"It was impossible that he, belonging to a different species, could father a child of hers."
-"Captive of the Centaurianess," p. 174.
Too right.
SF Works In Which Nevertheless Terrestrials And Extraterrestrials Are Interfertile
(i) Star Trek: I think that Vulcan should be an isolated human colony that has evolved separately for several generations.
(ii) Superman: In one version of the story, Clark and Lois marry but do not expect children but, in several other versions, they do have children. I have ideas about how the Superman myth could be developed. See Getting Superman Right.
(iii) Julian May's Pliocene Exile.
(iv) In CJ Cherryh's contribution to Multiverse: Exploring Poul Anderson's Worlds, Flandry and the Scothan Queen Gunli had a daughter. I don't buy it.
13 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, it's simply not plausible to think alien species which had evolved on different planets over billions of years would be interfertile--no matter how much alike they resemble each other.
Stirling had the hominids of Mars and Venus being interfertile with humans from Earth in his two Lords of Creation books. But that was due to unknown aliens terraforming Venus and Mars and settling humans from Earth there many, many thousands of years ago.
Ad astra! Sean
As Larry Niven said, you'd be more likely to have offspring with a cauliflower. We can't even interbreed with chimps, who are our first cousins and -were- interfertile with our ancestors up to 4-6 million years ago.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And while it was possible for Neannderthals and "modern" humans to be interfertile with each other, I don't think it happened very often.
We see Neanderthals in Anderson's "The Long Remembering" and one character in "The Nest" was half Neanderthal. And you had Neanderthals in THE SKY PEOPLE. And that reminded me of how I think you made the Neanderthals of that story more stupid and brutish than I think they actually were.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: Neanderthals were around for a long time -- hundreds of thousands of years. Humans from just after the emergence of our species, say 300,000 years ago, were probably not as bright as we are.
They've found DNA from individuals who were only a few generations away from human-Neanderthal crosses recently.
Though the human part of their genes indicate they aren't among those who left descendants.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
But my understanding is that Caucasians and people from northern Asia have some Neanderthal ancestry, maybe 2 or 3 percent. I like the idea of having some Neanderthal ancestry!
Ape men rule!!! (Laughs!)
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yes, we do have Neanderthal DNA -- all non-African humans do, and some subsaharan Africans too (due to early back-migrations into NE Africa).
People in parts of SE Asia, particularly New Guinea and Australia, also have Denisovian DNA, rather more of it, from very early migrants from Africa crossing paths with them as they penetrated those areas, which have been genetic isolates ever since.
But the low percentage indicates that Neanderthal-human hybridization was fairly rare, and the fact that the surviving DNA sequences are both few and highly fragmented (much more so than in the collected ancient DNA indicating recent crosses) shows that there were negatives to crossbreeding that "selected out" most of the Neanderthal DNA quite rapidly.
What lasted were things like pigmentation changes and immune system responses which gave advantages in new, non-African environments. Even those had some drawbacks, tho' outbalanced by the positives.
So Neanderthals and humans were interfertile, but only just.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And your comments above reminded me of Anderson's story "The Long Remembering." I saw suggestions in it that blue eyes and blond hair among "modern" humans came from matings with Neanderthals. And greater tolerance for colder climates also might have come from the Neanderthals.
Ad astra! Sean
IIRC, a lot of Neanderthals were redheads, according to the latest findings.
Of course, some mutations recurr often. A fair number of Australian Aborigines are blond, particularly as children -- a completely different mutation from the one in Eurasia.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Iow, it's sometimes possible that Neanderthal genes will "express" themselves among modern humans. Such as redheads. Intriguing, that Australian aborigines have slightly more than most do of Denisovian/Neanderthal genes. Cool!
Ad astra! Sean
Of course, if humans and sheep were interfertile, we'd all have caprovine genes too. It's not for want of trying in certain circles... 8-).
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I remember some racy jests along those lines by Raj Whitehall's men in THE GENERAL books you co-authored with Dave Drake! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Sean!
Regarding red hair, what I read a few years ago is that the gene that made some Neanderthals redheads is not the same as the one that makes some modern humans redheaded, so Heather Alexander did not get her hair color from whatever Neanderthal ancestors she had. I admit that that was a few years ago (I think an item in SCIENCE NEWS), so the science may have been revised in light of the latest discoveries.
Best Regards,
Nicholas, brown-haired modern human, supposedly with more Neanderthal genes than a majority of 23andMe’s customers
Kaor, Nicholas!
S.M. Stirling said basically the same thing, about "modern" red heads and blonds not getting that coloration from Neanderthal ancestors. Which I regret!
Persons of north Caucasian or north Asian ancestry have slightly a bit more Neanderthal ancestry than most! (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
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