/sci/ - Science & Math

>>9628534
because species are more fluid than scientists like to admit. There's nowhere a specific line can be drawn.
In relation to neanderthal DNA, it's called an ancestor. WE EVOLVED FROM THEM

>>9628534
>A species is defined as the group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction.
No contemporary biologist defines species like that.

>>9628549
this guy has the right idea but worded confusingly, I believe he means "we evolved from them" with "them" meaning the common ancestor Homo sapiens share with Homo neanderthalensis (which is Homo erectus)

basically, there is some amount of overlap in the phylogeny of Homo sapien populations and Neanderthal populations. it's mostly regional, but happened over a long time. also, because the global concurrent population of Neanderthals was always drastically lower than Homo sapiens, the only Neanderthal populations that didn't die outright were bred into assimilating into Homo sapien populations, hence the slight Neanderthal DNA

>A species is defined as the group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction.
That is only one of at least three different definitions of species. Sometimes we define organisms as being different species if they're biologically capable of producing offspring but are prevented from doing so by behavior or physical separation.

One of the examples often given is some species of insects which happen to preferentially mate at different times of the day or different seasons of the year or on different host animals - but which would produce fertile offspring if artificially crossed.

>>9628534
>>A species is defined as the group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction.
wrong
see: equines and donkeys

>>9628534
It's an implication, not an equivalence. If two organisms cannot produce fertile offspring together, they don't belong to the same species. It says nothing about the case where they can.

>>9628571
Then why isn't it "homo erectus genes" but "neanderthal genes"?

>>9629235
Mules are not fertile offspring, dingbat

>>9629235
This is the state of /sci/

>>9628534
>A species is defined as the group of organisms in which two individuals can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction

Wrong. It's one (1) definition but there are exceptions. It is, by definition, difficult to apply this definition for species that have been extinct for a very long time and for which we are unable to test interbreeding.

>>9631584
BLACKED

>>9631584
ONE DROP MEANS YOU HAVE TO GO BACK