Gigantic Mind Chasm Between Prehumans and Man

[Dan McClellan]

4 hours ago, katherine the great said:

Why? The origins of language is a hotly debated topic in my field (Biological anthropology). But since Neanderthals are found to have all the physical adaptations needed for language and our line split from theirs several hundred thousand years ago, why would we not have language until so recently?

I recognize this is hotly debated, which is why I don't want to get deep into a debate, but there's still a lot about features of the brain and the relevant genes that isn't clear. 

[longview]

3 hours ago, katherine the great said:

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

To me it seems telling that the only animals that seem to display what we see as emotional reactions in a similar manner to humans are those we have associated with for millenia (dogs and some herd animals) and our relatively close cousin species.

I kind of agree. I do know that hormones we associate with "love" like oxytocin have been measured in dogs and cats when they reunite with their human. So far, dogs love us much more than cats do! (no surprise there!)

I have seen too many stories that conclusively show dogs having tremendous devotion to their owners.  Some were smart enough and aware to the extent they recognized a threat to the family that they will fight hard to deter the attackers and to be willing to sacrifice their lives.  There are a number of stories where they will follow their deceased owners to the morgue and even lay upon the graves to deeply mourn their passing.  We see YouTube videos of dogs having very guilty expressions on their faces as their owners interrogate about the mess they have made.

A couple years ago I watched a very interesting PBS Nova show about the amazing intelligence of birds being tested on their ability to unravel obstacles in contraptions containing food items.  Sometimes it took them awhile but will eventually work out a solution.  Then some of them will communicate the method to other birds around them.  If bird brains being a fraction of dog brains can be able to do impressive problem solving, then there are more reasons to believe the spirit mind is what gives birds the cognitive capacity to exceed expectations based on brain size .

[katherine the great]

5 minutes ago, longview said:

  If bird brains being a fraction of dog brains can be able to do impressive problem solving, then there are more reasons to believe the spirit mind is what gives birds the cognitive capacity to exceed expectations based on brain size .

Or the dinosaurs they descended from. Plus, as we've discussed, brain size is not everything. The structure of the brain is very important to "intelligence".

[The Nehor]

18 hours ago, katherine the great said:

You are dead to me.

Harsh but fair. In seriousness I do worry at times about the ethics of it.

18 hours ago, katherine the great said:

I kind of agree. I do know that hormones we associate with "love" like oxytocin have been measured in dogs and cats when they reunite with their human. So far, dogs love us much more than cats do! (no surprise there!)

Yeah, the chemicals are similar but we do not know if the emotion is similarly experienced and we really will not be 100% sure unless a dog can explain what that love feels like. It is, of course, possible.

Cats are only semi-domesticated. They are more tame than domesticated.

[The Nehor]

14 hours ago, longview said:

I have seen too many stories that conclusively show dogs having tremendous devotion to their owners.  Some were smart enough and aware to the extent they recognized a threat to the family that they will fight hard to deter the attackers and to be willing to sacrifice their lives.  There are a number of stories where they will follow their deceased owners to the morgue and even lay upon the graves to deeply mourn their passing.  We see YouTube videos of dogs having very guilty expressions on their faces as their owners interrogate about the mess they have made.

A couple years ago I watched a very interesting PBS Nova show about the amazing intelligence of birds being tested on their ability to unravel obstacles in contraptions containing food items.  Sometimes it took them awhile but will eventually work out a solution.  Then some of them will communicate the method to other birds around them.  If bird brains being a fraction of dog brains can be able to do impressive problem solving, then there are more reasons to believe the spirit mind is what gives birds the cognitive capacity to exceed expectations based on brain size .

The guilty look is believed to be fear. It is a submissive stance. It tends to be more “owner present” + “evidence of wrongdoing” or “scenario where dog has been scolded before” causes that submission. Some interesting experiments were done that found that with multiple dogs the one who is accused does the guilt thing even if they did not do it. In another test a dog would get in trouble for shredding paper. The owner repeatedly scolded the dog for it and an experiment was done where the owner shredded the paper in front of the dog and then left and came back. The dog went into guilty mode. It is an evolutionary advantage for the submission to look like guilt as it spares them punishment from some humans.

That exception aside yes, the loyalty of dogs is impressive.

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by The Nehor

[rodheadlee]

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

 

Cats are only semi-domesticated. They are more tame than domesticated.

Cats rule, dogs drool. I assure you my cats show emotions. Anger, fear, love and jealousy are probably the top 4. We have 2 and they will chose to be mad at one parent and favor the other when things don't go their way.

Edited May 4, 2020 by rodheadlee
ad info

[california boy]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Harsh but fair. In seriousness I do worry at times about the ethics of it.

Yeah, the chemicals are similar but we do not know if the emotion is similarly experienced and we really will not be 100% sure unless a dog can explain what that love feels like. It is, of course, possible.

Cats are only semi-domesticated. They are more tame than domesticated.

Cats remember that they were once worshiped, and have never quite gotten over it.

[mfbukowski]

21 hours ago, longview said:

I have seen too many stories that conclusively show dogs having tremendous devotion to their owners.  Some were smart enough and aware to the extent they recognized a threat to the family that they will fight hard to deter the attackers and to be willing to sacrifice their lives.  There are a number of stories where they will follow their deceased owners to the morgue and even lay upon the graves to deeply mourn their passing.  We see YouTube videos of dogs having very guilty expressions on their faces as their owners interrogate about the mess they have made.

A couple years ago I watched a very interesting PBS Nova show about the amazing intelligence of birds being tested on their ability to unravel obstacles in contraptions containing food items.  Sometimes it took them awhile but will eventually work out a solution.  Then some of them will communicate the method to other birds around them.  If bird brains being a fraction of dog brains can be able to do impressive problem solving, then there are more reasons to believe the spirit mind is what gives birds the cognitive capacity to exceed expectations based on brain size .

It is my understanding that the same brain area that controls bird songs also functions as our language center. And of course the function of those "songs" are similar to language, and definitely communicative obviously.

[stemelbow]

On 5/2/2020 at 1:49 PM, katherine the great said:

Why? The origins of language is a hotly debated topic in my field (Biological anthropology). But since Neanderthals are found to have all the physical adaptations needed for language and our line split from theirs several hundred thousand years ago, why would we not have language until so recently?

Your questions confuses me.  What does splitting from their line have to do with it?  Neanderthals survived more recently than 50,000 years ago.  I know the origin of language is hotly debated, but why is it not possible that both Neanderthals and homo sapiens had the ability to develop language, separately or by working off each other?  

Oh I know I butted in.  And no problem if the conversation runs off in a different direction.  

Edited May 5, 2020 by stemelbow

[katherine the great]

54 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

What does splitting from their line have to do with it? 

It has everything to do with it. There are reasons that apes can't speak-certain physical adaptations facilitate speech. All of the great apes lack most of them. If we were to find that Neanderthals (the hominids most similar to us) were missing some of these physical traits then we could reasonably assume that language is a modern human construct but that's not what we see. We've always been able to see that Neanderthals had a well developed Broca's area of the brain but until more recently we did not know that they also had a human like hyoid bone and then discovered we share a specific variant of a "language" gene called FOXP2. As mentioned by another poster, we don't know if there are other, unknown factors but these are the ones we know for sure help facilitate language. 

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

why is it not possible that both Neanderthals and homo sapiens had the ability to develop language, separately or by working off each other?

It would be a monumental coincidence if Neanderthal and our species each developed the current form of FOXP2 independently. And since it has more recently been found that Denisovans also have it-that's pretty solid evidence that our common ancestor had it. So with those facts in place, I would have to ask: Why in the world would we think that our species did not have language until 50 thousand years ago? Language is encoded in human stages of development. If a child isn't exposed to language during crucial childhood years, they can never learn to speak properly so it's far more than just learned behavior.

[stemelbow]

54 minutes ago, katherine the great said:

It has everything to do with it. There are reasons that apes can't speak-certain physical adaptations facilitate speech. All of the great apes lack most of them. If we were to find that Neanderthals (the hominids most similar to us) were missing some of these physical traits then we could reasonably assume that language is a modern human construct but that's not what we see. We've always been able to see that Neanderthals had a well developed Broca's area of the brain but until more recently we did not know that they also had a human like hyoid bone and then discovered we share a specific variant of a "language" gene called FOXP2. As mentioned by another poster, we don't know if there are other, unknown factors but these are the ones we know for sure help facilitate language. 

It would be a monumental coincidence if Neanderthal and our species each developed the current form of FOXP2 independently. And since it has more recently been found that Denisovans also have it-that's pretty solid evidence that our common ancestor had it. So with those facts in place, I would have to ask: Why in the world would we think that our species did not have language until 50 thousand years ago? Language is encoded in human stages of development. If a child isn't exposed to language during crucial childhood years, they can never learn to speak properly so it's far more than just learned behavior.

Interesting.  Thanks.

[katherine the great]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

Interesting.  Thanks.

You’re welcome. 😊

[Garamond]

I doubt anyone understands human intelligence and consciousness enough as it is in the first place let alone how it developed yet. Nor can I imagine we will till God sees fit to reveal it to us. 

[katherine the great]

11 hours ago, Garamond said:

Nor can I imagine we will till God sees fit to reveal it to us. 

Curiosity, exchange of ideas and testing those ideas is often the way God reveals things to us. 

[katherine the great]

4 minutes ago, Mac said:

Pitdown Man is an example.

Who else could have come up with an elaborate hoax lasting almost 50 years, other than a highly-evolved ape with a gigantic mind chasm? Dr. Darwin would be proud. His half-cousin who started eugenics as an excuse for Sangers later Planned Parenthood and human-breeding and population control is also evidence of a gigantic mind chasm.

Most apes only know how to throw rocks and places twigs in ant holes.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/departments-and-staff/library-and-archives/collections/piltdown-man.html

What's the point of your post? Piltdown man is not an example of what I said or good science. It's an example of Eurocentric, elitist, early 20th century bad science. Every anthropologist knows that and we all teach it as part of the history of anthropology--the good, the bad and the ugly. And what's the point of bringing up eugenics? Darwin would not have been proud. He was a man of his time, but he would not have supported eugenics. It sounds like your only purpose is to be inflammatory and not add anything useful to this thread.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Mac said:

Pitdown Man is an example.

Who else could have come up with an elaborate hoax lasting almost 50 years, other than a highly-evolved ape with a gigantic mind chasm? Dr. Darwin would be proud. His half-cousin who started eugenics as an excuse for Sangers later Planned Parenthood and human-breeding and population control is also evidence of a gigantic mind chasm.

Most apes only know how to throw rocks and places twigs in ant holes.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/departments-and-staff/library-and-archives/collections/piltdown-man.html

Methinks you might be getting up on a soapbox here. You have also strayed from bad science and added in bad history.

[katherine the great]

8 hours ago, Mac said:

You have a problem with a modernistic viewpoint of the stupidity of the theory of evolution?

You need to be more specific. Piltdown man is a non issue as far as the theory of evolution goes. How does one fraudster's actions have anything to do with a theory? At any rate, you don't seem to know much about the processes of evolution. A working knowledge of the biology is necessary to engage the original question here. You seem to be just throwing out inflammatory remarks that have nothing to do with the question.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, katherine the great said:

You need to be more specific. Piltdown man is a non issue as far as the theory of evolution goes. How does one fraudster's actions have anything to do with a theory? At any rate, you don't seem to know much about the processes of evolution. A working knowledge of the biology is necessary to engage the original question here. You seem to be just throwing out inflammatory remarks that have nothing to do with the question.

This. Imagining Piltdown Man is a total takedown of evolution is like imagining a superficial understanding of the Kinderhook plates episode is a takedown of the Church.

Edited May 10, 2020 by The Nehor

[Robert F. Smith]

Thousands of stone artifacts found at Wadi Dabsa in SW South Arabia, near the Red Sea, indicate that hominins may have been moving out from Africa as early as 1.76 million years ago.  The region was much wetter then, and major rivers flowed out of Arabia.

Robyn H. Inglis, et al., "Paleolithic artifact deposits at Wadi Dabsa, Saudi Arabia," Geoarchaeology, 34/3 (28 Jan 2019):272-294, online at https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/paleolithic-artifact-deposits-at-wadi-dabsa-saudi-arabia-a-multis   .  

[nuclearfuels]

On 5/1/2020 at 12:29 PM, teddyaware said:

Many will reject out of hand the author’s assertions because of his background and point of view.

The prevailing theories of Darwinists including lightning striking proteins aligned in the exact necessary order and thus change over time occured, and intelligent life from another planet visited earth and brought the needed catalyst (not seeing that this is intelligent design).  

Many scientists including those below have drafted books which provide further evidence of Darwin's doubt:

Berlinski

Stephen C. Meyer

 

Michael J. Behe

 

Jordan Ellenberg

 

Charles Murray

 

Joseph Mazur

 

John Allen Paulos

 

Steven H. Strogatz

[katherine the great]

15 minutes ago, nuclearfuels said:

The prevailing theories of Darwinists including lightning striking proteins aligned in the exact necessary order and thus change over time occured, and intelligent life from another planet visited earth and brought the needed catalyst (not seeing that this is intelligent design).  

Darwin didn't really concern himself with the origin of life. His questions centered around the connections between life forms and explaining the wonderful variety of life seen everywhere. How life began is a completely different question.

[katherine the great]

32 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Thousands of stone artifacts found at Wadi Dabsa in SW South Arabia, near the Red Sea, indicate that hominins may have been moving out from Africa as early as 1.76 million years ago.  The region was much wetter then, and major rivers flowed out of Arabia.

Robyn H. Inglis, et al., "Paleolithic artifact deposits at Wadi Dabsa, Saudi Arabia," Geoarchaeology, 34/3 (28 Jan 2019):272-294, online at https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/publications/paleolithic-artifact-deposits-at-wadi-dabsa-saudi-arabia-a-multis   .  

That most likely would have been Homo erectus. Dmanisi Georgia also has evidence of even earlier migration (1.8 may) but they used a more primitive type of toolkit than the site you cited.

[longview]

3 minutes ago, katherine the great said:

Darwin didn't really concern himself with the origin of life. His questions centered around the connections between life forms and explaining the wonderful variety of life seen everywhere. How life began is a completely different question.

Yes.  That is a hard nut to crack.  Especially the formation of primitive RNAs and eventual emergence of cellular "life".

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, katherine the great said:

That most likely would have been Homo erectus. Dmanisi Georgia also has evidence of even earlier migration (1.8 may) but they used a more primitive type of toolkit than the site you cited.

I agree.

[teddyaware]

3 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

The prevailing theories of Darwinists including lightning striking proteins aligned in the exact necessary order and thus change over time occured, and intelligent life from another planet visited earth and brought the needed catalyst (not seeing that this is intelligent design).  

Many scientists including those below have drafted books which provide further evidence of Darwin's doubt:

Berlinski

Stephen C. Meyer

 

Michael J. Behe

 

Jordan Ellenberg

 

Charles Murray

 

Joseph Mazur

 

John Allen Paulos

 

Steven H. Strogatz

Doesn’t hypothesizing that life on earth had its origin from elsewhere in the universe simply delay having to answer the most critical unanswered question posed by evolutionary theory, that being precisely how life spontaneously emerged from that which is not alive without an intelligent agent to understand and initiate the process?

Edited May 12, 2020 by teddyaware