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New Evidence Debunks "Stupid" Neanderthal
ThinkComp writes "In what could possibly be a major blow to a scientific consensus that has held for decades, recent research suggests that the traditional conception of Neanderthals being "stupider" than Homo sapiens may in fact be misleading. As articles about the research findings state, 'early stone tool technologies developed by our species, Homo sapiens, were no more efficient than those used by Neanderthals.' The data used in the study is available on-line along with a visual description of the process used."
It's pretty simple. They weren't aggressive enough and we wiped them out through brute force like we do everything else that's different.
Big shock.
Finding evidence that may alter the "scientific consensus that has held for decades" is not debunking. It is the normal process of science. Debunking is the process of correcting misconceptions and exposing false, unscientific, or non-evidence based claims.
We tend to try to compare individual intelligence but this is probably meaningless. The real reason for our species' success is not that we're individually brilliant, but that we are very good at dividing up large problems to solve collectively. This works thanks to our social instincts: respect for authority, sense of fairness, competitiveness, group belonging, etc. etc. The whole gamut, the reason why we read and post to Slashdot, because we're a social species and bloody good at it.
Neanderthals, larger, individually smarter, were presumably generalists that could do more by themselves but could not compete as well a group of modern humans, when it came to hunting and perhaps fighting.
Of course I'm defining "intelligence" very much in the sense of "how humanity thinks and solves problems". It's easy to claim superiority when one is the species writing history.
My blog
While there have been great advances, really we've been dealing with the same level of intelligence throughout history.
What has changed us is the quality of life.
When you don't have to slay a beast, drag water 4 miles and fend off hordes of enemies, robbers and the plague you can get 'more' done.
I'm sure in history there were many brilliant people. Some 4000 years ago with the documents we have people still had the same ideas, the same drama.
The Steven Hawking of 1000 years ago would starve or be stuck in a mud shack thinking about how to eat and if his family would leave him in the jungle. That doesn't happen in the developed countries.
After visiting the slums of Rwanda I often asked myself what these people would do if they had access to clean water. The answer - the same thing the Romans, the Greek, the Europeans, the French and the Americans. Build, expand and innovate.
D~y
...possibly be a major blow to a scientific consensus...
Or a major contribution?
From TFA:
Many long-held beliefs suggesting why the Neanderthals went extinct have been debunked in recent years. Research has already shown that Neanderthals were as good at hunting as Homo sapiens and had no clear disadvantage in their ability to communicate. Now, these latest findings add to the growing evidence that Neanderthals were no less intelligent than our ancestors.
It's evidence against the old, already-discarded concensus. So we can chalk this up to the lay media's love of turning articles into "scientific renegade tales", and inability to comprehend that science is continuously revising itself.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
That's pretty simplistic, and of course wrong.
Ask yourself - why do we have clean water and they don't ? According to you there is no reason, as we all have the same innate intelligence. In the real world somebody has to organise the people to guarantee the clean water supply. And that's what's missing in places like Rwanda. They are too busy fighting amongst themselves to provide the basic necessities of life properly. So for them to progress to western levels they actually have to progress - it doesn't happen naturally by mere right of existence, or the existence of "intelligence".
And exporting better technology to these places might provide a short term boost, but is worthless if no-one is learning the basics to create their own technologies. Somebody has to be able to fix this technology or they are forever dependent on the west. At some stage thinking has to turn into doing.
I can imagine the scene in any western country if the government were to suddenly cease to exist. Things would just stop getting done. Sure the people with the knowledge would still exist, but the guy who fixes the water main isn't going to get paid for turning up every day. Pick your utility - the same situation applies. We would be back in the dark ages within 20 or 30 years, maybe excepting small pockets of rich people who could keep their lifestyle going. So like I said, back to the dark ages. And people still don't seem to realise that if you forget the mistakes of the past you get to repeat them.
All in all, intelligence is not the driving factor in "civilisation", cooperation is. And that cooperation usually has to be enforced, hence government. Your standard of living depends on the quality of the government, not how bright each individual is. Bad government uses guns to get its own way, so doesn't need a happy healthy population. Good government knows that it costs less to keep people happy than to fight them, and they can enjoy the benefits of that cooperation too.
That is, actually, a possible speciation event. Remember, it is "do not/cannot" interbreed, not simply "cannot." If there are geographical or behavioural reasons that members of a population cannot interbreed, then they are generally considered different species. The problem is that species is such a nebulous concept, and there are not clear lines between them. While the lines are clearer in the animal kingdom (plants and microbes are very hard to clearly pin down), there are still things like ring species that muddy the waters in the animal kingdom. So, again, it comes down to how you define "species," and what evidence you require to make the distinction.
Rhapsody in Numbers
Okay, well then the real question, is what is REALLY so adventageous about higher motor skills, communication, etc.?
I should think the advantages of these things in out-competing and out-reproducing other species of primates would be apparent, but it is a valid question. A lot of evolutionary biologists and psychologists spend a lot of time theorizing about how particular behaviors would have construed an evolutionary advantage. Just as a good place to start, I would recommend The Language Instinct and The Blank Slate by Stephen Pinker. There are probably other texts that focus on the issue more specifically, but those happen to ones I've read that came to mind.
And why were they adventageous for primates and not adventageous for dinosaurs or hermit crabs?
You are still thinking of this in the wrong way -- your question assumes that because a trait like complex language is advantageous, it should have arisen in hermit crabs. That is just a rephrased way of thinking that evolution is driven by necessity, that somehow because the trait is good, every species ought to have "decided" to evolve it or something. Again, the traits arise by chance, and will be kept if they happen to be helpful. In dinosaurs and hermit crabs, they just didn't happen to arise.
You might just as well ask why humans didn't evolve a chitinous exoskeleton, or an abdomen shaped to inhabit the empty shell of a sea snail. Those things, after all, must be advantageous, or they would not have evolved in hermit crabs, right? It is the differences in which random mutations happen to come along and prove advantageous in different populations that makes those populations grow into different species.
Furthermore, of the random traits that arise, the advantages or disadvantages of any of them will be affected by which traits that species already has -- a gene that causes your saliva to dissolve clam shells is great if you are a starfish. If the same trait arose in a clam, however, it would likely not be passed on.
The point is that just because something is beneficial doesn't mean it will automatically evolve. Evolution doesn't say anything like that. It simply says that random mutations occur, and those that happen to make the mutant more likely to reproduce will be passed on to its decedents.
If fate makes you a motorcycle, you become a motorcycle.