Top Hybridization-Geneticist suggests we're a Pig-Chimp Hybrid.
Eugene McCarthy, a leading hybridization-geneticist, has pointed out some peculiar facts, and suggested a surprising explanation:
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(Links to his website-articles will be included below.)
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A brief summary:
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Genetically, humans are much closer to chimpanzees than to any other animal, and we’re classified as primates.
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But, for some time, scientists have been puzzled by the fact that there are a number of ways we differ from the other primates—in ways that they don’t differ from eachother.
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And, all of those non-primate attributes we have, we share with pigs (and only with pigs).
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Standardly, such facts are regarded as strong evidence for a hybridization.
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Another thing that has puzzled scientists is humans’ relatively low fertility, compared to that of other primates, and other animals in general. …low fertility that would be consistent with a drastically-distant hybridization, such as an inter-order hybridization.
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We often hear expressed, the impression that pigs are quite human-like in some regards.
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Just as one example, pigs’ skin is used for grafts for humans, because of its relative human-compatibility.
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Cannibals have referred to human meat as “long-pork”.
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Contrary to popular belief, inter-order hybridization, though unusual, isn’t unknown. McCarthy points out that humans aren’t a usual species.
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Contrary to popular belief, hybrids aren’t usually completely infertile.
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Gene sequencing doesn’t show pig-ancestry? No, but commonly, typically, when a hybrid is back-hybridized to one of its parent-species for many generations, gene-sequencing won’t show a difference from that parent species. The remaining genetic differences, by which the anatomical differences are still caused, consist of _amounts_ of various genes, not their sequence.
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As an example of the difference between sequence and amount, Down’s syndrome isn’t distinguished by any difference in gene-sequence. …only by differences in amounts of various genes.
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A long time ago, a pig and a chimpanzee had a dalliance, and the world has never been the same.
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But enough from me. Here’s a link to Dr. McCarthy’s website-article about this matter.
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The article is titled “Human Origins”. It discusses reasons that suggest that we’re not entirely primate, but instead are an inter-order hybrid. At the bottom of that article, is a link that says “Next Page >>”, which links to his article titled “The Other Parent”.)
http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html
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Michael Ossipoff
12 Su
1751 UTC
.
(Links to his website-articles will be included below.)
.
A brief summary:
.
Genetically, humans are much closer to chimpanzees than to any other animal, and we’re classified as primates.
.
But, for some time, scientists have been puzzled by the fact that there are a number of ways we differ from the other primates—in ways that they don’t differ from eachother.
.
And, all of those non-primate attributes we have, we share with pigs (and only with pigs).
.
Standardly, such facts are regarded as strong evidence for a hybridization.
.
Another thing that has puzzled scientists is humans’ relatively low fertility, compared to that of other primates, and other animals in general. …low fertility that would be consistent with a drastically-distant hybridization, such as an inter-order hybridization.
.
We often hear expressed, the impression that pigs are quite human-like in some regards.
.
Just as one example, pigs’ skin is used for grafts for humans, because of its relative human-compatibility.
.
Cannibals have referred to human meat as “long-pork”.
.
Contrary to popular belief, inter-order hybridization, though unusual, isn’t unknown. McCarthy points out that humans aren’t a usual species.
.
Contrary to popular belief, hybrids aren’t usually completely infertile.
.
Gene sequencing doesn’t show pig-ancestry? No, but commonly, typically, when a hybrid is back-hybridized to one of its parent-species for many generations, gene-sequencing won’t show a difference from that parent species. The remaining genetic differences, by which the anatomical differences are still caused, consist of _amounts_ of various genes, not their sequence.
.
As an example of the difference between sequence and amount, Down’s syndrome isn’t distinguished by any difference in gene-sequence. …only by differences in amounts of various genes.
---------------------------------------
A long time ago, a pig and a chimpanzee had a dalliance, and the world has never been the same.
.
But enough from me. Here’s a link to Dr. McCarthy’s website-article about this matter.
.
The article is titled “Human Origins”. It discusses reasons that suggest that we’re not entirely primate, but instead are an inter-order hybrid. At the bottom of that article, is a link that says “Next Page >>”, which links to his article titled “The Other Parent”.)
http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html
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Michael Ossipoff
12 Su
1751 UTC
Comments (93)
Be specific. McCarthy is a world-class hybridization-geneticist. Where do you find that he's wrong?
Michael Ossipoff
12 Su
1804 UTC
Michael Ossipoff
That sounds like the extent of the "evidence" he's presenting. At least per the article you're quoting.
No. What you quoted isn't even the extent of the evidence that I stated in my post.
Check McCarthy's articles--Human Origins, and The Other Parent, linked to at the bottom of Human Origins.
By the way, McCarthy describes pig pelvic-structural differences that, by chance, not by natural selection for that purpose, had the potential to facilitate upright posture. ...and skull-structure that likewise differed from that of chimpanzees. Sometimes two different species have different unshared attributes which, when combined, facilitate fortuitous opportunities not possible for either species alone.
Michael Ossipoff
12 Su
1832 UTC
for a few years, I have thought that there might be some weird connection between pigs and humans....this is interesting idea about hybridization. Maybe the first offspring would have been a more pig-like female, that then gave rise to a more chimp-like pig-chimp-male...
I don't know....that or aliens doing weird experiments on our ancestors....
Yes, the suggestion is that that survivable initial hybrid that was our ancestor was a female. ...because there's no cost for a male to impregnate a female (...whereas a female must critically-evaluate any male that she let's impregnate her).
Likewise, subsequent reproduction by the hybrid animals was female hybrids with male chimps, for the same reason. Resulting in continuing back-hybridization with the chimp line.
A chimp, compared to a pig, is better equipped to care for a nearly unsurvivable offspring,and so it's likely that that first surviving hybrid had a pig father and a chimp mother. But the back-hybridizations were probably chimp male with hybrid female, for the reason described in the above paragraphs.
Michael Ossipoff
12 Su
1900 UTC
Since I've mostly retired, I lose track of time sometimes. When I read the OP, I thought maybe it was actually April 1.
I have read in a number of places that geneticists have determined that about 4% of the human genetic makeup comes from Neanderthals. There may also be a contribution from Denisovians. Do you really think they would have overlooked pig DNA? Horses cannot mate with donkeys and give birth to fertile offspring, but you want us to believe that pigs and chimps can?
Here's another reason to miss TimeLine. She would have opened up a can of Australian whup ass on this pseudo-science in three seconds. One of those king-sized Fosters cans.
The proximity to April 1st is purely coincidental.
As i said in my initial post: Commonly and typically, many generations of back-hybridizations will eliminate any gene-sequence difference from the parent species to which the back-hybridization happened. As I said, the remaining anatomical differences from that parent species result from differences in amounts of genes, not in the gene-sequence.
Typically, then, the only evidence of a long back-hybridized hybridization is anatomical, not gene-sequence.
Mules are an unusual exceptionally infertile hybrid. As I said, inter-order hybridization isn't unknown.
I'll paste here what I said in reply to Nils Loc:
What are your credentials to say that an established hybridization-geneticist is pseudo-scientific?
Be specific. McCarthy is a world-class hybridization-geneticist. Where do you find that he's wrong?
Michael Ossipoff
12 Su
1924 UTC
I can't find any evidence on the web that he is a "world-class hybridization-geneticist." Most of the information on the web about his theories, except on his own website, are highly critical. As for me, I'm not a scientist, but I have basic level understanding of science. For example:
Quoting T Clark
Even his opponents on that issue acknowledge it.
McCarthy, at his website, states his credentials.
Feel free to check out his website.
Quoting T Clark
You're certain that that established hybridization geneticist is wrong. What are your credentials in hybridization-genetics?
To re-paste an earlier answer:
Be specific. McCarthy is a world-class hybridization-geneticist. Where do you find that he's wrong?
Michael Ossipoff
12 Su
2009 UTC
Here's a link to McCarthy's self-introduction, listing some credentials:
http://www.macroevolution.net/about-me.html
Over the long term, though a hybrid of pig and chimp seems extreme and unlikely to survive, given natural perversity, it might happen enough times for one or two to get lucky with the fertility. At least I don't see much justification for a blanket dismissal before consideration. It does seem to explain some curious facts that are otherwise odd coincidences.
This is all well and good, except it never happened. No pig ever fucked a chimpanzee and their child went on to found the human race. Chimpanzees are not direct ancestors of humans. We have a common ancestor, but it's not recent. Take a look.
more likely the other way around.
monkeys do seem to have some kinds of relationships with pigs/boars..
https://youtu.be/qOkalW6krEs
You may be right. The author concedes that you may be right. but a diagram from a text book merely declares you are right, it does not provide evidence of your rightness.
https://www.foxnews.com/health/why-pigs-are-so-valuable-for-medical-research
Not my favourite source, but 80 to 90 % is a lot of similarity, and if you consider the level of similarity, as well as the shear amount, it is hard to explain by convergent evolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheep–goat_hybrid
So we know that female hybrids of species with different chromosome counts can be fertile in back crosses, and those who could stop laughing long enough to read the reference in the op will know that multigenerational back crosses are what is being hypothesised. And from that article:
(An explanation follows.)
Ridicule is a poor argument, and was not in the end convincing against Darwin, when he suggested humans were related to apes. It's not more convincing here.
Humans share the same sorts of genetic similarities with many other animals, like cats, dogs, cows and even mice.
You know what humans also share a lot of similarity with? Water.
Get statistics involved and one is able to make a case for anything.
Quoting Tzeentch
We are not talking about genetic similarities, but structural morphological and biochemical similarities in the absence of genetic similarities. If you want to argue against the hypothesis, it is probably a good idea to read it.
Oh gosh, is he? I'd no idea. Well that changes everything.
Quoting I like sushi
Maybe he'll tell you himself, if you read what he says.
Domestic pigs come from wild boars which are covered in fur. So this makes no sense.
It is my understanding that all mitochrondial DNA is passed down by the mother. None from the father.
Agreed, up to a point. Dr. McCarthy went beyond that point. You point out that he is qualified, but so are the great majority of biologists and geneticists who scoff at the idea.
According to the web, the most recent shared ancestor between sheep and goats lived four million years ago. With pigs and apes, it was 70 million years ago.
I was asking you. If you don’t want to share fair enough.
I have no problem with unconvential ideas. I liked the idea of the “aquatic ape” hypothesis. A few arbitrary morphological similarities aren’t massively convincing.
My attitude is rather similar; if you don't want to engage with the hypothesis presented, fair enough. I have engaged a bit and shared a bit, but my purpose in engaging with the text is to discuss with others who wish to engage with it, rather than to answer the questions of folks who don't want to engage with it. You don't have to rely on my hearsay, you can get from the man himself.
Semantics. It was an ape that was more a chimpanzee than anything else that there's a word for.
Michael Ossipoff
13 M
1620 UTC
No. McCarthy's thesis is that a chimpanzee mated with a pig. When he says chimpanzee, he means chimpanzee. He rejects just about all of our present understanding of human origins, along with natural selection and evolution in general. He commented that Darwin's greatest fan was Hitler.
What you're working on is your own theory of human origins where something like a chimpanzee mated with a pig.
Is that your expert professional opinion as a PhD geneticist?
Michael Ossipoff
13 M
1634
And it isn't just a few. It's all of the attributes by which we differ from all of the other primates.
McCarthy points out that that's a standard way to identify the other parent of a hybrid.
Michael Ossipoff
13 M
1638 UTC
We're what?
Have fun guys. Thanks for the laughs :)
:D
No one denies that we have more recent primate ancestry.
McCarthy speaks of many, many generations of primate back-hybridization.
Maybe you should do a little reading before expounding?
Whatever that means.
Our species' worst attributes seem chimp-like.
Chimps have gestational periods of 243 days.
So how long was the gestational period of the pig that was impregnated by a chimpanzee?
Here is just one developmental incongruity (among many others) that has to be overcome to support chimpig origins.
It seems that whether the sperm and egg of two vastly unrelated mammalian species can fuse at all is an interesting question and an experiment that is likely to have been done in a petri dish.
but in the balance for these geneticists and their future career, they might not considerer it worthwhile even lending a bit of credulity to the idea.
Scientists are human after all, and a career for them will be a pretty valuable thing to want to hold on to, and not let be even slightly tainted.
This is one of the problems for many out-off-the-box ideas in science.
So I think it is a weak argument to say the majority scoff at any idea.
Following up on the links, a large part of the relevant argument is that speciation by hybridisation simply does not occur. But it does occur, so I repeat my earlier reference. https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-bird-species-arises-from-hybrids-as-scientists-watch-20171213/
As far as I know, this is the only speciation that has actually been observed, and it arose from hybrids.
I disagree. The only useful definition of scientific truth in a real time, real world situation where real life decisions have to be made is "the consensus of the opinions of knowledgeable, qualified scientists." If the consensus split is 49%/51%, there is a lot of room for disagreement, research, and discussion. If it's 98%/2%, then no. What decision are we trying to make in this particular case? Where to put our scientific attention. Where to spend our research money. What to teach in school. For some issues, climate change for example, the decisions have more significant consequences and cost a lot more.
And, no. I don't have any specific information on the actual split among qualified scientists on the pig/chimpanzee issue.
And, yes. It is possible that McCarthy is correct. It's just really unlikely. Really, really. It is reasonable for us to decide not to put any significant resources into the issue. I'll go further. It is unreasonable for us to decide we should put sigificant resources into the issue.
Since this view is widely accepted among scientists and supported by both archaeological and genetic research, if you reject this view, it's your responsibility to present a reason to doubt it.
Quoting unenlightened
If this is true, what does that imply? That contemporary evolutionary theory is entirely wrong? Species don't arise by natural selection, mutation, and genetic drift?
Quoting frank
No. It might be that speciation by hybridisation is rare, occasional or frequent. I think it is almost certain that it happens, unless that report proves to be wildly wrong.
My own argument is roughly thus:
We have seen speciation by hybridisation and we have seen fertile hybrids between species with different numbers of chromosomes.
What we have seen in one lifetime is unlikely to be very unusual or at the extreme of the possible over evolutionary time.
There is thus no immediate reason to rule out as impossible that a more distant hybridisation could have given rise to the human species.
Thereafter, one should consider whether such an event has explanatory value in relation to human characteristics and maybe look for whatever evidence might distinguish this hypothesis from the currently accepted one.
One of the things I found interesting, though I am not qualified to pass judgement, was McCarthy's discussion of the cooling limitation of primate brain size, and how trans-cranial blood supply, found in pigs but not non-human primates overcomes this. Is there someone debunking these ideas, because the critiques I've seen seem to focus on other speculations and don't go into the details argued in the human case specifically.
one could argue that your reasons for not spending any research money on this thing because it isn't mainstream enough means that if say a billionaire did happen to invest in this research and it proved that the hypothesis of a pig-chimp hybrid did turn out to be quite likely, and overturned some mainstream consensus, that this could be the very reason that it is worthy of research, potentially anyway.
If mainstream science is only prepared to invest in the present consensus, then how is mainstream consensus ever going to change?
I realise that you might now want to argue that 'should science invest in every crazy little hypothesis?' well obviously no, it couldn't do that, that is why I said it was 'potentially' a good line of research...it would need to cross some kind of threshold I suppose, of likelyhood.
http://www.macroevolution.net/sheep-pig-hybrids.html
Maybe it was an inter-species gene-sharing ménage à trois; humans share a lot of traits with sheep as well!
:eyes:
Various species have done that experiment in the old-fashioned manner,, and the answer to your question is "Yes" they can and have.
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
0239 UTC
Is that your professional opinion, as a PhD geneticist?
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
0241 UTC
Genetic drift caused by what? Mutations from cosmic rays, and maybe from some natural mutagen chemicals in the natural environment. But maybe also from distant hybridizations which (like the other mutations referred-to above) nearly always result in stillbirth or unsurvivable offspring, but which very rarely combine previously unshared attributes of two species which, when combined, provide a significant adaptive advantage.
(Alright, the pig-chimp experiment might have produced a species that is singlehandedly creating a big extinction due go global-warming, but it was well-adapted for a long time.)
Michael Ossipoff
13 M
2248 UTC
McCarthy doesn't deny that. What you're referring to happened later.
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
0251
Very true, but those are just psychological traits. And that's easily explained by separate convergent evolution. Obedient sheep are chosen for breeding more sheep. Obedient humans who follow and identify with the powerful thereby gain favor and protection that increases their survivability, reproduction-opportunities, and the societal status and protection for their offspring.
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
0256 UTC
Of course it's unlikely. Maybe often no offspring. And when there is, nearly always stillbirth or offspring that soon dies.
But, very, very rarely (just as the case with cosmic-ray mutations, ground radon irradiation mutation, environmental mutagen mutation) there could be that very, very rare instance where the two species just happened to have separate unshared attributes which, when combined, confer adaptive advantage.
So, distant hibridizations aren't a recipe for reliably successful offspring, any more than irradiation by cosmic rays or radon, or exposure to environmental mutagens, are. ...but are, instead, just one more source of mutation. ...nearly always fatal, but, very very rarely, adaptively advantageous.
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
0303 UTC
Of course. But what you said is still true--though easily explained by separate convergent evolution,.
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
0306 UTC
Convergent evolution is also the big problem for this hypothesis though. Since convergent evolution can only be ruled out via molecular and genetic evidence and all such evidence has been eradicated in the scenario proposed, there is no way rule out convergent evolution.
Which leaves us with a massively complex theory stacking improbabilities that does not have any predictive power, nor is it more general than the accepted version. In other words, we have a bad theory.
yes maybe it boils down to 'pictures or it didn't happen' ! :D
My understanding of hybrids is that they are formed when species X breaks off into two groups as the result of geographical isolation and after considerable time they evolve separately. Following the separation, they are reunited, they breed, and they produce a hybrid. So, the idea would be that you have horses, some get isolated and they turn into donkeys, the two find each other one day and they make mules. This assumes a common ancestor. It holds that species X forms subspecies Y that breeds into XY.
This article seems to suggest that a primitive man fucked a pig that created a pig centaur and that pig centaur is us. Do I have this right? If that's what the author is suggesting, that's different than saying there was primitive man where one went left and one went right and the direction right one became more a primate and the direction left one became more a pig, and the two eventually reunited to form the current day us.
Why not say (since this is wildly speculative anyway) that pigs and man had a common ancestor, with some becoming pigs and others becoming @Baden? That's the current model of evolution as it applies to primates, where we claim a common ancestor, as opposed to our saying we bred with monkeys and today we're just monkey hybrids, right?
I don't get the need to interpose hybridization into this mess, when all we really need to say is that there appears to be a common genetic similarity that likely arose from a common ancestor.
I think it is suggesting that boars and monkeys met like ships in the night, ..a long time ago, and the offspring were hybrids, that later became human.
But doesn't that ignore the fact that the ability for different species to mate usually occurs only because the two already shared a historical genetic bond, as in the case of donkeys and horses?
maybe the two never really separated that much...I posted a video of monkeys using boars as a kind of taxi service, so maybe the hybridizing goes back a long way....might explain the behaviour of some taxi drivers... :D
http://www.macroevolution.net/cat-rabbit-hybrids.html
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All of the attributes by which humans differ from all of the other primates--and by which all the other primates are like eachother—are attributes that humans and pigs have in common.
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Pigs and hominids had and have quite different lifestyles and modes of living. With apes as our immediate ancestors, the fact mentioned in the above paragraph calls for explanation. For all those attributes mentioned above to be convergent-evolution would amount to a humungous set of coincidences.
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See above.
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Michael Ossipoff
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13 Tu
1708 UTC
"Eugene M. McCarthy (no known relation) is a pseudo-evolutionary crackpot biologist famous for his completely ridiculous crackpot idea that “humans evolved after a female chimpanzee mated with a pig”
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"More recently, McCarthy has expanded on his hypothesis and claimed that humans have hybridized with chickens*, dogs, apes, goats, cows, and turtles. His “evidence” is based on mythological accounts (satyrs are evidence of goat-human hybrids, for instance), and imaginative interpretations of stories of women who had grossly deformed stillborn babies with peculiarly warped features.
Diagnosis: Another fine example of pure pseudoscience: Formulate a hypothesis that superficially fits certain pieces of data you’d like to fit together, ignore the vast amount of contradicting evidence, never test it, and maintain it with dogmatic rigor no matter what falsifying evidence might come your way. One might be inclined to believe that McCarthy is also completely harmless, but his work – given the media exposure – has been actively used to try to undermine the legitimacy of real science, so whatever influence he has is certainly not benign."
* http://www.macroevolution.net/human-chicken-hybrids.html
Edit: I see @frank posted this link already.
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No, hybridization refers to interbreeding of different species, not different subspecies of the same species.
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No, and I suggest that you read some of McCarthy’s pages before expounding about what he says.
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Undeniably there was common ancestor. Likewise, just like us, all of the apes share that common ancestor too. So the common ancestor doesn’t explain the ape-human differences described in McCarthy’s page entitled “Human Origins”, which are also the human-pig similarities described in McCarthy’s page titled “The Other Parent”.
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Michael Ossipoff
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13 Tu
1740 UTC
Aren't you forgetting rather significant attributes like a significantly increased brain volume?
Quoting Michael Ossipoff
There is a fairly large amount of readily available evidence for similarly "humongous set(s) of coincidences" occurring. Convergent evolution is well documented. What evidence is there for the alternative?
Is that supposed to be a disproof of the theory? A blog post written by an anonymous individual, who finds the idea ridiculous, and who lies about what McCarthy has actually said?
As an example McCarthy doesn't claim that humans have hybridized with such animals, but that it is possible, which is a scientific claim, while claiming that it is impossible is not.
History is full of strange ideas that were ridiculed and rejected only to become mainstream later on, but hey surely we have learnt from history and we won't make the mistake again, if the idea sounds ridiculous and goes against the mainstream then surely it must be false, because the majority of scientists can't ever be wrong again.
The idea is so ridiculous and so wrong in so many ways, and insultingly wrong to anyone with any background or understanding of the field, it's almost not worth explaining to anyone who takes it seriously. It's like asking someone with a good knowledge of history to prove WWII actually happened. But anyhow, seeing as you seem to give it credence, (on what basis I don't know) here is some of the basic detail of why it's wrong:
"As anyone who remembers the early days of molecular phylogeny knows, one of the oldest techniques for telling how closely related two animals are is to attempt to hybridize their DNA. Human and chimp DNA hybridizes easily in a test tube, since it’s roughly 98% the same. Other primates don’t hybridize as well, since they share fewer common alleles with us. Long ago, the early DNA hybridization studies showed that pigs and primates have very few alleles in common, about the same as primates share with any other distantly related order of placental mammals. As both P.Z. Myers and “Artiofab” pointed out in recent blogs, however, there are huge problems hybridizing pigs and chimps. Pigs have 38 chromosomes, chimps have 48. You simply can’t have a fertile hybrid with this many mismatched chromosomes. Even human/chimp hybrids are impossible for the same reason, because we have different numbers of chromosomes. And huge sections of chimp and pig DNA are radically different, so even if he did manage to separate the strands in a lab and hybridize them, they would not continue to develop. Then there’s the problem with the sperm of pigs even recognizing the ovum of a chimp, since the eggs have their own protein coats that are specific to their species, and prevent insemination from alien sperm. In addition, there’s the problem with immunological rejection: any tissue that is foreign to us is attacked by antibodies before it can get very far. This is why transplants of organs between species is very difficult. (Immune rejection is the reason for the failure of creationist Leonard Bailey’s unethical experiment in replacing the defective heart of “Baby Fae” with a baboon heart, rather than a heart from a more closely related organism like a chimp). The pig’s sperm would be wiped out by a big immune reaction, just like any other invading virus or bacterium or foreign body. ...
Pigs and chimps (and humans) are separated by at least 70-80 m.y. of evolutionary divergence into lineages which have long gone different directions—hybridization between such long-evolving groups simply doesn’t happen.
These genetic and anatomical differences are so difficult to overcome precisely because both lineages have been separated since the early radiation of the placental mammals, probably in the latest Cretaceous 70-80 m.y. ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the planet. The two groups diverged long ago and have been evolving separately since then, so there’s no way lineages from these two very different parts of the placental family tree can ever hybridize. Again, the long list of mistakes he makes in citing shared plesiomorphic characters shows that this guy is not up to date on phylogenetic thinking. (Even more bizarre: he thinks platypuses are crosses between birds and mammals, even though those two lineages have diverged 300 m.y. ago).
There’s no point in beating this ridiculous scientific argument to death any further. But this raises the next question: who is this Eugene McCarthy, and how did he go off the deep end of crackpot science?"
https://www.skepticblog.org/2013/12/04/hogwash/
Etc etc
If you're still not convinced, try to examine and understand the diagrams below.
"An alleged pig-human hybrid that, according Johann Georg Schenck, was born on Cyprus near Nicosia, on Dec. 12, 1568, along with four normal piglets. (source: Monstrorum historia memorabilis, 1609, p. 113, fig. 85). The structure shown on the forehead may represent a frontal proboscis."
"Moritzburg. The German historian Johann Christoph von Dreyhaupt, in his treatise on his native Halle (Beschreibung des Saalkreises, 1755, vol. I, p. 645), states that a piglet with a human head was born in that city in 1523)."
http://www.macroevolution.net/pig-primate-hybrids-old-accounts.html
Baden’s quote is from an unsigned article. Not only are the author’s credentials unstated, but so is the author’s name.
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The anonymous writer claimed that McCarthy rejects natural-selection. Incorrect. Of course natural-selection has guided evolution, and McCarthy doesn’t say otherwise.
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Natural-selection makes use of variation resulting from ordinary genetic re-mixing made possible by sexual reproduction, and also the more drastic (and then usually fatal) variations resulting from mutations, …mutations caused by irradiation by cosmic-rays, and naturally-occurring radioactive substances such as radon. …and mutations caused by naturally-occurring mutagenic substances in the environment.
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Another occasional cause for drastic variation would be distant-hybridizations.
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As with drastic variations resulting from mutations caused by irradiation or mutagens, the drastic variations from distant-hybridizations are nearly always fatal. …but, one driver of evolution is the fact that drastic variations, very very rarely, can be adaptively beneficial.
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No one’s denying natural-selection. In fact, no one’s saying that it’s known whether or not there can be successful mammalian inter-order hybridization. McCarthy merely points out some facts that are otherwise difficult to explain, and which have long puzzled scientists.
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McCarthy has collected and displays many articles and reports about alleged inter-order and inter-class hybridizations, but he doesn’t claim that the accounts are true. Is it advisable for him to have those articles and reports at his website? Probably not. I’d say of course not. Does the inclusion of those articles and reports somehow refute his pig-ancestry theory? Certainly not.
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So what’s Baden’s point, posting from an article that isn’t even signed? …the opinions of someone unknown, and almost surely uncredentialed?
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McCarthy answered his two most vociferous critics in pages at his website. You can link to those rebuttals from the table-of-contents at McCarthy’s primary page about human-origins, or else here, where he replies to Protherr and Myers:
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http://www.macroevolution.net/PZ-Myers.html
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http://www.macroevolution.net/prothero.html
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It’s to be noted that neither of those critics has any credentials that qualify them in any way comparable to McCarthy, on mammalian hybridization genetics.
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The objection to McCarthy’s suggestion is that it’s impossible for an inter-order hybridization among mammalian species to ever result in a viable living-thing.
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McCarthy doesn’t claim to know. …and neither do McCarthy’s critics, and neither do you. …because not everything about genetics is known, and the possibility of successful mammalian inter-order hybridization is one of the many things that just aren’t known.
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If any of you are sure that it isn’t possible, then you should write a paper, to share your findings with the rest of the scientific community. :D
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McCarthy points to facts that are difficult to explain any other way.
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The many anatomical attributes by which humans differ from all the other primates, but not from pigs, suggest that such a hybridization has taken place.
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Here are a few brief quotes from McCarthy, which summarize his suggestion:
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“The theory I actually propose (a theory, by the way, that accounts for the fact that we share many traits with pigs that we do not share with chimpanzees) is that long ago there was hybridization between a population of pig-like animals and a population of apes (similar to modern chimpanzees and bonobos) and that the resulting hybrid(s) then backcrossed to the ape population, resulting in the production of a mostly apelike population that retained a lot of piglike traits.”
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“What I would say to PZ Myers is: ‘Stop all the speculating and propounding and explain why the traits that distinguish us from chimpanzees consistently link us with pigs. Offer a different hypothesis accounting for our affinity to pigs. Put up or shut up!’ “:
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“Certain types of crosses produce a high percentage of inviable offspring, but occasionally produce viable offspring as well. But PZ Myers, says "I think they are highly unlikely to be possible." Why? We know that crosses can sometimes work even between forms of life that are rather distantly related.”
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“But Myers is dancing around the facts. What we know is that in hybrid crosses there are elevated levels of dysfunctionality. More dysfunctional offspring are produced than in ordinary matings. And in distant crosses there are, typically, more produced than in close ones. However, even crosses that produce many dysfunctional individuals may from time to time produce functional ones. What about them? What are their implications? Why couldn’t a rare functional individual pig-ape participate in the foundation of a new population? Even if most individuals from such a cross were non-viable and sterile? In fact, we know that certain crosses produce hybrids that are superior to their parents in certain respects. The best known case, of the many examples of this phenomenon, is the ordinary mule.”
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I suggest that this topic is valuable and useful when it attracts and showcases the common tendency here, for uninformed proferssional-pretense from uncredentialed self-appointed experts.
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Michael Ossipoff
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13 Tu
2112 UTC
You mean like Baden's background and understanding of the field? Where did Baden get his PhD in genetics?
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
2115 UTC
You don't need a PhD in genetics to know how silly this idea is. But as it happens, I do have a background in this field, i.e. a degree in Zoology. (Not that you'd need one of those either, just as you wouldn't need to be a historian to know that Charlie Chaplin didn't lead the Third Reich into WWII). Anyway, persist if you must. It's in the lounge now.
Whereupon Baden quotes some text from Prothero or Myers. Neither Prothero nor Myers have credentials in the area they're discussing. In my previous post, I provided links to McCarthy's replies to Prothero and to Myers.
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
2123
You need one to qualify you to expound about the correctness or incorrectness of what McCarthy says.
If you assert that an inter-order mammalian hybridization is entirely impossible, then you're claiming knowledge that science doesn't have, As I said, publish a paper, to share your findings with other genetics experts.
...a genetics PhD, with specialization in hybridization?
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
2128 UTC
"This page quotes three separate reports about living creatures that may have been human-chicken hybrids. Two of them are from scholarly sources. The first of these reports gives a description of a hen with a human face. A translation of the original Russian report, it appeared in the October 1816 issue of the scholarly journal Annals of Philosophy (vol. 8, no. iv, pp. 241-247). The author of the article was Johann Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim, the well-known German-born Russian naturalist."
"During the course of his work as director of the museum, he received specimens from all parts of Russia. One year, he was sent a very exceptional living specimen, a chicken with a human face, which he formally described. A transcript of his description, in English translation, appears below, together with illustrations of the animal that accompanied the article. The illustrations were prepared by one of the university’s artists, a Mr. Valesicon. They show three views of the face of the creature (which didn’t differ from ordinary chickens with respect to other portions of its body). A footnote on the first page of this article states it was “Translated almost verbatim from the Russ[ian] with some additions from the German edition by Dr. Lyall, Physician to Count Orlof at Moscow.”
"Also fascinating is a related case, which appears at the bottom of another page on this website as a screenshot of a news story. It describes what may have been an extremely bizarre human-cat-chicken three-way hybrid, a veritable sphinx in modern times." Learn more >>
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Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
2235 UTC
He specifically uses the reports (which obviously he didn't write—he wasn't alive) as evidence for the notion that chickens and humans interbred, and he is endorsing that notion whether or not he definitively endorses the evidence.
From the first page "The Hühnermensch":
"Why would such hybrids occasionally occur?... So it seems that it is not that distant hybrids are entirely impossible, but rather that they do occur, but with hybrids that reach advanced stages of development being produced at only at very low frequencies."
"This page quotes three separate reports about living creatures that may have been human-chicken hybrids. Two of them are from scholarly sources."
And the pig-chimpanzee thing is hardly less insane though it's a little more subtle.
If there are survivable closer hybrids, then it would hardly be surprising if there were non-survivable more distant ones. ...nearly all of them unsurvivable, and, among the very few survibable ones, nearly all sterile.
But, as for the matter of whether there could, very very rarely, be a survivable and fertile distant hybrid... That, as I said before, isn't known. So let's not claim to know the answer to that.
McCarthy doesn't claim the pig-theory as fact, but only presents some facts that are otherwise difficult to explain.
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
2313 UTC
Aren't you forgetting what you read, when you read McCarthy's pages about human origins? Oh, that's right, you didn't read it. You're just expounding about what you haven't read.
A good rule: No read, no expound.
Pigs happen to have certain attributes that, combined with what chimps (or their near-ancestors) had, may have allowed, made possible, the attribute you describe in the quoted passage above, in addition to erect-standing posture.
As I said, McCarthy answers about that at his human-origins pages, but you'll have to do your own reading.
Quoting Echarmion
Of course there's been convergent evolution, when conditions were such as to favor the same attribute. But the pig-human situation is one in which living conditions and lifestyle were distinctly different, and the number of coincidences needed to explain the many similarities (not shared by any of the other primates) presents a big explanatory-problem which has been puzzling to scientists.
Michael Ossipoff
13 Tu
2325 UTC
Because of the above, McCarthy's suggestion isn't "unscientific" or "absurd" or "ridiculous".
What's unscientific is the pretense of asserting what you don't know, the pretense of assigning to oneself the authority to declare, unsupported, that a suggestion by someone better-credentialed than you is unscientific, just-plain-wrong, absurd, etc.
Baden hasn't given a specific objection to McCarthy's suggestion, other than scientific findings like "I don't need a genetics PhD to know that it's absurd on the face of it".
Well,as I said, this topic has been useful and valuable, just for bringing-out certain character-flaws and pretenses that , regrettably, aren't nearly as rare as fertile inter-order mammalian hybrid offspring.
Michael Ossipoff
13 W
0401 UTC
Today I requested that my membership at these forums be cancelled, because I won’t participate in a forum whose moderators are allowed to tamper with a thread or posting because they personally disagree with its content. …especially when it’s a thread quoting an author with established PhD specialist-credentials on the topic, and it’s a topic on which the moderator is uncredentialed. (You know who you are.)
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That’s relevant at this thread, because, if later there’s more argument from someone, I don’t want it to look as if I didn’t reply because he’s said something irrefutable. So I’m explaining why I won’t answer again at this thread (or any other at these forums).
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But that isn’t the topic of this posting. Because I’m quitting this moderator-petty-tyrant forum, I’d like to post this one more message to this thread, on this thread’s topic:
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Some of you here seem to have a lot of confusion about McCarthy’s Pigchimp theory. Dr. McCarthy doesn’t claim or assert that his theory is true. Do you know what “theory” means?
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Likewise, I, in this thread, haven’t asserted that McCarthy’s theory is true.
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As I myself have been doing here, McCarthy (who is more qualified in these matters than you or I) acknowledges that a survivable and fertile inter-order mammalian hybrid, even if possible at all, evidently must be very, very unlikely, and, if it ever happens, evidently must be very, very rare. Maybe it can’t happen. Someone here said “very unlikely”. Okay.
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But, while acknowledging that, McCarthy merely presents some facts that otherwise are difficult to explain. Facts that have been puzzling scientists for some time.
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*Yes, I’ve said this, but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in: McCarthy published a long list of attributes by which we differ from all of the other primates. And we share all those attributes with pigs.
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Unless someone can show why humans and pigs, with their different lifestyles and ways of living, would convergently evolve all of those attributes (while our putative only direct ancestors, the chimp-like apes, evolved none of them, then you have a remarkable coincidence to explain.
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Yes, some of you here have assured us, on your expert hybridization-genetics authority, that there’s nothing surprising about what was said in the above paragraph with the asterisk (*).
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And of course those are the same experts who, unlike McCarthy, who only has a genetics PhD, and a background of long specialization in hybridization, are sure that a survivable and fertile inter-order mammalian hybrid is, not only very improbable, not only very rare, but entirely impossible.
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How wonderful that you know so much more, about his own subject, than that recognized and established PhD hybridization-specialist!
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Bottom-line: McCarthy acknowledges the evident extreme unlikelihood and rarity of a fertile surviving mammalian cross-order hybrid. That’s why he calls his suggestion a “theory” instead of a “fact”.
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McCarthy merely mentions the facts in the above paragraph with the asterisk (*) in front of it. Make what you want of it.
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So you’re sure that you know that a survivable and fertile inter-order mammalian hybrid is, not just unlikely, not just rare, bu, on your expert authority, entirely impossible? (Where did you get your genetics PhD?)…and that the facts in the above paragraph with the asterisk are easily explained without the Pigchimp theory (the explanation is obvious to you, but not to McCarthy)? …and that you’re right about all that, and a PhD geneticist with an extensive background in hybridization-genetics is wrong?
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Then, have you heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect? Look it up. You’re exhibiting it.
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Michael Ossipoff
If you want a community where people are judged on their credentials rather than their arguments, you're in the wrong place anyway. Whatever credentials we happen to have or not to have don't in themselves make us better or worse posters or mods. Good luck.