The Neanderthal theory, your thoughts?

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im willing to buy that we have neatherthal genes... but that being the link to autism... im not sold on.

The author is not guessing on how to test them. He is very clearly stating numerous ways to test the theory.





Then why bother to make such a statement? It is a tautology, a pointless waste of words.





Natural Selection most definitely influences behavior. For instance:

http://www.uic.edu/classes/bios/bios101 ... sld041.htm

http://www.buffalo.edu/dalai_lama/files/Berman.pdf

The idea of Social Darwinism applies to social life and ethics. For instance, refusing to help alleviate poverty so that the poor experience the consequences of their actions would be Social Darwinist. Social Darwinism proposes a Lamarckian mode of inheritance, rather than a Darwinian one. The Neanderthal Theory clearly deals with standard evolutionary processes and hence is Darwinian, not Lamarckian.





And this has what to do with the Neanderthal Theory, exactly?





Of course it is speculative. Scientists posit highly speculative theories all the time. Ever read any theoretical physics? Now there's some real speculation. In fact, there is genetic research going on right now that could help to prove or disprove this theory. In particular, the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, and the identification and dating of autism related genes.

I'm not saying that there aren't problems with some of the things that are stated in the Neanderthal Theory. I'm simply saying that the core of the theory, that is, that Neanderthal genes are extant in the modern human population and are the cause of autistic traits, is not only interesting, but testable. If it ends up being true, well, that would be absolutely fascinating to me. If it ends up being not true, well, that's cool, too. We could then definitively toss yet another theory into the trash bin of science.

And even if it is shown to be true, we're all still human. Everybody still has the same rights, responsibilities, and opportunities. It would not justify racism or discrimination in any way. Celebrate Diversity, remember?

I did not see a testable methodology in the paper. By "testable," I mean that, if I had the required education and credentials in that field, I could test it myself (right now). If that is not possible, his idea may be loosely defined as a proposition, but not as a hypothesis.



Not at all. The difference is that, in performing those tests, no assumption is made regarding an underlying essence. The testing process is required to be precise and to avoid unnecessary assumptions.



Well, natural selection is a behavior. However, I was distinguishing evolutionary theory (aka, the modern evolutionary synthesis) from crude attempts to argue that some races or social classes are inherently superior at doing certain tasks. That is what Spencer did.



Spencer's approach to biological evolution was neo-Lamarckian. However, his Social Darwinism, and the Social Darwinisms of those who followed him (like Benjamin Kidd) were more sociological than either Lamarckian or axiological. Spencer was proposing a comprehensive theory of human development, and his so-called Social Darwinism was the main factor in it.



Because he is treating Asperger's syndrome as an inherited behavioral trait, a genetic essence, which can be found in certain people.



Sure, but superstring theory is not really testable. For that reason, I would call it a conceptual model, not a theory.



Maybe, and maybe they will show that humans are dogs, not apes, but there is no evidence for it yet. For that reason, I would also call it a conceptual model or philosophy.



IMO, it is dangerous, unethical (racist) speculation. If there were some means of testing it right now, that would be different.

Theoretical physics is often untestable in the typical sense, but it derives it's rigor from mathematical models as opposed to experimentation.

This is an unbacked notion, a "what if" scenario.

that autistic phenotypes are not exclusive to humans... suggests that the neanderthal is NOT the source.... imho.

Wow! You cut to the chase of where I think I was going on this one.
Wicked Brilliant!
Perhaps this nihilist genocide happened before?
Have you heard about the Romanian skull that bares characteristics of both Homo Sapiens and Neander features?
Some say the hybrid idea has been debunked, BUT (and a big but), this does NOT rule out the possibility of interbreeding. Somehow, it may have been possible for Neanders to have been bred out of selection, when their members of their brood departed, and bred and blended with non-Neanderthal populations.

I'm convinced that there are some humans alive today, that if stripped of flesh, could pass as a Neanderthal remnant of sorts. A half profile of my forehead reveals a nice cleavage between the frontal brow and lobe, and a crest.

Some of the Neanderthal brow and skull features are somewhat visible in modern Australian aboriginal skulls:
http://www.skullsunlimited.com/human-au ... skull.html

Maybe the composition of the Neander skull cause natural deformation, or the weight of the skull and environmental factors caused post mortem skulls to be elongated or flattened. similar to the trephined Peruvian Skulls:
http://www.skullsunlimited.com/peruvian ... kulls.html

It's funny how more recent reconstructions of Neander skulls show much less prognathism. It's as if they took a silent cue from Jack Cuozzo, and realized that previous jaw placements were far too far forward in socket. Too exaggerated as a subconscious effort to reconstruct a missing link. But we know now that Neanders were not a missing link but an extinct branch of the same tree.

Interbreeding could have been a fast track start for quickly hyper-adapting the warmer climed homo sapiens to cold European winters. Could the same assimilation influenced east Asia? Advanced Homo Erectus and Homo Sapien interbreeding.

Out of Africa is challenged:
http://www1.china.org.cn/english/culture/45685.htm

Neander genome is being sequenced. Loving conspiracies like I do, I suspect scientists are under pressure to not cause too much alarm. Most of the modern public would not be willing to accept a another sapient being that was 99.9% the same as modern HSS, as smart and advanced as modern HSS, yet still a different species and a branch off of an evolutionary tree. What if modern fair Europeans rapidly developed their coloring from interbreeding between brown homo sapiens and ginger Neanderthals? A lot of room for even more speculation that this world would not be willing to accept.

99.9% the same is hardly more than us and the chimp. That split happened 5,000,000 years ago, but both groups started with the same. Neanderthal was only 250,000 years ago, and Austrailians perhaps 50,000. That still places them 75,000 years into modern human, same species, interbreeding works.

Neanderthal is an earlier split, but the main differance between Homo Erectus and Sapian is in the incisors, Modern human are shovel shaped, flat to concave, and Erectus fully round. This trait, fully round, is found only in Native Americans. They are modern humans.

I have heard of the Romanian skull, and one from Armenia that had fangs, and I suspect another Piltdown Man. Only the teeth show this invented species Erectus, this is Science, and people make up stories.

When the Germans found Neanderthal, The French advanced stone working, the British had to find something older.

Neanderthal was a brute, I do not mean dumb, he would not have survived, but built like a bear. The bones are thick, dennse, and judged to be three times stronger than moderns. Another species? Same line 250,000 years later, perhaps some adaption to a colder climate, but why did they leave Africa?

There was a larger species, Gigantapithicus, but they died out when the human directed line came along. Big means slow, and the Gracile build of modern humans is the fastest land ape. They are rude and annoying rock throwers who will run rather than fight, and the larger and slower migrated out of Africa, to get away from them.

Humans survived on speed. Fast ones lived to reproduce. The Devil take the hind most worked then too. Lions caught the slowest in a group, then stopped to feed. Natural selection. Most of the bones of children have been recovered from the dens of predators.

The Tropics barely notice ice ages. Africa was about like now. The thick bodied and fur covered could be out distanced by the lightly built with less fur to cause heat build up, which caused this one of a kind naked animal.

The brow ridge and occipital bun of the Neanderthal do show up in early modern humans. Long after the split with the European Neanderthat branch. There is a carved ivory head from Slovokia, well modern human, of a guy with brow ridges. Austrailians became isolated, so not much change, they most likely look like everyone did some 50,000 years ago. Some traits seem common, but the same traits can be found on English or German skulls. Less common, but there.

The Neanderthal tool kit is well developed, awls, sewing, and an array of cutting tools. There is a cultural differance, they never change, early and late sites have the same tools. It is the same with early humans about the time of the split.

The thin humans had one period of inovation just before the Austrailians left, for they both have the hafted ax and thrown spear. Neanderthal seems to have never developed it. The Romans did not know of the wheelbarrow, though it had been in use in China for thousands of years.

Neanderthal were few, did not change, and there is hardly any evidence of contact with Modern Humans, so far I know of one bead, Cromagnon, found in a Neanderthal site. Their range overlaped for 10,000 years, and no tool changes. I think they were just out hunted, and at the end of the last wave of ice, sudden climate change, they were no more.

Stript of flesh all modern humans look alike. There are no traits that cannot be found in several populations, for we are only about 50,000 years apart at the most. Most of us are much closer. Norwegians and Souix, Ojibway, share genes that say they were one people 15,000 years ago. And most likely both lived on the Eurasian Steppe. Some went east, some west.

At that time Indo European Language wes 15,000 years old. Cloth had been woven for 10,000 years.
We are a young and closely related group.

If there were Neanderthal breeds among us, they would win Olympic Gold every time.

Exploitation and striping the earth of everything starts with Rome. Their looting caused a dark age of 800 years, then the looting started again, and since 1500, the destruction has been horrible. Killing the planet you live on is proof of being dumb.

One species, naked apes, with a death wish.

The Defective Mutant Hypothesis of Autism

See sites such as Autism Speaks and various other sites for a racist "theory" of autism and a holocaust in the making.

That genetics influences behavior is a settled issue. Neuroatypical people are wired differently from NTs which in turn results in behaviors that are pathologized by this "theory."

NTs are seen as the superior master race due to better organizational, planning, and mimicking skills, etc.

Doesn't the idea that Neanderthals and H.s.s. didn't interbreed sound racist to anyone here?

I do not think that the purpose of the Neanderthal hypothesis is to support a racist ideology. However, aside from its possible use by some persons to promote racist social constructions, I still have tremendous problems with it. For instance, I contend that it is, much like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, thoroughly untestable.

One of the basic elements of the hypothesis, as I understand it, is that Caucasoids are more intelligent than Negroids (by around 30 IQ points), since Neanderthal ancestry is most common among Caucasoids. Supposedly, the Neanderthal trait manifests as "aspieness." Without the Neanderthal trait, Caucasoids and Negroids would, according to the hypothesis, have similar average IQ scores.

What I am getting at is that under psychiatry's Defective Mutant Hypothesis of Autism we already have a racist mainscream "theory." They see only low social social intelligence and no positives.

If Caucasians are "superior" it is due to the fact that they are hybrids. Hybrid plants are often superior to the varieties used to create the hybrids.

Furthermore, superiority is in the eye of the beholder, or situation-specific. Conditions can change. If (or at the rate we are going when) our civilization collapses the intelligence of Caucasians won't matter much.

Furthermore a 30 point difference sounds high enough to question the validity of the results. Some of that difference could be problems with IQ tests. Another likely factor is a synergistic effect of innate and environmental factors. That is, the end result is lots of favorable environmental change which allows a much fuller expression of innate ability.

So in the end I doubt the average innate difference is quite that large. When one considers the variability between individuals it should be readily apparent that one's racial background cannot be used to draw any reliable conclusions.

Last edited by DemocraticSocialistHun on 05 May 2008, 7:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Furthermore, under Leif's theory, neanderthals aren't responsible for the g-factor, but rather the hybridization is.

I saw this on Yahoo! news today:

Neanderthals were separate species, new study finds

Blacks are more diverse than whites

Now that you mention it and i looked back at that picture of the girl, I do too

Interesting:

Even if the interbreeding occurred, these Neanderthals were apparently not as bright as homo sapiens, which, if true, puts a hole in the Neanderthal model.