Page 32 of 52

Stupidity

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:31 pm
by Cognito
He also said it "might" suggest that the custom of burying people with artefacts originated in western Europe rather than eastern Europe as had previously been thought.
Good article except for the statement above. When will people realize that our forebears weren't all stupid? :roll:

Re: Stupidity

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:47 pm
by daybrown
Cognito wrote:
He also said it "might" suggest that the custom of burying people with artefacts originated in western Europe rather than eastern Europe as had previously been thought.
Good article except for the statement above. When will people realize that our forebears weren't all stupid? :roll:
When they quit buying into biblical bullshit telling them they are the chosen of god, and that everyone else is inferior.

Shrinks have a word for it: "projection".

Posted: Wed Oct 31, 2007 8:10 pm
by Minimalist
I don't mind admitting it Cogs. This constant red ochre shit is driving me nuts!

Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:25 pm
by Digit
When will people realize that our forebears weren't all stupid?
When the idea stops making them feel inferior Cog. It seems to be generally believed that each generation is smarter than its forebears therefore six generations back everybody was moronic.
They must have been stupid 'cos they didn't have TV, autos, etc etc etc. Right?

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 12:14 pm
by Forum Monk
War Arrow wrote: Er... I'm not actually trying to weigh in on this argument, so please feel free to blow this one out of the water, but it might be argued that India seems lacking in folks with more than the traditional quota of arms, yet some of their Gods seem to have more than their fair share. Or am I being too literal here?
Well WA, your point is completely undone! And this is in India:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/11/06/in ... pstoryview

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 12:16 pm
by Minimalist
Vishnu? Dat you?

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 12:39 pm
by War Arrow
Forum Monk wrote:
War Arrow wrote: Er... I'm not actually trying to weigh in on this argument, so please feel free to blow this one out of the water, but it might be argued that India seems lacking in folks with more than the traditional quota of arms, yet some of their Gods seem to have more than their fair share. Or am I being too literal here?
Well WA, your point is completely undone! And this is in India:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/11/06/in ... pstoryview
I'll get me coat.

Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 10:02 pm
by Minimalist
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/200 ... ewuqWs0NUE
And so why have these interesting people been relegated to second-class citizen status?

Because they threaten us.

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 2:44 pm
by Beagle
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/ear ... _2007.html
What we have here is a clown car of a hypothesis: everything thrown in but the bearded lady. No hypothesis is ever tested: Consistency rules. This is no discredit on Jones at all, who clearly does the best job possible of fitting together all these recent papers. The problem is that when you see them all next to each other, you can't help but see that these 115,000-year-old Eritrean shellfish, 40,000-year-old Y chromosome divergences, 65,000-year-old mitochondrial haplogroups, 30,000-year-old Indian blades, 35,000-year-old Romanian skeletons, 70,000-year-old ochre engravings, and 190,000-year-old African skulls really can't fit together to tell a story of a single human dispersal at a single time.
Here is John Hawks on a bit of a rant regarding the spate of recent papers on early man. This story also links to a paper on human origins.

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 4:48 pm
by kbs2244
I can see his point, but he is not realizing that what is being found is not a nice strigh line progression at a single place.
You had a small, mobile population, living lightly on the land and spread over a very large area for a very long time. And they did not build things meant to be found and studied thousands of years later.
When you think about it, it is amazing we are finding anything at all.

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 9:40 pm
by john
Fresh meat.

What we have here, in my opinion, is a classic example of the collision between the arguments of linear progression and simultaneity.

The crucial word here is mobility.

Linear progression asssumes limited mobility, over an extremely extended period of time.

Mobility assumes relatively rapid movement, with populations which, at the same time becoming relatively geographically isolated, were also capable of regular communication/social intercourse due to their ability to travel.

Thus tribes.

john

Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 9:57 pm
by Beagle
Hi KB and John. Personally I think Hawks is just saying "the Emperor has no clothes" Right now the Out of Africa Theory rises and falls with genetic evidence, which is far from final completion.

I realize that we see articles posted all the time that proclaim "This proves the OOA theory". That's nonsense. Actually, I don't believe there is any fossil evidence for HSS in Europe before 30,000 BC.

Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:51 pm
by kbs2244
If you cast your net far enough, you can find the answer.
Now I know why they went extinct!

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bi ... e=20050509

Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 2:00 pm
by Beagle
http://www.boston.com/news/science/arti ... sm/?page=1
The Neanderthal extinction some 30,000 years ago remains one of the great riddles of evolution, with rival theories blaming everything from genocide committed by "real" humans to prehistoric climate change.

But a recent study introduces another explanation: Stone Age feminism. Among Neanderthals, hunting big beasts was women's work as well as men's, so it's a safe bet that female hunters got stomped, gored, and worse with appalling frequency. And a high casualty rate among fertile women - the vital "reproductive core" of a tiny population - could well have meant demographic disaster for a species already struggling to survive among monster bears, yellow-fanged hyenas, and cunning Homo sapien newcomers.
I was just wondering the other day where the Neanderthal theory of the week was. It's actually been several weeks, but here it is. As usual, there is so much wrong with this article that I don't feel the need to comment.

This time - Neanderthal women joined the hunt. Yeah right. :roll:

Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2007 3:08 pm
by Digit
Assuming that HSN understood the relationship between sexual congress and pregnancy they would indeed have to have been pretty stupid to risk their women.
If they didn't understand the connection they must have known that only females gave birth, so again they deserved extinction if they risked their females in this manner.
Sorry, I don't buy it!