STICK TO THE SCIENCE, BUDDY: Ancient DNA Tells a New Human Story. This is for the most part an interesting article about relatively recent human evolution. But the social and political commentary, although it takes up very little space, is rather annoying.

From near the beginning of the article:

It turns out that, in the prehistory of our species, almost all of us were invaders and usurpers and miscegenators. This scientific revelation is interesting in its own right, but it may have the added benefit of encouraging people today to worry a bit less about cultural change, racial mixing and immigration.

Non sequitur, anyone? Don’t worry about invaders and usurpers today, because there were a lot in the past — just like there were a lot of murderers, thieves, and rapists.

And again, at the end of the article:

The lessons of this DNA revolution are not just scientific, however; they are social and political as well. The discoveries made possible by our new access to ancient DNA show that very few people today live anywhere near where their distant ancestors lived. Virtually no one on the planet is a true native—an instructive fact to consider at a time when ethnic and national differences still abound and the world continues to throw human beings together in new and unexpected ways.

So, the new findings are supposed to justify today’s mass immigration through open borders. Does it also justify yesterday’s colonialism and imperialism? If we were to find that genocide has been common, would that justify it now?