Neanderthal brains 'grew more slowly

[Bobby Rico]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41351019

[Macrophyseter]

Yeah. Ive heard and guessed that neanderthals can actually be more intelligent than us, but that doesnt mean that can adapt as fast.

Even though old, BBCs walking with beasts says it pretty good- neanderthals probably went extinct because it couldn't handle the extremely sudden climate change, and couldn't afford to move out unlike us humans who colonized the ends of the earth despite being less intelligent .

[Kane]

5 minutes ago, Macrophyseter said:

Yeah. Ive heard and guessed that neanderthals can actually be more intelligent than us, but that doesnt mean that can adapt as fast.

Even though old, BBCs walking with beasts says it pretty good- neanderthals probably went extinct because it couldnt handle the extremely sudden climate change and couldnt afford to move out unlike us humans who colonized the ends of the earth despite being more stupid .

Questions of how intelligence is defined and measured are far too varied to be placed in some easy binary classification or convenient metric. How do we define intelligence? By what criteria? Brain size/volume? Memory capacity? Tool-use? Sophisticated abstract reasoning? Standardized testing (such as IQ testing, which had been shown to skew in bias against those of particular ethnicities and cultural backgrounds)? This doesn't even get beyond the neuroscience questions and into epistemology yet! 

[Macrophyseter]

But my point is that it doesnt matter what kind of intelligence, but its that even if they are more intelligent than us (even in a small part), that doesnt mean they cant go extinct before us.

[Kane]

1 minute ago, Macrophyseter said:

But my point is that it doesnt matter what kind of intelligence, but its that even if they are more intelligent than us (even in a small part), that doesnt mean they cant go extinct before us.

Yes, but the real point here is that intelligence may not be subject to simple comparatives of "more" or "less."  

 

But, yes, contributing factors for species extinction will likely be attributable to causes well beyond "intelligence," however defined.  

[Harry Pristis]

I'm currently reading Yuval Noah Harari's book, SAPIENS: A Brief History of Humankind.  He cites research that suggests:

"What was the Sapiens’ secret of success? How did we manage to settle so rapidly in so many distant and ecologically different habitats? How did we push all other human species into oblivion? Why couldn’t even the strong, brainy, cold-proof Neanderthals survive our onslaught? The debate continues to rage. The most likely answer is the very thing that makes the debate possible:Homo sapiens conquered the world thanks above all to its unique language."

 

Harari points out that things changed for H. sapiens about 70,000 years ago.  He calls it "The Tree of Knowledge" modification - a cognitive revolution - to our ability to communicate, and thus to organize.  I recommend the book for a fresh, and somewhat startling view of our deep history.