Neanderthal vs Human Mind

Prof Nincom Poop Ph.D

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/marek-kohn-neanderthals/

Honestly I need to read it again but some real interesting thinking on skulls sizes, brain sizes, social group sizes, culture, neanderthals not as far back mentally as thought...or maybe they are, cloning. It's all over the place. Good read.

3100 words as it lets you know....ok deep breath...:p


Speaking of Cloning
Speaking of where we'll settle our cloned Neo-Neanderthal Brothers

Or we could put them on Larry pages island. This isin't as "far out" as it's being reported, at all. It's been suggested before. It's just that he's saying it. When I say things like that people say d'uh.:pac:

I can think of a few things that should have been done somewhere remote but thats for another day.

Adam Khor

It occurs to me, I may be wrong, but it occurs to me that the whole reason why modern humans are racist and tend to gang against minorities, is because they still carry a sort of memory of the times in which we shared the world with other hominin species which were seen as competitors... if that was the case, wouldn´t the revival of Neanderthals give Homo sapiens a nice, not-quite-human target for such xenophobic tendencies, especially now that hating on our own species' races is frowned upon?

That of course assuming that they somehow managed to clone a significant number of them and whatever- think science fiction novel kind of situation...

It also occurs to me that if such a thing ever happened it would probably spell doom for great apes. With all the controversy and right campaigns being centered on Neanderthals, which are closer to us, who would even think of those now more distant cousins?

This is prime fuel for imagination, you know...

robp

Adam Khor wrote: »

It occurs to me, I may be wrong, but it occurs to me that the whole reason why modern humans are racist and tend to gang against minorities, is because they still carry a sort of memory of the times in which we shared the world with other hominin species which were seen as competitors...

If that was the case Africans would be less prone to inter group conflict or indeed racism. I don't think there is evidence for that. I am not sure if it is even clear if the earliest Europeans who were only ones to interact with neanderthals are the dominant source of Europe and Near East genes today. Selection for aggression could have easily been lost in the complex layers from later waves into Europe.

Of course maybe there was selection for this at far earlier stage in Africa.

On the other hand maybe this behaviour is already present in primate cousins. I wouldn't go as far as saying are chimpanzees racist but they are known to engage in intergroup conflict and will be very aggressive to outsiders.

Adam Khor

robp wrote: »

If that was the case Africans would be less prone to inter group conflict or indeed racism.

Why would Africans be any different? I'm not talking about Neanderthals only- remember that there were several hominin species in Africa as well.

Good point about chimps, tho... they are very similar to us when it comes to aggression towards outsiders- they may not be racist but they certainly are xenophobic...

One thing that frustrates me is how little info we have about chimpanzee-gorilla interaction. I've heard in some places they actually feed on the same trees but no one to my knowledge has ever photographed or filmed them together, let alone record their interactions in more detail...

Manach

Racist and Xenophobia now seem to have lost most meaning outside being a being political slur hurled rather ironically at anyone not part of their own workview cliche.
The desire to belong to a specific group has historically been a standard given, to increase group solidarity (offhand mentioned in a recent book "Righteous Mind"). This is a reflection of the early environment in which hominids evolved, and given the same circumstances that Neanderthals also evolved in - it is unlikely they differ much in that regard for us.

robp

Adam Khor wrote: »

Why would Africans be any different? I'm not talking about Neanderthals only- remember that there were several hominin species in Africa as well.

Good point about chimps, tho... they are very similar to us when it comes to aggression towards outsiders- they may not be racist but they certainly are xenophobic...

One thing that frustrates me is how little info we have about chimpanzee-gorilla interaction. I've heard in some places they actually feed on the same trees but no one to my knowledge has ever photographed or filmed them together, let alone record their interactions in more detail...

Initially I thought you were suggesting this might have evolved in response to Neanderthals. I guess we know so little about co existence of different hominins in Africa. Very hard to say if encounters even happened of course if they did we probably would not know.