The Neanderthal's Necklace 226
| The Neanderthal's Necklace | |
| author | Juan Luis Arsuaga |
| pages | 334 |
| publisher | Four Walls and Eight Windows |
| rating | 9 |
| reviewer | Danny Yee |
| ISBN | 1568581874 |
| summary | a nice introduction to the Neanderthals |
The Neanderthal's Necklace is an engrossing and informative introduction to the Neanderthals, setting them in the context of human evolution and prehistory more generally, and of broader ecological and environmental history. In it Luis Arsuaga touches on anatomy, demographics, systematics, evolutionary psychology, philosophy of mind, and more, but he does so sensibly, not trying to cram in too much and not getting distracted from his basic subject. He does focus on Spain and to a lesser extent on his own digs - he is one of Europe's leading paleoanthropologists - but while his passion for his subject is clear, The Neanderthal's Necklace never becomes autobiographical.
The first two chapters are an account of early human prehistory: the other apes, the various species of Australopithecus and Homo, early toolmaking, and so forth. This includes a brief introduction to systematics. Chapter three continues this with an account of the evolution of the Neanderthals in Europe and our ancestors in Africa, and an overview of their comparative anatomy and morphology.
Two chapters describe the environment in which this happened, presenting a history of the flora, fauna, geology and climate of Spain (and in less detail of Europe) over the last few hundred thousand years. Here Luis Arsuaga brings to life the mountains and forests of Spain, and the cave bears, mammoths, reindeer, and other animals that inhabited them. With bears and hibernation as the link, he goes on to consider the problem of finding enough to eat in this environment, especially in glacial periods. He looks at foraging and hunting (or scavenging) as sources of food, at the development of hunting technology, and at the extinction of many species. A chapter on demographics and life histories then explains how the archaeological record is used to estimate population densities, life expectancies, and so forth for both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.
Luis Arsuaga includes just a little bit of abstract philosophy of mind in an overview of debates over consciousness, sentience, language, and their evolutionary origins; he argues that Neanderthals had language and self-awareness, but lacked our more advanced symbolic abilities and vocal anatomy; evidence for "funerals" or other ritual behaviours is not conclusive. And he reconstructs the contact between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, with the latter's superior tools and social organisation giving them an edge in the last glaciation, and the last Neanderthals living in southern Spain. A brief final chapter recapitulates the story and glances at what came next, at agriculture and domestication.
Only a few rough sketches, graphs and maps are included in The Neanderthal's Necklace: a decent map of Spain is probably the major omission for non-Spanish readers. The publisher of this translation has, rather annoyingly, converted all the units from metric to Imperial, though the subject is surely scientific enough to warrant having left them. And a digression explaining the "grandmother" theory of menopause seems awkwardly "tacked on". Otherwise, there is not much to fault - this is a superb piece of popular science, one that does justice to its fascinating subject.
If you enjoyed this review, you might like to check out Danny's other paleoanthropology and popular science reviews. You can purchase The Neanderthal's Necklace from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Rumours (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Rumours (Score:1)
Re:Rumours (Score:2, Funny)
Stupid assumptions (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:3, Insightful)
Why don't people want to accept it? The two examples I gave wear real ones (Walking With Dinosaurs - BBC and Walking With Beasts - also BBC) We don't know what colour dinosaurs were! We don't know how good the eyes of Australopithecus were! Yet I see this kind of thing all the time, sprinkled with the occasional "DEADLY gamma rays!"
Come on, wake up people. You're being fed nonsense by those who won't admit they're guessing.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:1)
The Walking With X series is a dramatization of a modern nature show using the best available facts. I think you're taking it way too seriously. You might as well criticize Jurassic Park.
If you have any other examples, I'd be interested to know what they are. Otherwise, you have simply jumped to a broad, unfounded conclusion about "most pre-history books and television shows" from a single work of science fiction. That may explain people's reaction.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:3, Insightful)
One might as well just say, "hey, they're lies! Don't criticise them for being untrue!"
Jurassic park is different, it has no pretentions of being accurate. That really is sci-fi, and not a "science show". I was surprised to hear that these shows are being shown in schools and set as homework. The issue is more important than might be realised at first.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2, Insightful)
I have an excellent explanation. This quote makes you sound like a stupid creationist who can't handle the idea that people make guesses, then support their guesses with evidence. Now, the natural history programs are often guilty of presenting guesses that don't have a lot of evidence as guesses that have so much evidence that they are almost certainly true.
But grandly waving your arm and declaring that we are all "being fed nonsense by those who won't admit they're guessing" is a dangerous exaggeration and an unwarranted generalization.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
Sounds like most of that is editorializing (Score:2)
It's hardly the scientist's fault that journalists desperate for an eyecatching headline often leave out the qualifications on the educated guesses.
& journalists certainly know that DEADLY GAMMA RAYS sell more papers/video tapes than discussions of mtDNA and genetic drift...
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:3, Insightful)
I remember seeing a show recently on the people who built the Pyramids (sorry, don't remember the name of the show). When you got right down to it, the entire show was trying to back the hypothesis or pet theory of some egyptologist that the workers were not slaves. The actual facts and evidence presented was not an awful lot, but what was theorised on the basis of this evidence was also presented as fact.
One of the best documentaries I have seen that didn't do this (again on the egyptians) was a multi-part doco on great egyptians. I forget the name of the presenter (he was an american), but he gave what I thought was a completely unbiased view of the situation. He was quite prepared to say "this is what we think it means
I wonder how much of this is down to the presenters themselves? For example, David Attenborough always seems to be more than ready to acknowledge that other people are the experts and that he is just the presenter, even though it is obvious he is very knowledgeable on the subject himself. But then again, he isn't pushing some pet theory and trying to get research funding - he seems to be more interested in getting others excited about the natural world.
It's all about money (surprise, surprise) (Score:2)
In order for documentaries to get good ratings on TV, they have to be interesting to the usual neanderthal watching TV, which means they have to have lots of pictures and definitive, easy answers. Thinking and talking heads lose viewers, costs ratings, and somebody isn't making money.
I especially *love* when the show B&W silent movie footage, especially the stuff with the old frame rates, set, say, in ancient Rome. I wonder how many people presume its footage from ancient Rome..
And then there's *making* a documentary. First you have to hire a bunch of really smart people to provide input, a couple of writers to tie it all together both with accuracy and interest, as well as figuring out how to provide visuals for subjects and places that pre-date photos. All of that is *very* expensive and has a limited amount of financial return.
"Modern" documentaries that involve contemporary subjects are usually either propaganda (eg, "The Navy Aircraft Carrier") or politically unpopular, so we don't see them.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:1)
The point I was trying to make was that in the show I saw (I really wish I could remember it, but even googling doesn't ring any bells) very few facts were presented. I have an open mind so to me, as someone who knows nothing of ancient egypt and as a scientist/researcher myself, I want to know the facts and evidence and how this leads to a certain conclusion. I also want to know why it is that conclusion X is a better explanation than conclusion Y. But the show that I saw presented very little evidence and, to me anyway, did not prove the conclusions. As a result, I thought that the conclusions were simply what someone thought being presented as absolute fact.
And this, unfortunately, happens far more often than it should. If something does not prove absolutely a conclusion, then don't try and present it as such. There is a difference between proving and supporting a hypothesis.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, once you start talking about 'assumptions' you come perilously close to invoking creationist arguments about scientists only guessing and really having no idea what they're talking about.
Now, the natural history programs would do a lot to advance people's understanding of how science works if they talked a bit about the evidence and support behind the different ideas they talk about. Also, when they talk about speculative ideas that don't yet have a lot of supporting evidence, they should mention that are much closer to speculation than a theory well backed by mountains of evidence.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:3, Interesting)
I know it's sci-fi and not science, but I've always wondered about the T-Rex's vision in the JP books and movies. In the first, for example, Dr. Grant and the kids stand perfectly still and the Rex lowers his head to about a meter from them, and doesn't see them.
The argument put forth in the movie and the book is that the Rex's vision is movement-based, like our peripheral vision is. Is this another case about theory being presented as fact? I really don't see how fossilized bones will give any indication of vision.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
I'll have an extra helping of OT with extra cheese, please....
The argument put forth in the movie and the book is that the Rex's vision is movement-based, like our peripheral vision is. Is this another case about theory being presented as fact? I really don't see how fossilized bones will give any indication of vision.
Even more ludicrous is the notion that somehow the hunting behavior of the velociraptor can be divined from the fossil record. However, IIRC, that was just in the movie. In the book, I think this was unknown until they started breeding the raptors in captivity on the island. (Then, of course, the visiting scientists learned this during the tour before AHBR.)
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not?
We have fossils of velocirapots, so we know their mass, natural weaponery, and their dental structure. Given an incrediably well preserved fossil, we can even get a look at what muscles were used most (by attachment marks on the bone.)
We have hatcheries - which means we know how many would congregate at hatching time, which is some insight into their social structure.
We know what type of species were possible prey in that area, and given teeth and claw marks (or even teeth and claws broken off) on prey, we can know what species were prey.
Given all that, and what we know about how modern predators hunt, I don't think the hunting behavior is really that much of an extrapolation.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:3, Insightful)
Different regions of the brain handle different tasks.
People have extremely good 3-D color vision. The vision part of the brain, at the back, takes up nearly half the brain mass.
The T Rex has an enourmous olfactory bulb, and a larg nose. She had tiny eyes on the side of his face (no stereoscopic vision) and small visual area. She probably didn't see well. Predators like her today only see motion.
That's why camouflage and the freeze response in prey animals work so well. That makes them invisible, as far as the predator is concerned. But, they are still smellable.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2, Insightful)
Hearing doesn't really help you in determining which plants are safe to eat, so that leaves only sight.
Nocturnal primates are usually color-blind, have huge eyes, and have good night-vision. Day-time primates have eyes about our size, and *color vision*. If you eat fruit, and you aren't using smell, you need color vision, or you eat something poisonous.
Of course, these aren't assumptions, but good hypotheses.
Not necessarily stupid (Score:2)
More generally, you are IMHO correct in that TV paleontology doesn't make the point that "a lot of this is guesswork backed by varying degrees of evidence" well enough. However, you can't expect them to stop every 30 seconds and say "well, we're fairly sure this is true, but this is a guess, whilst this fact is a definite maybe ....".
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
I understand from your context that you mean genetically? In that case it's news to me. Can you point to some real examples from serious sources (as opposed to bad popularization of science, badly written school-books, etc...)?
We often point to our technological advances as evidence, and yet, an objective view at history shows that we have either changed very little or have in fact degraded in our level of intelligence
There is absolutely no reason (from either an evolutionary or creationist standpoint) to believe our intelligence has either improved or degraded recently (in the last 10000 years). There is little historical evidence that shows that intelligent people have more and healthier offspring than unintelligent people. On the other hand, technology has improved immensely, mostly as a result of more people working to develop it.
In ancient times, it took 9 out of 10 people just to produce enough food to feed everyone. That left 1 in 10 to be the leaders, shopkeepers, merchants, and inventors. [snip] Contrast that to day where 1 in 10 people are involved in agriculture freeing 90% of the population (and a much larger population than the ancient world) to lead, run business, and develop new technology. Add onto this the fact that we are developing new technology based on a huge library of research and discoveries made by previous generations. Have we really improved all that much?
In a word, yes. Today we have computers, cellphones, cars, airplanes, satelites, refrigerators, frozen food, elictrical lighting and heating, tap-water, radio, tv, cures for most diseases, personal freedom, democracy, washing machine, cheap swedish furniture and lots of other things that have improven our life immensely and wasn't even imaginable in the past.
In fact, many belive the medicine in the ancient world was far supperior to that of today due to a deeper understanding of how the body heals naturally (modern medicine is often very invasive).
Many people believe many things, even wrong things. But you can easily judge the validity of the argument yourself. Next time you have a heart-attack, would you rather go to your local hospital, or some ancient babylonian surgeon (if he was still alive)? Or perhaps you would prefer a medieval treatment with leeches? It is certainly less intrusive than most modern medicine! Of course, we must never forget the effectiveness of a shaman with his mask and dance.
Now, back to the topic at hand, many assumptions are made about "primitive" man based on what? What evidence is actually available to make the claims that hunting/gathering predated agriculture... especially by the thousands of years proposed.
We can look at existing "primitive" civilizations like native americans, native australians, eskimos, lapps, etc.
We can also use reason. Agriculture requires more knowledge and specialization than hunter-gatherer-nomade life does.
Personally, I find it highly unlikely that it took 25,000 years (look at the number again and consider how much has happened in the last 1000) for people to figure out that agriculture might be a good idea.
There are many things I find unlikely that are still true. For example I find it unlikely that an ant can carry 50 times its own weight. In this case I do not know the numbers, or where you got them from, but typically such numbers would be based on something that is more trustworthy than your hunch, such as C14 dating techniques.
Yet, because evolution must be true, history is proposed with the same concept: start with very basic, primitive technology and as humans "evolve" to become more intelligent, their technology improves.
Again, you are completely wrong. There is no serious scientist that would even imagine to propose that humans "evolve" to learn agriculture. Agriculture is an idea that evolves in a human society, it is not an instinct that appears only in certain kinds of people (i.e: white, black, but not native americans...)
Like I said, I am biased in my own views, but I wanted to bring up these issues to show the problems with our current theories.
You may be biased, but more importantly, you are wrong. The only thing you have shown, is that you have a complete, total, misunderstanding, not just when it comes to the theory of evolution, but when it comes to history, natural history, and common sense.
I am very curious about where you got hold of this kind of misinformation. I find it hard to believe that you have been deliberatly misinformed all your life. You might not have been taught much of this, if you come from a stupid backwards creationist shithole, but if you are interested enough in it to actually pose questions, you should at least try to learn something before you critisize.
And before you insist to spread more of your misunderstandings, you should as a good creationist have a look at this page [answersingenesis.org] (which is written by and for creationists).
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
I can't remember having called you anything. Could you please show me an example of me being unfair to you?
My point about history is that the modern view is skewed along the same lines of evolutionary thought.
As I stated above. No, it isn't. It's you who have a misunderstanding of history, not history who have a misunderstanding of evolution. What you are essentially doing is projecting your misunderstanding on to respected scientists, instead of correcting your own views.
Because man evolved from more primitive roots, he must have had a very primitive culture because the higher intelligence had not yet developed.
As I said above, no respected scientist believes that today. I have never heard this claim from anyone but you. And if it was true, that would mean that eskimos and native americans would be less intelligent than europeans, which no study have been able to show to date.
The problem is that history shows that mankind has been very intelligent from the beginning. He did not develop into his current intellectual state.
Yes, history shows no sign of radical increases or decreases in overall human intelligence. However, there is a difference between history and natural history. For example, amoeba is less intelligent than humans.
My point in "have we improved" is a question of our current physical condition. For example, would the average Egyptian be more intelligent, less intelligent, or of the same intelligence as a person from today once their technological and educational experiences are equal.
There exist very little reason to think there would be any difference (beyond natural variation), and I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who actually think so.
History, as it is currently taught, has the underlining belief that mankind, not just the technology, has improved. This is the issue that I was discussing.
NO, it does not. Again, I must ask where you get these crazy ideas from? There is to my knowledge no historists who would even think of claiming that intelligence should somehow improve among humans in a normal society.
Furthermore, you should stop projecting your own misunderstanding on others. If you want the name-calling to stop, you'd better put forward arguements that are somewhat based on reality, and this one which you keep mentioning despite my previous post, and link, is utterly and completely wrong.
Furthermore, the issue of "evolving" agriculture is actually central to evolution if you think about it.
No, it is not. Evolution concerns itself with changes in organisms. And while the human is an organism, the beginnings of agrigulture is as relevant to the theory of evolution as the radical change of the roman empire from a multi-religious society to a christian one. In other words, not at all.
What animals use agriculture to get food?
Most likely some insects (depending on what you mean by agriculture of course). Probably others. And of course humans.
Where did this concept come from?
From someone really hungry? Your guess is as good as mine. But really, it isn't that much of a stress to imagine someone really enjoying plant X starting to grow them.
While this is not questioned for homo sapiens, it is certainly an issue when looking at pre-historic man. Much talk about pre-historic man involves the development of tools and methods due to increased intelligence.
Ok, if this was what you were trying to say all the time, I agree. Much talk about pre-historic man is bonkers, and have nothing to do with science, and everything to do with sensationalism. And of course, humans have an odd desire to want to feel superior to everything, so usually we portray or descendants as very stupid, despite any historic evidence to support it.
Unfortunately we know very little of pre-historic man, but considering the similarity of neandertals (homo sapiens neandertalitis) and modern man (homo sapiens sapiens), it would be hard to say that there could really have been much of a difference.
In fact, we don't even descend from neandertals according to modern canon. Instead, both neandertals and us descend from an earlier version of homo sapiens. As such, we could easily cross-breed. Chances are, it was more of a cultural divide, than a racial one, much like blacks and whites in USA. And if you are curious, the neandertals had larger brains than us (not that that necessarily implies better intelligence).
My point here is that we have allowed the concept that man had to have come from very primitive backgrounds distort our view of what humanity is.
Huh?
Why do we not see long periods of a more primitive written language?
Because paper rots?
Many of the eariest writings show very advanced thought and complex language structures.
News to me. Could you be more specific?
Why do we not see the most rudimentary math slowly improve over time as the intellect of the species leading up to homo sapiens improved?
I assume you mean, why arent't we better than ancient cultures in doing arithmetic in our heads? First of, we are. Things like fractions and the number zero are both pretty new inventions (and the decimal point system is even more recent). We have a much better educational system. And we have a much bigger need for it in our daily life (while ancient cultures also had a monetary system, surely "shopping" was not the main hobby of 80% of their teenagers).
Secondly, you continue to persist in your totally unfounded view that someone actually believe that intelligence must have increased throughout the history of civilization. I have said it before, and I am saying it again: Nobody believes that! I repeat: Nobody! Now, can you repeat with me: Nobody! And so on...
PS: It appears to me that you have a deep-founded misunderstanding when it comes to understanding the scale of things. History does not care about neandertals, cro-magnon, or any other beings from before they were possible to study.
History cares about those civilisations we can actually find out things about, and this requires at least archaeologic remnants of buildings and artifacts used, and preferably written texts. While it is possible (although perhaps not likely) that the neandertals excelled in solving partial differential equations, and became extinct because the females preferred education and career before family, we have no way of knowing it. The evolution of man is in pre-history, not history.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
Ahh, the genesis device... Probably the episode in the original series that managed to put in the most bad science per minute.
And the endless arguments between Picard and Q about the humans having "evolved" past violence and aggressive behaviour.
I'm sure there are newer examples as well...
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
The difference between using the bible as a frame of reference to using science to attempt to discover answers, is that science has observable evidence at it's core. It exists only to find the best answers to observable phenomena. Individual scientists may discount the bible, but science itself does not. The scientific approach to the bible as a source of evidence is that using the bible relies on a faith in the existance of an entity which, but definition, is not observable, and therefore outside of the realm of science.
Science does not seek to disporve the bible, it merely seeks to explain observed pheneomena. If there are conflicting theories, then science will not side with the bible for the reasons I mentioned above.
Your points are interesting insofar as they may help someone confirm or deny the existance of a specific god, and this is defniately very important to some people, but it really has very very little to do with science. The scientific method is exact and specific and your points really lie outisde of it. While interesting to sum, they should never be confused with science.
I am bit excited at this point, becasue it seems that I have the attention of a serious creationist. And there is something I have always wanted to ask a creationist, which is, why and how are you able to place such trust in the bible? How do you know it is divine inspired, and what grounds do you have for placing your trust in this book, and thus shaping your entire point of view and way of life around it? This is not a piss-take, I realy realy want to know the answer to this.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
This is all very interesting, I have heard similar arguments before, but not in as much detail. Thanks for sharing this with me. One thing that I am still curious about however is why your belief in the bible neccesitates taking the words literaly rather than seeing parts of the bible as metaphore. As a creationist you must believe that Genesis is an exact account of history, which I am curious about. After all these texts were written several thousand years ago, they were collected from an existing, previously oral, tradition and were inscribed as dogma for the hebrew people. What reason do you have for believing them to be factual and literal historical records?
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
In the case of college courses, it would be nice of you to point out the error (although, never claim to be a creationist, unless necessary). At college level, you expect the teacher to not misinform the students.
I'm not sure about what to do about popular media. If it is science-fiction like Star-Trek, we will have to live with it. If it's an actual science show, it would probably be the best if someone pointed out the error.
though some people try to read in evolutionary changes in the "progress" they see in society.
Yes, there are many people who have no idea of science, yet speak of it loudly. Maybe I've been so accustomed to them that I never listen anymore.
As someone who really believe in the bible, you will undoubtedly know the same problem there. Jesus was born in a crib, but there is no reason to believe he was born in a stable. Angels are dressed in white, but there is no reason to believe they have wings (as commonly portrayed). And the devil would popularly be portrayed as someone with goat legs, horns, dragon tail, etc... On the other hand, he is also called the tempter, and it's likely to assume he would put on a more effective look than that most of the time. These are just obvious examples that even an atheist can see, but doubtless you are aware of many more, and perhaps as guilty as I am of ignoring bad science, in ignoring bad theology.
but merely to point out potential flaws in our view of the past 10,000 - 25,000 years of human culture. Even the methods at which we have placed dates for the human development may be considerably wrong. On the same token, the commonly held belief (among creationists) in a 6500 year old earth may prove to be wrong as well.
Undoubtedly, our current knowledge or human evolution and pre-history is lacking. But the dating techniques themselves seem sane enough, being in the right timespan for C14 methods. There's more a question of understanding exactly what we have dated.
The creationist 6500 year old earth has absolutely no scientific basis at all. Creationists occasionally have some good arguments against what science is preaching (you should really study the link I gave you, it's great), but their alternative is immensely more stupid and hopeless (not to mention unscientific). If you believe the earth is 6500 years old, you should also believe that God created it with a much older history just to fool us.
While I believe the 7-day creation of the earth, there still remain many questions as to exactly how everything progressed from there.
I've always felt unsure about why creationists insists on reading exactly this part of the bible the most literally. It seems obvious to me that if you are going to interpret any passage in the bible, this would be the one to start with.
There are many question marks even within the Bible, especially in regards to giants, the Nephiim, the "Sons of God", etc., that I believe are worth looking into.
Yes, I believe that much of the mythical material in the bible is undervalued. It's much more fun to read about Sodoma and Gomorra, than about Jesus feeding 5000. Especially, much of the stuff in the old testaments have obvious paralells to other cultures and myths.
We may find that there is much knowledge to share on both sides of the camp, and the truth may very well lie between what both sides how as their absolute truths.
No, we will not. You see, science is not interested in the bible. So even if the bible actually has the truth, it would do us no good. On the other hand, because of science's strong position in modern society, christians need science (in earlier days, the pope could simply declary it wrong, and people would follow, today that is impossible). The only thing science can get from the bible is an insight into human psychology while trying to understand the reason for it's popularity.
I am not trying to make a conversion here or anything. I am merely trying to point out that there are some interesting things that might be gained from the Bible if it is not catagorically dismissed, and likewise, all of the scientific discoveries, evolutionary or otherwise, should not be thrown out either.
No, unfortunately for creationists, looking for answers in the bible is the opposite of science. It doesn't matter how correct predictions it makes, how you can "interpret" the discrepancies away, etc. Science must ignore the bible, if it is to remain science. The only thing that matters in science is whether our theories contradicts observed phenomena.
That doesn't mean that creationists aren't allowed to try to combine science and reason with religion. But they should not expect any help from the scientific community, beyond actually producing more science.
I believe there is a lot of common ground that can be researched if we keep a somewhat open mind.
Yes, the common ground is to work together, and find holes in each other thinking. This should be done through experiments, and there is no reason why experimenters can be both scientists and creationists. Most creationists are exceedingly bad at receiving such critiques, and like ufologists, would keep on repeating the same old wrong arguments infinitely. That is why I gave you an interesting link.
The natural result of that is that anyone debating with creationists will immediately think he is debating with someone insisting on repeating the same old wrong arguments (which for example you have done in this debate). Therefore creationists will not be taken seriously.
However, if creationists start preaching something that is consistent with science, avoid bad arguments, and stop behaving like ufologists, then maybe we would start listening.
This is where, getting back to the article, it would be nice to actually see all of the evidence. While the current theory may be vastly flawed, the actual evidence could help develop the next, more accurate theory.
Yes, getting the final truth would be nice. Unfortunately, wishful thinking doesn't help in this case.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
The thing that you don't seem to get is that the ancient babylonians and egyptians were not any different to us, and no one ever claimed they were. We know about these people because they left behind large structures among other things, so obviously they already understood complex mathematics and engineering practices. So its like your saying: "I know of a civilisation a few thousand years old that was capable of complex thought, mathematics, agriculture, engineering, etc, and they were not less evolved than us, and Ithe proof is that they were capable of complex thought, mathematics, agriculture, engineering, etc,". I mean, so what? I know of these people who lived like 200 years ago and they were capable of complex thought, mathematics, agriculture, engineering, etc, so that proves humans have not evolved right?
Theres something you need to understand about the evolutionary model. Its not like this continual ladder that starts with bacteria and climbs up to humans. A sinlge species does not evolve to be a better species, what happens in that species diferentiate and change to adapt better to their environment. Its all about environmental stress. You might even be correct to say that humans were more advanced a few thousand year ago, even if you are (and we really can't proves this one way or the other) that has nothing to do with disproving evolution. It could well be that the environment favours less intelligent humans, and they tend to survive and have more offspring, thus over several thousand years overall intellignece has declined. This is still evolution.
Another factor that you seem to not have grasped is that the ancient cultures you are refering to really are the exact same species of animal that we are today. So there is no reason to think that their intelligence would be any different to ours. If you want to compare humans to an ancient culture, try Australopithecus (not sure about spelling there). There you got a seriously different species. Let's see your claims that these guys were more or just as advanced than us.
You arguments are illogical on many levels, I have just shown 2 here. I don't have any problem with you believing in creation, but don't make the mistake of trying to use science against itself. Admit that your method of determining truths is different to that of science, and don't try to rationalise a faith-based system, it just doesn't work.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
I apologize if this is what was implied, for it is certainly not what I believe -- quite the contrary. I believe there has only ever been one race of man. The concept of de-evolution as it were is merely an interesting thought to me rather than a conviction. If we are getting dumber, it could easily be a problem of culture or society as opposed to changes in the species.
OK, well this really was not clear in your other posts. You seem to have lumped human history with evolution
My point is basically that I cannot really see any evidence of some of the language structure, mathematics, etc. in pre-historic man, and then suddenly, we have complex writing structures (for example, the library of Ebla in cuneiform (sp?)) and mathematics. Historians are frequently being surprised at the level of technology and understanding that existed in many of the ancient cultures, most of whose knowledge was lost in invasions and intellectual purges that we humans seem to be so fond of.
It is not surprising that cultures that we know of mainly through the artifacts that they left behind, show a certain amount of knowledge, since these cultures must have had such knowledge in order to leave behind these artifacts. Also there is current anthropological evidence, as well as historical evidence of cultures that are based on a purely aural tradition and do not have writing, yet still have sophisticated cultures. So really what you are saying is that the existance of written materials sheds some doubt over the fact that humans existed for a reasonable period of time before such practices were developed, which really is a false claim.
I do not see this as a rationalization of a "faith-based system", but rather as a question concerning where humans came from. We have ages of time in which no progress happened, and then suddenly, and in an alarmingly short period of time according to the evolutionary scale, in which humans have flourished and innovated. This is what seems very strange to me. If I remember my history correctly, homo sapiens first "appeared" around 35,000 BC, and the first civilizations that we acknowledge in history formed around 10,000 BC. My point is that there are 25,000 years (that actually is a very long period of time) in which homo sapiens, people very much like you and me, did nothing by hunting and gathering with no development of language, culture or intellectual pursuits beyond a few rough pictures in caves? Perhaps this was lost in the wars and purgings that I mentioned above, but surely something must have survived. Would we really have wasted so much time with no real discernable progress at all?
I can't discuss the dates with you as I don't know for sure if they are correct or not. However even if these dates are correct, there is no reason whatever to believe that civilisation suddenly sprang into being 10,000 years ago with no development of language, culture or intelectual pursuits beforehand. This is a topic which is way to huge for a thread on slashdot, but, lets take one example here to refute your claim. Look the the native Australians, up until 220 year ago, they had no written traditions, they had no technology more advanced than sticks and stones, they had no permanent dwellings, yet what they did have was a rich cultural heritage, advanced languages and a phenomenal understanding of their environment, to the point where they could manage to easily survive in places considered uninhabitable by the europeans. What is even more amazing is that they had all this knowledge without a formal writen language. Now you could look at their way of life and imagine humans having lived in such a way quite easily 30 or 40 thousand years ago. The fact that such a culture can exist at the same time as the culture of the british who colonised the country shows that there is no relation between time-lines and the civilisation that you refer to. Esentialy, it is pointless to look at the beginings of the history of writing and equate this with an apparent leap in ability of a comunity to develop, hhumans can develope their culture without writing, without stone masonry, and without aggriculture. What writing does do, is improve communication, which allows concepts to be shared more easily, and thus helps technology advance. We can see this in the present day where tchnology is proceeding at amazing speeds, on account of the amazing comunication abilities we posess. To sum this all up, it is false to think that technological advancement is the only way to measure the cultural or intelectual development of individuals or groups of individuals.
I guess that is the main thrust of my question, and it is why I have a problem with the current view of our early history. It makes me wonder if purhaps there could be errors with our dating methods and the assumptions made in generating the time-table that is currently taught in history corriculum.
What I think is more likely than errors in current dating methods, is that there are errors in your logic. While I generaly think it is great to challenge conventional wisdom, I also think that it is better to do this with an informed and rational approach. Not to say that you are totaly un-informed and irrational, but I think that there are some large holes in your arguments that you may not have noticed.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
I would say that the error is more likely in your assumption that writing is a relatively easy thing to figure out how to do, especially for a people who move around chasing animals and/or following naturally ripening fruit.
Instead, I would say it's more likely that ability to read and write complex ideas is probably the most difficult thing humans ever learned how to do, & folks would probably not even begin such a task until they had discovered numerous other technologies (like how to make a knife out of a rock) that sound simple until you actually try them.
Seems to me that 25,000 years is not very long at all for folks to take to invent writing, especially since one generation would have a pretty hard time telling the next generation everything they had learned until they had come up with a decent alphabet.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
A good book to read on the subject is Stephen J. Gould's Wonderful Life, where he examines the idea of progressivism, and shows that often more specialized, highly evolved species are the ones that die out when the environment changes, while more "primitive", less advanced species are often better able to adapt their less specialized bodies and behaviors to changing environment.
As far as progress in human history, many things do seem to have improved, but this is an example of the evolution of ideas, which, once writing came along, could be transmitted and improved on in each generation.
But you are correct on one point, most of the evidence appears clear that humans have not become more intelligent in the past 100,000 years or so, & since are brain size is limited by the size of a woman's pelvis it's not likely we will get any more intelligent, at least not until we stop reproducing through live birth:-).
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
Because the species leading up to homo sapiens almost certainly did not have mathematics
Much of modern mathematics was developed by the great civilizations such as the Greeks, Romans, et al. That is why there are a lot of Greek symbols in mathematics, and why we have things with names such as the Pythagorean Theorem (named after Pythagoras).
A civilization must grow beyond the point where the sole concern is mere survival before abstract concepts such as mathematics and things like written language and science can develop. Why do you think the tribes living in the jungles of Africa haven't developed advanced mathematics or science? Because they have to spend the majority of their time just trying to stay alive.
Why do we not see long periods of a more primitive written language?
While it is certainly true that there would have been many primitive languages in the history of the world, most of them were probably purely spoken languages. We can deduce this becuase most of the primitive languages that are still around have no written form. IIRC, the barbarians who brought the western Roman empire to an end had no written language.
That is why you do not see long periods of a more primitive written language. English didn't have a written form until a long time after it was "invented". Languages need to reach a certain level before transitioning into written form: both the language and the people speaking it need to become sophisticated and complex enough to make it worth writing things down in the first place.
Re:Stupid assumptions (Score:2)
Here is a list of fossil evidence for australopithecines [utb.edu], and here is some pics of Australopithecus skulls [peachnet.edu]. Make of it what you will.
confusion (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:confusion (Score:1)
normaly you see two differnet individuals
whos childs can not mate as belonging to
different spices.
It seems like the neandertahls did not have
children with homo sapiens but people differ
in their opinions.
Re:confusion (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to find out more you could look at Neanderthals and Modern Humans [neanderthal-modern.com]. It explains who neanderthals where and what posibly hapened to them.
Re:confusion (Score:1)
Neanderthal as distinct species (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure those who disagree could give a cogent counter argument, but i don't work on evolution, so i can't.
Cheers,
Jay
Re:confusion about Neandertals (Score:5, Informative)
- Neandertals no longer exist, and their distinguishing physical characteristics (projecting midface, occipital bun, small mastoid processes) no longer appear at appreciable frequencies in recent people. However, some Neandertal characteristics (horizontal-oval mandibular foramen, suprainiac fossa, lambdoidal flattening) do occur in the Europeans who directly follow Neandertals, indicating to many scientists that their genes were swamped by immigration from outside Europe, rather than being replaced by it.
- Neandertal mtDNA sequences from ancient bones lie as an outgroup to those of recent people. To many scientists this is evidence of their distinctiveness. However, their mtDNA does not differ from that of living people to the extent that chimpanzee subspecies differ from each other, and the evolutionary pattern of mtDNA in living people may reflect recent selection on the molecule rather than the spread of a distinct non-Neandertal people.
- Neandertals are different from their contemporaries and distinguishable by many anatomical criteria, interpreted by some scientists as evidence they did not interbreed with their contemporaries. However, the level of differences has not been shown to indicate a great genetic difference (for example greater than that among living human geographic groups), and it is clear that these differences could have arisen even without any isolation of Pleistocene Europe.
So for these reasons, the debate about Neandertal relationships continues.I don't get it (Score:1, Offtopic)
Did you know? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure that a great number of slashdotters have studied anthropology or related topics previously, but for those not "in the know", the word "Neanderthal" is pronounced with a hard "T" (as in "tall"), not a "th" sound as in "thought".
Take a look at Merriam-Webster's pronunciation .wav file [m-w.com] -- they've got it right.
Pronouncing it correctly will show others you're a bit more educated -- saying it incorrectly, and the anthro-geeks will roll their eyes. ;)
Re:Did you know? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Did you know? (Score:1)
interesting one, How correct is german
pronunciation of foreign areas???
Re:Did you know? (Score:1)
So, they might know a bit better how to pronounce that..
I've listened to my GF and her other anthrogeek friends yammer on about this.. but I will double check with her when she gets out of class.
Re:Did you know? (Score:1)
Re:Did you know? (Score:1)
enough americans pronounce it wrong and
it will be the accepted "right".
Biology is full of "american" latin
-- so why should it not spread to other
languages too!
Re:Did you know? (Score:1)
paleolithic man (Score:4, Informative)
There's still a LOT of debate in the anthropological/archaeological community about the evolution tree of modern humans. Originally it was thought that it was a simple straight line of evolution from ape like 'missing links' to modern humans.
These days there's a lot more in the middle there.
Neanderthals may or may not be related to modern humans, as the time period when they existed has a very jumbled fossil record. There are at least 3 distinct human-like species (or sub species) from this era, and as one poster already refered to, they may have been able to interbreed.
There's way too much going on still in trying to sort this all out, so for now just be happy thinking that these may or may not be humanity's ancestors.
Because we don't know the truth yet.
Re:paleolithic man (Score:2)
These days there's a lot more in the middle there.
Indeed, and what concerns me in particular is this quote:
This seems really unlikely to me. Given that we're only talking a few hundred thousand years, I don't think that's enough time to really make significant changes to the brain, unless simply a bigger brain gave us more capability. I think it's much more likely that the "big change" that gave us sentience and self-awareness came a long time ago, and then we got a large number of branches until things got fine-tuned enough to give us the advantage over everyone else.
On the other hand (and this is where I contradict my last statement), maybe it took one key random change to give us such an overwhelming advantage that we were able to wipe everyone else out.
Maybe you can tell me this... does the fossil record seem to indicate that there were a lot of human variations milling around until Boom! they all went extinct, or does it look like a long, gradual process? Or do we simply don't have enough evidence to make the call?
Re:paleolithic man (Score:2)
It's not like there was one point where it suddenly branched in 5 directions, one of which became us. It was a gradual thing, a new one here, a million years later another new species while one or both of the previous two were dying out... etc.
It was a rather gradual process. naturally there were boom times and slim times, but it's a natural process after all.
That answer your question a bit?
Re:paleolithic man (Score:2)
As for the brain case size issue, that's even more difficult to determine, as there is no soft tissue left with any of these remains. Size and shape of the brain case varied immensely, and the larger brain cases didn't seem to help, as the neanderthals showed.
So size and shape varied greatly and from all we can tell at this point, had no impact on the success of a species.
Re:paleolithic man (Score:2)
The Neanderthals were probably a little bit less smart than Cro-magnons or Homo Sapiens, judging by the fact that surviving tools that they made are less complex. It is very possible (and probably likely) that small changes in the Homo Sapien throat and jaw structure, accompanied with small changes in brain structure, resulted in a big difference. It isn't the sheer size of the brain that matters, but proportions: the bigger the brain in proportion to the body, the smarter the animal usually is. This is because, by increasing the brain-to-body-size ratio, there would be more brain percentage for things besides motor function, involuntary function, etc., such as thinking. If you look at all the "smart" animals, such as gorillas, dolphins, etc., you'll find that their brains are very large, proportionally speaking.
Re:paleolithic man (Score:2)
Of course, a large part of it DOES have to do with how much of a species' brain is devoted to vocalizing. But even if you were somehow able to put a human brain in a dog and keep it alive, it wouldn't be able to talk.
On the issue of sentience: Neanderthals were almost certainly self-aware. Many species of primate besides homo sapiens are self aware, such as gorillas and orangutans. We primates don't hold the monopoly on self-awareness, either; dolphins also seem to posess this quality (and possibly other species, I'm not sure).
Neandertal's exist... (Score:4, Funny)
Neanderthals? like me? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Neanderthals? like me? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Neanderthals? like me? (Score:2)
last thinkers (Score:1)
I have done extensive research with Neanderthals (Score:5, Funny)
I played 3 years of high school football.
Re:I have done extensive research with Neanderthal (Score:2)
Shouldn't you be out driving a pickup, cussin', drinking, huntin', chewing tobaccy, and yelling at women and small children?
Neanderthals and grandma: more digression (Score:4, Informative)
The "grandmother" theory says that women, after they stop having kids of their own, can keep building up "gene survival points" by helping to raise their grandkids.
Researchers who tried to test this idea found just what they expected--for maternal grandmothers. A baby whose maternal grandmother is alive is more likely to survive infancy than one whose maternal grandmother is dead.
Strangely, your father's mother has the opposite effect, according to a boatload of evidence. [springer.de] A baby whose father's mother is alive is less likely to survive than one whose father's mother is dead.
None of the research on grandmas involved Neanderthals, though. So, that's enough digression from this interesting book report......
Jared Diamond has a good short page about the Grandmother theory and rival Good Mother theory. [oxford.net]
Re:Neanderthals and grandma: more digression (Score:3, Funny)
My mother is the worst driver ever. I can subvert this conclusion by not allowing my son to ride in her car. If the Neanderthalls would have thought of this then maybe they'd still be alive.
One was in my high school class.... (Score:1, Funny)
He also acted like most Neanderthals are portrayed in movies....but he could speak english.
This is not a joke. I have the high school year book to prove it.
Christian Fundies (Score:3, Flamebait)
They ignore it. (Score:2, Flamebait)
Most of the Christians in my family simply ignore anthropology, or make cynical comments about it.
Whatever the case they are extremely hesitant to take such evidence seriously enough to give it the thought that it deserves.
Re:They ignore it. (Score:2, Interesting)
Beg pardon? (Score:2)
I don't understand your previous message, specifically when you say that "evolution is the historic context of creation." Can you explain this a little further, please? It sounds interesting.
Re:Christian Fundies (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Christian Fundies (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Christian Fundies (Score:2)
They were simply humans with rickets and/or arthritis. In all honesty, Neanderthals aren't an interesting arguing case, since they are clearly human for most uses of that word. The interesting cases are the ones in the middle, where one creationists points out that it's obviously human and another points out that it's obviously an ape.
Re:Christian Fundies (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have to be smart to go to heaven. God wants folks with enough faith in Him to volunteer to go there. Any deficiencies other than lack of faith, such as education or IQ, He can remedy when you get there.
I am a Christian fundamentalist. The foundation of my faith is that God sent Christ, his son and God incarnate, to pay the price for our sins. Yours too, by the way. Because of that, any of us who want to spend eternity with God can do so. Trivia about exactly how God made us won't change that.
I do believe that the Bible is the word of God, and is True with a capital T. That doesn't mean you can't misinterpret it. The Bible is a How-to for salvation, and there aren't any details in there about anything else.
I think that Genesis is a creation story for the easily satisfied, not God's How-to for creation. Genesis tells us that God made the world, and God made us. Those are the important points, and they are True. The details about how just aren't there.
Psalms (somewhere, can't remember right off) tells us that the sky and the mountains tell of God's creation. That's the story the geologists and astronomers are reading, and that's where God wrote down the details he left out of Genesis. When the ignorant make fun of that, ask them if being wrong would mean that Christ didn't die for them. If they say ``no'', ask them why they are fussing about trivia.
Re:Christian Fundies (Score:2)
Re:Christian Fundies (Score:2)
Good argument. Unfortunately, I'm not Christian -- I don't personally accept the the statement you give as the foundation of your faith. Somehow, I doubt that your response would work well if I tried it myself on Christian fundamentalists who think, in your words, that Genesis is a "How-to for creation".
What do you mean they can't inter breed? (Score:1)
Durc, the offspring of both Ayla, and Broud.
Re:What do you mean they can't inter breed? (Score:2)
Congratulations to Spanish science (Score:1)
For a number of reasons it is hard to do good science in Spain. In short, funding is scarce and it is almost impossible to get a decent contract in a University or research institution. The personal situation of many Ph.D and post-doc students is difficult. It is a truly vocational job.
Therefore, their success is a little bit the success of many others. Again, congratulations !
Arsuaga... (Score:3, Funny)
Is this a suggestion that Arsuaga could have written about the neanderthals in the 1st person?
Spanish names (Score:2)
Re:SLASHDOT... (Score:2, Insightful)
One man's science is another's religon.
No, This is not a troll, although folks will treat it as such.
Science is not a religion (Score:5, Insightful)
[Science]
Assumption 1 + Assumption 2 + Assumption 3 = Conclusion 1.
The scientific method. Take a set of assumptions. Add them together. Come up with a hypothesis. Test that hypothesis with a carefully constructed experiment. Come up with a conclusion based on observing the experiment.
Pretty standard stuff. That's pretty much how human thought works.
But where do the assumptions come from? In science, assumptions are previously-made observations. For instance, "the proton has a positive charge," "hydrogen has an atomic number of 1," "neurons are incapable of regenerating," etc. Experiment after experiment has been run, and these assumptions have been challenged in theory after theory. But they've always held fast.
Thusly, the assumptions or their attendant conclusions become "law." And they remain so until proven otherwise.
[Religion]
Assumption 1 +
Same methodology as with science. Makes sense, considering that's how our minds are built to solve problems.
The difference here is in the nature of the assumptions. In science, as mentioned above, the assumption is merely an observation. However, religion's assumptions are canonical. They are arbitrary, unobserved "observations" that must be taken as fact. If you want to know for sure that "a proton has a positive charge", you can look up hundreds of independent studies that prove it, and how to reproduce that proof. If you want to know that "God created the Earth in 7 days", there's only one place to look. And even that source contradicts itself. (For instance the Yahwist v. Priestly sources in Genesis 1 & 2).
These assumptions remain true, and cannot be proven otherwise, under penalty of toppling the entire system itself. Science has changed continously over its entire existence; its assumptions and conclusions constantly refitted to match the current set of data. Religion has not. The same immutable assumptions have always existed.
So just because Religion and Science follow the same patterns of explanation does not make them so similar. The common thread is of course, they are both used by humans.
But while we're speaking of religion...
If the majority of people were capable of and had the mental fortitude necessary to conducting an honest and critical analysis of their belief systems then the world we live in would be a starkly different place. I think it would be a better place, but maybe not.
Our belief systems serve to shield us from possible realizations that could hinder day to day living or even cause irreparable damage to our mental stability. There are some people that don't need religion, nationalism or any philosophy to buffer them from an understanding of the possible irrelevance of their existence. Then there are those people that fly into a rage at the mere suggestion that some examination of their beliefs may be in order. In between are people who have constructed a very fortified logic loop that they enter when confronted with the fragility of their base assumptions. When asked pointed and illuminating questions they frown or make odd faces realizing that there may be a chink in their armor. Often they just lapse in quoting scripture or other text they see as supporting their justifications.
Now please don't misconstrue what I'm saying into "all indoctrination renders people into sheep." That may or may not be the case. The issue is that by subscribing to a system of belief without serious, SERIOUS questioning of that belief and why we feel the need to cloak our perceptions within it we automatically draw potentially harmful barriers between "Us" and "Them."
Yes, this is a clinical view of the situation. Science itself can be construed as a belief system that serves the purposes I've stated above. But I would argue that the core doctrine of any particular scientific discipline is to look at an aspect of our existence and attempt to discover and explain the true workings behind it. Most religions on the other hand present "The Truth" as "seen" or "understood" by prophets, soothsayers, gods and messiahs. While often comforting, these doctrines often go out of their way to discourage the questioning of "The Truths" they present. To be fair though, the basic doctrine of many religions is a moral code outlining decent and appropriate behavior that is often followed only loosely, if at all, by many of the religion's supposed followers.
There are people who have asked themselves the right questions, have done the deep analysis, and remain strong in their faith and belief. These people are often excellent examples of the better aspects of their belief system. I say more power to them. The problem is that they are the minority. Most people use religion as that crutch, that warm comfy cave that keeps them from having to think too hard about "what it all means." Not everybody is prone to such analysis and that's fine, but when you start using that crutch to beat others over the head you've just made yourself a big part of "the problem."
To paraphrase Martin Luther King, "I can't be who I need to be until you are who you need to be. You can't be who you need to be until I am who I need to be. Let's help each other get there together." The main issue I have with religion is that unless we are very careful we let it tell us what other people need to be. That is a sure recipe for strife and prejudice.
Re:Science is not a religion (Score:1)
2) Science is RESEARCH and EXPERIMENTATION resulting in PROVABLE EXPLANATIONS about the world around us. When you read the rest of this post, don't get me wrong. I love real, old-fashined, provable science (mostly of the physics and astronomy variety, although I am more than happy to read and study ideas and concepts in other fields in a never-ending quest to quench my thirst for knowledge). But I know I can't be the only one who has to suppress the sudden urge to deposit my latest meal on my keyboard every time I see a thread degenerate into mindless bickering.
3) Religion cannot be EXPERIMENTED on and thus is not science. It must be taken based on FAITH, the believing of something unprovable. (Religion is however not without its own merits, such as providing moral codes for decent living which many people are lacking in current times.)
4) On the other side, no matter how much you RESEARCH, evolution cannot be EXPERIMENTED on for the most part either (It is in the realm of history, and is not observably active today; only a few experiments could be performed, such as comparing the DNA of moden men with that of Neanderthals, etc). ASSUMPTIONS can be made based on exhaustive RESEARCH, but at the end of the day they are still just educated ASSUMPTIONS and must be taken on FAITH. (Evolution has some merits as well, in that it causes people--although fewer and fewer it sems--to research and study and question, which may lead to some real scientific discoveries).
5) As both Religion and Evolution cannot be EXPERIMENTED on, both must be taken on FAITH, and neither is truly Science.
6) Since neither Religion or Evolution is Science, everyone is free to believe whatever the hell he pleases, and no matter how much you flame/argue/troll you will never change his mind. The Origins of species, and for that matter, everthing, is in the realm of History, not Science.
7) In light of the above points, just STFU! There's no point to perpetually arguing over non-Science!
Re:Science is not a religion (Score:2)
Evolution in the past can be observed through archaeology. We found skeletons and remains of early humans. It is not like Darwin just got drunk one day and came up with something that he had no precursor to. Dinosaur bones tel us that there were creatures like that and now they do not exist. What does that mean? Evolution. The strongest have survived the changing conditions, and the strongest do not have to be the biggest.
Anyway, nice troll.
Re:Science is not a religion (Score:1)
Simply put, mutation does not equal evolution. The Chernobyl example cited is simply the result of radiation damaged genes, not evolution.
No true evolution has been observed in microbiology either; the rise of antimicrobial resistant microbes is simply the result of those already resistant microbes surviving and producing more offspring, just like people who are resistant to a disease that kills most others. This is survival of the fittest (a simple, provable fact, not evolution), and can be applied to most any other 'example' of present-day evolution (peppered moths, finch beaks, etc.); all of the 'new' versions already existed, only in smaler numbers.
Extinction is merely a result of the survival of the fittest--the unfit usually die. However, that is reaching into the realm of History, as I stated above. My point is simply that evolution cannot be observed as _CURRENTLY_ occurring (I am not saying that it has not occurred in aeons past).
The purpose of science is to expain the world as it exists today, not how it got here--no matter how much your mind burns to find out the answer to that question.
And no, I am not some crackpot fundamentalist nut-job; I am a humble seeker of scientific fact. As I stated above, Origins are largely unexperimentable and must forever remain in the realm of unproven theories and faiths; as such just let these pointless arguments die.
To roman_mir: Nice troll yourself. Although few people here do, at least TRY to think before you post.
Re:Science is not a religion (Score:2)
I still believe you are trolling
Re:Science is not a religion (Score:2)
Same way you step from dropping a ball from a tower to the force that keeps the moon up there all pretty like.
*sigh* but if the bible said the invisible hand of God kept the moon up, no doubt fundamentalists would try to stop it from being taught until someone orbitted a moon sized mass around an earth sized mass in the lab.
See the same kind of reasoning is used to go from small changes in small amounts of time to big changes in big amounts of time wrt to evolution as wrt gravity, but somehow the folks clamoring that evolution is an assumption don't say the same thing about gravity.
Even though there is certainly as much evidence for the theory of evolution as there is for the theory of gravity.
Why is that?
On the contrary (Score:2)
Observed Instances of Speciation [talkorigins.org]
Some More Observed Speciation Events [talkorigins.org]
Re:Science is not a religion (Score:1)
The most basic problem, though, is the idea that because something happened before, it will happen again. We have no proof for this assertion, and every scientist (and almost every other human) has faith in it. Who's to say that the universe doesn't change it's physical laws randomly, at random times? Maybe there are no constants!
It's easy to dismiss these thoughts. You *have* to to get on with your daily life. You wouldn't be able to do anything with the knowledge that maybe next time you made a sandwich, it would shoot lightening at you. And it would be stupid to do so.
All I'm saying is that there are basic assumptions that all humans take "on faith". A lot of people will laugh and say "well, that's so improbable as to be impossible". But what do we have to hold up that assertion? Our previous experience.
Re:Science is not a religion (Score:2)
Sure, that's what scientists try to do now (ie, predict what to look for), but better simulation techniques will just make their predictions more precise and thus easier to prove or disprove with a real experiment.
Re:Science is not a religion (Score:1, Informative)
Depends who you talk to.. What's wrong with questioning God? Who says you cannot? Sure, a lot of churches and church people don't want to question it, but the Bible actually says that you are supposed to have faith based on knowledge.
Re:Science is not a religion (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, unless I'm misintepreting, you're putting your full trust in it every time you step into a car, fly in an airplane or use the computer ;-) Still, even though the laws of aerodynamics my prove to be "bankrupt" tomorrow, planes still fly.
Moz.
Re:SLASHDOT... (Score:1)
Re:SLASHDOT... (Score:1)
Re:SLASHDOT... (Score:2)
No much if you consider the fact that both have interesting theories on how we came about from nothing..
Religion - A Higher Being created us.
Science - A huge bang in the empty spewed out everything that would eventually evolve into us.
Re:SLASHDOT... (Score:1)
>> as 100% absolute truth that will never change
No, that would have been a fact!
Like for example the value of PI.
Re:What about inter species breeding (Score:3, Interesting)
But enaugh about the bonfies of (scientific) vanity. Geneticists claim they have extracted Homo Sapiens Neandertalis DNA [archaeology.org] from fossils. Now..... some of the people who evaluated these results claim that interbreeding was impossible or at best extremely unlikely. Critics of this assertion point out that if Camels and Guanacos [deccanherald.com] (30-40 million years of genetic isolation) can produce viable hybrid offspring the same should be the case with Homo Sapiens Sapiens and and Homo Sapiens Neandertalis where the Genetic isolation was much, much, smaller. This seems to be born out by evidence from Israel (debated) and especially new discoveries in Portugal [wustl.edu]. Some of the aversion to the possibility of Neandertal/Cromagnong hybrids seems to be almost Eugenic with some people which is probably due to the Neandertals undeserved reputation of being a primitive hominid when, at least in my humble opinion, they fully deserve the title "Sapiens". Personally I would not be at all disappointed to find I had some Neandertal DNA. There is a legion of worse possibilities when it comes to embarrasing ancestors than Neandertals. Feel free to make fun of me for saying that, I'm sure some of you can will not be able to resist it.
Ps. I am not an anthropologist and I may be misusing the term Homo Sapiens Sapiens, these hominids are also sometimes referred to as Homo Sapiens Cromagnon.
Re:What about inter species breeding (Score:2)
The data from Israel, IIRC, is pretty conclusively against the possibility. I remember Binford saying that you have HSS and HSN living in close proximity there for about 90k years with no genetic convergence - a very strong argument for biological incompatibility, over that period of time if it was physically possible for them to interbreed, knowing what we do about human and primate behaviour in general, one would expect to see some serious convergence.
Of course Trinkaus has always claimed the opposite, and periodically come up with evidence he claims supports it, but it was my impression that the only people that find his evidence convincing tend to be the ones who were already convinced.
That said, I'm not current on the debate and there may have been some important developments I'm not aware of. Certainly I think the reasonable expectation is that either Neanderthal and Modern humans were biologically incompatible or they interbred considerably.
Oh, as to your PS I think it's been pretty well settled for decades that Cro Magnon is Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
Re:What about inter species breeding (Score:2)
As for the Israeli matter I wrote of that because I vaguely remembered a huge mudfight about it some years ago. Especially the Mt. Carmel remains. But that polite argument is nothing compared the borderline "shitstorm" (pardon my French, but that letter exchange is hard to discribe other wise) that has been raised about the Portugese remains [talkorigins.org] (aka. Lagar Velho #1). Which is also why I usually prefer to stay out of this debate.
Oh, as to your PS I think it's been pretty well settled for decades that Cro Magnon is Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
Funny that expression is still used, I keep bumping into it one in a while?!? Some people like to live in the past I suppose.
Re:What about inter species breeding (Score:2)
Aww, that wasn't much of a shitstorm, you should have seen some of the exchanges between my two archaeology professors... that was very polite, excepting Trinkaus' reply went a little overboard, but he realised it and yanked it.
Cro Magnon does have a useful meaning, which is why it's used, you can parse it as HSS with archaic characteristics, it's just not thought that those characteristics approach being so significant as to justify a separate subspecies category.
Terminology in Anthropology is rather conservative to change, witness that my professor who was very much of the opposing camp to Trinkaus still said Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis, not Homo Neanderthalis. Why? Well, he was 90% sure they were really a species not a subspecies, but on purely morphological grounds they look like a subspecies, and that has priority, at least until he's 99% sure instead of just 90%, in matters of taxonomy...
Re:What about inter species breeding (Score:2)