Re: Re correction: Re: Small brained Hobbits were not smart as big brained Homo with evidence so far

rmacfarl:
Mario Petrinovic:
rmacfarl:
Mario Petrinovic:
> Lee Olsen:
> Mario Petrinovic:
> > You want to say that children are unable to make stone tools?

> No, not just "stone tools" but "complex" stone tools like big-brained
> daddy Homo can make.
> ------------------------------------------------------------

> Yes, but HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? On what thing exactly are you basing
> your conclusion? -- Mario Petrinovic

Errh... um... Maybe it was from looking at the tools?
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Maybe he should look more at tv, or his computer screen.
You people, are so blinded by your big brain equals your
"intelligence" that you don't see anything beside this. Don't you see the
complexity of tools you are using now? Well, today you have SMALLER brains
than people had 30kya, but your tools are much more complex. But also, the
number of people on Earth became much more bigger. You are completly
unaware
of social conditions necessery for such things. Don't you see that Europe
unites. Don't you know why? Because Europe has too small market for
today's
complexity of tools. This is why there is a Globalisation. Bigger market
allows for higher technology.
You can look at those tools from past for years, and still you will
not find a SINGLE link which will tie the size of brain with the
complexity
of tools. Tools become very complex 50 kya. Do you know why? Because then
there was one cold episode. People srunk, density of people became higher,
which allowed tool complexity revolution. NOT the size of brain.
Don't you know that Hobbits are SMALL people? Don't you know that
small people live in jungle? Don't you think that jungle was their
environment, and that jungle protected them? Don't you know that there are
different environmennts east and west of Movius line, and DIFFERENT tools
BECAUSE of that? Don't you know that rain forest has SMALL, closed
communities (hence so big number of species in rain forest). Don't you see
that Homo sapiens is big animal, for OPEN communities. Didn't you see that
H. florensis was able to survive even so many years after Neandertals?
Why?
Because jungle protected them. It was H. florensis that PROTECTED jungle
environment on those islands, and with the protection of environment those
strange animals survived there (along with Hobbits). Didn't you see that
extinction of Hobbits came after volcano activity? When environment was
destroyed?
Don't you get that, on little island there are no conditions for
complex tools to develop. In open environment we have a COMPETITION.
People, you look at your tools, but you don't know a ***, and your
conclusions are at the level of children in kindergarten. Simple. We have
big brain, hence we are smart, hence we watch television. Really?

What in the world you think this stream of consciousness has to do
with paleoanthropology is hard to assess Mario. In fact your overall
link with reality seems tenuous at best - but then you always have
been what I describe as a "high-orbit satellite of the Planet of
Reason."
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How cannot you realize that there is something wrong with your
"reason". Humans AREN'T what they look like. They AREN'T the devine species.
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My brain is not smaller than a modern human of 30,000 years ago. As it
happens my head is larger than average - I need a 62cm hat size which
is not easy to find, but that's neither here nor there. The fact is
that while Cro-Magnon skulls had larger brains than average modern
Europeans, they also had larger bodies, and their brain sizes fell
within the range of modern humans.
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Well, I don't have the source, but I believe that I read that recent
reserach found out that, indeed, both, the brains of Neandertals and of 30
ky old sapiens were larger than today's brains.
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Homo erectus had average brain sizes which fell outside the normal
range of modern humans. Homo sapiens averages 1350 cc (I think the
99th percentile for lower brain size in is about 1200), while late
erectines approach 1100 cc but early Homo (depending how you classify
them) average less than 900 cc for erestus / ergaster & as low as 600
cc for habilines and georgicus (physically smaller than erectus or
sapiens).

The relationship isn't completely cut & dried but clearly larger
brains do equal higher intelligence. To say anything else is plain
stupid. What you need to try to understand though is the complexities
- for example: within-species vs. between-species variation.

Within a species, brain size varies much less with body size than it
does between species (leaving aside pathology, which I'll get to.) So
a 1.53m (5-foot tall) jockey weighs in at about 50KG (110lb), while a
2.13 m (7-foot tall) basketballer weighs in at 125 KG (275lb). Frankie
Dettori's brain might be 1250 cc (at the low end of the human range)
compared to 1450 for Lebron James - 150% more body mass, but only 16%
more brain. But both function perfectly well - athletically, far
better than the average human in fact. (Which is why the false science
of 19th century phrenology was just that a false science.)
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Absolutely. They all function normally. There ISN'T link between
brain size and "intelligence". However you want to put it, and you insist to
put it on a species level, for the reason unknown. Actually, the reason is
very well know, because you CAN test the intelligence within human species,
and within that species you cannot find the link, so you are trying to
"produce" that link on species level.
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What makes the Flores specimen so amazing, though, is that even for
its body size, its brain is incredibly small. If Flores was the result
of dwarfing of an erectine, we should expect less reduction in brain
size compared to body, unless the brain is under selection for smaller
size - which to me would mean intelligence is diminishing, and
therefore niche must be changing.
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See, you are WRONG (see the threat "Hobbits").
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The alternative, which is the view of much of the skeptical
paleoanthropological community, is that the Flores specimen is
pathological - that is, s/he was a diseased microcephalic individual.
Until we can locate more small-brained skulls, or a definitive
diagnosis of pathology can be made, this remains an open question.
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Really? Well, wrong, wrong, wrong (see the "Hobbits" thread).
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As re your rants Mario, which I won't dignify as arguments:

- Using TV remotes and laptop computers requires no more brain power
than tracking a wallaby across a stretch of bare rock (less, if some
Usenet exemplars are considered)
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Well BRAVOOOOO. Bravo. Actually, don't you understand that ANY
human, no matter how intelligent he is, CANNOT make a tv. For this you got
to have social structure, school system, specialized manufacture for
specific parts, and for all this you got to have BIG MARKET.
You see, we are talking about tool complexity. Well, right in front
your eyes you have extremly COMPLEX machine, your computer, and you still
don't get it. And you even say that everybody can use remotes. Well, guess
what, everybody also can construct remotes. everybody can manufacture
remotes, can you dig it? They don't have to be extra smart (a chimpanzee is
smart ENOUGH), they got to have language and social organization. And you
cannot have big social organization in rain forest.
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- Although some modern humans in historical times used toolkits almost
as simple as erectines' Acheulean tools, no erectines used tools as
complex as late Paleolithic sapiens, or even Mousterian / Neanderthal
toolkits. There is a quantum difference between the tool technologies
of early habilines, erectines and late Paleolithic sapiens
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Well, guess what, no sapiens before Upper Paleolithic Revolution
used as complex tools as sapiens after it. There is no jump in brain size
for that. But there were markedly different social conditions, CAUSED, not
by increase in brain size, but by enviromental factors.
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- Modern pygmies do not have brains as reduced as the Flores specimen;
see:
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/51/20216.full

P.S. Don't SHOUT (i.e. don't use capitalised words in your posts).
It's bad manners...
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Yes, this is unfortunate. I need to emphasize some words, and this
is the only (or at least, the best) way. I am NOT shouting, I am just
emphasizing to give meanings to what I am saying, and thus I am trying to
give my point. I know that you all are not stupid that you cannot understand
what I am saying (hm..., lol), but I must be sure that you get my message.
It is more economical than writing again and again, just because someone
didn't get the message rightly the first time. It is the only way.
-- Mario Petrinovic

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