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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Is it language that makes the difference in our capacity? |
Clearly not. Papua New Guineans have zillions of languages and have made no advances to speak of.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Is it language that makes the difference in our capacity? |
Clearly not. Papua New Guineans have zillions of languages and have made no advances to speak of. |
I used the word "capacity".
You can stimulate a bird all you want, not going to get rocketships. Something stimulated Homo Sapiens (you have given us a notion as to what) but clearly he had the capacity for a more dramatic response.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I grant that language may be a sine qua non for exponential advance, but I am pointing out that language in itself is not the decisive factor.
Look at it this way: chimps watch each other using sticks to get ants out of tree stumps and then go off and work on the technique on their own using trial-an-error. Would the process be made quicker if one chimp could say, "No, you dork, you need a thinner stick."
The blue tits seemed to spread the bottle-top technique at a rate not much slower than would be done by singing about it from the hedgerows.
Or take a very direct example. Would Cro-Magnon learn how to light a fire best by a) having Neanderthal tell him b) watching Neanderthal do it or c) forcing Neanderthal to do it for him? I like the third way personally but that may be because the liberals will never wear it.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | I grant that language may be a sine qua non for exponential advance, but I am pointing out that language in itself is not the decisive factor. |
I'm not sure you are. In fact, all the other examples you provide show that other creatures are as capable of learning "tricks" -- just as you suggest our own ancestors did -- by mimicking some behaviour innovated by another that produced a reward of some kind.
So Cro-Mags were no different from blue-tits in that respect.
Yet they were different. They were obviously very different. So what made them different?
Near as I can tell the only true difference is language.
What does language empower us to do? Communicate better?
As you show -- no. There are just as many alternate ways of communicating that work as effectively for the learning of tricks. So what is it?
What I suspect it is is memory. Collective memory.
Language enables you to use my brain as a storage device for your thoughts.
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AJMorton
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| Ishmael wrote: | | What I suspect it is is memory. Collective memory. Language enables you to use my brain as a storage device for your thoughts. |
Sheldrake will disagree.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| I just don't think there's any such thing as "animal advance" at all. |
Yeah, that's the point. Not "progressivism", but learning in a very uncoordinated way, to build burrows, termite, hills, nests, honeycomb... crack nuts with rocks or on pedestrian crossings...
| Animals can learn tricks. |
Including sign-language!
| Is it language that makes the difference in our capacity? |
I'd say certainly... sort of... but language is not unique to humans.
| other creatures are as capable of learning "tricks" by mimicking some behaviour innovated by another that produced a reward of some kind. |
Did blue tits peck milk bottle tops for a reward? How'd they know they were going to get something? If they had to visit an open one to find out the cream was good, how'd they know that pecking an unopened one had anything to do with it? Aren't many of us just trial-and-error/mimicking/learning machines? Talking about motivation through reward might be as misleading as motivation to pass on one's genes.
| Language enables you to use my brain as a storage device for your thoughts. |
Yes, interesting. Similar to the co-operation vs. inter-operation angle, working as though you know the other guy's mind.
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Xerxes
In: The Forest of Dean
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| Would Cro-Magnon learn how to light a fire best by a) having Neanderthal tell him b) watching Neanderthal do it or c) forcing Neanderthal to do it for him? I like the third way personally but that may be because the liberals will never wear it. |
Oh dear! Are we going to go round and round the hominids again, those old extinct sub-humans, rubbed out by the born again Cro-Magnon whiz kids? Before we do, can we please revisit the question of what exactly is a Cro-Magnon/ Modern Human? I would like to offer this simple rough-and-ready definition:
A Cro-Magnon/ Modern Human is someone I can sit down with and have a chat (if we happen to share a common language) about his or her ideas, aspirations, fears and views on shared experiences; someone who has humour and imagination and is able to learn written language and numbers.
OK, that's not very scientific and AEists can hack it about to their hearts' content. But unless anyone can describe a living normal Cro-Magnon/Modern Human who does NOT fit this definition, then it will be sufficient for my purposes.
By my definition, many primordial dwarves are full-fledged Modern Humans. Of course they are! And I apologise to anyone who may be offended by even the suggestion that they are not. They may be 100cm tall and have adult brains about the same size as an adult chimpanzee or three-month-old baby at 400-500cc, but that's OK and doesn't stop them fitting my definition. (Yes, I know miniaturisation in humans is not without its problems and some primordial dwarves are mentally retarded, but then so are some large-brained individuals.)
By my definition, a contender for the title of 'World's Strongest Man' is also a full-fledged Modern Human. He may be 5' 9" tall, weigh 350 lbs with 36" thighs and 25" arms and neck and massive skeletal structure to match and with a brain capacity of 1400cc, but that's OK and doesn't stop him fitting my definition.
My LP story generated the proposition that mankind is a species that displays extreme genetic diversity, and these two simple examples (there are plenty more) are intended to focus on that diversity.
But here's the thing: when extreme forms of genetic variability are displayed in living humans they are referred to as being 'a medical condition' or 'an extreme adaptation' or 'resulting from abnormal growth' and so on. However, when fossil skeletons are discovered that fall well within the range of current diversity, but outside an idealised norm for Cro-Magnon/ Modern Man, they invariably become 'extinct hominids'. Disconcertingly, whenever hominids and their fate are the subject, I find orthodoxy and Applied Epistemology are indistinguishable!
See, I reckon that a few bones of 'World's Strongest Man' if discovered in 100,000 year old deposits would be classified without hesitation as Neanderthal. And I couldn't help noticing that the ink was hardly dry on the first report of small human skeletons found on the island of Flores, before yet another extinct hominid species was named and announced to the world, and speculation immediately focussed on which Modern Human might have been responsible for its extinction.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| A Cro-Magnon/ Modern Human is someone I can sit down with and have a chat (if we happen to share a common language) about his or her ideas, aspirations, fears and views on shared experiences; someone who has humour and imagination and is able to learn written language and numbers. |
Agreed.
| By my definition, many primordial dwarves are full-fledged Modern Humans. Of course they are! And I apologise to anyone who may be offended by even the suggestion that they are not. They may be 100cm tall and have adult brains about the same size as an adult chimpanzee or three-month-old baby at 400-500cc, but that's OK and doesn't stop them fitting my definition. (Yes, I know miniaturisation in humans is not without its problems and some primordial dwarves are mentally retarded, but then so are some large-brained individuals.) |
Agreed.
| But here's the thing: when extreme forms of genetic variability are displayed in living humans they are referred to as being 'a medical condition' or 'an extreme adaptation' or 'resulting from abnormal growth' and so on. However, when fossil skeletons are discovered that fall well within the range of current diversity, but outside an idealised norm for Cro-Magnon/ Modern Man, they invariably become 'extinct hominids'. Disconcertingly, whenever hominids and their fate are the subject, I find orthodoxy and Applied Epistemology are indistinguishable! |
Disagree. It is true that there is scope for medical error -- the earliest Neanderthal skeleton was labelled as a Napoleonic soldier with arthritis! But that was because it was the first -- we did not know we were dealing with something 'other', we did not know of the possibility of 'other'. Once a few examples are available, the differences are clear enough. They appear to be absolute.
| See, I reckon that a few bones of 'World's Strongest Man' if discovered in 100,000 year old deposits would be classified without hesitation as Neanderthal |
It is true that he might well fall into the Neanderthal range of overall skeletal dimensions but would he have a bleedin' great brow ridge? Would he have 1500 cc of braincase capacity? There are 206 bones in the AMH's body, how many are interchangeable with the bones in Neanderthal?
Your argument that hominids are just AMH's seen through a professional's prism is a classic Applied Epistemolgical one. But you have to make the case. 'Sno good just abusing us for not believing it.
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Xerxes
In: The Forest of Dean
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| but would he have a bleedin' great brow ridge? Would he have 1500 cc of braincase capacity? |
More to the point:
Q. Are there people alive today who have brow ridges similar to the Neanderthals'. (Specifically Neanderthals or Heidelbergensis - let's not get muddled by African or Asian 'Hominids' that really did have bleedin' great brow ridges and may well have been Pongids and not Hominids).
A. Yes there almost certainly are, but you would have to be brave indeed to conduct research into finding people that appear to exhibit what orthodoxy describes as sub-human or apelike characteristics.
Q. Are there people alive today with cranial capacities around 1500cc?
A. Yes.
Q. Given that certain gifted scientists are able to reconstruct soft tissues on bones over 30K yrs old (a big 'given' if I may say so), are there people alive today with big hooters like the Neanderthals are supposed to have had?
A. Yes. I guess Jimmy Durante might have filled the bill. (Now you know how old I am!)
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Xerxes
In: The Forest of Dean
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| but would he have a bleedin' great brow ridge? |
From Wikipedia -- subject Supraorbital Ridge:
| Some varieties of modern man have slightly more pronounced ridges than others; for example, indigenous Australians, conventionally termed "aborigines." However, there is no basic genetic difference between these people and any other type of modern humans, and again, the presence of a brow ridge is not in any way indicative of intelligence or development. |
Except, apparently, when the brow ridge is on a Neanderthal..........
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| the presence of a brow ridge is not in any way indicative of intelligence or development. |
Except, apparently, when the brow ridge is on a Neanderthal.......... |
You amply illustrate the general problem of species and identification of species where there are few samples. I dunno how susceptible we are to circular dating, should a palaeo-sumo wrestler turn up in the family plot alongside his puny siblings ("they can't be contemporary coz they're different species" or "wow! they are contemporary..."): are there good absolute dating techniques and that are used before anyone makes a guess...?
I mentioned, somewhere around here, that a possible Homo sapiens cranium from China was dated to 209k, which begs the question of how to fit it into the "mass" of data.
But, as Mick mentioned, where we have enough evidence, there are systematic similarities-and-differences -- and not just in anatomy, but also in range and artefacts. Even if we think Neanderthal was our species, rather than a distinct hominid -- such that their 'extinction' is nothing of the sort -- there are still systematic differences to be explained. Neanderthal was still around for 250,000 years becoming better European-cold-adapted apparently. Cro-Magnon went everywhere, including the Moon, in a fraction of that time, with no skeletal adaptations whatsoever. Whether Neanderthal was the same species is something for us to work out, rather than an assumption for us to proceed from.
There's a difference in M.O. between us and Orthodoxy: we do not make any assumptions about the genealogy of the hominids (etc.) until we actually have evidence for them; nor do we attempt to massage away the stark difference between us and other primates: no pangs of guilt to be assuaged as the Wiki writer does.
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Xerxes
In: The Forest of Dean
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| we do not make any assumptions about the genealogy of the hominids (etc.) until we actually have evidence for them; |
But 'we' don't unearth Neanderthal bones, analyse them, date them or try to extract DNA from them. And those that do almost always believe that Neanderthals are extinct hominids that were a dead end in hominid evolution. Getting 'evidence' from these sources is like getting evidence of WMD in Iraq from the Blair government.
The best we can do with this evidence is to look for anomalies that reveal dodgy research. I prefer to look at the world around me today, so if someone tells me that a supraorbital ridge is a sign of being an extinct hominid and I find modern humans with supraorbital ridges, I know they're talking bollocks.
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Since trees were discussed earlier in this thread, I wanted to ask a question about trees. Can trees expand their territory across water?
In a book I'm reading, it says that Oak trees (Quercus) started spreading westward across Europe about 10,000 years ago. By 9,000 years ago they got to the south of England and the south of Ireland. And by 7000 years ago, they had spread everywhere except the very north of Scotland. Between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago the English Channel and the Irish Sea filled up with water. So I assume that the Oak trees spread by land, not by water.
But this book also shows the spread of the Lime (Tilia) tree. It also spread westward. It got to England by about 7,000 years ago and covered what is roughly Norfolk, Suffolk, part of Cambs, and part of Lincolnshire on this map http://rmhh.co.uk/gifs/map-england2.gif . So maybe it spread by water. But this is the strange part. By 5,000 years ago it had spread to mainly just England. The Tilia tree never spread too far into the celtic parts of Britain and it never spread too far into Brittany. On the Celtic League page on wikipedia there is a map that shows where the Celtic league (Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland, and Wales) is. The current Celtic league political boundaries correspond closely (not perfectly) to the biological limits of where the tilia tree expanded 5000 years ago.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| so if someone tells me that a supraorbital ridge is a sign of being an extinct hominid and I find modern humans with supraorbital ridges, I know they're talking bollocks. |
Well somebody is. Nobody doubts that every primate who ever lived has supraorbital ridges -- this presumably has something to do with the fact that we are the terrestrial mammal group with the largest braincases. Every primate species has a different size of supraorbital ridges to every other primate species. Overall. Because presumably also every species at either end of the range overlaps in size with various other species. How you go from this situation directly to your Neanderthals 'R' Us assumption I do not know.
Though I agree that orthodoxy is enough of an ass in this area that your supposition cannot be ruled out.
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DPCrisp
In: Bedfordshire
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| Getting 'evidence' from these sources is like getting evidence of WMD in Iraq from the Blair government. |
We at least believe there is some evidence woven into the tissue of academic nonsense. But it is challenging that nothing is ever published for Applied Epistemologists.
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