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I'm a huge fan of the hypothesis that: 1. Survival is easier in groups 2. In order to survive in groups, we need to communicate 3. We communicate using language 4. Language is directly linked with intelligence See how computers started displaying intelligence when we taught them our language
all of this applies to monkeys
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I think their question is not about why humans evolved intelligence, but why one and only one single species did.
Wouldn't the first ones always wonder that?
“Humans have visited the Moon and sent human-made spacecraft to other celestial bodies, becoming the first known species to do so.”
How would we know if we’re the first known anything? You don’t know what you don’t know, as they say.
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It's true that China has a lot of affection for the Out of Asia theory of human origin, and to this day there are museums dedicated to the Peking Man that are at the very least heavily suggestive of this, or at least of China's population having a distinct origin.
Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Man
Books and reams of sociology papers can and have been written about the relationship between CCP policy and the Peking Man and the CCPs difficulty with adjusting to today's generally preferred Out of Africa theory, and the effect on Chinese scientists working in anthropology. HN favorite Jimmy Maher (Digital/Analog Antiquarian) has a lovely line of free amateur history books including an excellent one on China that has a chapter on this:
https://analog-antiquarian.net/2022/01/14/chapter-2-origin-s...
I think it's a useful approach to contemporary Chinese identity. Nothing anti about that, any good-natured attempt to grok China would include this, just as no diatribe on America is complete without mentioning the 30-something % of Americans who state belief in some form of Creationism when polled.
Always worth asking how much these reconstructions reflect reality vs the assumptions built into the models
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…
That is when they're not outright fabricating data, and having their colleagues cover for them (at Harvard):
In or before 2020, graduate student Zoé Ziani developed concerns about the validity of results from a highly publicized paper by Gino about personal networking. According to Ziani, she was strongly warned by her academic advisers not to criticize Gino, and two members of her dissertation committee refused to approve her thesis unless she deleted criticism of Gino's paper from it. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesca_Gino
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> ... vocal cord development ... I've read, from a few separate sources that were not research papers, something similar that claimed the development was a result of existing in semi-aquatic environments such as home on land but swimming for food/safety. I neither agree or disagree (not my field, I don't possess appropriate background/information), but I do think of it when evolution of vocal cords is mentioned. I do…
Semi-aquatic environments make sense if you look at our brains dependency on DHA (seafood is a rich source) and the hypothesis that our fingers get wrinkly in water after a while to improve grip.
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> OOA (with minor admixture) is the consensus position for a lot of excellent reasons It isn't really. Serious historians and geneticists take great issue with it. It's only really the pop-anthropologists (the non-rigorous social science ones) who think OOA is a settled issue.
You're going to have to explain this one. The only thing I can figure is that you're making a distinction about "traditional" RAO vs modern hybridization models, but my comment already mentions those (albeit indirectly, given that I'm writing to an audience). But if you're genuinely trying to say that the broad strokes out of africa model isn't consensus, I have no idea what you're talking about. Just to make sure I…
Basically the only reason a Kuhnian paradigm shift isn't happening is because of American politics; OOA is needed to debunk some stupid 19th century American racial theories. (Theories that the rest of the world doesn't even know or care about.)
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But it is a thing and you need to be aware of it. A result from China which seems to support an out of China theory rather than an out of Africa theory, I am immediately suspicious of.
And you know, just because you and I don't bristle at the thought of descending from ancient Kenyans, lots of other people all over the world do. It's not just "regular" racists, also a lot of e.g. indigenous protected groups.
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it's interesting to think that since humans got established, becoming too intelligent became a disadvantage? Like there's a glass ceiling.
I like that theory although it is depressingly grim ... the top dog species will inherently see any alternative intelligence as a threat and eradicate it. Would definitely make one pause for thought about the wisdom of creating an AGI ...
When the average life span was something like 30 years, why do all images look like they are 60+ years old? Is it a cognitive bias that we assume that people that are tens of thousands years old also look really old? :P
avg of 30 usually just means higher child death rates
once adult you would likely still get to 50+ on avg