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To: Boxen
I wasn't responding to the article.I was responding to the posts that stated the Neanderthals would be NFL players. Maybe you thought they were flattering the intelligence of the Neanderthal.

From Chimpanzees to humans bigger does mean better in terms of brains. It is lame of you to bring up species which are not closely related to humans. Both Neanderthals and humans developed bigger brains during ice ages. The Neanderthal developed a much bigger brain than humans because he lived in a colder environment than that of humans. To survive he had to be smarter.

Please google Neanderthals and burials you might learn something. While your ancestors left their dead relatives where ever they fell, Neanderthal tied his dead loved ones up in in a crouched position (the same position in which babies enter the world). Death for a Neanderthal was the return to the womb. This is very complicated thinking which some people even now days are incapable of grasping.I for one am very interested in knowing what the extra gray matter was capable of doing. I do not buy the B.S. that the extra gray matter of the Neanderthal was superfluous.

If it gets your goat to learn that man is not the top of the pyramid as far as brains ,maybe some humility is just what you need.
65 posted on 07/24/2006 8:22:23 PM PDT by after dark (I love hateful people. They help me unload karmic debt.)
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To: after dark
From Chimpanzees to humans bigger does mean better in terms of brains. It is lame of you to bring up species which are not closely related to humans. Both Neanderthals and humans developed bigger brains during ice ages. The Neanderthal developed a much bigger brain than humans because he lived in a colder environment than that of humans. To survive he had to be smarter.

Cold adaptation by itself does not necessarily imply more intelligence. Neanderthal had a brain about 100 cc larger than modern humans, but that is not a huge difference. There is no evidence that 100 cc equates to smarter. The range of variation in modern humans is huge, and there is no evidence of which I am aware that 100 cc difference means anything in terms of intelligence.

Please google Neanderthals and burials you might learn something. While your ancestors left their dead relatives where ever they fell, Neanderthal tied his dead loved ones up in in a crouched position (the same position in which babies enter the world). Death for a Neanderthal was the return to the womb. This is very complicated thinking which some people even now days are incapable of grasping.I for one am very interested in knowing what the extra gray matter was capable of doing. I do not buy the B.S. that the extra gray matter of the Neanderthal was superfluous.

The complex behavior of Neanderthal appears to be confirmed by the evidence. What is not understood is why Neanderthal became extinct while modern humans thrived. It does appear that the extra 100 cc of gray matter was not a factor in this part of selection pressure. What was? Don't know.

If it gets your goat to learn that man is not the top of the pyramid as far as brains ,maybe some humility is just what you need.

The extra 100 cc of gray matter appears not to have made the critical difference: Neanderthal is extinct and H. sapiens are here today. Perhaps some other trait was more important?

When you figure absolute brain size you have to take into consideration body size. The primate line is clearly ahead of the pack in relative brain size (although whales and elephants are larger in absolute terms, they have much larger bodies to maintain). Within the primate line, how much larger would Neanderthal have had to be to have a 100 cc brain size increase? Perhaps 6 percent?

One method of adapting to cold climate is to develop a short, squat body form--an endomorph. That preserves heat because of the better volume to surface ratio. Perhaps Neanderthal did that; the osteology does not contradict this possibility. A change in only 6 percent of body mass could have lead to a similar change in brain size.

In either case, we still do not really know why Neanderthal went kaput and we survived. There is a lot more that science can tell us if we are patient. Maybe the DNA will provide some additional clues.

66 posted on 07/24/2006 8:49:12 PM PDT by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: after dark
I wasn't responding to the article.I was responding to the posts that stated the Neanderthals would be NFL players. Maybe you thought they were flattering the intelligence of the Neanderthal.

You replied to post #1. Perhaps you meant to reply to post #3.

From Chimpanzees to humans bigger does mean better in terms of brains.

Assertions are nice, evidence is better. You seem to believe that brain size alone determines intelligence. It wouldn't surprise me if it was a combination of brain size and brain anatomy that determines intellectual capacity.

It is lame of you to bring up species which are not closely related to humans.

Irrelevant. If brain size alone determined intelligence, then you could easily prove my example wrong. Remember, you made no mention of "relative brain size," or "brain size among primates." Merely "brain size."

While your ancestors...

Did your ancestors do something different?

If it gets your goat to learn that man is not the top of the pyramid as far as brains...

I have never believed as such. You have no reason to bother my goats.

...maybe some humility is just what you need.

Such unnecessary rhetoric. I will not play your insult game, friend.
73 posted on 07/24/2006 9:34:28 PM PDT by Boxen (THE SPICE MUST FLOW)
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