Racial differences...

[Louis VI the Fat]

I think number one is supposed to be a reconstruction of an australopithecus (afarensis?) which would be one of our evolutionary ancestors. But if that's the case were talking about a complete different species. Which even if there would be one a live and some man/woman was so disgusting to want to make a child with it, it wouldn't even be possible. Either way I fail to see how similar species have anything to do with racial differences. (talking just about the pics, not the dog analogy)

It is a Paranthropus boisei. Humanoid more than human, perhaps.

It has got to do with racial differences because it makes the point just to what extent humans are animals, and thus evolving under evolutionary impulses like the rest of the natural world..
I think there are two reasons for the prevailing idea that all humans are equal in mind: firstly, out of trauma from the racism of the past two centuries or so. Human dignity has been philosophically and socially understood to mean human equality.
Secondly, because of secular creationism. That is, the idea that the human mind is excempt from evolutionary impulse. Even otherwise atheist Darwinists are still in the grip of the idea of human exception. Of the idea that the mind functions as a soul: the area of man that trancends evolution, that belongs to a different plane, excempt from such beastly affairs as evolutionary impulse. Often understood as the idea that the human mind has been somehow excempt from evolutionary forces ever since humanity split up some 60/150 thousand years ago. It is sheer creationism. The full implications of Darwin's dangerous idea are still not fully sunk in, the uglyness of man as ape is still not fully accepted.

even if there would be one a live and some man/woman was so disgusting to want to make a child with it,

That's speciecism. Why the aversion to mating with boisei? What is disgusting about it? Fear of miscenegation? Fear yhat your pure, beautiful little species might become contaminated with alien blood?




All of which begs the question, what is a human? Only modern man? What of the other humans that we genocided, such as Neanderthals, Flores people, and that new Siberian man, who all lived until very recently ago?

What would happen if they were alive today? We probably can produce fertile offspring with at least the Neanderthals, they at least ought to be classified as humans. What if they were around today? Are they part of the 'all human populations are equal' paradigm? Should we genocide them all, save for a handful to be kept in zoos? (As we are doing with other apes)
What of human-Neanderthal hybrids? (Some argue that quite a few people are partly descended from Neanderthals!)

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

All of which begs the question, what is a human? Only modern man? What of the other humans that we genocided, such as Neanderthals, Flores people, and that new Siberian man, who all lived until very recently ago?

What would happen if they were alive today? We probably can produce fertile offspring with at least the Neanderthals, they at least ought to be classified as humans. What if they were around today? Are they part of the 'all human populations are equal' paradigm? Should we genocide them all, save for a handful to be kept in zoos? (As we are doing with other apes)
What of human-Neanderthal hybrids? (Some argue that quite a few people are partly descended from Neanderthals!)

You are making an unfounded assumption, that Neandathal-Us hybrids are themselves fertile, and that we are therefore part of the same species. Your argument is provocative, but not very logical.

Killing other Apes is not the same as killing humans, and trying to draw equivolence does your case no good. Much better to say that killing other animals is generally bad, as is destroying their habitat, or destruction of any kind.

[Louis VI the Fat]

You are making an unfounded assumption, that Neandathal-Us hybrids are themselves fertile, and that we are therefore part of the same species. Your argument is provocative, but not very logical.

Research is developing at an astonishing pace. This month's New Scientist described new research that indicates that we are indeed hybrids.

I myself am very proud of my Neanderthal origin:

Any human whose ancestral group developed outside Africa has a little Neanderthal in them – between 1 and 4 per cent of their genome, Pääbo's team estimates. In other words, humans and Neanderthals had sex and had hybrid offspring. A small amount of that genetic mingling survives in "non-Africans" today: Neanderthals didn't live in Africa, which is why sub-Saharan African populations have no trace of Neanderthal DNA.
It's impossible to know how often humans invited Neanderthals back to their cave (and vice versa), but the genome data offers some intriguing details.
"It must have been at least 45,000 years ago," says David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School who was involved in the project. That's because all non-Africans – be they from France, China or Papua New Guinea – share the same amount of Neanderthal DNA, suggesting that interbreeding occurred before those populations split. The timing makes the Middle East the likeliest place where humans leaving Africa and resident Neanderthals did the deed.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ns.html?page=1

The Neanderthal does pose fine questions. They are clearly different from modern humans, but are still most definately human.

Their skulls are so different from us, that they in all likelyhood had very different cognitive abilities. Yet they produced fertile offspring with humans, they are the same species as us. The question is whether they are not better described as a different human race.


Neanderthals had bigger brains. Perhaps they were more intelligent than us. Usually, it is hypothesised that they lacked in verbal capacity. Which makes for the intruiging possibility that superior peoples were driven to instinction by us, by our more ant-like, or network intelligence.
If one can not easily verbally exchange ideas, then the individual needs a lot of creativity, spontaneous problem solving ability. This, the Neanderthal may have excelled in.

Of course, the real winner would be a population that adopted aspects of the Neanderthal's superior brain. Incorporated, say, a few percent of their genes into their own design. Interestingly, the great artistic revolution of modern man ocurred around the same time that the interbreeding with the Neanderthal occured. Could your innate desire to express yourself non-verbally, to convey ideas non-verbally, be your inner Neanderthal? Is not the caveman brute, but Picasso the true face of the Neanderthal?

[Tellos Athenaios]

Neanderthals had bigger brains. Perhaps they were more intelligent than us. Usually, it is hypothesised that they lacked in verbal capacity. Which makes for the intruiging possibility that superior peoples were driven to instinction by us, by our more ant-like, or network intelligence.
If one can not easily verbally exchange ideas, then the individual needs a lot of creativity, spontaneous problem solving ability. This, the Neanderthal may have excelled in.

Neanderthals appear to have created superior tools with less labour and less material required to create them which also produced better results when wielded. (It's easier & faster to cut some hides with Neanderthal toolkits than it is with those made by “our ancestors”.)

Of course, the real winner would be a population that adopted aspects of the Neanderthal's superior brain. Incorporated, say, a few percent of their genes into their own design. Interestingly, the great artistic revolution of modern man ocurred around the same time that the interbreeding with the Neanderthal occured. Could your innate desire to express yourself non-verbally, to convey ideas non-verbally, be your inner Neanderthal? Is not the caveman brute, but Picasso the true face of the Neanderthal?

No, as far as we know it is the exact opposite. The Neanderthals appear to have had no interest in the fine arts whatsoever, judged by the fact that in the German cave systems where Neanderthals and “our ancestors” lived in close proximity you can pretty much identify which cave belonged to which group by the simple expedient of checking for the existence of artwork/musical instruments. If such artifacts are present then it is not a Neanderthal cave. Similarly rock paintings are not a Neanderthal past time either. (Despite the fact that the populations of Neanderthals during the occupation of those German caves would've been higher than that of “our ancestors” who were pretty much new to the area.)

Further these objects show marked similarity so it would seem that what is really going on is that “our ancestors” maintained much larger social networks (family ties, perhaps) and engaged in art and music as means to express ideas and/or reinforce such ties which presented a much more rapid spread of new ideas, news and technology among “our ancestors” than Neanderthals; so that the Neanderthals were effectively obsoleted (and as time wore on it meant inbreeding with attending health problems was probably a powerful factor too) rather than driven into extinction per se.

[drone]

Further these objects show marked similarity so it would seem that what is really going on is that “our ancestors” maintained much larger social networks (family ties, perhaps) and engaged in art and music as means to express ideas and/or reinforce such ties which presented a much more rapid spread of new ideas, news and technology among “our ancestors” than Neanderthals; so that the Neanderthals were effectively obsoleted (and as time wore on it meant inbreeding with attending health problems was probably a powerful factor too) rather than driven into extinction per se.

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