4 ms·

As far as I know there's no real evidence that an individual neanderthal was any less intelligent than an individual human.

by causi 4y ago

lkrubner 4y ago
It is limiting the way researchers presume the burden of proof has to go the other way. The extreme case of this is with homo erectus being found on Crete, but we are not allowed to suggest that they knew how to build a raft. No, we have to assume that they swam to Crete, this is much more logical than assuming they knew how to build a raft.
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  For what it's worth I'm not sure that ocean travel is actually that common across human cultures. For instance, Madagascar was first inhabited by people who sailed from Indonesia ~1200-1500 yrs ago.
- zasdffaa 4y ago
  I DDG'd your phrase https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=homo%20erectus%20being%20found%20on%20Crete https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=homo%20erectus%20being%20... The first hit is <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/100217-crete-primitive-humans-mariners-seafarers-mediterranean-sea https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/100217-cr...> which says "Crete has been surrounded by vast stretches of sea for some five million years. The discovery of the hand ax suggests that people besides technologically modern humans—possibly Homo heidelbergensis—island-hopped across the Mediterranean tens of thousands of millennia earlier than expected." I'm getting really worn out by some commenters here. Assertions are made, not backed up, and often plain wrong. It's not what HN is supposed to be about.
ravenstine 4y ago
Creative expression is related to intelligence, but if it was linearly correlated then the most intelligent modern humans would be the world's greatest artists with few exceptions, which is not the case. It is a distinct ability, which is why some children are very good artists despite their comparative lower IQ in contrast to adults. Other creatures that approach the intelligence of human children don't exhibit creative expression. And no, training apes and elephants to paint blotches on a canvas really doesn't count since it's not of their own accord. Other animals, and every other ape we are distantly related to are not artistically creative beyond tool making, but tool making is utilitarian and not a pure form of creative expression for its own sake. Thus, it's really not farfetched to assume that other species of Homo aren't as artistic given a lack of art demonstrated to have been produced by them. It may have nothing to do with intelligence at all.
- darkerside 4y ago
  Or, maybe IQ is not a good measure of anything besides one specific type of intelligence.
  - StevePerkins 4y ago
    Perhaps a tangent, but I simply don't understand why we can't apply different terms for "other types of intelligence"? Growing up, it baffled me that being able to chuck a football 50 yards meant there would be a weekly pep rally in your honor, and an annual parade through the town. Whereas for the gifted program kids, the main message we seemed to receive from teachers and administrators was to stay humble, that being intelligent doesn't make you better than anyone else, etc. Why do we celebrate athleticism, musical talent, and other forms of ability in others, yet also feel so fiercely insecure about other people's IQ test scores that we have to co-opt the term "intelligence" itself? To apply it to socialization skills and other various abilities. Other than perhaps video games being labeled as "e-sports", you see no major push to label the less physically gifted as "mental athletes", or any other co-opt. Why can't empathy and socialization skill be... empathy and socialization skill? Artistic talent be artistic talent, etc? Why are individuals so willing to self-identify as average or below-average in any of these traits, yet we torture language because it's anathema to admit that we might not each be in the 90th-percentile of something called "intelligence"?
    - ravenstine 4y ago
      > Why do we celebrate athleticism, musical talent, and other forms of ability in others, yet also feel so fiercely insecure about other people's IQ test scores that we have to co-opt the term "intelligence" itself? Possibly because we see intelligence as the ultimate limiting factor to any kind of success. It's not entirely untrue, but it doesn't paint the entire picture. My IQ isn't even above 100 and yet I'm making over thrice the average American income as a software engineer, drawing PCBs, making hardware devices, and debating people online every day over things like Typescript; the idea that IQ is everything doesn't ring true to me. As a counterpoint, something like musical talent can be highly subjective. An artist can make a piece of music that is "perfectly" composed and performed, but the guy who used Garageband with some unique samples can get more plays on Spotify. Athleticism is no exception either, as anyone who has watched the Olympics has seen how ridiculously subjective the judges are (especially in gymnastics and skating). Measures of either sports or musical ability predict very little outside of their respective domains, whereas IQ is correlated with many things.
colechristensen 4y ago
That there are none left besides the limited interbreeding mark in our genetics could be seen as evidence.
- the_af 4y ago
  Very limited evidence, if at all. It's not true that more intelligent animals cannot be outcompeted by less intelligent ones.
- sacrosancty 4y ago
  How so? That they weren't intelligent enough to keep their genes pure? Couldn't they have been dominant but also a minority so they were willingly diluted away? I wonder if the Neanderthal genes we have are more from men or women? Perhaps that would show which direction any conquest and raping happened in.
- causi 4y ago
  Neanderthal extinction isn't evidence they were dumber than us any more than the Native American genocide is evidence Native Americans are dumber than Europeans.
- Symmetry 4y ago
  That's evidence but weak evidence and I think group size is a more likely culprit (we really ought to be homo gregalis rather than homo sapiens). That means a conflict between a group of sapiens and neanderthalensis is more likely to go the sapiens's way. But also the secret of our success is that we're so good at cultural transmission and evolution. And when the children of a tribe can learn from the best of 20 instead of the best of 6 hunters you get both a higher level of skill and more rapid cultural innovation around techniques.

As far as I know there's no real evidence that an individual neanderthal was any less intelligent than an individual human.

by causi 4y ago

As far as I know there's no real evidence that an individual neanderthal was any less intelligent than an individual human.

lkrubner 4y ago

It is limiting the way researchers presume the burden of proof has to go the other way. The extreme case of this is with homo erectus being found on Crete, but we are not allowed to suggest that they knew how to build a raft. No, we have to assume that they swam to Crete, this is much more logical than assuming they knew how to build a raft.

AbrahamParangi 4y ago
For what it's worth I'm not sure that ocean travel is actually that common across human cultures. For instance, Madagascar was first inhabited by people who sailed from Indonesia ~1200-1500 yrs ago.
zasdffaa 4y ago
I DDG'd your phrase https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=homo%20erectus%20being%20found%20on%20Crete https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=homo%20erectus%20being%20... The first hit is <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/100217-crete-primitive-humans-mariners-seafarers-mediterranean-sea https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/100217-cr...> which says "Crete has been surrounded by vast stretches of sea for some five million years. The discovery of the hand ax suggests that people besides technologically modern humans—possibly Homo heidelbergensis—island-hopped across the Mediterranean tens of thousands of millennia earlier than expected." I'm getting really worn out by some commenters here. Assertions are made, not backed up, and often plain wrong. It's not what HN is supposed to be about.

ravenstine 4y ago

Creative expression is related to intelligence, but if it was linearly correlated then the most intelligent modern humans would be the world's greatest artists with few exceptions, which is not the case. It is a distinct ability, which is why some children are very good artists despite their comparative lower IQ in contrast to adults. Other creatures that approach the intelligence of human children don't exhibit creative expression. And no, training apes and elephants to paint blotches on a canvas really doesn't count since it's not of their own accord. Other animals, and every other ape we are distantly related to are not artistically creative beyond tool making, but tool making is utilitarian and not a pure form of creative expression for its own sake. Thus, it's really not farfetched to assume that other species of Homo aren't as artistic given a lack of art demonstrated to have been produced by them. It may have nothing to do with intelligence at all.

darkerside 4y ago
Or, maybe IQ is not a good measure of anything besides one specific type of intelligence.
- StevePerkins 4y ago
  Perhaps a tangent, but I simply don't understand why we can't apply different terms for "other types of intelligence"? Growing up, it baffled me that being able to chuck a football 50 yards meant there would be a weekly pep rally in your honor, and an annual parade through the town. Whereas for the gifted program kids, the main message we seemed to receive from teachers and administrators was to stay humble, that being intelligent doesn't make you better than anyone else, etc. Why do we celebrate athleticism, musical talent, and other forms of ability in others, yet also feel so fiercely insecure about other people's IQ test scores that we have to co-opt the term "intelligence" itself? To apply it to socialization skills and other various abilities. Other than perhaps video games being labeled as "e-sports", you see no major push to label the less physically gifted as "mental athletes", or any other co-opt. Why can't empathy and socialization skill be... empathy and socialization skill? Artistic talent be artistic talent, etc? Why are individuals so willing to self-identify as average or below-average in any of these traits, yet we torture language because it's anathema to admit that we might not each be in the 90th-percentile of something called "intelligence"?
  - ravenstine 4y ago
    > Why do we celebrate athleticism, musical talent, and other forms of ability in others, yet also feel so fiercely insecure about other people's IQ test scores that we have to co-opt the term "intelligence" itself? Possibly because we see intelligence as the ultimate limiting factor to any kind of success. It's not entirely untrue, but it doesn't paint the entire picture. My IQ isn't even above 100 and yet I'm making over thrice the average American income as a software engineer, drawing PCBs, making hardware devices, and debating people online every day over things like Typescript; the idea that IQ is everything doesn't ring true to me. As a counterpoint, something like musical talent can be highly subjective. An artist can make a piece of music that is "perfectly" composed and performed, but the guy who used Garageband with some unique samples can get more plays on Spotify. Athleticism is no exception either, as anyone who has watched the Olympics has seen how ridiculously subjective the judges are (especially in gymnastics and skating). Measures of either sports or musical ability predict very little outside of their respective domains, whereas IQ is correlated with many things.

colechristensen 4y ago

That there are none left besides the limited interbreeding mark in our genetics could be seen as evidence.

the_af 4y ago
Very limited evidence, if at all. It's not true that more intelligent animals cannot be outcompeted by less intelligent ones.
sacrosancty 4y ago
How so? That they weren't intelligent enough to keep their genes pure? Couldn't they have been dominant but also a minority so they were willingly diluted away? I wonder if the Neanderthal genes we have are more from men or women? Perhaps that would show which direction any conquest and raping happened in.
causi 4y ago
Neanderthal extinction isn't evidence they were dumber than us any more than the Native American genocide is evidence Native Americans are dumber than Europeans.
Symmetry 4y ago
That's evidence but weak evidence and I think group size is a more likely culprit (we really ought to be homo gregalis rather than homo sapiens). That means a conflict between a group of sapiens and neanderthalensis is more likely to go the sapiens's way. But also the secret of our success is that we're so good at cultural transmission and evolution. And when the children of a tribe can learn from the best of 20 instead of the best of 6 hunters you get both a higher level of skill and more rapid cultural innovation around techniques.