Posted on 08/13/2006 4:11:37 PM PDT by blam
Sleep with Neanderthals? Apparently we (homo Sapiens) did
By Faye Flam
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Though it's been 150 years since mysteriously humanlike bones first turned up in Germany's Neander Valley, the find continues to shake our collective sense of human identity.
Neanderthals are humanity's closest relatives, with brains at least as big as ours, and yet we don't know whether we should include them as members of our own species.
No longer does science consider them our direct ancestors but some suspect Neanderthals and modern homo Sapiens interbred during the 20,000 some-odd years we co-existed in Europe. The archaeological record doesn't tell us one way or another, but earlier, researchers announced they would seek more clues by scraping DNA from Neanderthal bones and teeth.
The question of sex with Neanderthals speaks to our understanding of ourselves, our origins and our uniqueness. If this other type of human being wasn't like us, what was he like?
As I started researching this issue, I found myself staring at a picture of a nude Neanderthal man — a forensic sculpture created by Duke University paleoanthropologist Steve Churchill that was published last year in the journal Science. The model, based on a skeleton found at La Ferrassie in France, is mesmerizing in its combination of familiarity and alienness.
To be honest, he's really not half bad looking. He's got a good, muscular body, and while he's nobody's idea of handsome, that could be forgiven if he had a nice personality or I was starving and he offered to throw some rhino steaks on the fire for me.
We're not talking about the stoop-shouldered, hairy, apelike Neanderthal of popular culture. There's no evidence they were hairier than modern people, says anthropologist Harold Dibble, a curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
And THAT statement was the original blatAnt assertion which I properly dispatched with the appropriate level of mild disdain and amusement, Dr. ScEInce.
Want to try again?
W.K.
Lots of possibilities. For example, some Japanese researchers did a gait simulation from some skeletons. It looks like Cro-mags would have been better runners, which is a BIG advantage in conflict -- if you can attack faster than your opponent can retreat or maneuver, and run away faster than he can attack, then you tend to win in conflicts
No, but blatent will work.
or may be "definition", Dr. Blatent?
W.K.
For the sake of this discussion I am going to call just use "Homo Sapien" to denote our species.
The evidence may be a bit misleading depending on how the DNA of the two species (if Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens are two species) interact. For instance the lion and the tiger have at least that half million years of evolution separating them and they can still successfully interbreed (although it doesn't happen in the wild). We could force interbreed Humans and chimps in the lab today and it wouldn't be that much of a "force" with current technology.
The question is did Humans and Neanderthals co-mingle. I think the Answer is probably yes. Humans are very promiscuous and even if it was just rape on one side or the other it most likely happened much more than once in the thousands of years of Human Neanderthal interaction.
Did these co-minglings result in children. I think we can say we don't know. Your assertion that the children must have grown up in Human communities is a bit misleading. If mixed children were being born into Neanderthal society they probably developed at least some Homo Sapien cognitive ability and so the Neanderthal tribe would quickly begin to leave cultural artifacts which resemble Homo Spain artifacts which did in fact happen when the two cultures lived near each other. It is possible that Neanderthal tribes died out not as a result of increased competition but as a result that their children quickly stopped being Neanderthals if 1/2 breed children were growing up in their midst and also seeking mates from nearby Homo Sapien populations. In fact the change over could be so rapid to leave very little in the way of fossil remains of the population that is interbred. (In fact some bones that have been found suggest half breeds did exist but they are still debatable)
Nothing can be said for sure at this point and you seem very certain and that is just not good science with the available data.
However, on the ordinary understanding of falsification, Darwinian evolution can be falsified. What's more, it can be verified in a non-deductive sort of way. Whewell was right in the sense that you can show the relative validity of a theory if it pans out enough, and Popper had a similar notion, called 'verisimilitude'. What scientists do, or even what they say they do, is in the end very little affected by a priori philosophical prescriptions. Darwin was right to take the approach he did.
Please don't ask me to do your homework again.
This is silly anyway. Your silly assertion is meaningless anyway. It is unsupported by any facts or substantive logic. "'Cause I say so ('cause my mommy says so)" isn't really worth addressing. You just got me in an expansive mood. You are just a silly Cr/Ider public;y reveling in ignorance.
Good Night, Dr. Sceince.
W.K.
Only responding to your post, if you don't like what you post or any one responding to it, I humbly suggest not posting it.
W.K.
Yes, but Neanderthal females would've been physically as strong as a human male. And again, the odds that Neanderthals and humans spoke the same language are probably somewhere between zero and none. Finally, the kinds of behaviors that are rational and predictable amongst, say, medieval conquistadors or classical legionaries, are hardly identical to those expected of prehistoric subsistence foragers. In other words, keeping a (burly, angry, unintelligible) female slave requires a major devotion of energy and resources.
PS. And yet again, I'd remind you that we do not find mixed communities in the fossil records. Slaves leave behind skeletons too...
Certainly dead, not sure about bang, but hardly a refutation.
Pretty standard for people like you.
Nice generalization; I'm sure you can tell me what I'm like.
W.K.
I am not 100% certain, to be sure. When I discuss this topic this is what's in the back of my head: Gosh, I'll look really silly if tomorrow they unearth strong evidence that Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon interbred.
But, yes, my personal evaluation of the evidence leaves me extremely confident that Cro-Magnons and Neanderthal did not interbreed, at least to any detectable extent. For one, there are so many lines of argument against such admixture (genetic barriers, cultural barriers, language barriers, physical barriers, etc). If you do knock down one then you run into the next and then knock down that one and run into another, etc., etc.
But, more importantly, if Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal could interbreed, and if they were at all inclined to do so, then I think the evidence would be patently clear and undeniable. For one, you should have a stark genetic imprint that distinguished European populations from more distant populations. That's what I think; you don't have to agree with me.
From a scientific standpoint, I don't think that this would even be a subject for debate if not for so many people wanting so badly for it to be true. So, they grasp at the flimsiest strands of alleged 'evidence' and combine that with a tangled web of conjecture and assumptions masquerading as fact in order to fabricate the scenario they wish to be true.
But sure, I could be wrong. If the evidence ever proves me wrong I'm sure that I'll be appropriately red-faced afterward..
I read the article and these 2 paragraphs, in no way refute my assertion. On top of that, no where in these paragraphs is there a stated theory of evolution, just an assumption that it is falsifiable. Claiming whatever is this man's theory to be falsifiable does not make it so. Claiming that SM is not viable, does not make it so and I believe this concept is not the accepted majority thinking among true scientists. Also, falsification is only one step on the road to a workable theory. And that theory is??????? Still haven't seen it. Want another try?
W.K.
For all we know Neanderthals were not promiscuous at all and only had sex when the female was 'in heat' as do all extant primates except humans and bonobos. Moreover, for all we know the impulse to "rape" was inconceivable to a Neanderthal. ]
Do you know? No. You are just typically imagining that Neanderthals are nothing but humans with a brow ridge.
That's gonna leave a mark...
It's so far beyond nonsense as to be ludicrous. Human progress did not even remotely match the patterns that one would predict if alleged Neanderthal admixture were a factor.
So, is what I have postulated silly because "you said so" or because "your mommy said so"? Nice try.
It is unsupported by any facts or substantive logic.
The article in which you claim:
"As you can see, TToE passes EVERY possible definion of science and uses the scientific method.;
makes no such claims. It only claims that the SM is outmoded and then attempts to have it both ways by stating the theory of evolution passes one aspect of the SM by simply claiming the theory to be falsifiable. I believe this gentleman will find himself in the minority on his view of the SM. Additionally, his claims are "unsupported by any facts or substantive logic" anywhere in the article. It would help if this person actually stated the theory of evolution he so inadequately attempts to defend. Without that theory, it is impossible to discuss the article any further, let alone attempt to scrutinize the substance of his assumptions and claims.
W.K.
I believe if you read what I had written correctly you would see that I said Human Being have a proclivity towards rape and I suggested that Neanderthals could also (but there was no certainty). The fact that most female Neanderthals were as strong as Human males is not an argument in and of itself in any given population you have extremes of physicality from People built like Line backer to people built like Hobbits. The same is true of Neanderthals they just scale to a generally larger frame.
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