User talk:Sswamida

Welcome![edit]

Welcome to Wikipedia, Sswamida! Thank you for your contributions. I am Doug Weller and I have been editing Wikipedia for some time, so if you have any questions, feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Wikipedia:Questions or type {{help me}} at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes (~~~~); that will automatically produce your username and the date. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Doug Weller talk 06:34, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Genealogical Adam[edit]

Hi. Could you please read WP:VERIFY, WP:RS and WP:UNDUE. I am curious about one thing. How can there be a recent common ancestor for people who have been isolated for longer than that? Note that we can’t use article talk pages for such discussions as they aren’t forums for discussion of the subject of the article. Doug Weller talk 06:39, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Doug. I want to be clear that I am a scientist at leading secular institution. What I posted is established mainstream science. It is surprising finding but has been well known among population geneticists for a long time. The key papers are https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02842 and https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aap/1029955256. To your question, there is no evidence that any populations have been genealogically isolated. It turns out that genealogical isolation is not observable in genetic data. Even if populations are genetically isolated, they can be genealogically mixed. In fact, the vast majority of genealogical ancestors are not genetic ancestors. This is explained further here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor#TMRCA_of_all_living_humans

So you are postulating a potential Adam and Even who are the common ancestors of all living humans if the letter's speculation is correct, but is not the ancestor of Tasmanians living a few hundred years ago? I say speculation because it assumes that the isolated Amazonian tribes weren't really isolated, right? This article[1] does accept that not all people living today have a recent common ancestor simply because there are isolated groups. Unless you redefine Adam and Eve so they aren't the parents of all humanity, the argument fails. Doug Weller talk 11:46, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So the claim is that even Tasmanians would descend from Adam. Though, to be clear, none of this really matters if we think A&E farther back, say 50 kya. There is just no scientific debate at that point; it would be hard to imagine A&E (if they existed) not being ancestors of all Tasmanians. To be clear, I am not advocating for any specific view here, but think accurate representing the science is critical.

This is written about at length in the article.[2]

"The most important scientific objection arises from the observation or inference of isolated populations (21). Three types of isolation are important here: genetic, geographic, and genealogical isolation. The critical question is whether or not genealogical isolation can persist for several thousand years. As a consequence of the limitations of science, genealogical isolation is not directly observable. Consequently, this question is only answerable if genetic or geographic isolation can reliably identify genealogical isolation. As we will see, genealogical isolation does not correspond with genetic or geographic isolation....A single genealogically isolated population will prevent a universal ancestor from arising. However, a single migrant or mixing event will break genealogical isolation....Tasmania was connected to Australia by a large land-bridge that was submerged by rising seas 8,000 years ago. From this time forward, crossing from to Australia was impossible without seafaring capability. Nonetheless, there remains several habitable islands between Tasmania and Australia. Using these islands as a broken bridge, the crossing is possible with the same boats or rafts that enabled colonization of Australia in the first place. Before seas had fully risen 8,000 years ago, the crossing might have been much easier, with large portions of the land-bridge still intact."

"Genetic isolation, therefore, does not demonstrate genealogic isolation. The most likely consequence of rare interbreeding is genetically isolated populations that are not genealogically isolated."

Also relevant is this quote "Australia is often offered as definitive evidence against recent common ancestors (10). Rising seas submerged land-bridges across the world, making it more difficult to cross from South East Asia to Australia and separating Tasmania from Australia. For this reason, we might expect Australia to be genealogically isolated (10). The initial colonization of Australia adds important information. Land-bridges never extended all the way to Australia. The last stretch required crossing a 50- to 100-kilometer wide body of water. Until the arrival of Homo sapiens about 60,000 years ago, this final gap was not crossed. It is thought that boats or rafts might have been a unique capability of Homo sapiens, at least in this region, and were used to cross the strait, in order colonize the Australia (39)." Sswamida (talk) 17:31, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Doug you appear to have misread your reference. It says "These results are consistent with the remarkable findings of previous studies: all humanity shares common ancestry in the recent past," and is quoted in the paper I linked to origionally.[3] As I have said, this is well established science.[4]

That last link says "Present-day individuals share common ancestors that lived in the relatively recent past. Exceptions involve isolated demes. However, the majority of humanity is connected via migration." Doug Weller talk 19:52, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The question at the heart of this is if there were isolated demes. Of course if there were any demes isolated for 6,000 years (or more) there would not be universal ancestors, however we have never observed that and are not even sure how we could observe it. There is no scientific evidence that demonstrates there were. Even if there were isolated demes, universal ancestors would be found a bit farther back in time. So if there was a deme isolated for the last 10 kya, then we would still expect to see universal ancestors 12kya and back. If isolated for the last 20 kya, we would expect to see universal ancestors 22 kya and back. This is all hypothetical, because there is no evidence of genealogically isolated demes at this time. Sswamida (talk) 00:13, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Managing a conflict of interest[edit]

Hello, Sswamida. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about in the page Talk:Adam and Eve, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, company, organization or competitors;
propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{request edit}} template);
disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#How to disclose a COI);
avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see WP:Spam);
do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:22, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well sure, but I think it is obvious that the oped I posted was in reference to a book I am author of AND I followed this guidelines! Right? Sswamida (talk) 00:23, 5 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Conflict of Interest[edit]

I just noticed that back in December you edited a page about yourself, in order to add a photograph. Such an edit is a clear conflict of interest. Any change to the page about you, no matter how minor or innocuous, should never be made by you. Instead, if you think something should be changed, you should suggest that change here on the Talk page, and allow a non-conflicted editor to independently decide whether the change is appropriate.

I see that COI has been raised with you before. Note that authors are stronly discouraged from incorporating their own work or material about their own work into articles, even with attribution, as it can be viewed either as self-promotion or selective whitewashing - let's face it, it is a rare person who can present a balanced review of people talking about their own work. Again, if you think such material is of value to the article, you should point out the sources on the Talk page, declaring your conflict of interest, and allow a neutral editor to reach their own conclusion on the material as it relates to inclusion. Agricolae (talk) 19:20, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This is the first time this specific issue was raised by me. Sorry for the confusion. I did ask on the talk page first, and no one answered. I'll contact Agricolae next time something like that comes up Sswamida (talk) 18:32, 1 July 2022 (UTC) Sswamida (talk)[reply]