Re: [asa] AIG gets it wrong again

There is a certain discretionary romantization that seems to drive
overclaims like these. There is a focus on the adjectives, accompanied
by neglect of overall degree and context. It's the sort of thing that
causes certain glyphs to be interpreted as spacecraft and such. It is
especially easy to make overclaims in the absence of photographic
documentation that would provide the audience with some sense of degree
in the observations that gave rise to the speculative claims. That sort
of accompanying visual data would also perhaps encourage less
extravagant claims. As it is, these assertions sort of take on a life of
their own, something akin to urban legends, I think. JimA

Jon Tandy wrote:

> AIG's assertion was basically that this so-called "earliest"
> Neandertal site all of a sudden appears with technology of
> fire-building and complex structure building. If it really did come
> out of nowhere, it could challenge the assertion that these people
> evolved in their technology, knowledge and language skills over
> thousands of years.
>
> My question was, upon discovery of this site, were anthropologists
> "astonished" at how these early Neandertals appear all of a sudden
> with fully developed technology, contradicting their previous views of
> human development? If not, and if there is actually evidence of prior
> history of technology development, then the "too advanced for
> evolution" statement is falsified, or at least seriously challenged.
>
> Since there is evidence of earlier H. erectus finds in Europe as David
> stated, another part of their assertion ("earliest sign of humans in
> Europe") is falsified. Unless one makes H. erectus non-human by
> definition, but that doesn't help the anti-evolutionary view which is
> the point of the article.
>
>
> Jon Tandy
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]
> On Behalf Of Dawsonzhu@aol.com
> Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 9:13 AM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Subject: Re: [asa] AIG gets it wrong again
>
>> It was left unstated how "Such language skill and technological
>> know-how
>> doesn't fit with evolutionary ideas about Neandertals". That is
>> a very
>> broad assertion which isn't explained. Do the archaeologists or
>> anthropologists themselves acknowledge this as a piece of data which
>> contradicts previously held ideas? Or is this statement simply
>> wishful
>> thinking?
>
>
>
> Neanderthals and technology would not contradict evolution,
> but there are differing opinions about how close to the
> modern human the Neanderthals are even amongst anthropologists.
> Currently, analysis of mtDNA supports them being rather distant.
> Nevertheless, mtDNA may not be telling the whole story.
>
> My own opinion is that they were not so different. There
> is even some hint that the blond/red hair and blue eyes are
> a remnant of the Neanderthals in the European population.
> For the record, my ancestors are mostly English and Scotish.
>
> At any rate, if Neanderthals were intelligent and capable
> of doing everything a modern human can do, it does not contradict
> evolution in any way. It only says something about the
> history of fossil man.
>
> Wayne
>

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Received on Tue Aug 8 13:44:14 2006