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Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

theguardian.com

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Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#181

Post by ahf8Aithaex7Nai »

HelloNurse wrote: post #102
_petronius wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a thought like this has occurred to you, a dilettante, after reading a headline and/or cursorily glancing over the article, then you should assume that a study conducted by people with substantial academic training and deep expertise in the field have also had this thought and incorporated it into how they perform their analysis. Drive-by anti-intellectualism like this is the death of interesting conversation, tru…

Since the "people with substantial academic training and deep expertise in the field" can be bad at statistics or experts at academic fraud, doubting statements with obvious political motives is a prudent policy. Distrust is science, deferring to authority without a good reason is anti-intellectualism.

It's not that simple. It's true that a willingness to criticize and falsify established assumptions and skepticism toward arguments based on authority are part of the scientific ethos. It's also true that many scientists simply do what they've been taught to do, without questioning methods or taking an interest in the philosophy of science. But your last sentence is so sweeping that it would allow flat-earthers to be considered scientists and intellectuals.

What is being criticized here is an attitude that believes one is the only one capable of critical thinking and that everyone else is just an idiot who is already overwhelmed by the task of tying their shoelaces in the morning. This is simply arrogance and has little to do with constructiveness, let alone scientific ethos. You treat yourself to that little dopamine rush of saying “ackchyually” and then just carry on playing Bubble Shooter on your phone.

This is very common here on HN. And when this ultimately hardens into blanket skepticism toward institutions, you are closer to the flat-earthers than to the scientists.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#182

Post by Agraillo »

ViktorRay wrote: post #175
Agraillo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting question, but maybe more complex than it appears. We cannot get rid of the cultural passing of information (non-genetic) in humans. If we do, we get feral children [1] (also known as Mowgli in popular culture). But I doubt anyone would seriously want to compare this "pure" intelligence with that of other primates. There is a possible agreement that socialization is not an option for humans but a r…

This may not be entirely accurate. Feral children are those that do not have interaction with other humans. If you had a bunch of human children together and provided them sustenance and all that without adult interaction they might still develop normally and form their own language and means of communication with each other. We don’t know for sure because such an experiment would be horrible and extremely immoral. H…

> where a bunch of deaf children in a an environment without much adult interaction did manage to create their own sign language

You probably had Nicaraguan Sign Language [1] in mind. I think it’s a good example of the human brain’s ability to invent something and acquire knowledge easily. What I tried to show with my comment is that when human intelligence is discussed, it’s easy to refer to all instances of human achievements around us, but they are essentially accumulated cultural knowledge. Because of this, we tend to overestimate our intelligence, at least when comparing an individual human with an individual primate of another kind.

So, it’s also interesting why humans are probably unique in this ability to pass on and accumulate information, while other apes (and crows) limit this to skills like retrieving ants with sticks and breaking shells with stones.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#183

Post by dyauspitr »

WalterBright wrote: post #173
dyauspitr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more like A appeared and there was a split off. Then B appeared and another split off from the A group and so on until you get to modern day Z.

So why didn't other lines evolve X and Q?

Pure chance, you might as well be asking why don’t monkeys have wings.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#184

Post by IAmBroom »

whimsicalism wrote: post #135
luxuryballs wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they call this the appeal to authority fallacy, it’s the people without expertise in a field that often see the holes in something first, then the holes start glowing after they get hand waved away by smug narrow-minded experts.

and what are you engaged in, appeal to nothingness? appeal to authority isn't a fallacy outside of formal logic, it is just everyday knowledgemaking.

Everyday knowledgemaking is filled with fallacies.

And we make myriad daily mistakes because of them. Most have no real negative consequences, so we don't correct.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#185

Post by rirze »

andrewflnr wrote: post #170
rirze wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally dislike the definitions here-- traits and genetic changes are, by default, unattributed to external pressures. They don't "arise" from the environment, rather the environment selects for traits through survival/reproduction, if applicable. That means, if a trait is unaffected by the environment, then there's no attribution of why it developed; this is the default state. I feel often in biology, there's a…

Technically yes, kind of, but if a feature is truly unaffected by the environment, then there's no particular reason it would get fixed, and you have to make the rather shaky assumption that it became widespread purely by chance. Most features have some cost, and the simplest explanation for that feature being widespread is that it has some counteracting benefit that leads to it being selected for. That's a reasonabl…

> Most features have some cost

I don't agree and that's totally fine-- we have millions of gene edits from parent to child and not every change is environment-selected. Certain features can be dominant by the mechanics of genes, not due to selective pressure.

Blood types are an example of this-- they aren't major environmental pressures for why one blood type is more common than others, it mostly comes down to population mechanics.

My belief is that "spandrel" features are less selected for studies because they have a harder burden to prove; there exists no external reason they exist and this must be verified through proof by contradiction. Its a high bar to prove.

Re: Study of 1M-year-old skull points to earlier origins of modern humans

#186

Post by andrewflnr »

rirze wrote: post #185
andrewflnr wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically yes, kind of, but if a feature is truly unaffected by the environment, then there's no particular reason it would get fixed, and you have to make the rather shaky assumption that it became widespread purely by chance. Most features have some cost, and the simplest explanation for that feature being widespread is that it has some counteracting benefit that leads to it being selected for. That's a reasonabl…

> Most features have some cost I don't agree and that's totally fine-- we have millions of gene edits from parent to child and not every change is environment-selected. Certain features can be dominant by the mechanics of genes, not due to selective pressure. Blood types are an example of this-- they aren't major environmental pressures for why one blood type is more common than others, it mostly comes down to popula…

Blood types aren't fixed across the population. It's kind of a tricky question which of our points they make a better example for. :D

But also, I guess by "feature" I tend to mean "noticeable feature". You might be more right about that, at least as far as terminology goes. At the bottom end you have a point mutation to a codon for the same amino acid, and then eventually you get something like a slightly different color pattern. Those are probably free.

But as soon as you have to, say, add or increase the size of a physical feature, there's a metabolic cost. And when those features aren't used, that (small!) cost drives them to disappear in relatively short order (for instance, all the convergently legless lizards). That strongly implies that for those, there needs to be a persistent reason for them to keep existing.

Entirely aside, I wonder how long we need to have blood transfusions as part of society before blood type compatibility starts exerting selective pressure.

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