What Happened to the Hominids Who Were Smarter Than Us? [Apes with 150 IQ?]

Discover ^ | 28 December | Gary Lynch and Richard Granger

[Fractal Trader]

In the autumn of 1913, two farmers were arguing about hominid skull fragments they had uncovered while digging a drainage ditch. The location was Boskop, a small town about 200 miles inland from the east coast of South Africa.

These Afrikaner farmers, to their lasting credit, had the presence of mind to notice that there was something distinctly odd about the bones. They brought the find to Frederick W. Fitz Simons, director of the Port Elizabeth Museum, in a small town at the tip of South Africa. The scientific community of South Africa was small, and before long the skull came to the attention of S. H. Haughton, one of the country’s few formally trained paleontologists. He reported his findings at a 1915 meeting of the Royal Society of South Africa. “The cranial capacity must have been very large,” he said, and “calculation by the method of Broca gives a minimum figure of 1,832 cc [cubic centimeters].” The Boskop skull, it would seem, housed a brain perhaps 25 percent or more larger than our own.

The idea that giant-brained people were not so long ago walking the dusty plains of South Africa was sufficiently shocking to draw in the luminaries back in England. Two of the most prominent anatomists of the day, both experts in the reconstruction of skulls, weighed in with opinions generally supportive of Haughton’s conclusions.

The Scottish scientist Robert Broom reported that “we get for the corrected cranial capacity of the Boskop skull the very remarkable figure of 1,980 cc.” Remarkable indeed: These measures say that the distance from Boskop to humans is greater than the distance between humans and their Homo erectus predecessors.

[MrB]

Yeah... they were only 150?

And really, as compared to whom, their contemporaries?

[TexasRepublic]

As those brainiac precursors to Liberals daydreamed their grandiose schemes of socialism, reality (in the form of a sabretooth tiger) crept up from behind and bit them on the ass.

[TexasRepublic]

“Have you heard the joke involving an elephant’s trunk, a severed appendage to be replaced, and a box of popcorn?”

No, but I think I can see where it’s going. A very disturbing mental image.

[Right Wing Assault]

Have you heard the joke...

No. Does it require a private reply?

[SunkenCiv]

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[BenLurkin]

"brain size does not necessarily correspond to a 150 IQ"

Exactly. Measuring cranium size to determine intelligence is the stuff of Margaret Sanger and Dr. Mengegle. It has been discredited for over 50 years.

[Condor51]

'What Happened to the Hominids Who Were Smarter Than Us?'
[Apes with 150 IQ?]

“There’s just one thing we haven’t quite dared to mention. It’s this, and you won’t believe it. It’s all happened already. Back there in the past, ten thousand years ago. The man of the future, with the big brain, the small teeth. He lived in Africa. His brain was bigger than your brain. His face was straight and small, almost a child’s face.”

No Obama jokes now. It doesn't mention Big Ears.
And his IQ has never really been measured. That 180 that's been thrown around is just a guess by 'experts'.

Plus. That'd be just sooooooo wrong.

[bert]

The problem lies with the primary assumption. That is that the entire 1832 cc’s of flax seed measuring the cranial capacity correlated to 1832 cc’s of brain.

It is reasonable to assume it did not. It is reasonable to postulate a cranial rind. That is, the measured excess capacity was composed of a fatty or perhaps fleshy tissue not involved with thought or memory or other cogitative function.

It is widely believed that such a process is present today. It is noted that several Posters on FRee Republic seem to exhibit evidence of such a rind. The rind prevents the entry or exit of rational thought. The syndrome is labeled SSS or Sanctimonious Selfrightousist Syndrome. A really bad case is described as insufferable or pompously insufferable.

Such parallel evolutionary processes are widely known and should at least be considered

[wolfcreek]

Big head no equal large brain.

[wildbill]

As they evolved, they became too smart to get married and therefore had no legitimate offspring.

[Little Ray]

Based on what I’ve seen about liberals, they argued about distributing the fruits of other folks labors until they starved to death...