This article really fails to explain anything. Headline just makes a statement then the text waffles on without actually making any arguments to support that statement.
So basically from the paper I think they are saying there is morphological variability in the area, but they can see technological consistency (centripetal lavallois, burnt ochre). But I still don't understand why this particular assemblage is evidence for that.
Not that I don't believe them, I'm just grumbling that they haven't explained it properly (at least, not well enough for my Sunday morning brain).
It's entirely possible that they were more intelligent in some ways than contemporary Homo Sapiens. How they were overwhelmed is open to question. Perhaps just numerically - they were adapted for cold environments and may have been less fecund.
I’ve also seen estimates that Neanderthals required 2x-5x more calories per day than us, which translates into 2x-5x less population density. That’s one way to get overwhelmed.
Thru-hikers are often expecting to burn like 6000 calories a day.
Arctic explorers burned up to something like 10,000.
Would Neanderthals burn 30-50,000 calories in the same situation, or is that just "what Neanderthals did all day", as opposed to me, a guy sitting at a desk, burning 2000-2500 when I get my steps in?
3 of the 4 dna samples show signs of nonclassic CAH. This limited their reproduction abilities as 50% of babies would have CAH and die at birth until they integrated with proto-humans and had higher genetic diversity.
People have been people for 200k years. There’s a built in assumption in these sorts of stories that before the pyramids or whatever, everyone was running around like apes. Pounding their chests and each other.
I’d say of course people communicated and helped each other out. There were far fewer of us, and for the most part they lived in a world of great abundance.
so we are all part, Ugg, or is it part Ugg-et, or is it both?, ie: y and x chromasones have nieanderthal bits?, if its both, then that is a strong indication that things were pretty casual, ,hanging out partying, looks like Ugg and Sue are hitting it off, some tasty mastadon on the fire, heard you and the other nieandethals got a saber tooth cat last week
Y chromosomes and mitochondria don't have crossover, so you need unbroken patrilineal and matrilineal descent from a particular ancestor to inherit it.
So if you are Ugg, son of Ugg, son of Ugg, son of Ugg, you have ur-Ugg's Neanderthal Y chromosome, but if you are Ugg, son of Ugg, son of Uggette, daughter of Ugg, you have neither ur-Ugg's Y nor X chromosome (Uggette inherits Ugg's X, which gets crossed over with Maggie's [Ugg's Cro-Magnon missus] X's and passed on to Ugg II, but Ugg II doesn't pass on his X to you, he passed on Magnus's [Uggette's Cro-Magnon mister] Y).
Haha, yeah, the idea that early humans and Neanderthals were just casually intermingling around the fire, sharing stories and mammoth steaks, is a fun mental image
It's a matter of degree. Of course they learned some things from each other, but did or could the groups have largely similar cultures? The term used in the paper is "behavioral uniformity", which is more than exchanging a few memes. And what does that say about how much and how deeply they interacted? From the abstract:
The south Levantine mid-Middle Palaeolithic (mid-MP; ~130–80 thousand years ago (ka)) is remarkable for its exceptional evidence of human morphological variability, with contemporaneous fossils of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal-like hominins. ... We suggest that the development of this behavioural uniformity is due to intensified inter-population interactions and admixture between Homo groups ~130–80 ka.
It’s highly unlikely that a small nomadic hunter-gatherer band would have had the food surplus and hierarchical organization needed to control and keep slaves.
It’s as likely that ancient humans outcompeted Neanderthals for resources as killed them off directly.
This is not true, as evidenced by the slave taking exhibited by nomadic peoples in North America. It was a pretty routine practice, well documented in history. Losers in battles would often be assimilated by the winner as slaves.
I think you are talking about a far more modern period, in a much more complex, socially stratified society. The Neanderthal period was 50k-100k years ago.
The Uralic word for slave is very archaic and dates to well before they became sedentary. The Uralic tribes came into contact with the Aryas people on the steppes, and won battles with them enough to take captives as slaves, calling them orjat.
People can learn from just seeing stuff. You watch a guy preparing food in a different way, now you know that there's a different way. He wears a funny hat, maybe you try and make a copy, etc. Chimps and some other animals do this too.
We are talking about Homo genus; I expect they had language (do we know?). The issue was communicating with others who speak a different language, and my point is that people manage it all the time.
There are indicators, for example, the neanderthals and all other human like great apes have mysteriously disappeared except for us. (Or gotten assimilated, I mean, we have a tiny bit neanderthal DNA)
Check out killer ape theory.
Also look at how violent humans are to their own species.
So no evidence, just more of the cutting edge, widely followed, paper-thin theory of inevitable evil.
> There are indicators, for example, the neanderthals and all other human like great apes have mysteriously disappeared except for us. (Or gotten assimilated, I mean, we have a tiny bit neanderthal DNA)
That's not an indication at all. It's an outcome.
> Also look at how violent humans are to their own species.
Humanity has grown to 8 billion organisms - the evidence seems otherwise.
I think our growth to 8 billion was a consequence of technology advancement rather than our acceptance of each other. While I don't disagree with the parent that humans do exterminate each other, they seem to be also keen to assimilate the other into their "own" line.
Maybe, but our tech advancement could only happen because of our acceptance of others and of cooperation. And I have not seen any evidence that neandertals and sapiens considered themselves that different, this is just an assumed thing from our limited knowledge.
> Maybe, but our tech advancement could only happen because of our acceptance of others and of cooperation.
Or maybe the technical advantage was driven by survival and desire to occupy/expand which eventually resulted in overall development (because you can only hide your advantage for so long) which lifted most of the boats resulting in conditions that make acceptance of others and cooperation easier. I would like to know large-scale examples of acceptance and co-operation when the world was being discovered, conquered, divided and shaped through occupation and wars.
As follows: The distribution of already existing traits, changes pretty fast (20-50 generations is fairly much) when the environment and evolutionary pressure changes.
And, large parts of the planet, haven't been invaded and the men killed, women raped, the last hundreds of years, in some places not even the last thousand years. Then, violent traits (reproducing by killing all men in the tribe nearby, raping the women) start fading away. (Not noticeable in a single lifetime though)
> Cold-adapted mammals tend to be more cooperative within their species.
Interesting, what are you basing that on? (Is it an observation you've made or is there any research paper for example)
But the neanderthals, that was about 40 000 years ago they started disappearing. That's so much time, so any more kind or more brutal traits they might have had, wouldn't matter any more. Evolution is pretty fast, 20-50 generations is fairly much, when it comes to changing the distribution of traits that already exist, from what I've read (both our own species and other). And seen, actually, about humans.
Personally I believe all other great apes were roughly equally violent, just not as intelligent.
Isnt autism and other traits from neanderthal related genes? When I grew up I was told neanderthals died out because they werent capable of making big tribes and adapting themselves.
So its just guess after guess. Now it seems non subsaharan people have some neanderthal dna, they were more capable than we thought and some theories say they could see in the dark
This is one of the themes in Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari: the extinction of many large animal species. Harari discusses how Homo sapiens, as they spread across the globe, contributed to the decline and extinction of megafauna (large animals) due to hunting practices and environmental changes, and offers various explanations for the disappearance of other humanoids due to the rise of the homo sapiens.
We have means to wipe out those 8 billions in a matter of seconds. And we continuously select the biggest psychopaths to control those means. The evidence shows that we are fucked up species and it's only matter of time when we are going to blow the whole thing up.
> we continuously select the biggest psychopaths to control those means
Biden, Obama, GW Bush, Clinton, G Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, ... we've only chosen one 'psychopath', assuming I know what you refer to.
Nobody in the world has used them beyond that one pair of events.
> Biden, Obama, GW Bush, Clinton, G Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, ... we've only chosen one 'psychopath', assuming I know what you refer to.
It’s interesting how you narrowed it down to the “land of the free” when the gp speaks of a “species”.
Humans actually aren't particularly aggressive compared to other animals. The reason human-human conflicts are so deadly is that we're rather fragile and have a very long maturation period.
> Also look at how violent humans are to their own species.
Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species.
Also I think that organisms feel most threatened by same-niche competitors, and least threatened by non-competitors. Similar but just different enough is like the worst case in terms of same-niche competition. Like how geese and ducks will act really adversarial towards each other, and then a beaver can just wander through and no one cares.
> Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species.
Species is a construct because it is a useful concept to bin or categorize traits. The woke ideology of pretending that all constructs are borne of "inequality" and "injustice" has no place in the sciences, where binning is a useful tool for studying populations, not individuals.
And yes, binning people into races, cultures, and nationalities is often useful too. Especially when they often self-identify as parts of those groups.
> Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species.
You could also say that atoms are a construct, also molecules and nuclei. Nature has no concept of any of those. But the clumping is repeatable enough at everyday energies so that it's useful to think about it in those terms.
That clump doesn't exist, except in rare circumstances - it's conceptual, which is why you use a metaphor. The clump of hydrogen and oxygen atoms that make a water molecule is actual, real - you can touch it and see it.
My point is that it isn’t really unexpected from a biological perspective that humans are violent towards “their own species”, because our instincts don’t know about the concept of species.
My impression is that people who bemoan man’s inhumanity to man typically act as if all humans should be interpreted as family members by our instincts and somehow they aren’t due to culture, and I don’t think that line of thinking is supported by biology (because species is a construct).
I’m reacting to the quality of the post’s inference on how humans would behave towards non-humans. Where the inference is: if they do this to their friends, imagine what they would do to their enemies.
I’m arguing that the inference is invalid because other humans aren’t their friends, because the human system goes from kin :) to OUTSIDER pretty fast. I’m not aware of evidence that it intensifies beyond OUTSIDER, and if anything I would imagine that it would diminish. If it diminishes, then humans could treat human-like species further away from them better than they treat rival humans, if their niche isn’t threatened by the human-like (but-not-human) species.
So the inference has a hole in it. I’m just pointing out that this man’s inference has a flat.
But really I’m just interested in engaging people on this topic, so I poke holes in the comments of people who seem interested, to get a reaction. Sometimes they knock over my argument and I learn something new.
> People didn't really have diverse behaviors towards animals dependant on how human-like animals are.
If they aren’t edible or dangerous we pretty much ignore them, no? Like they might be wiped out as collateral damage post industrialization, but I see that as an emergent side effect that no one cares to prevent, as opposed to a positivistic aspect of human nature.
Does this have implications for understanding the abilities of Neanderthals? For instance, might more advanced tools found in Neanderthal sites have been created by non-Neanderthals, and exchanged in trade or captured/ stolen?
To claim that "we are Neanderthals" is wrong because while modern humans and Neanderthals share a common ancestor and interbred, Neanderthals were a distinct species that went extinct. Genetic contributions from Neanderthals to modern humans are minor, typically around 1-2% in non-African populations, and do not make us Neanderthal in any meaningful sense. Moreover, the idea that specific Neanderthal genes explain large behavioral differences among human populations is not supported by scientific consensus—human behavior is shaped by a complex mix of genetics, culture, and environment. While some Neanderthal-derived genes may have influenced traits like immune response or altitude adaptation, the assertion that they drive major behavioral differences is speculative and echoes outdated, often racially charged ideas about genetic determinism. Biologists do discuss these topics openly, but they do so within the rigorous framework of evolutionary genetics, not unfounded assumptions about "large portions of variances" in human behavior.
I'm a biologist, I wouldn't be caught saying it in private or public because it's incorrect.
Lots of good discussion here about should Neanderthal and Homo sapiens be a separate species. Like most nature questions the answer seems to always be "It's complicated."
Genetic differences do exist among different human populations. Even so, attributing broad behavioral traits to Neanderthal ancestry is not supported by science.
Human behavior is shaped by many factors like genetics, culture, environment, and social structures. No credible geneticist argues that Neanderthal ancestry “explains large portions of variances in human behavior.”
As for your comment that “Biologists know this, you won’t catch them saying it in public though.”, this is a classic conspiracy-style statement. You’re suggesting that experts are hiding the “truth,” which is a tactic often used in pseudoscience and race-related theories.
The interpretation of "you won’t catch them saying it in public though" that you offer is NOT the only one. The one the OP most likely meant is: "out of fear for their careers and livelihoods, they will not state such things given that such facts are outside of the current overton window"
Controversial scientific topics are actively discussed in academic journals and conferences. Scientists regularly publish challenging or provocative findings, even those outside mainstream acceptance… Provided they’re backed by credible evidence. The absence of discussion here isn’t due to fear of consequences. It’s because the scientific community hasn’t found convincing evidence linking Neanderthal DNA to major behavioral differences.
> Clearly, certain populations have much different mixtures, which explains large portions of variances in human behavior.
Citation needed.
Geneticists can, at best, sometimes figure out what any particular gene does, and yet here you are claiming that you can tie broad behavior differences to traces of the Neanderthal genetic code (Weird, since geneticists can at best, barely correlate the smallest differences in behaviour to particular genes). That's an extraordinary claim, and would require some truly extraordinary evidence.
Behavioral genetics does not have the predictive power that you think it does.
Couching scientific racism behind the fig leaf of 'Behavioural geneticists all know this but refuse to talk about it', fortunately, requires absolutely no actual evidence. In fact, the absence of evidence for it is viewed as evidence for it!
This article really fails to explain anything. Headline just makes a statement then the text waffles on without actually making any arguments to support that statement.
So basically from the paper I think they are saying there is morphological variability in the area, but they can see technological consistency (centripetal lavallois, burnt ochre). But I still don't understand why this particular assemblage is evidence for that.
Not that I don't believe them, I'm just grumbling that they haven't explained it properly (at least, not well enough for my Sunday morning brain).
Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02110-y
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02110-y/figures/3
The link has images of some of the tools they found. Do you think we could teach a Neanderthal to code?
Sure. 95% of software development is banging rocks together until they fit the purpose anyways.
It's entirely possible that they were more intelligent in some ways than contemporary Homo Sapiens. How they were overwhelmed is open to question. Perhaps just numerically - they were adapted for cold environments and may have been less fecund.
I’ve also seen estimates that Neanderthals required 2x-5x more calories per day than us, which translates into 2x-5x less population density. That’s one way to get overwhelmed.
> required 2x-5x more calories per day than us, which translates into 2x-5x less population density
If you assume that they're equally productive, sure. Why assume that?
I think "than us" here is quite mistaken reasoning, particularly for those of us with lots of Neanderthal DNA.
Also, "than us doing what"?
Thru-hikers are often expecting to burn like 6000 calories a day.
Arctic explorers burned up to something like 10,000.
Would Neanderthals burn 30-50,000 calories in the same situation, or is that just "what Neanderthals did all day", as opposed to me, a guy sitting at a desk, burning 2000-2500 when I get my steps in?
3 of the 4 dna samples show signs of nonclassic CAH. This limited their reproduction abilities as 50% of babies would have CAH and die at birth until they integrated with proto-humans and had higher genetic diversity.
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It's incredible to think that instead of isolated evolutionary tracks, early human groups were exchanging ideas, tools, and even burial customs
Iceman - 1984: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087452/?ref_=fn_all_ttl_3
A surprisingly touching film about a frozen Neanderthal brought back to life. Have a feeling you'll like it.
Thanks for the recommendation! I hadn't heard of Iceman before, but it sounds like something I'd enjoy. I'll check it out!
I preferred the 1992 remake.
Didn't know. Will check it out. [edit: nothing on imdb for that year. Are you sure?]
I expect it was a joke referring to the Pauley Shore vehicle Encino Man: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104187/
Why? People are people.
People have been people for 200k years. There’s a built in assumption in these sorts of stories that before the pyramids or whatever, everyone was running around like apes. Pounding their chests and each other.
I’d say of course people communicated and helped each other out. There were far fewer of us, and for the most part they lived in a world of great abundance.
I agree that people have always been people, with the capacity for communication and cooperation.But still...
Proto-religions probably too
Absolutely! Shared burial customs suggest shared beliefs about death and the afterlife
so we are all part, Ugg, or is it part Ugg-et, or is it both?, ie: y and x chromasones have nieanderthal bits?, if its both, then that is a strong indication that things were pretty casual, ,hanging out partying, looks like Ugg and Sue are hitting it off, some tasty mastadon on the fire, heard you and the other nieandethals got a saber tooth cat last week
There is no Neanderthal Y chromosome (male line) DNA in modern humans, and also no Neanderthal mitochondrial (female line) DNA in modern humans, but about half of Neanderthal DNA is still around scattered between different modern humans. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-human-y-chromo..., https://theconversation.com/modern-human-dna-contains-bits-f...
Neanderthals and mastodons never met, as they were on different continents.
Okay, they didn’t bother to completely sequence neanderthal dna…
And now we make the claim that their Y chromosone is non existent in humans.
Let’s finish the sequencing before being so definitively factual about it.
Y chromosomes and mitochondria don't have crossover, so you need unbroken patrilineal and matrilineal descent from a particular ancestor to inherit it.
So if you are Ugg, son of Ugg, son of Ugg, son of Ugg, you have ur-Ugg's Neanderthal Y chromosome, but if you are Ugg, son of Ugg, son of Uggette, daughter of Ugg, you have neither ur-Ugg's Y nor X chromosome (Uggette inherits Ugg's X, which gets crossed over with Maggie's [Ugg's Cro-Magnon missus] X's and passed on to Ugg II, but Ugg II doesn't pass on his X to you, he passed on Magnus's [Uggette's Cro-Magnon mister] Y).
Haha, yeah, the idea that early humans and Neanderthals were just casually intermingling around the fire, sharing stories and mammoth steaks, is a fun mental image
Why call Neanderthal ugg? Homo sapiens were probably Ugg too.
I mean, we already knew that we exchanged genes so is it not therefore self-evident that we also exchanged memes?
It's a matter of degree. Of course they learned some things from each other, but did or could the groups have largely similar cultures? The term used in the paper is "behavioral uniformity", which is more than exchanging a few memes. And what does that say about how much and how deeply they interacted? From the abstract:
The south Levantine mid-Middle Palaeolithic (mid-MP; ~130–80 thousand years ago (ka)) is remarkable for its exceptional evidence of human morphological variability, with contemporaneous fossils of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal-like hominins. ... We suggest that the development of this behavioural uniformity is due to intensified inter-population interactions and admixture between Homo groups ~130–80 ka.
Plunder/Raping raids don't necessarilyead to trading and meaningful conversations do they?
You have be able to communicate with your slaves.
It’s highly unlikely that a small nomadic hunter-gatherer band would have had the food surplus and hierarchical organization needed to control and keep slaves.
It’s as likely that ancient humans outcompeted Neanderthals for resources as killed them off directly.
This is not true, as evidenced by the slave taking exhibited by nomadic peoples in North America. It was a pretty routine practice, well documented in history. Losers in battles would often be assimilated by the winner as slaves.
I think you are talking about a far more modern period, in a much more complex, socially stratified society. The Neanderthal period was 50k-100k years ago.
AFAIK, we know pretty much nothing about human or neanderthal societies 50k-100k years ago.
The Uralic word for slave is very archaic and dates to well before they became sedentary. The Uralic tribes came into contact with the Aryas people on the steppes, and won battles with them enough to take captives as slaves, calling them orjat.
Surplus? The captives are there for labor and exploitation. They’re not house pets
Do we have to be able to communicate--in the sense of language--with our pets?
Farmers directing Border Collies to herd sheep use a whistling "language" that is able to accomplish - to an outsider - astonishing things.
Watch some some videos if you haven't seen it. It's baffling.
How much depends on the "language" vs training and breeding, I can't say.
Wouldn't captives carry memes?
Only if you and your captives are able to communicate. If you have a fish tank, do your fish give you memes?
People can learn from just seeing stuff. You watch a guy preparing food in a different way, now you know that there's a different way. He wears a funny hat, maybe you try and make a copy, etc. Chimps and some other animals do this too.
Why wouldn't they learn to communicate, like all other humans do?
For the same reason that chimps don't (contrary to some earlier work) learn language.
We are talking about Homo genus; I expect they had language (do we know?). The issue was communicating with others who speak a different language, and my point is that people manage it all the time.
Chimps have memes without language! Communication is a lot broader than just language.
Sadly, no matter how many memes I give them they never give any back. Jerks.
Sure they would. You would have to communicate intention. There would be assimilation where they would take their women and spend time with them etc.
> Plunder/Raping raids
What are you referring to? Is there evidence of that being most of the way they interacted?
There are indicators, for example, the neanderthals and all other human like great apes have mysteriously disappeared except for us. (Or gotten assimilated, I mean, we have a tiny bit neanderthal DNA)
Check out killer ape theory.
Also look at how violent humans are to their own species.
So no evidence, just more of the cutting edge, widely followed, paper-thin theory of inevitable evil.
> There are indicators, for example, the neanderthals and all other human like great apes have mysteriously disappeared except for us. (Or gotten assimilated, I mean, we have a tiny bit neanderthal DNA)
That's not an indication at all. It's an outcome.
> Also look at how violent humans are to their own species.
Humanity has grown to 8 billion organisms - the evidence seems otherwise.
I think our growth to 8 billion was a consequence of technology advancement rather than our acceptance of each other. While I don't disagree with the parent that humans do exterminate each other, they seem to be also keen to assimilate the other into their "own" line.
Maybe, but our tech advancement could only happen because of our acceptance of others and of cooperation. And I have not seen any evidence that neandertals and sapiens considered themselves that different, this is just an assumed thing from our limited knowledge.
> Maybe, but our tech advancement could only happen because of our acceptance of others and of cooperation.
Or maybe the technical advantage was driven by survival and desire to occupy/expand which eventually resulted in overall development (because you can only hide your advantage for so long) which lifted most of the boats resulting in conditions that make acceptance of others and cooperation easier. I would like to know large-scale examples of acceptance and co-operation when the world was being discovered, conquered, divided and shaped through occupation and wars.
Also, we are more peaceful species now, than 40 000 years ago.
On what do you based that? (Genuinely interested)
As follows: The distribution of already existing traits, changes pretty fast (20-50 generations is fairly much) when the environment and evolutionary pressure changes.
And, large parts of the planet, haven't been invaded and the men killed, women raped, the last hundreds of years, in some places not even the last thousand years. Then, violent traits (reproducing by killing all men in the tribe nearby, raping the women) start fading away. (Not noticeable in a single lifetime though)
Perhaps all that Neanderthal DNA we assimilated changed us. Cold-adapted mammals tend to be more cooperative within their species.
> Cold-adapted mammals tend to be more cooperative within their species.
Interesting, what are you basing that on? (Is it an observation you've made or is there any research paper for example)
But the neanderthals, that was about 40 000 years ago they started disappearing. That's so much time, so any more kind or more brutal traits they might have had, wouldn't matter any more. Evolution is pretty fast, 20-50 generations is fairly much, when it comes to changing the distribution of traits that already exist, from what I've read (both our own species and other). And seen, actually, about humans.
Personally I believe all other great apes were roughly equally violent, just not as intelligent.
Isnt autism and other traits from neanderthal related genes? When I grew up I was told neanderthals died out because they werent capable of making big tribes and adapting themselves.
So its just guess after guess. Now it seems non subsaharan people have some neanderthal dna, they were more capable than we thought and some theories say they could see in the dark
This is one of the themes in Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari: the extinction of many large animal species. Harari discusses how Homo sapiens, as they spread across the globe, contributed to the decline and extinction of megafauna (large animals) due to hunting practices and environmental changes, and offers various explanations for the disappearance of other humanoids due to the rise of the homo sapiens.
We have means to wipe out those 8 billions in a matter of seconds. And we continuously select the biggest psychopaths to control those means. The evidence shows that we are fucked up species and it's only matter of time when we are going to blow the whole thing up.
> we continuously select the biggest psychopaths to control those means
Biden, Obama, GW Bush, Clinton, G Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, ... we've only chosen one 'psychopath', assuming I know what you refer to.
Nobody in the world has used them beyond that one pair of events.
> Biden, Obama, GW Bush, Clinton, G Bush, Reagan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, ... we've only chosen one 'psychopath', assuming I know what you refer to.
It’s interesting how you narrowed it down to the “land of the free” when the gp speaks of a “species”.
They were talking about the individuals who control nuclear arsenals capable of destroying humanity.
Humans actually aren't particularly aggressive compared to other animals. The reason human-human conflicts are so deadly is that we're rather fragile and have a very long maturation period.
> Also look at how violent humans are to their own species.
Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species.
Also I think that organisms feel most threatened by same-niche competitors, and least threatened by non-competitors. Similar but just different enough is like the worst case in terms of same-niche competition. Like how geese and ducks will act really adversarial towards each other, and then a beaver can just wander through and no one cares.
And yes, binning people into races, cultures, and nationalities is often useful too. Especially when they often self-identify as parts of those groups.
Calling any idea "woke ideology" doesn't sound like any science I'm familiar with.
>Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species
species are clades, and our genes know everything there is to know about clades
> Species is a construct though, our genes have no idea about species.
You could also say that atoms are a construct, also molecules and nuclei. Nature has no concept of any of those. But the clumping is repeatable enough at everyday energies so that it's useful to think about it in those terms.
> You could also say that atoms are a construct, also molecules and nuclei.
You could say it, but they are real things that interact with the environment. DNA is a real thing that interacts with the environment.
Species, the periodic table, etc. are constructs. They are useful because they help us understand the world.
It's just clumps of matter. Ssme way species is just a clump of individuals.
> Species, the periodic table, etc. are constructs. They are useful because they help us understand the world.
My point exactly.
That clump doesn't exist, except in rare circumstances - it's conceptual, which is why you use a metaphor. The clump of hydrogen and oxygen atoms that make a water molecule is actual, real - you can touch it and see it.
My point is that it isn’t really unexpected from a biological perspective that humans are violent towards “their own species”, because our instincts don’t know about the concept of species.
My impression is that people who bemoan man’s inhumanity to man typically act as if all humans should be interpreted as family members by our instincts and somehow they aren’t due to culture, and I don’t think that line of thinking is supported by biology (because species is a construct).
I think it's compared to other animals who fight a lot (for mates for example) but it rarely ends with death.
I’m reacting to the quality of the post’s inference on how humans would behave towards non-humans. Where the inference is: if they do this to their friends, imagine what they would do to their enemies.
I’m arguing that the inference is invalid because other humans aren’t their friends, because the human system goes from kin :) to OUTSIDER pretty fast. I’m not aware of evidence that it intensifies beyond OUTSIDER, and if anything I would imagine that it would diminish. If it diminishes, then humans could treat human-like species further away from them better than they treat rival humans, if their niche isn’t threatened by the human-like (but-not-human) species.
So the inference has a hole in it. I’m just pointing out that this man’s inference has a flat.
But really I’m just interested in engaging people on this topic, so I poke holes in the comments of people who seem interested, to get a reaction. Sometimes they knock over my argument and I learn something new.
> human system goes from kin :) to OUTSIDER pretty fast. I’m not aware of evidence that it intensifies beyond OUTSIDER,
Yeah, that sounds accurate.
> if anything I would imagine that it would diminish
Not sure what gives you that hope. People didn't really have diverse behaviors towards animals dependant on how human-like animals are.
> People didn't really have diverse behaviors towards animals dependant on how human-like animals are.
If they aren’t edible or dangerous we pretty much ignore them, no? Like they might be wiped out as collateral damage post industrialization, but I see that as an emergent side effect that no one cares to prevent, as opposed to a positivistic aspect of human nature.
Yeah, but all primates are edible. Humans ate a lot of humans in the past. As you say OUTSIDER is really not far away.
There's archeological evidence from Europe from around the invention of agriculture of communities hunting and eating people en masse.
Also Lawrence Keeley, War Before Civilization
"Tiny" is understating it, given that 2% of my genome is Neanderthal.
Ask the Vikings.
As a response to the headline? Sure. The article is trivially interesting, though.
Culture doesn't exist in a vacuum
Does this have implications for understanding the abilities of Neanderthals? For instance, might more advanced tools found in Neanderthal sites have been created by non-Neanderthals, and exchanged in trade or captured/ stolen?
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To claim that "we are Neanderthals" is wrong because while modern humans and Neanderthals share a common ancestor and interbred, Neanderthals were a distinct species that went extinct. Genetic contributions from Neanderthals to modern humans are minor, typically around 1-2% in non-African populations, and do not make us Neanderthal in any meaningful sense. Moreover, the idea that specific Neanderthal genes explain large behavioral differences among human populations is not supported by scientific consensus—human behavior is shaped by a complex mix of genetics, culture, and environment. While some Neanderthal-derived genes may have influenced traits like immune response or altitude adaptation, the assertion that they drive major behavioral differences is speculative and echoes outdated, often racially charged ideas about genetic determinism. Biologists do discuss these topics openly, but they do so within the rigorous framework of evolutionary genetics, not unfounded assumptions about "large portions of variances" in human behavior.
I'm a biologist, I wouldn't be caught saying it in private or public because it's incorrect.
Lots of good discussion here about should Neanderthal and Homo sapiens be a separate species. Like most nature questions the answer seems to always be "It's complicated."
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/mq5u7n/why...
A neat map here showing how much Neanderthal DNA exists in modern humans. Never goes much above 3%.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/hgdioe/prevalence_...
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Genetic differences do exist among different human populations. Even so, attributing broad behavioral traits to Neanderthal ancestry is not supported by science.
Human behavior is shaped by many factors like genetics, culture, environment, and social structures. No credible geneticist argues that Neanderthal ancestry “explains large portions of variances in human behavior.”
As for your comment that “Biologists know this, you won’t catch them saying it in public though.”, this is a classic conspiracy-style statement. You’re suggesting that experts are hiding the “truth,” which is a tactic often used in pseudoscience and race-related theories.
The interpretation of "you won’t catch them saying it in public though" that you offer is NOT the only one. The one the OP most likely meant is: "out of fear for their careers and livelihoods, they will not state such things given that such facts are outside of the current overton window"
Controversial scientific topics are actively discussed in academic journals and conferences. Scientists regularly publish challenging or provocative findings, even those outside mainstream acceptance… Provided they’re backed by credible evidence. The absence of discussion here isn’t due to fear of consequences. It’s because the scientific community hasn’t found convincing evidence linking Neanderthal DNA to major behavioral differences.
There are a few topics, like racial differences, which are pretty verboten. Here's an interesting example: https://davidsun.substack.com/p/the-origins-of-arcticism-the...
I was merely explaining what the OP likely meant, assuming your reply was in good faith and you really did not understand
> Clearly, certain populations have much different mixtures, which explains large portions of variances in human behavior.
Citation needed.
Geneticists can, at best, sometimes figure out what any particular gene does, and yet here you are claiming that you can tie broad behavior differences to traces of the Neanderthal genetic code (Weird, since geneticists can at best, barely correlate the smallest differences in behaviour to particular genes). That's an extraordinary claim, and would require some truly extraordinary evidence.
Behavioral genetics does not have the predictive power that you think it does.
Couching scientific racism behind the fig leaf of 'Behavioural geneticists all know this but refuse to talk about it', fortunately, requires absolutely no actual evidence. In fact, the absence of evidence for it is viewed as evidence for it!