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They had bigger brains. In all the studies of humanoid fossils, there's a clear relationship between brain size and ability to make tools etc. (which is presuma
by zelly 7y ago
They had bigger brains. In all the studies of humanoid fossils, there's a clear relationship between brain size and ability to make tools etc. (which is presumably caused by intelligence). It would be very strange that this is the sole exception to that relationship. This relation is defined between different species--irrelevant to the more controversial claim that brain size matters between humans (of the same species) which is probably why you're rejecting the idea.
- TSiege 7y agoThey might have had bigger brains in relation to body weight than humans, but encephalization quotient isn't a perfect measure of intelligence. Without having a living breathing Neanderthal to compare us to we really can't say. We might have a unique brain structure or some of difference in our brains that fill make this difference meaningless or irrelevant. The wikipedia on encephalization quotient actually has a section dedicated to this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient#EQ_in_paleoneurology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient#EQ_in...
- woodandsteel 7y agoStructure matters a lot. Look how intelligent crows are, in spite of having such small brains. Humans do all sorts of things Neanderthals never did, so maybe we have differently structured brains that allow us to do them.
- zelly 7y agoHumans never did anything either for approximately 100% of history. Newton could have lived a caveman's life if his top priority was basic survival, regardless of the quality of his hardware.
- woodandsteel 7y agoTrue, but if you are going to argue Neanderthals are smarter than homo sapiens, you have to ask why they didn't do anything that humans couldn't when both were foraging societies.
- sbierwagen 7y agoDomesticated animals are generally much dumber than their wild phenotype-- intelligent animals are generally reluctant to take orders. There's some evidence homo sapiens self-domesticated: trading off intelligence for superior group coordination: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/early-humans-domesticated-themselves-new-genetic-evidence-suggests https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/early-humans-domesti...