If you enjoy factual take downs of poorly thought-out evolutionary biology theories you'll like this video that takes apart a fringe theory about neanderthals being some kind of evil ape super-predators.
I think it's really sad that neanderthals aren't around anymore, I think we could learn a lot by interacting with humans who were more significantly different from anyone who is alive today.
With "theories" like this about human origins it's worth thinking about what need such folk tales fill. That's what this theory is, a folk tale.
For some people this lore is needed because they don't like (human) evolution and neanderthals kind of force us to realize that, yes, humans also evolved just like every other living thing. For others I think it's about some deep impulse to separate everything into in-groups and out-groups.
But, there are no clear borders.
I can sympathize with being annoyed or disappointed that our closest relatives are other primates. I'm not a huge fan of primates generally. Mostly because they are similar to people, but different enough that the less ... admirable traits stand out more.
It's hard not to look at chimps and think of how badly they fail at being human. This is also very silly since we fail very badly at being chimps (and chimps might even be able to appreciate this... certainly cats can ...)
@futurebird It has been forever since I read about that scientist who lived among apes for some years, but I think somewhat was actually said to the effect of what you just said: the apes felt the human was kind of bad at being an ape.
I think you have a good point besides. It's a bit of the uncanny valley effect perhaps. If we were bug beings then we might find our evolutionary similar cousins to be unpleasant and might like apes more.
Never try to wrestle a chimpanzee.
@michael_w_busch @futurebird Apes have significantly more muscle strength to body weight ratio than we do. It's part of the cost of so many of our calories going to our brains instead of our muscles from what I've read.
@nazokiyoubinbou @michael_w_busch @futurebird I've also seen the suggestion that we wouldn't have the fine motor skills in our hands if we were as strong as chimpansees
(Also, while our brains require a lot of calories, apparently Neanderthals managed to evolve both brains and muscle mass to the point of requiring over twice as many calories a day as we do, which worked just fine for a while. Until that became a selection pressure against them. There's a pbs eons episode about it on YT)
@vanderZwan @michael_w_busch @futurebird That would explain why neanderthals were so much fewer and swallowed up into our own subspecies so quickly. It would have been a lot harder to truly sustain those requirements.
It's popular to act like neanderthals were dumb because they were "cave men" but, in fact, they were quite intelligent (supposedly they taught our subspecies a lot of ways to make better tools and hunt better.) Of course, people confuse knowledge and intelligence for being the same thing when they aren't. (By that same token, humans 10,000 years from now -- if our species lives that long -- will think we were ignoramuses for not knowing how to create such super simple exotic energy sources as they've been using forever and bending spacetime or something, lol.)
@nazokiyoubinbou @vanderZwan @michael_w_busch
Well, if other people are projecting their philosophical ideals on to this question of neanderthals vs. sapiens sapiens I'll mention my pet notion:
sapiens sapiens could figure out how to live in much larger groups than neanderthals, something, maybe reproductive speed, maybe all those calories, maybe a commitment to living in small groups on vast tracts of land limited neanderthals.
They couldn't get into the 100s, let alone the 1000s