Well, it's true in that the predominate theory is "humans are all primarily and recently descended from a population somewhere in East or South Africa with a small amount of admixture with local hominids" but the multiorigin theory is pretty much always brought up in the context of implying that different human populations are actually different species.

Maybe it's a good thing to consider different races to be different species. I personally think it will cause people to be more open-minded towards the plights of animals. Acknowledging diversity doesn't mean we have to hate the other kinds.

I wish I was as optimistic as you. I personally think people would be too preoccupied planning the elimination of the other human species to consider animals with greater respect.

That being said, Noah Yuval Harari has very forward thinking writing along these lines. He uses the context of potential AI superior to our own intelligence, and how they will treat humans, to advocate for animal rights.

> two humans differ, on average, at about 1 in 1,000 DNA base pairs (0.1%). Human genetic diversity is substantially lower than that of many other species, including our nearest evolutionary relative, the chimpanzee.

> Groups of chimpanzees within central Africa are more different genetically than humans living on different continents

> Our genetic homogeneity implies that anatomically modern humans arose relatively recently (perhaps 200,000 years ago) and that our population size was quite small at one time (perhaps 10,000 breeding individuals).

> approximately 90% of genetic variation can be found within [continents], and only about 10% of genetic variation separates the populations.

Calling us different species is laughable. We’re the genetic equivalent of putting 2 rabbits in a box and opening it up to find 300.

Didn't the human population drop to something like 2000 individuals at some point in history? Would be like dropping 2 rabbits in a box and opening it up to see 4 million.

Acknowledging diversity doesn't mean we have to hate the other kinds, but it's sure a convenient excuse if you're looking. And there are always people looking.

“I don’t hate that other species, we’re just biologically better, therefore they are naturally subjugated to us. It’s just science.”

(To be 100% clear, I’m just quoting what a person who thinks this way would say, just as slave holders in the US used to say)

I think the history of dehumanizing people generally shows more atrocities committed against people rather than better treatment for all.

Sadly, separating humans into different species would further delineate the "other". Opening up the asinine argument of genetic superiority, the "others" as a less evolved species, and just reignite eugenics.

The biological definition of species includes reproductive isolation. Two different species mean normally some kind of reproductive barriers. In this sense, if two diverging groups of animals X and Y mate and the offspring is fertile they are still in the same species and will split sometime in the future. How we define the splitting time is the problem. Neanderthals and sapiens are only partially fertile, so by definition were two different species that diluted into one. Red hair and green eyes are consider Neanderthal contributions. Modern sapiens is clearly an hybrid.

But the field has gained a lot of complexity in the last decades. There are ring species, and cryptic species, and sometimes the DNA of a parent is entirely discarded. Changing our point of view is possible with better data, except that we need to find this data first.

Entirely discarded? So the child is a clone of the parent of the corresponding sex?

For the most part, yes, they are clones of the mother [1] or father [2]. It gets way more complicated in some frogs though… [3]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gynogenesis

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgenesis

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybridogenesis_in_water_frog...

Is not usual, but can happen in some species

Not necessarily a clone because sometimes happens in several steps. For example, horse x donkey hybrids are sterile in principle, but if just by chance they produce an ovule keeping only the DNA of one of their parents, it can be fecundated. A female mule can deliver a foal that is either a pure horse or a pure donkey, never another mule.

East Asians have the most Neanderthal DNA left in them. [0]

Regarding Denisovans:

A 2011 study found that Denisovan DNA is prevalent in Aboriginal Australians, Near Oceanians, Polynesians, Fijians, Eastern Indonesians and Mamanwans (from the Philippines); but not in East Asians, western Indonesians, Jahai people (from Malaysia) or Onge (from the Andaman Islands). [1]

[0]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23410836/

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denisovan

There are even outlier populations in East Asia who are >2% Neanderthal.

Way more then any known population in Western Eurasia, from what I've seen at least.

It does seem a bit odd as it's the opposite of the popular stereotypes.