Another Evolution Thread

Mookie Baylock

A Surprise Left wrote:

hmmmm ok well thanks for that. Unless I'm mistaken Neanderthals had larger but a lesser quality brain and therefore a lower level of intelligence? How does that work? Because intelligence and brain size are often linked......

Often but not always. I"m no brain expert, but it seems likely that they had lots of wits, but not quite the neural connections required for really complex thought that we have. But I"m sure they were far from stupid.

But look at the "hobbits". They were very similar to Homo Erectus, physically and cultureally, but had tiny bodies, including tiny brains. Yet they were just as smart as H.E. so there ya go

searchlightsoul

A Surprise Left wrote:

I don't think you really understand what the ID and creationist camps actually accept. They would accept that genes do mutate and that changes do occur that lead to slightly different animals in different environments. For example if a bat lost its sight and that actually became an advantage in its environment. However neither of the two groups would accept that species evolve in an upward motion until homo sapiens came along. The difference is the creationists follow a literal reading of the bible and believe the earth is about 6000 years old, whereas the ID camp would easily accept an universe that is billions of years old. The ID camp makes more sense in my view......

Intelligent design requires that a more intelligent being must be present to guide changes in form. Why this would be necessary at all since selection can change gene frequencies is not obvious or needed. What ID represents is an updated form of creationism attempting to keep some need for a god in what fundamentalists call 'creation'. It essentially says that complex structures can not arise by chance because that would be 'too difficult' and as such is a cop-out. Since ID was proposed by a lawyer originally, has no theoretical framework, is untestable, has no evidence to support and is not recognised in the scientific community I find it hard to understand how it could be a better fit than Evolution for the patterns which are so obvious in the natural world. You are a fool if you believe it.

Scubascott

A Surprise Left wrote:

hmmmm ok well thanks for that. Unless I'm mistaken Neanderthals had larger but a lesser quality brain and therefore a lower level of intelligence? How does that work? Because intelligence and brain size are often linked......

Who says they weren't as intelligent as us anyway? Maybe they were. Maybe they were more intelligent. As far as I'm aware there isn't really any evidence to suggest otherwise. Is there?

RainDog

A Surprise Left wrote:

hmmmm ok well thanks for that. Unless I'm mistaken Neanderthals had larger but a lesser quality brain and therefore a lower level of intelligence? How does that work? Because intelligence and brain size are often linked......

Often but not always. I'm not sure about Neandertal's brain size (I thought they had larger heads but slightly smaller brains), but the actual size is less important than the amount of "folds." I can't remember what they're called, but basically the folds, hills, and valleys of the brain (you know, they look lumpy) are a sign of more advanced intelligence- the more the better; and can be determined in long dead animals by looking at the ridges inside the brain cavity. For those that have seen Jurassic Park - one of the reasons scientists think velociraptors were so intelligent is because of the ridges in the brain cavity. Corny example, I know, but there you go.

Of course, I'm no neurobiologist, nor have a studied Neandertal skulls, but that is a possibility if their brains were larger. There are other differences, though. Bone structure, for example, is different than ours; particularly in the skull. I believe they had both cranial (across the top) and brow (around the front) ridges that rose out from the head. Jaw structure was different, too.

The sheer number of Neandertal fossils that have been found pretty much rules out that these were Homo sapien sapiens with deformities.

Ahnimus

Brain size has nothing to do with it. Whales have massive brains compared to us. At least one of the hominids in the fossil record had larger brains.

http://www.coconutstudio.com/Brain%20Development_files/IC5_page12.gif

Mookie Baylock

Scubascott wrote:

Who says they weren't as intelligent as us anyway? Maybe they were. Maybe they were more intelligent. As far as I'm aware there isn't really any evidence to suggest otherwise. Is there?

Material Culture - we can judge their intelligence based on the artifacts found in the archaeological record

They existed for a few hundred thousand years and never made any significant advances in their material culture. Its like they could only get so far and just couldn't take it to that next level. But like I said earlier, they were far from dumb.

disclaimer, I'm no neanderthal expert, my "expertise" is more onthe earlier guys.