Note: I am talking about ancient Hunter gathers not the modern Hunter gathers because they are not a view into the past.

I feel like Hunter gathers are more diverse than we think.

  • CrimsonSage [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Males have the same genes as females, and even in females quadrachromy is very rare; I think it is less that 5% and I am probably erring on the generous side. Colorblindness is more prevalent because the Y chromosome is much reduced and therefore reducing redundancy in that pair, but this is only a tendency not a rule, male still have an X chromosome there and even in females they only have one of the pair active at a time as otherwise there would be an over expression of those genes. As with all things genetics is extremely fuzzy and the more we learn the less and less it seems to be "IF YOU HAVE THE X GENE YOU WILL HAVE Y OUTCOME!!!" genetics is actually starting to look a lot like quantum physics with less concrete binary answers and more conditional probabilities and distributions.

    • Ithorian [comrade/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      less concrete binary answers and more conditional probabilities and distributions.

      I haven't looked into but that sounds 100% true. All the more reason binary genders are pure bullshit.

      • CrimsonSage [any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Ultimately some things are hard boundaries, but those things tend to be very old and conserved in the genome and if they break then you tend to not become an organism; there is a reason like 2/3 of all successful fertilization's end in miscarriage. Some bits gotta work and cant be messed with, but assuming an organism is brought to term, but for other things there is a ton of wiggle room for variation and mutation. Environment also plays a huge role, like you can have a "malfunctioning" gene that works just fine if you have a healthy environment with little stress. Additionally all these variations functionalities are contingent upon a fractal pattern of other biological and environmental factors.