We Are Devo?!

[South Lorenya]

On a side note, even if a neanderthal is stronger than a modern day human, if it does come to fighting, the neaderthal has his trusty club but the modern human has his trusty handgun (or, if he doesn't have one, his trusty kitchen knives)...

[Tagmatium]

Plus the fact that there is no evidence that the Neanderthal had anything near the cultural development that the early modern humans of the period had - as far as it can be told, the Neanderthals got the idea of burial from them, even if the find does show this - it could be construed as animal action at the best.

[UNIverseVERSE]

People 10,000 years ago didn't have to remember what the square root of pi is. Or how to spell 'shibboleth'.
...You know, I think it would be interesting to see a study on how many ancient humans were multilingual. Actually multilingual, I mean, not just well versed in foreign curse words.

I don't have to remember what the square root of pi is either, and I'm a mathematician. That's the power of writing. But what I do have to remember in my day to day life is probably a similar quantity of information, just different. I don't need to remember, for example, how to navigate in woods. But remembering how to cycle safely to lectures is a rather useful skill. I don't need to remember how to kill and prepare a rabbit to eat. But I do need to remember how to navigate our monetary system in order to obtain food. And so on. It's not a lack of memory, it's an emphasis in remembering different things, because different skills and knowledge are needed for life in this society.

[Barringtonia]

There does seem to be a strand of scientific opinion that contends that Western Man, specifically, is on the decline. The idea is that there's no longer a statistical health advantage in being smarter and/or stronger and so we're sort of clumping into the middle.

I find it hard to discern whether it's a case of intelligentsia reinforcing self-belief in their own superiority by scorning the stupid or whether there's any credence to the idea. The reason I think it odd is that they always - and they tend to be western - say it's western man and I can't see why that would solely be the case.

In terms of the point about memory, we could all be great at memory if it was important to us, it's not, we're becoming more trained for multi-tasking, which is possibly why women might be at an advantage in the future.

[L3 Communications]

According to Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister, modern man is a wimp:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... 04&sp=true

According to McAllister, Tutsi initiates, Australian aboriginals and Neanderthal women, among others from past ages, were far superior physically to modern men, up to and including Olympic champion sprinters and javelin throwers.

Is this important?

Does it matter that most modern men (or women) can’t run down wild animals, throw spears long distances or run marathons in full armor like Roman soldiers? Are physical robustness and brute strength more important than, say, technological development? Or have we overemphasized sedentary activities and intellectual development at the expense of other abilities that we may need at some point?

IMO physical strength is no longer the most important quality in terms of species survival, and thus it isn’t that significant that most of us can’t match the feats of primitive man.

Wait what? Are you saying that modern Homo Sapiens, the same Homo Sapiens that were the Romans, Greeks, Saxons and others can't do these things? I think that anyone with the proper training and tools could do either the bold.

[Tunizcha]

According to Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister, modern man is a wimp:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... 04&sp=true

According to McAllister, Tutsi initiates, Australian aboriginals and Neanderthal women, among others from past ages, were far superior physically to modern men, up to and including Olympic champion sprinters and javelin throwers.

Is this important?

Does it matter that most modern men (or women) can’t run down wild animals, throw spears long distances or run marathons in full armor like Roman soldiers? Are physical robustness and brute strength more important than, say, technological development? Or have we overemphasized sedentary activities and intellectual development at the expense of other abilities that we may need at some point?

IMO physical strength is no longer the most important quality in terms of species survival, and thus it isn’t that significant that most of us can’t match the feats of primitive man.

Wait what? Are you saying that modern Homo Sapiens, the same Homo Sapiens that were the Romans, Greeks, Saxons and others can't do these things? I think that anyone with the proper training and tools could do either the bold.

Even if we weren't physically equivalent to our predecessors, we compensate with our increased brain capacity.

[Malikov]

Too true. I'd like to see Roman Leigionaires drive a car. The only difference between us, and them, is they spent their life improving their physical body, which theey can only maintain for so long. Eventually they hit the wall so to speak, and they can't get any buffer then they already are. We modern day people, however, fill our days improving the one organ in our body that as no limits. Our brain. Currently, humans use less then 10% of their brain, on average. Einstein sued something like 11%, or 13%. Now, considering that we have machines to complete manual labour for us, it has become unneccessary to rain like Roman Legionaires. We let the machines do their job, and focus on our intellect, which is infinitley more powerful, and useful, then our body's.

[Non Aligned States]

Currently, humans use less then 10% of their brain, on average. Einstein sued something like 11%, or 13%.

No, no, no. That's not true at all. Humans use all of their brain matter. They don't use all of it at the same time, but throughout the course of the day, you use all of it. Scoop out a chunk of the brain properly (surgery), and most people recover as the remaining brain matter simply grows into the new real estate over time to compensate. If you were using only 10% of your brain, then I should be able to scoop out that 90%, burn it, confine the remaining 10% into a tiny jar with no room for growth and you should be perfectly fine. Obviously, that's not the case.

[Tunizcha]

Currently, humans use less then 10% of their brain, on average. Einstein sued something like 11%, or 13%.

No, no, no. That's not true at all. Humans use all of their brain matter. They don't use all of it at the same time, but throughout the course of the day, you use all of it. Scoop out a chunk of the brain properly (surgery), and most people recover as the remaining brain matter simply grows into the new real estate over time to compensate. If you were using only 10% of your brain, then I should be able to scoop out that 90%, burn it, confine the remaining 10% into a tiny jar with no room for growth and you should be perfectly fine. Obviously, that's not the case.

I think that's a result of the redundancy that each lobe has. Vital functions are spread apart into different lobes, but some less important are centralized to small areas. I think. It's all in Carl Sagan's book Dragons of Eden.

[Zombie PotatoHeads]

Currently, humans use less then 10% of their brain, on average. Einstein sued something like 11%, or 13%.

Dude, you have no idea what you're talking about. for one thing, how could anyone possibly know how much 'brain' Einstein was using?
Plus the whole 10% thing is total bs. Our brains aren't just there for us to think. It also maintains and regulates our body. When we walk, do we need to 'tell' each and every muscle to contract and relax at the right time? Of course not. A part of our brain we have no (or very little) conscious control over is doing all that for us. We just think, "mmm think I'll go for a walk" and it takes over. Likewise, processing visual input. We don't actively process it into something intelligible, a part of our brain does it for us automatically. Memories is Here's a good article about the 10% myth:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... se-only-10

[New Mitanni]

People 10,000 years ago didn't have to remember what the square root of pi is. Or how to spell 'shibboleth'.
...You know, I think it would be interesting to see a study on how many ancient humans were multilingual. Actually multilingual, I mean, not just well versed in foreign curse words.

I don't have to remember what the square root of pi is either, and I'm a mathematician. That's the power of writing. But what I do have to remember in my day to day life is probably a similar quantity of information, just different. I don't need to remember, for example, how to navigate in woods. But remembering how to cycle safely to lectures is a rather useful skill. I don't need to remember how to kill and prepare a rabbit to eat. But I do need to remember how to navigate our monetary system in order to obtain food. And so on. It's not a lack of memory, it's an emphasis in remembering different things, because different skills and knowledge are needed for life in this society.

This reminds me of a classic science fiction story, "Forgetfulness", by Don A. Stuart (aka John W. Campbell).

In the story, space explorers land on a seemingly primitive planet, but eventually discover that they natives aren't primitive after all, they have simply forgotten ancient, primitive ideas--like those of space-exploring humans!

[Allbeama]

I don't think we'll really know until the dinosaur aliens crash-land in 2012, just days after Emperor Obama vaporizes all the world's weaponry using spells from that renowned book of darkest magic, Das Kapital.

I think it's all about what we think we need.

[GetBert]

in addition to the physical dominance, primitive man had a far better memory than we do. without the ability to write things down they had to remember every important thing.

We still have the capacity for that; with a little training in a couple of memory techniques anybody is capable of having a superb memory. I would assume the same is true of physical fitness, we just don't walk and run 20 miles a day every day of our lives. If we did we would be as fit as our ancestors.

[Grave_n_idle]

According to Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister, modern man is a wimp:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... 04&sp=true

According to McAllister, Tutsi initiates, Australian aboriginals and Neanderthal women, among others from past ages, were far superior physically to modern men, up to and including Olympic champion sprinters and javelin throwers.

Is this important?

Does it matter that most modern men (or women) can’t run down wild animals, throw spears long distances or run marathons in full armor like Roman soldiers? Are physical robustness and brute strength more important than, say, technological development? Or have we overemphasized sedentary activities and intellectual development at the expense of other abilities that we may need at some point?

IMO physical strength is no longer the most important quality in terms of species survival, and thus it isn’t that significant that most of us can’t match the feats of primitive man.

Wait what? Are you saying that modern Homo Sapiens, the same Homo Sapiens that were the Romans, Greeks, Saxons and others can't do these things? I think that anyone with the proper training and tools could do either the bold.

Wait - if homo sapiens really were homo sapiens... is that why they became extinct?

[LOL ANARCHY NUBZ]

According to Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister, modern man is a wimp:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... 04&sp=true

According to McAllister, Tutsi initiates, Australian aboriginals and Neanderthal women, among others from past ages, were far superior physically to modern men, up to and including Olympic champion sprinters and javelin throwers.

Is this important?

Does it matter that most modern men (or women) can’t run down wild animals, throw spears long distances or run marathons in full armor like Roman soldiers? Are physical robustness and brute strength more important than, say, technological development? Or have we overemphasized sedentary activities and intellectual development at the expense of other abilities that we may need at some point?

IMO physical strength is no longer the most important quality in terms of species survival, and thus it isn’t that significant that most of us can’t match the feats of primitive man.

Wait what? Are you saying that modern Homo Sapiens, the same Homo Sapiens that were the Romans, Greeks, Saxons and others can't do these things? I think that anyone with the proper training and tools could do either the bold.

Wait - if homo sapiens really were homo sapiens... is that why they became extinct?

Homo Sapiens is extinct now?

[Allanea]

Does it matter that most modern men (or women) can’t run down wild animals, throw spears long distances or run marathons in full armor like Roman soldiers? A

Most Romans couldn't march in full armor like Roman soldiers, either. They received massive amounts of physical training to be able to do that.

No, most modern men or women can't run down wild animals, but this is because we have a lifestyle that doesn't require us to. And if we wanted to chase down, say, a wild hog, we would chase the motherfucker down in pickup trucks and mow it down with AK-47s.

[Dimoniquid]

Nope. But I like the picture, though

[LOL ANARCHY NUBZ]

http://www.raw-food-health.net/HunterGatherers.html

Seems to say the same sort of thing...

[Saint Jade IV]

According to Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister, modern man is a wimp:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/ ... 04&sp=true

According to McAllister, Tutsi initiates, Australian aboriginals and Neanderthal women, among others from past ages, were far superior physically to modern men, up to and including Olympic champion sprinters and javelin throwers.

Is this important?

Does it matter that most modern men (or women) can’t run down wild animals, throw spears long distances or run marathons in full armor like Roman soldiers? Are physical robustness and brute strength more important than, say, technological development? Or have we overemphasized sedentary activities and intellectual development at the expense of other abilities that we may need at some point?

IMO physical strength is no longer the most important quality in terms of species survival, and thus it isn’t that significant that most of us can’t match the feats of primitive man.

McAllister has obviously never spent time with the pig hunters and general jackaroos and jillaroos you find on stations throughout Australia. Many of them, I am sure would be able to compete with prehistoric man on a number of tasks.

In terms of running, jumping and throwing spears specifically, I think that it's more a case of new skills now being required. Were we suddenly to be plunged into the Stone Age, within a generation or two, I imagine you would find many of those skills that currently do not exist returning as people re-learned them in order to survive.

[Risottia]

According to McAllister, Tutsi initiates, Australian aboriginals and Neanderthal women, among others from past ages, were far superior physically to modern men, up to and including Olympic champion sprinters and javelin throwers.

Lol, really. Their superior strength didn't prevent them from having an average life expectancy of about 30 years, and eventually dying off. So who cares?

Does it matter that most modern men (or women) can’t run down wild animals, throw spears long distances or run marathons in full armor like Roman soldiers?

No.
And actually Roman legionaires were elite soldiers - it's not like they allowed anyone in the legions, the physical standards were quite high.

Are physical robustness and brute strength more important than, say, technological development? Or have we overemphasized sedentary activities and intellectual development at the expense of other abilities that we may need at some point?

Hell will be very cold before we'll need to spear mammoths.

IMO physical strength is no longer the most important quality in terms of species survival, and thus it isn’t that significant that most of us can’t match the feats of primitive man.

Not just your opinion: the current state of the evolution of H.Sapiens clearly shows that technological and social development trump physical prowess any time.

(oh my, I'm agreeing with NM! )

[Ifreann]

Sure, they were fast. But we have cars. You do 0-60 in how long, Ogg? Never? Oh dear......

[The Archregimancy]

...You know, I think it would be interesting to see a study on how many ancient humans were multilingual. Actually multilingual, I mean, not just well versed in foreign curse words.

Far, far more than some might think - if only because there once far more languages than there are today.

Papua New Guinea can give us a basic model for estimating neolithic multilingualism since much of New Guinea had a lithic-based technology until the 20th century, and has been occupied by humans for (at a rough estimate) 40,000 years.

According to the Ethnologue website, there are almost 7,000 living languages in the world (let's ignore for the moment the debate regarding language v. dialect). Of these at least 820 are spoken in Papua New Guinea - that's over 10% of the world's languages in an area the size of California. While the situation in New Guinea is not directly comparable on a worldwide basis, there's every reason to believe (and reasonable evidence to prove) that much of the world - with the exception perhaps of Arctic and desert regions - had a much higher incidence of language diversity than exists today.

Multilingualism is traditionally common in New Guinean society; marriage outside the immediate kinship group often leads to marriage into a society speaking a different - sometimes completely unrelated - language. Therefore children often grow up speaking both the language of their social group and of a parent from outside that group. This in turn often leads to broad range of language skills within a specific social group.

[Muravyets]

in addition to the physical dominance, primitive man had a far better memory than we do. without the ability to write things down they had to remember every important thing.

Not true. For a start, the number of important things to remember is a function of the society one lives in. Secondly, it isn't a case that one would need to remember everything that a typical person now has quick access to. There was simply less information.

I'd suspect that any typical modern person remembers about the same quantity of information as 'primitive man' would. The difference is that a) this is a far lower percentage of the total information they have access to, and b) they're remembering different things.

People 10,000 years ago didn't have to remember what the square root of pi is. Or how to spell 'shibboleth'.
...You know, I think it would be interesting to see a study on how many ancient humans were multilingual. Actually multilingual, I mean, not just well versed in foreign curse words.

Modern people don't have to remember those things, either. It's called a calculator and a dictionary.

[Muravyets]

Too true. I'd like to see Roman Leigionaires drive a car. The only difference between us, and them, is they spent their life improving their physical body, which theey can only maintain for so long. Eventually they hit the wall so to speak, and they can't get any buffer then they already are. We modern day people, however, fill our days improving the one organ in our body that as no limits. Our brain. Currently, humans use less then 10% of their brain, on average. Einstein sued something like 11%, or 13%. Now, considering that we have machines to complete manual labour for us, it has become unneccessary to rain like Roman Legionaires. We let the machines do their job, and focus on our intellect, which is infinitley more powerful, and useful, then our body's.

I'd liked to have seen YOU drive a car before you learned how. Driving a car does not require an "advanced" state of humanity, or even much intelligence. Just watch the traffic in Boston if you don't believe me.

[Muravyets]

I also enjoy this bizarre notion that the Romans, of all people, were dumber than modern, oh say, New Yorkers, when the Romans were the ones who developed the engineering, construction principles -- hell, the fucking concrete we seem unable to live without -- urban planning, military principles of training, strategy and tactics, and much of the political, governmental and social systems that our entire, supposedly so much more advanced, society would not and cannot exist without. Oh, and our language, too. Let's not forget that.

People are sitting in the world the Romans built, using the tools the Romans invented, thinking the thoughts the Romans put in their heads, and calling the Romans stupid. We copy the Romans every single day, and yet we put the Romans down? WTF???

The day any of the people claiming to be smarter than our ancient ancestors can envision, plan, organize and build a Stonehenge, a Great Pyramid, a Machu Pichu, or even a section of any of the ancient municipal water systems that existed from Pergamon to Rome, using the exact same tools the real builders did and under the same conditions, THAT will be the day they can compare their brains to the ancients'.

The day any of the people claiming that brains beat brawn and all the cavemen had was brawn and that makes us better than them can survive one year of an Ice Age, with limited food sources, surrounded by dangerous mega fauna and large predators, with killing climate conditions more than half the year, and with no technology, WITHOUT using their brains extensively to figure out novel solutions to seriously difficult problems -- like how to keep a cave warm; trust me, it's not easy -- THAT will be the day I'll listen to this nonsensical fantasizing about what it took to survive way back then.

To me the biggest irony of many of the arguments presented here is the assumption that evolution happens so fast that we can claim we are somehow biologically and/or developmentally different from people 10,000 years ago in any way at all. Y'all claim you're so much smarter than them, and you think evolution happens that way?