Greg Cochran explains how a group of humans stranded on a small island regressed to some kind of monkeys. Just as a dog regressed to become the infectious canine cancer, the Flores hobbit is a Homo sapiens that regressed to the ecological niche of monkeys. BTW our own group has been shedding brain material (10% over the past 25,000 years) and (presumably) intelligence. The trend is unmistakable.
Saturday, November 05, 2011
He has seen the future and it is the past
Greg Cochran explains how a group of humans stranded on a small island regressed to some kind of monkeys. Just as a dog regressed to become the infectious canine cancer, the Flores hobbit is a Homo sapiens that regressed to the ecological niche of monkeys. BTW our own group has been shedding brain material (10% over the past 25,000 years) and (presumably) intelligence. The trend is unmistakable.
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13 comments:
It's not clear whether the Flores hobbit is a separate species at all or merely a bunch of diseased human fossils.
Losing brain mass is not the same as losing intelligence - intelligence is concentrated in certain regions of the brain and convolution is also a factor. There are some very intelligent individuals whose heads and brains fall on the lower end of the normal human spectrum (and some people with big heads who are as dumb as rocks). It's unlikely that natural selection has cut our intelligence just in the period where humans depend the most on intelligence for survival. Then again maybe we are too intelligent for our own good - no other species ever figured out how to make weapons that could annihilate entire populations in one instant.
K
There is a linear relation between brain volume and IQ. We Ashkenazim have large heads.
The correlation between brain size and intelligence is around 0.4. It is quite possible for those without large brains to be intelligent and vice-versa. The reduction in brain volume began thousands of years ago before the rise of civilization. While I could see a future Idiocracy-like scenario developing based on current dysgenic trends, it's hard to argue that the geniuses of the Renaissance were less intelligent than cave-dwellers.
"..we Ashkenazim have large heads..."
But small hats.
What is the origin of the small hat? It cannot be a small head.
And, by the way, is there good reliable data on Askenazim head cirumference/brain volume?
Anon.
The SMALL hats (yarmulke/kipah) is really of modern origin. It was always customary (though not necessarily mandatory) for Jews to cover their heads as a sign of reverence to God (also as a tribal signifier) but the typical headgear was some kind of hat. In some places and times Jews wore distinctively Jewish hats, in others whatever the local fashion was (sometime the local fashions would change but the Jews would keep the old styles). Sometimes the yarmulke was worn as a sort of back-up headgear by the very Orthodox so that you would not be bareheaded even if your primary hat was removed. Sometimes the yarmulke was a hat in itself for indoor wear - a pillbox or something resembling the large muslim skullcap, but this was not typical. Only in the 2nd half of the 20th century, when hats fell out of fashion did the small kipa become a popular headgear as a sort of unobtrusive hat substitute.
K
Thank you.
'Yarmulke' sounds Yiddish, 'kipah' more Middle Eastern.
The presumption (underlying the hat as a sign of reverence to God) is that they must have thought that God was above them, literally; does that mean they had a concrete sense of heaven, as God's abode, as is the case in the Christian orthodoxy?
Anon.
Like everything else, it's all a big mish-mosh of cultures - yarmulke is indeed the Yiddish word but according to some authorities was borrow from a Turkic (Tartar) word for skullcap Kipa is Hebrew but is probably borrowed from Latin - same root as "cap" .
Yes, Jews regard God as residing in heaven above. One of the main differences with Christianity is on the concept of afterlife - this is not mentioned at all in the Hebrew bible.
K
As a matter of interest, what do you surmise accounts for this peculiar absence of an afterlife reward for the faithful in Judaism?
Most religions seem to make liberal use of this device, which after all is free, and seems to enable remarkable control over adherents, even those contemplating apostasy.
Perhaps the failure to use this device in Judaism represents not only a genuine inability to confirm or refute an afterlife, but the suspicion (or experience) that it might have been difficult to sell this idea to early Jews; in contrast to other peoples who might have been (and continue to be) only too willing to believe what they want to believe.
Ideas?
Anon.
Despite the break entailed in adopting monotheism, Judaism was influenced by earlier Middle Eastern religious traditions that were not very committal about details of the afterlife.
It may have been a reaction against the Egyptians, who were obsessed with afterlife. To distinguish themselves, the Jews decided to emphasize life here on earth. Judaism is also generally opposed to any kind of magic in general - the Jewish prophets do not walk on water or raise the dead, etc.
K
It is, I think, a smart strategy, ensuring an intense involvement and a sort of anti-fatalistic commitment to this world.
Anon
K,
My religious relatives do believe in the afterlife - thiyos ha-metim - the resurrection of the dead. We bury our dead facing Jerusalem, so they will see the coming of the Messiah. The very best burying plots are on the Mount of the Olives, facing directly the Temple Mount. Corpses buried there will be the first to see the Coming of the Messiah.
Contemporary Jerusalem Jews definitely believe in some kind of other world. I'll always remember a drasha (religious things said on occasions) about the witch seeing Shaul ascending in Heaven. Which he interpreted as the Heaven has a hierarchical organization. No, I interpreted that he said so.
There is another world, the Third World, but you have to see it to believe it.
Anon.
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