3 ms·

I was going to say that a lot of this sounds like stuff already discussed in the book Sapiens by Harari, but then I noticed that this article is written by Hara

by float4 6y ago

I was going to say that a lot of this sounds like stuff already discussed in the book Sapiens by Harari, but then I noticed that this article is written by Harari. Anways: > The Sapiens advantage probably lay in large-scale cooperation. The most popular theory at the moment is, as far as I know, that Sapiens were simply lucky, i.e. some mutations took place that made the cerebellum in Sapiens slightly larger and that made Sapiens more social. This makes me wonder from time to time what "we" would have looked/acted like in 2021 if neanderthals, who were physically stronger and had larger skulls, were the ones with those mutations.

kleer001 6y ago
> if neanderthals... were the ones with those mutations. There's a fun trilogy from Robert J. Sawyer about that : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neanderthal_Parallax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neanderthal_Parallax
- Stratoscope 6y ago
  Now this is quite a coincidence. Just minutes ago I was trying to remember the name of that series while writing this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26400750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26400750 And then I saw your comment which answered my question!
lurquer 6y ago
I’m not familiar with the reasons folks discount the absorption hypothesis. If there were more sapiens than Neanderthals, one would expect the Neanderthals to interbreed and fade away. Relative ‘superiority’ and mutations and the like don’t even come into it... if a Neanderthal thinks it’s cool to have an exotic sapient chick, or vice versa, the ‘race’ will disappear in a few generations. I don’t see many pure-bred Mayans in Mexico these days. (Or, for that matter, pure-bred Spaniards.) The Neanderthals certainly had some odd skeletal features... but, if one were objective, you can find similar variety amongst skeletons (particularly skulls) of modern humans. I don’t mean feature similar to Neanderthals; rather, I mean a level of variety that is similar in degree to the differences between Neanderthal bones and the ‘average’ modern.

by float4 6y ago

kleer001 6y ago

> if neanderthals... were the ones with those mutations. There's a fun trilogy from Robert J. Sawyer about that : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neanderthal_Parallax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neanderthal_Parallax

Stratoscope 6y ago
Now this is quite a coincidence. Just minutes ago I was trying to remember the name of that series while writing this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26400750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26400750 And then I saw your comment which answered my question!

lurquer 6y ago

I’m not familiar with the reasons folks discount the absorption hypothesis. If there were more sapiens than Neanderthals, one would expect the Neanderthals to interbreed and fade away. Relative ‘superiority’ and mutations and the like don’t even come into it... if a Neanderthal thinks it’s cool to have an exotic sapient chick, or vice versa, the ‘race’ will disappear in a few generations. I don’t see many pure-bred Mayans in Mexico these days. (Or, for that matter, pure-bred Spaniards.) The Neanderthals certainly had some odd skeletal features... but, if one were objective, you can find similar variety amongst skeletons (particularly skulls) of modern humans. I don’t mean feature similar to Neanderthals; rather, I mean a level of variety that is similar in degree to the differences between Neanderthal bones and the ‘average’ modern.