You Say Hybridization, Hawks Says Hype

John Hawks reads the papers so that I don't have to. Here is Hawks's reply to the human-chimp speciation paper I mentioned in the previous post. The basic conclusion that Hawks reaches: Don't believe the hype. The data analysis in the paper is sound, but the conclusions the authors draw are designed explicitly for the sake of generating publicity. It's like Chuck D doing the data analysis, then Flavor Flav gettin' all janky with his big ol' clock around his neck screaming "Hybridization!" Hawks claims that there is no need to invoke the hybridization model to explain the data. He presents a pretty convincing argument -- he says the data can be explained by effective population size and selection on the X chromosome, sans hybridization. Go read it.