigm of the vicious Scientific Materialism, always focused on the object without seeing the big picture behind it, as exposed here. In some extent, Nietzsche is another minor figure that contribute to the Schopenhauer lowering, like a Paulo Coelho of his time, writing self help books, something very popular then as today, a proof that hope is the essential ingredient of believe despite if true or not.

The void that Darwin leaved, was occupied by Freud not Schopenhauer, and so, that void still exists today, and extraordinary, psychology and not biology stills today as the main source of logic in the Organism vs Species interface. Both are right in seeing Sexuality as the main force of action, but they differ in the explanation of why things are as they are.

For instance, when explaining suicide, there isn't a better explanation than the one that Schopenhauer gives:

"Suicide does not reject life itself, but only the conditions under which life is given. Suicide is a surrender of life, but it is not a surrender of the will-to-live. The individual who commits suicide gives up living, but does not give up willing. In the act of suicide, the will affirms itself, even though it puts an end to its individual manifestation." - Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, translated by Jill Berman (London: Everyman, 1995), pp. 250-1.

Much better and understandable that the clumsy and forced Altruistic Suicide of the Pure Darwinian Natural Selection way of thinking, well saw in the Selfish Gene paradigm (microevolution).

The problem when you only have a single Split and two Layers, is that everything that needs that extra layer is inevitable swept under the carpet.

Because Schopenhauer had not the theory of Natural Selection given by Darwin, for him there was not other reason for Love than reproduction. He was unable to see the interaction between Nature and Species like Darwin was. He was unable to see Evolution. So, happiness for him was not what was driving individuals to Love, neither pleasure was, but the subconscious Will to Live, will to have children. This subconscious is the excuse he gave when missing a real explanation, this is the carpet he needed to explain something he couldn't.

Other limitation of him, come from not embracing the extreme Standardization of Species, so he didn't spoke very much on the repulsive feelings for aberration avoidance, instead he points out the existence of an individual will, like short people choosing tall people intended to produce a balanced offspring. He could at least realize that a dwarf would not profit of this unreal individual choice, because there is only the standard will that is very restrictive on variation, the Will of the Species shaped by Nature.

If Schopenhauer was able to distinguish Species from Nature, he would understand that Entropy, a natural phenomenon, is something that Species have to cope with, and so, offspring quality is more important than offspring quantity, he would be able to understand what Species and their comprised instincts are, the mere result of Evolution, intended to solve difficulties posed by Nature. So, happiness plays an important rule, like sexual pleasure does, something that is very conscious and vivid, together with the contradictory feeling of repulsion for biological inferior organisms that the same species doesn't care or wants in its gene pool. This way is easy to realize what Species really wants and loves, and how Happiness and Pleasure are its main instruments.

The same way, pure Darwinists aren't able to explain Sexual Selection, and also, they swept under the carpet, they embrace the Red Queen Hypothesis just to sleep well in their ignorance. So, they ignore Induction, another natural phenomenon, they ignore Punctuated Equilibrium, a result of Natural Selection working on Species instead of Organisms (macroevolution), and so, they don't see macroevolution as a better adaptation to new environments, a scheme that allows Species to cope in a much faster way than microevolution, and so, they still believe that is not Evolution in bursts, but instead, mere randomness reconfiguring a kind of safe combination. They don't see any equilibrium between Sexual and Natural Selection, they just see a endless and absolute continuity no matter what.

Darwin made his point, no one was able to dismantle it, no one was able to blur his simple and clear model of Natural Selection. However, Schopenhauer was not so lucky, Darwin open a much more robust and sustained theory, despite not being contradictory with the one of Schopenhauer, it was much more convenient at the time, and then, as the final blow, Freud took the place of Schopenhauer, with their much more colorful theories, a Soap Opera which popularity and romanticism, the rationality and incompleteness of Schopenhauer couldn't compete.

This way, only recently was Species once again saw as an entity by itself, which fog helped it to be perceived as God for some and Nature for others! Hopefully one day Science will reveal Species in all its splendor with tremendous consequences that the present religiosity doesn't allow it to be seen!

"Claridge and I agree that the entities we call species are real biological units." - Species Are Not Uniquely Real Biological Entities, Brent D. Mishler

EVOLUTION #4 - CONFUCIUS, ONE PICTURE IS WORTH TEN THOUSAND WORDS

And yet some still asking...!

EVOLUTION #2 - MENDEL, THE WHYS GUY

In this post I will materialize the importance of the Abstraction’s Environmental Process referred in the previous post. One of the ways this process become a reality is trough the chromosomal Crossing Over, as part of the Meiosis event.

In 1866, Mendel published his now famous paper entitled Experiments in Plant Hybridisation. In this time, evolutionists were attached to the blending kind of hereditary. This blending paradigm is one of the main reasons to the continuous view of evolution. Mendel, and his laws, brings a discrete and independent view of hereditary. However, in the same way only in 1900 his work was really appreciated (more than 30 years later), nowadays; the continuous view of evolution hasn’t yet been substituted by the discrete one. There are always people that simple don’t get it, and get stuck in details, in the following writing, details like not fully independent, or exotic disputes about other details, don’t change the point taken.

The Mendel laws are the base of the Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium, and because of that, this equilibrium, are only applicable to Eukaryotes and not to Prokaryotes. Now, what do you call, to the idea that all life is equally evolving, in a continuous and unstopping way like in Prokaryotes, and then, your examples are invariably involving Eukaryotes? You call it a delusion. Now, what it happens, when you ask to a deluded, if; are we still Evolving? If for the deluded, evolution is an unstoppable continuous process; he has the problem in conciliating the evolutionary force with his unstoppable and continuous concept. This difficulty makes the deluded a treasure hunter, where the treasure is the motive of the Natural Selection bias. If evolution has to be, the motive has to be found. As if it were not enough, you have the sticking species, and the respective speciation process undermining the continuous view of evolution. Now the delusion becomes denial, the denial of species’ existence, transformed in nothing more than a classification.

There is a question that until now hasn’t been well answered. What is the inbreeding effect on the genome quality? Charles Darwin was very concern with this issue, because he rightly suspected, that he and his family was victim of it. In a study entitled Was the Darwin/Wedgwood Dynasty Adversely Affected by Consanguinity?, by Tim M Berra, Gonzalo Alvarez, Francisco C Ceballos, it’s concluded that:

“(...) the high childhood mortality experienced by the Darwin progeny (...) might be a result of increased homozygosity of deleterious recessive alleles produced by the consanguineous marriages within the Darwin/Wedgwood dynasty.”

The experienced mortality wasn’t due exclusively to contagious diseases as many try to prove, but also to pure congenital ones, like the case of the last sun of Charles Darwin named Charles Waring. Many still see this as lack of diversity, as a mean to response to fast genetic change in infectious diseases. The name of this view was coined the Red Queen’s hypothesis.

Here I will give other explanation for the importance of Crossing Over, and show you that the so called arms races has nothing to do with it.

First of all, we will consider the two laws of Mendel. Those laws are:

1. Law of Segregation – every individual possesses a pair of alleles (assuming diploidy) for any particular trait and that each parent passes a randomly selected copy (allele) of only one of these to its offspring;
2. Law of Independent Assortment – separate genes for separate traits are passed independently of one another from parents to offspring.

Another thing to have in mind in the next simulations is that we will only consider the crossing over process in meiosis, and consequently; we will always consider haploid genomes for the sake of simplicity.

To help us to see what happens, we will construct an analogy with a picture made by pixels. In the next picture we have our Little Joe. We will consider the genes as the colors in each pixel of his picture. In this way, our analogy has the following meanings:

• Picture – Genome;
• Pixel – Locus;
• Colors – Allele;
• Color – Gene;
• Stacking – Sexual Reproduction;
• Noise – Deleterious genes.

Original Picture of Little Joe

From the previous full picture we may zoom in to visualize each pixel.

Zoom of the original picture

Next we have the generation tree for the simulation:

Stacking tree per generation

For the first simulation, we approach the merging view of the 19th century for heritably (continuous process), staring with the creation of 16 pictures resulted from the insertion of random noise, each one with the same parameters, in the original picture (Genome) for the 1/16 generation. The first obtained picture, similar in noise to the other 15, looks like this (first arrow):

Sample 1 of 16 from the generation 1/16

For the 1/8 generation, and following the generation tree, we will evenly stack each picture of the 1/16 generation by a methodology similar to focus stacking, resulting 8 pictures with reduced noise. The first obtained picture, similar in noise to the other 7, looks like this (first one of the 1/8 generation):

Sample 1 of 8 from the generation 1/8

Repeating the process for the generation 1/4, the obtained picture, similar in noise to the other 3, looks like this (first one of the 1/4 generation):

Sample 1 of 4 from the generation 1/4

Repeating the process for the generation 1/2, the obtained picture, similar in noise to the other one, looks like this (first one of the 1/2 generation):

Sample 1 of 2 from the generation 1/2

Finally, we get a single picture for the 1/1 generation, with extremely reduced noise comparably with the one on the 1/16 generation.

Final sample from the generation 1/1

In conclusion for this first simulation, the merging process clearly has the ability to reduce noise, however, this ability tend to lose strength for each new generation. This has to do with the merging nature itself. While merging we are making averages, and as many averages we make, we never get the real color of the original picture despite the approximation to with. The maximum that the merging process can provide is an Asymptote to the original color.


Animation from generation 1/16 throughout 1/1

Now we will take a different approach. We will take for granted the species. Species in the next simulation will be represented by the original picture of the Little Joe. Species, a product of Sexual Selection, is seen here as a target of systematic bombardment made by noise. In this way, our analogy has the following added meanings:

• Original picture – Species;
• Mask – Threshold between positive and negative allele’s feedback;
• Mask’s white pixel – Fixed allele;
• Mask’s black pixel – No fixed allele.

In this simulation we drop de continuous view of the noise, and adopt a Yes or No kind one. In this way, we create a Mask for the picture where is marked if there is or isn’t noise (no fixed allele). For this mask, we use the color white for the pixel without noise, and black for the pixel with noise.

Using the first 16 pictures of the previous simulation, we produce for each one of them, the white and black mask. This mask, and the resultant picture, similar to the other 15, looks like this (first arrow):

Mask sample 1 of 16 from the generation 1/16

As you can see, this mask doesn’t represent a uniform distribution of random noise; however, because it still represents a random situation it makes no difference for this simulation.

You immediately note an important difference, now, due to this discrete approach, the noise looks like sand in a surface, it almost seems like something you may literally clean instead of dimming it.

For the staking process, we consider the product of the Mask’s pixels, so, the white pixel represents 0 and the black one 1. For each pixel we have the following stacking results:

• White (0) x White (0) = White (0) - Homozygous;
• White (0) x Black (1) = White (0) - Heterozygous;
• Black (1) x White (0) = White (0) - Heterozygous;
• Black (1) x Black (1) = Black (1) - Homozygous.

Bellow we will review the mixed staking in more detail, for now we just accept things as they are.

Applying the stacking process, the first obtained Mask, and the resultant picture, similar in noise to the other 7, look like this (first one of the 1/8 generation):

Mask sample 1 of 8 from the generation 1/8

Repeating the process for the generation 1/4, the obtained Mask, and the resultant picture, similar in noise to the other 3, look like this (first one of the 1/4 generation):

Mask sample 1 of 4 from the generation 1/4

Repeating the process for the generation 1/2, the obtained Mask, and the resultant picture, similar in noise to the other one, look like this (first one of the 1/2 generation):

Mask sample 1 of 2 from the generation 1/2

Finally, we get a single Mask and the resultant picture for the 1/1 generation, with practically no noise comparably with the one on the 1/16 generation.

Final mask sample from the generation 1/1

Unlike the merging simulation, here there is no continuity restriction, and so, convergence can be total without any kind of Asymptote, and more importantly, there is no losing strength in reducing noise.

Animation from generation 1/16 throughout 1/1

As told before, we considered the result of a mixed stack, Heterozygous, as always White (0). You may think that it is an over simplification, however is not far from reality.

Firstly, while a no fixed allele will frequently encounter a mixed stacking (Heterozygous), a fixed allele, on the contrary, it will frequently encounter an equal allele (Homozygous), so, in terms of chances and accordingly with the first law of Mendel, a no fixed allele sees his probabilities of being carried on reduced by 1/2 per generation (Exponential decay), while the fixed one, only sporadically gets in that situation.

In top of the exponential decreasing probability, we have the Natural and Sexual Selection, each one with the following three kinds of feedback:

1. Positive Feedback – Increases offspring relatively to the average;
2. Neutral Feedback – Maintains offspring relatively to the average;
3. Negative Feedback – Decreases offspring relatively to the average.

Both Negative Feedbacks, for Natural or Sexual Selection, are the last hope killers for the “lucky” noise, which one, albeit the odds managed to remain in the genome, sees its diminished odds become even more reduced next to nothing.

In conclusion, the exponential decay of the probability of fixation for a no fixed allele, associated with the negative feedbacks of Natural and Sexual Selection, is a good base to consider that the result of the crossing over between a fixed and no fixed allele is the fixed one, mainly if the no fixed one has no evolutionary advantages (noise).

However, knowing that we are considering haploid genomes, we should not view these values as exact ones. For instance, for a new allele get fixed in a population without any inbreeding, the positive feedback of Natural Evolution had to be such, to the point of canceling the Exponential decay previously referred. In this way, that positive feedback would need to produce more than 2 times the average offspring per generation, so that 2*1/2 becomes 1 (same as the fixed allele), and to compensate the initial negative feedback from Sexual Selection.

Now you may ask, but it’s not possible the existence of Positive Feedback from Sexual Selection for the newcomer allele? For the right answer, we need to realize that the positive feedback of Sexual Selection is in the direction of the existing genome that defines the species. As you saw in the last simulation, the mask is the result of the difference between the original picture and the one with the noise, and in this way, Sexual Selection is attached to a referential, something that doesn't happen with Natural Selection. So, if positive feedback for Sexual Selection is relative to an existing referential, only Natural Selection has the ability of giving Positive Feedback for newcomers.

Some of you are in this moment thinking about the peacock's tail, and making the question if that is not an excellent example of Positive Feedback of Sexual Selection for newcomers. Thirst of all, you have to have in mind that tails per se are common in birds, so tails have a Positive Feedback from Natural Selection. What we are discussing is the ornament not the tail, and the ornament may well be explained with correlation. So, if a trait, any trait, positively correlates with some other trait or traits, which have Positive Feedbacks, either from Natural or Sexual Selection, with time, and only through Natural Selection, that trait becomes a fixed trait. When it becomes a fixed trait, and only then, it may receive Positive Feedback from Sexual Selection, simply because it becomes part of the new existing referential (species). In this way, you may think in beautiful bird singing, vibrant feathers colors, and stunning flowers as exclusive products of Natural Selection.

Giving a step forward, we will approach in detail the issue of Consanguineous or Inbreeding reproduction. Since Adam and Eve times, inbreeding reproduction becomes an inevitably, however, we will not explore the Adam and Eve reality; but instead, we will try to understand what we mean by the inexistence of inbreeding, and then, its degree.

Without inbreeding, our heritage (past generations) would follow an exponential Power of Two, and after few generations, would become greater than the existent population. To visualize this reality we will use the demography evolution of Portugal expressed in the next picture.

Numeric simulation with Portuguese population

Using a generation length of 30 years, by the year of 1410 any Portuguese born after 2010 would be relative to all the Portuguese population previous to 1410! This young Portuguese would be a direct descendent of figures like the Henry the Navigator, or even his great father, John of Gaunt. In the next graphics is possible to visualize the interception point, where the population needed for a perfect non consanguineous reproduction meets the real one.

Graphical simulation with Interception point (1410)

Now that it’s clear that inbreeding is an inevitable reality, it’s time to understand its impact in the Crossing over process. More, the real question is not, what is the impact of inbreeding, but instead, what is the impact of inbreeding’s degree. For this degree we use the distance in generations. For example, in case of brothers we have 1 generation distance, in case of first cousins 2 generations, and so on. Using our generation tree, we may construct a table with the impact of consanguineous reproduction, and see the impact in terms of genetic sampling.

Generation tree considered in the simulations

In the last simulation a consanguineous reproduction can be seen as a branch removal. From the way the simulation was carry on, based on the product of the Mask’s pixels, is applicable the concept of Absorbing element, where the White (0) pixel is the Absorbing element. One of the properties associated with the Absorbing element, is that the operation order doesn’t maters, the result is the same, the absorbing element White (0). This means that the reduction of branches is equivalent to the reduction of samples. In the simulation there were 16 samples of masks, as you can see in the next picture, depending on the generation where we have inbreeding; there is a reduced new set of samples. For instance, in the case of an inbreeding in the 1/2 generation, half of the samples are removed from the equation, meaning that only 8 samples become stacked, the same effect as stopping the reproduction series in the 1/2 generation instead the 1/1.

Unremoved noise due to consanguinity

It is possible to see in the image above; that inbreeding in the generation 1/2 has an impact in the picture, maintaining some noise that otherwise would have been removed.

Other conclusion is possible to make, as you can see in the next picture, inbreeding loses its influence in an Exponential decay way as far from the 1/1 generation it occurs. For instance, a single consanguineous has an influence of 2/16 in the 1/8 generation, and an influence of 4/16 in the 1/4 generation, or in other words, the inverse of the possible number of no consanguineous mating for a given generation.

Impact of inbreeding’s degree

Consanguinity is not worldwide equally distributed, some countries, like India and Pakistan, have high rates of consanguinity. The “rat-people” is a crude example of a mal functioning cross over, something promoting fixation of alleles that otherwise would never become fixed.

Worldwide distribution of consanguineous marriages

It’s now possible to conclude that there isn’t any kind of arms race, what we have is deleterious mutations that became easily fixed due to redundant crossing over in the respective locus. These deleterious mutations, like many other symptoms, weaken the immune system to the point of being exploited by infectious diseases. They work in somehow like AIDS, making people much more likely to get infections, including opportunistic infections and tumors that do not affect people with full working immune systems.

There is another problem with the arms race of the Red Queen’s paradigm, that problem is called blood type. Blood types varies in worldwide distribution, with A blood more frequent in Europe, Australia and North America, B blood, more frequent in Asia, and O blood bore frequent in Latin America. If this is considered an arms race, you have to consider races also the result of an arms race, because the distribution of blood type isn’t very different from other racial traits, neither in time or space. In that sense, the black skin of an African person would have to be seen as an arms race against the sun. The problem is that, like in races, there aren’t significant variances in time and space to attribute to other reasons than Natural Selection. However, this arms race is still argued as the reason for Sexual Selection, something essentially different from Natural Selection.

If blood type is no more than a polymorphism, like skin color, and if blood types play an important role in the protection from infectious diseases, there is little credit to be given to Arms Race or any other thing but the old and simple Natural Selection. What you really have in constantly change that crossing over works against it, is not any kind of virus, or bacteria, it’s instead, the old and simple noise. This noise, the product of Dissipation, root of all environmental processes, undermines the complexity in life and the possibility of greater genomes. Crossing over, and the consequent Speciation, is the working solution that no Eukaryote was ever able to be truly free of.

Dependence stacking of environmental processes

So, what crossing over really is? Crossing over is the instrument of the Environmental Abstraction process. This abstraction becomes the new entity subject to evolution. With abstraction, organisms were drained of protagonism, given to the new concept of Species and its Sexual Selection mechanism. This way, species become the real subject of Natural Selection and the consequent Evolution, or simple putted, Strains gave place to Species.

If materialization was needed, you just need to remember the heritage’s Power of Two exponential process. This form of heritage, only possible with crossing over, works like a stairs that connects species with individuals; turning them, not into children of parents, but into children of species. So, for the question, what makes us human? We may simple answer, the Species does.

Stairs connecting species with individuals

In conclusion, there are those who ask how, and those who ask why, Mendel, was one of the last kind. I will end this post with a simple sentence to bear in mind.

“The HOW represses, the WHY frees.”

Prokaryotes vs. Eukaryotes, NS - Natural Selection, SS - Sexual Selection