Re: Neanderthals were not stupid, just a bit anti-social


Deep Burke wrote:
Could Neanderthals cross-breed with homo sapiens?

The currently available "best evidence" suggests that they did not.
Mitochondrial DNA comparissons show that neandertals were well-outside
of the modern human norm.
There are a few possible alternative explanations. Any of the
following would be consistent with the available data:

1) we tried to cross breed, but the hybrids could not form into viable
embryos
2) we successfully cross-bred, but the viable hybrids were sterile, so
they did not reproduce themselves.
3) we were partially interfertile. A male neandertal + female human
mating could produce viable, fertile offspring, but a male human +
female neandertal mating could not.
4) we were fully interfertile, but the female neandertal mitochondrial
lineages were lost to drift in small populations
5) we were partially interfertile, male hybrid zygotes would develop
but female ones could not (I don't know how that would work, but it's
hypothetically possible).
6) we would have been interfertile, but we did not recognise them as
potential mates and/or vice versa, so we never even tried.
7) we were fully interfertile and cross-bred with them regularly, and
we just haven't tested enough people to find traces of the fact yet.
8) humans of the time (roughly 40,000-27,000 years ago) were also very
different than modern humans, so the distinction between us and the
neandertals is illusory.

That's not an exhaustive list of the possibilities, I'm sure other,
more creative thinkers can come up with other possibilities. Of these
eight options, 1 seems the strongest, based on current evidence. There
have been a few claims for 2 but these are not widely accepted by most
paleoanthropologists and archaeologists. Options 7 and 8 are proposed
by a minority of anthroplogists. The idea that neandertals were
ancestral to humans used to be the numerically dominant idea, but the
evidence collected over the past 20 years or so increasingly makes it
seem like this was not the case.


Considering they did
migrate, they were obviously not just completely set in one area.


True, but neither were we at the time. And in fact, many societies
even today are highly mobile.


To
say that the lack of social skills were there downfall is a little
suspicious...


What is the basis for your suspicion? There does seem to be evidence
that neandertal groups were quite "isolationist" and not quick to
interact with "outsiders" so that seems like a factual statement. It's
not so big a leap to speculate that the isolationism might have been a
factor in their extinction. Sure, that *might* not be the case, but it
could be. We can't simply say "don't bother looking into that
possibility" unless we have reason to do so.



How then did they find mates? Within their own family?


Probably close cousins. Even today, worldwide, first cousin marriages
are very common. If you were able to trace your own family tree far
enough back, you'd probably find a few first cousin marriages within
the past few centuries, I'd wager.



Speculation does rear its head here. Don't assume whatever the "latest"
theory on behavioral and biological processes is "THE TRUTH"... because
they will change later on.


No scientist does that. "The Truth" (tm) that is unquestionable and
unchanging for all time is *never* a claim made by scientists.

But it's the "changable" nature of the sciences that is actually their
greatest strength. As new information becomes available, we adjust our
old ideas to take that new information into account.



Of course, those who live in a comfortable narrowminded scientific view


"Narrow-minded" is exactly the opposite of what scientists are.
Scientists change our minds on the basis of the available data. We are
"narrow-minded" only insofar as we require reliable information,
measurable observations and the like, before we will change our minds.
A simple assertion is not enough to convince us that we are wrong; that
assertion has to be backed up by evidence.

For example, if I told you the sky is green and grass is red, you'd
probably respond that I was full of balloney, and rightly so. All the
evidence you have seen is that the sky is blue and grass is green. You
wouldn't change your mind just because I said so, and that's a good
thing. Of course, if I took you out to a chemical factory and pointed
to the way that gas emissions from that factory distorted the colour of
the sky and toxic spills stained the grass red, you'd say "Ok, yeah,
sometimes, in these specific conditions, the sky can be green and grass
can be red. But usually they are blue and green, respectively." And
you'd be right.

Science works the same way. Simply saying "neandertals did X" is not
enough, we need to see some evidence that this is the case.


have no problem forgetting that which they "believed" yesterday in
favor of whatever the today's "expert" tells them.

Of course we prefer to work with whatever data is currently the best
and use whichever explanations currently seem to make the most sense.
We gave up the idea that the sun orbits the earth when the available
evidence indicated otherwise. We didn't "forget" that we once thought
the other way, but we see no reason to hang onto the earth-centered
universe just out of nostalgia. That old idea isn't as useful an
explanation of the observations as the new idea, so we got rid of it.
Why shouldn't we?


It is the bane of
scientists since the dawn of time... their pretentiousness that they
are the apex of discovery allows emotion to override thier
interpretation.


We *are* at the "apex" of discovery. Tomorrow, that apex might be
higher than it is now, but we know more today than we have ever known
before. We do *not* think we know *everything*. In fact, if we did,
we would all go home and stop doing science altogether. If we thought
we knew it all, there would be no point in doing science because it
would already have been done. So I think you may have misunderstood
what scientists actually do.



Sauropods used to "live in swamps where their bulk could be supported
by the water". T-rex.... fearsome predator...or loathesome scavenger?
Warm-blooded dinosaurs?

Yes, we know more today than we used to. That's what I love about
science. You seem to be suggesting that this is a *bad* thing, but I
can't understand why you would think that.



Whatever... Keep reading.... The story of Life is not written, and
there is no way to know what twists in the plot will appear. If you
think what you now believe is 100% accurate, the most probable truth is
that you are wrong.


That's the very nature of science. That's why we often say things like
"the best current evidence suggests" and "the data seem to indicate..."
and things like that. No scientist thinks we know 100% of everything,
or even 100% of *anything*. We know a lot about some things, less
about others, and we are aware of that. It's only some religious
figures who claim to have *all* of the answers. Scientists know that
we don't even have all of the questions yet. So again, I think you've
been misinformed about what science is actually like. I hope I've
helped to clarify it a little bit.

.

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