Chinese Homo Erectus theory

[Zor]

One thing i saw in Britain was a show on the genetic history of mankind, and i found out about this rather odd theory that apparently is popular in china. In summery, it states that Chinese (and likely by extention other asians) are not descended from the same bit of humanity as the rest of Mankind, but rather evolved independantly from the populations of Homo Erectus that they discovered fossils of in China. The Genetic evidence does not support this theory, however i am a bit coserned about it as a way people could justify racism, especially with the potential for alot of people to buy into it.

Has anyone else heard about this piece of Pseudoscience as has similar conserns about it?

Zor

[Junghalli]

I've heard about it. Actually I think the idea goes back a long way; the idea that humans evolved independently multiple times in different places was fairly popular at one time.

[Lord of the Abyss]

One thing i saw in Britain was a show on the genetic history of mankind, and i found out about this rather odd theory that apparently is popular in china. In summery, it states that Chinese (and likely by extention other asians) are not descended from the same bit of humanity as the rest of Mankind, but rather evolved independantly from the populations of Homo Erectus that they discovered fossils of in China. The Genetic evidence does not support this theory, however i am a bit coserned about it as a way people could justify racism, especially with the potential for alot of people to buy into it.

A version WAS used to justify racism at one time. Another reason for the recurring popularity of the idea is to avoid admitting what happened to the Neanderthals and our other relatives. They weren't killed by us ! They all independently evolved into us ! Sort of like someone hypothetically claiming that we didn't kill off the Indians, most of them just turned white. Except that the existence of historical records makes it harder.

[Rye]

The Neanderthals weren't killed by us. They were likely out-competed culturally (we had a massive Europe-wide culture, while they had smaller groups), and they retreated to extremities; but they died out on Gibraltar a few thousand years before modern humans arrived. I think the Chinese homo erectus myth is just self-flattering nationalist nonsense, "oh, we're special and are different to the rest of you!" It's not dissimilar to the idea that the other races evolved from apes and aryans were created by God. Same general purpose, ideologically.

[Intio]

A lot of this ttheory seems to rest on skull shape and the like. This is obviously open to interpretation.

Another shattered column of this theory was the "no refined stone tools" found in China from the time. This was until someone pointed out that the copious amounts of bamboo are sharp enough to make cutting implements out of, and weapon points for arrows and such like.

Needless to say, bamboo is easier to fashion and less amenable to preservation.

[wolveraptor]

If this were true, shouldn't the existence of mixed-race people of half Chinese descent be impossible? Or at least, shouldn't they result in infertile offspring (man it's weird applying those terms to humans)?

[Serafina]

If it was true, it's very unlikely that the parallel evolution (which it would be) would produce Homo sapiens sapiens - they would defer a lot from us, propably. "Crossbreeding" could still be possible, but the offspring should be infertile then.
Of course, it's just a stupid propaganda "theory" - if it was true, we would see clear genetic evidence.

[Junghalli]

If this were true, shouldn't the existence of mixed-race people of half Chinese descent be impossible? Or at least, shouldn't they result in infertile offspring (man it's weird applying those terms to humans)?

It depends on how far back hominids can diverge from each other and still produce fertile offspring. Coyotes and wolves can produce fertile offspring and they diverged 1 million years ago, so it's not really that implausible that different hominids could be interfertile. We assume that it was probable that humans and Neanderthals couldn't produce fertile offspring because we can't find genetic evidence of interbreeding, but it's just that; an assumption based on it being the most plausible explanation of the evidence. It's possible we're just looking at the wrong bloodlines, or the two species just didn't mate very often for some reason.

[wolveraptor]

It depends on how far back hominids can diverge from each other and still produce fertile offspring. Coyotes and wolves can produce fertile offspring and they diverged 1 million years ago, so it's not really that implausible that different hominids could be interfertile. We assume that it was probable that humans and Neanderthals couldn't produce fertile offspring because we can't find genetic evidence of interbreeding, but it's just that; an assumption based on it being the most plausible explanation of the evidence. It's possible we're just looking at the wrong bloodlines, or the two species just didn't mate very often for some reason.

Some studies Wikipedia linked to say that Coyote-Wolf hybrids do experience a significant decline in fertility and an increase in genetic diseases after a few generations. However, it implied that there are large, sustained populations of Coywolves in the wild, which wouldn't seem to be possible if they were ridden with fertility problems and genetic disease. It might be a kind of ring-species effect, with some populations of coyotes being able to interbreed with wolves, and unable to.

Anyways, I see your point regarding hominids. We shared a common ancestor with Homo erectus at least as recently as dogs, wolves, and coyotes shared an ancestor.