On Jun 16, 2010, at 3:56 AM, AlunFoto wrote: > 2010/6/16 paul stenquist <[email protected]>: >> But it's politically correct to assume that the nasty and violent humans >> caused the demise of the gentle and peace-loving Neanderthals. > > Don't see where political correctness came into this equation...
Only in that it's become fashionable, at least in the U.S., to emphasize what's wrong over what's right. A belief that most men are beasts enables an air of moral superiority that many find very satisfying. It's an oversimplification, but this attitude is frequently part of a package of beliefs that is often described as political correctness. "Moral correctness" might be a better term, but we're stuck with PC. Paul > Nobody knows if humans were more or less nasty than neanderthals. > What we know is that modern humans go homicidal over mere tribal > differences, have an excellent record of eliminating competitors on > their level in the food chain, and possible predators as well. To > assume that they somehow did away with the neanderthals in a... > hmmm... less than including way... is just a pragmatic approach. If > that's politics for you, well then it must be the oldest political > direction in human history... :-) > >> Based on some of what I've read about recent Neanderthal discoveries, >> it may well have been assimilation and procreative mingling that led to >> the disappearance of the Neanderthals. Of course, natural disasters >> and disease are among the numerous possible causes as well. Combat >> is probably the least likely explanation. > > As BobW pointed to, combat is not the only way. Competitive exclusion > and parasite/disease resistance would do nicely too. For all we know > the neanderthals could have been particularly susceptible to a disease > transferred by, as you say, procreative mingling. > > > > > -- > http://www.alunfoto.no/galleri/ > http://alunfoto.blogspot.com > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
