Pre-Neandertal Humans Developed Social Skills Earlier Than Thought?

This article illustrates yet another example of anthropologists making huge inferences from almost-imaginary data, specifically with regards to Pre-Neandertals.

A jaw fragment found in France and attributed to Neandertal precursors apparently shows that hominids had begun taking care of those who couldn't take care of themselves 175,000 years in the past. This single jaw fragment pushes back the date for such behavior 125,000 years! (You can take a look at the actual published scientific article here).

Erik Trinkhaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Lous, had this to say according to the reference article,

This is the oldest example of someone surviving for some period of time without an effective set of choppers. There had to have been extensive preparation of food — a combination of cutting and cooking — before this person could eat. They had good cutting tools and controlled fire, but the absence of real hearths and tools that would have done more than dice the food suggests that this individual was being given softer food items by other members of the social group.

Although commonplace among later Neandertals and recent humans, such survival of toothless humans is unknown for earlier time periods.

Let's follow the logic from the article and the paper.

1. We've found a portion of a jaw from an individual who lived around 175,000 years ago.
   
2. It shows an achingly bad dental situation, one that would have made chewing solids unpleasant to say the least.
   
3. This dental hell existed for some time before the individual died, but we don't actually know how long.
   
4. We aren't sure if fire was used for cooking at this point in prehistory and it's very likely that individuals from this time period and location ate lots of meat.
   
5. That means this individual's meal-prep routine was extensive. Slice, dice, mash, and bash. Oh for an Osterizer.
   
6. Therefore, this individual had help.
   
7. Conclusion; hominids from as far back as 175,000 years ago took care of those who couldn't fend for themselves.

Can you find all the logical flaws in this chain of reason (and I use the term loosely)? It's not difficult. Here are some that I have identified...

1. Sampling bias; this is a huge conclusion to base on VERY slim evidence.
2. If your choice is chewing with extreme pain or starving, pain is much more palatable.
3. Was there nothing available for this individual to eat that didn't require processing? They might have preferred steak (wouldn't most of us), but slugs will do if you have no choice.
   
4. Why couldn't the individual do their own food processing? Bad teeth doesn't mean helpless.
   
5. Perhaps the individual slowly starved to death over a period of a few months due to this condition. It's not like their dentition went to hell on Tuesday and they died on Thursday.

My conclusion? This jaw tells us absolutely nothingabout pre-Neandertal social behavior. I have no problem imagining that such behavior occurred, but this jaw certainly isn't evidence for it. What it does tell us is just how far some scientists are welling to stretch things in order to make a big find.

What's Wrong With the World?

I've recently been communicating with some friends (see links to their blogs at right), and we've been commiserating about the world's woes; overpopulation, war and famine, environmental destruction, the fast approaching end of our fossil fuels, etc. Even the most pollyanna among us would have a hard time burying their heads deeply enough in the sand to tune out the cries of the poor and pitiful billions. The question isn't, "does the world need fixing," but "how can the world be fixed?"

It seems unlikely that humanity has the wisdom or the will to fix what ails it. The last 4,000 years, more or less, of recorded history detail many attempts at regaining the Garden. At best, these sometimes noble efforts have resulted in a few years peace or temporary sanctuary for a select few. At worst, they've been the first phase of pogroms killing millions--tens of millions. Hardly reassuring for those of us looking for a fix. If the wisest of us has not hit upon a workable solution in the last four millenia, what hope do we have?

How should we then live?

European/Christian Genocides in the New World

I don't in any way deny that many Europeans were guilty of the worst sort of genocidal excesses, nor that those who call themselves Christians were often leading the charge and handing out the rifles. What I always objected to was how the anthropology sub-culture I was a part of failed to see their own ethnocentrism in painting millions of individuals with such broad strokes. After all, it can't be denied that millions of Christians and/or Europeans also fought against those excesses and condemned them from the pulpit and the papers. Nor can it be denied that there were many Americans-of-less-recent-Asian-descent (indigenous peoples) who engaged in similar behaviors.


My question to my professors who were atheists or naturalists was always, "How can you say that anyone was right or wrong? Whether they be Aztecs or Aryans? How can one say that killing off, by bullet or blight, anyone for whom they didn't care was bad? A strict naturalist/evolutionist can only say that one survived and the other didn't. There is no right or wrong, no good or bad, no moral meter stick by which to measure such things. Morality must come from outside the system or it is still a part of the system and subject to the same random processes that allowed life in the first place, at least according to the naturalist's ideology/faith.


Undoubtedly, the Church, all over the world, has made a practice of building cathedrals and shrines on top of the temples and sacred sites of those they followed. In fact, I read a really interesting letter once from a cardinal (I believe) in Mexico back to the authorities in Rome complaining that their strategy had backfired on no less a site than the Cathedral of the Virgin of Guadalupe (I'm working from memory here, so cut me some slack on the details). Apparently the hill on which the Virgin appeared had been the holy hill of an Aztec goddess, and after the cathedral was built on that site, the priests were horrified to find their new converts praying to the Virgin and calling her by the name of the goddess. In fact, the pictures you see of the Virgen de Guadalupe, standing over the stars and crescent moon and dressed in black, are direct correlates to symbols used in the worship of the Aztec goddess.

Some claim that the Incas and other indigenous American civilizations didn't force religious ideology on their conquered peoples, only political. But how do we know, and what's the difference?

I'm not being a smartass. I'm really wondering. How do we know what the Inca's forced on their conquered peoples as far as religious ideas? Is there archaeological evidence (or even historical) that might answer that question? Besides, politics were based in religion, so wouldn't a change in political ideology imply a change in religious ideology? The only reason that the practice of taking the conquered peoples' gods captive, rather than wiping those populations out with warfare, seems more civil to us is because we don't believe in those gods. To us, they are stone statues and quaint caricatures of the natural forces, but to the conquered peoples they may have been worth more to them than their own lives.

Archaeologists and Religious Artifacts

It's often seemed to me that archaeologists tend to interpret any decorative and/or otherwise unexplainable item (from buildings to bowls) as having a religious purpose. In 10,000 years they will probably refer to us as the "Mouse Worshippers" because of all the Mickey Mouse artifacts. On second thought, maybe that's not so far off.

I recently came across a nice quote by Ian Tattersall which illustrated the tendency. He was showing an Acheulean point (a stone arrowhead) to an interested journalist; a point that weighed roughly 25 pounds and would have been unwieldy for even two users. Tattersall noted that it's difficult to imagine what such a monstrosity could have been used for and must have had "some symbolic significance."

I can think of lot's of possible uses for such an implement that have nothing to do with symbolism, however, they rely every bit as much on guesswork as does Tattersall's statement. A
"symbolic significance" for it's creation is so much more interesting, however, than "just for the hell of it." What famous ethnologist was it that noted the high correlation between risky undertakings and the tendency to seek magico-religious assistance?

Bronislaw Malinowski wasn't it? Didn't he have a brother named Kohlslaw...invented a salad with mayonnaise and cabbage? Kidding.

Malinowski's proposed a theory about magic in response to what he observed among the Trobriand islanders. He noted that there was a lot of magical ritual surrounding the dangerous undertaking of sailing the high seas, but very little magic invoked in the safer task of fishing inside the lagoon. I read another paper in which the author's results confirmed this theory by looking at which activities in baseball garnered the most superstitions and talismans. Those activities that were less certain, such as pitching and batting, garnered more superstitios rituals and objects; lucky socks, for example.

At any rate, religion and magic are often used to make sense of that which can't otherwise be made sense of, according to Malinowski. I agree with this, as do many archaeologists, but it makes me take their explanations of certain sites, artifacts, and structures with a grain of salt when they attribute magico-religious purposes to them.

NOTE: This is not to say that any and all explanations relying on magic or religion are wrong.

The Naturalist Paradox

The view we have of religious fervor is very skewed by our own Western/Rationalist world view, since we tend to define "religion" in such a way that we can still see ourselves as rationalists unencumbered by such muddy concepts as "faith" and "free will" and "God." But we deceive ourselves.

Even the most ardent naturalist has basic assumptions that rest on faith and faith alone. For example, the naturalist believes in a concept called "randomness;" a belief that cannot be proven.

By definition, anything that can't be reliably replicated or predicted (at least with regards to specific events, such as a single flip of the coin) is called "random." The theist might equally claim that there is no such thing as random; that each result springs from the actions of a deity. The naturalist thinks such ideas are ridiculous, but thinking they're ridiculous requires the initial unproven assumption that they are wrong.

A functionalist explanation of how religion works within a society--for example; belief in the sweet-by-and-by helps keep the downtrodden from rebelling and upsetting the apple cart--doesn't in any way allow us to determine the truth or falsehood of the belief itself. After all, if there is a God, wouldn't a religion based on his/her/its teachings have to function within the society in which it occurs? On the other hand, if the religion is false, it won't survive for long if it doesn't give some functional payoff. Either way, the religion is functional.

Don't believe in the supernatural? Isn't that a faith-based belief? Is it even possible to prove such a thing? "Super-natural" means "above" or "outside" nature--that is, it is not a part of the natural cause-effect world in which we and all our sensory inputs exist--and therefore it is beyond the realm of scientific inquiry. Science can't say "yea" or "nay" because the supernatural is, by definition, beyond our means of natural observation.

If Bronislaw Malinowski was right when "He posited that what [people]believe is a reflection of their psychological needs.", then what does the rationalist's faith in the non-existence of the supernatural say about their psychological needs?

Ultimately, the naturalists CAN'T be right. If they are, then their beliefs are meaningless and further discussion is meaningless as well. Their beliefs are the result of the random motions of atoms. The Trobriand Islander's (that Bronislaw Malinowski studied) beliefs also--according to the rationalist--are the result of the same random motions. There is, therefore, no way for the naturalist to say what is good, bad, right, wrong, better, worse, superior, inferior, worthy of discussion, worthy of anything. They are a product of their world and a slave to its forces every bit as much as is a rock. The logical syllogism might read...

IF there is nothing beyond nature,
THEN all things are the result of ultimately random physical forces,
SO logical thinking is the result of random physical forces,
THEREFORE this syllogism is without meaning.

It's a version of Epimenide's Paradox.

Why I don't write

I've thought about writing novels, and every once in awhile I'll get on a kick and write quite a bit. My problem is plot...I don't have one. I do great with characters, dialogue, etc., but it never really goes anywhere. I have a hundred and one interesting ideas, but I can never come up with a good story to string them all together. The difference between a pile of pearls and a necklace is the string, and no one wears a pile of pearls.

Angels and time

(excerpt from email to friend)

I was very intrigued by the question of whether or not angelic beings are bound by time. While I agree that they are non-corporeal except on rare occasions, I can't see that they are non-temporal.

They are linear in relation to time (to use the geometry analogy), I think, just as we are. That is, like a geometric ray, they have a definite start, but no end. Their position in time can be plotted on that ray, and they cannot move themselves willing backwards or forwards...in other words, they are bound by the flow of time just as we are. I don't know that I can support that view, but I don't see a reason to suppose them non-temporal.

Our physical bodies, on the other hand, are a geometric line segment with a definite beginning and end, but our souls are rays, continuing into eternity yet with a definite beginning. Although, what about the risen, glorified body we will have?

God, unlike any other being, cannot be plotted in my geometric analogy. He is without beginning or end, and has total freedom of perception so that he can look at any/all beings at any point along their ray of existence. He can study each and every point on any ray/segment outside the bounds of time...true ominiscience. Christ willingly chose to be incarnated and chose daily to exist within the confines of a human body...a ray in relation to time. It makes God's glory,--and Christ's humility--much more awesome to me.

Best Books, Archetypes, and Archaeologists

Some of the best books I've found recently were on the 25 cent shelf. Tells you alot about what our society values when you can find Aristotle in the bargain bins and Paris Hilton on the talk shows. On the other hand, I did find five different copies of Leonardo DiCaprio's biography on the bargain shelves as well, so maybe there's hope.

It's always a risk recommending books/music/movies to someone else. What if they hate it, or worse, find it juvenile? I like some stuff that I'm completely embarrassed to admit to; Voyage of the Space Beagle, for instance, by A. E. VanVogt (no joke.) Despite the name, it's an excellent book--I just don't tell many people about it. Harry Potter is another of my secret peccadillos. I think I'm embarassed that my tastes turn out to be so plebian. Nevertheless, Harry Potter books are very good, mainly, I think, because they tell well a great story built around the archetypical themes Joseph Campbell and Karl Jung identified (among others).

I'm really fascinated by those archetypical themes. It's like psychology for the whole human race! It's one of the things I really love about Anthropology. Why do humans do what they do?

I really don't mind it when novelists breathe life into history as long as their history (or prehistory) isn't completely inaccurate. I expect them to add flesh to the skeleton of facts. What I object to is when archaeologists engage in some historical fiction and act as if they aren't. I think all scientists should clearly identify their facts and their suppositions. They should note, right up front, what their political leanings and personal philosophies are so that readers would be able to draw their own conclusions. After all, if I can convince you that my theories have merit even after having told you that I'm a Shiite Communist and lifetime member of the NRA, then I've really made some progress.

Cabeza de Vaca

http://www.library.txstate.edu/swwc/cdv/book/1.html

This is the account of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca in which he tells of his experiences in North America in the 1520s. It takes a few hours to read and is absolutely fascinating, with wonderful first hand accounts of the tribes living here in Texas before any significant European contact.

Cabeza de Vaca undoubtedly walked right through the Brazos Valley and down the string prairie that later became the Villa Real/Old San Antonio road (now Highway 21 from Bryan to Bastrop and San Antonio). He also walked right up the Llano River.

The physical journey is amazing enough. However, his spiritual journey and conversion from Conquistador Catholic (kill'em all and let God sort'em out) to a man with a real affection and love for los indios is just as gripping.

Stuffed Puppy Dogs

I read recently about a family therapist who got a call from a fifty-four year old woman whose marriage was crumbling because of her obsessive collecting of stuffed-puppy dolls. The walls of her house were lined with shelves, and every square inch of space was occupied by every variety of stuffed puppy available. The woman's normally sedate and long-suffering husband had finally had enough and wanted a divorce. She came to the therapist in desperation looking for some way to stop her compulsion.

The therapist was able to help her trace the problem to an almost forgotten event that had happened to her as a four year old. She had a stuffed-puppy doll, Patches, that she loved above all other things. She took it with her everywhere. It was tucked lovingly under her arm at play and occupied the place of honor on her pillow each night. Too much love and attention had patinaed the dog doll with dirt and fraying threads and the little girl's father tried and tried to get her to part with her pet, but her heart wouldn't let go. Finally, in a fit of anger and frustration, he tore the pet from her hands, ripped it's head off, and threw it in the trash, as his little daughter screamed in anguish for him not to hurt her beloved.

He thought she would quickly forget the stuffed pet and move on. He thought the hurt would quickly heal. But the crying didn't stop for days. He finally tried buying her a new Patches, but the child would accept no substitutes. After many nights the crying gave way to quietness.

Fifty years later, unhealed wounds were still hurting her. Fifty years later she was still looking for what she lost.

Very sad, I know, but how revealing. How many wounds do I have that still cause me pain? That still cause pain to those who love me? How have I wounded my children? Yet "love covers over a multitude of sins." I'm sure we equally bear the marks of forgotten kindnesses and kisses. I must examine my compulsions with more experienced eyes and bind up the old wounds.

Waking up in the dark

I remember when I was a child, waking up in the pitch dark late at night and climbing out of bed to make my way to the bathroom. I thought I was in my own house, but I was confused and was actually at my grandmother's. I remember my utter confusion when I couldn't find the light switch in the usual place. I remember my surprise when I banged my shin against a chair that didn't exist in my mental picture of reality.

As an adult (more or less), I now experience this same surprise and confusion when life doesn't work the way I think it should; when people behave in ways that I never even thought possible. My mental picture of reality is off, and I realize I'm stumbling around in the dark. I need to pay attention when these surprises occur and realize that life and reality are what they are; that my surprise results from a false mental image of the way things are.

Re: [Lest You Forget] 3/17/2005 09:44:48 AM

On Fri, 18 Mar 2005 14:53:51 -0500, TB wrote:
> Ahhh, you're reading too much into it. Even without a god, our
> ethics/morality can be boiled down to some form of "You don't hit me in the
> nose and I won't hit you in the nose", which keeps us, most of the time,
> from walking around with sore noses... So, that's a good, assuming that our
> general happiness here on this world is a good. Whether or not there is a
> purpose to us outside of this world is a separate question...

I can see why, following that logic, you might say *one's own*
happiness is a good, but why then should one worry about others who
aren't in a position of influence? The argument only holds as long as
the other person is in a position and of the inclination to return the
favor.

And what about the con man? If I can--in cowbird fashion--fool others
into treating me well while I'm actually using up their own survival
resources, is that good or bad? Think of the televangelist duping
little old ladies out of their life's savings. Avoiding a country
full of bloody noses doesn't seem to address that type of moral
turpitude.

But back to the main question...is such behavior good or bad? By what
authority can one say? If one is a strict naturalist, then one cannot
say it's either good or bad. The words have no ultimate meaning, but
only an individual meaning--I can say its good for me (meaning it
serves my current desires) or that it's bad for me (meaning it
doesn't), but the crooked televangelist is free to interpret it
according to his or her self interests as well.

For the naturalist there is no good or bad apart from individual self-interest.

Picture; Alpine Meadow

Picture; Tree-lined lane

Can Morality Exist if There is No God?

On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 07:45:38 -0800 (PST),

Anonymous wrote:
>So can morality exist even if there is no god? I say that it
> can, and is "real", and serves us all as a society... Morality is a social
> contract of sorts, and, in total, does things like keep your kids relatively
> safe...

Depends on what you mean by "morality." The social contract you speak of sounds more like ethics than morality, but it's a semantic distinction, I suppose.

If you begin from a naturalistic perspective--and have faith that there is no supernatural reality--then morality is a human/societal/natural construct, no more or less valid than the rules by which bees and birds and slime molds and boulders act. This gets us back to the basic problem; if our existence/thoughts/etc. are the result of only-nature then they are ultimately based on the random motions of atoms and cannot be said to be either good or bad. This holds true if you are speaking of an individual or a society, so one cannot say that Hitler or Stalin or Gandhi or Mother Teresa did things that were good or bad. "Might makes right" rules the day (although "right" is meaningless).

The only way there can be a true "good" or "bad" is if those things are defined from outside the natural system. It needs a supernatural mover, although not necessarily the Christian God.
If God is real, then what he does, as the Creator, is--by definition--Good. His Will defines what is good. That's why the Christian definition of sin is so broad. A sin is not just something that goes against the Ten Commandments, it's anything--thought, word, or deed--that goes against God's will.

Picture; Closeup of a flower

The Beauty of Competition

Every flower is competing for pollinators. Those with the brightest,
most attractive colors and smells (at least to their pollinator), will
get the most attention and reproduce most successfully.

As the wildflowers come out on the roadsides in the next few months,
we will be seeing the results of competition. And sex.

Three Trout

Once upon a time there were three trout, all of them brothers. They
spent their days swimming in the swift currents of a small, clear
river, catching juicy bugs and playing among the green and gray
stones.

But one of the brothers was unhappy. "Why must we constantly swim
against the current yet never get anywhere?" he asked his brothers.
"I, for one, am no ordinary trout. I will go further than anyone else
ever has before." With a sudden burst of speed he shot up the river
and was soon out of sight.

He swam and swam, all day and all night. Soon the river began to
narrow. The water became shallower and colder and bounded down rocky
cataracts and over white, misty falls. The trout would not give up.
He leaped every obstacle and pressed on, high into the mountains. At
last the water turned to a mere icy trickle, and with one valiant
leap, the trout landed himself next to a melting snow bank where he
lay gasping and heaving in the summer sun until a passing bear spotted
him and ate him in a single gulp.

The second brother was unhappy too. "Why fight the current? It's
never-ending. What's the point?" And with that he stopped swimming
altogether. He let the river carry him down towards the sea. The
river widened and slowed and food was abundant. The second brother
finally found himself in the open sea. "How beautiful! And look at
all the food." At that very moment he was gobbled up by a salmon
heading back up the river to spawn and die.

The third brother was no different from the others. The current was
tiring and relentless but he was afraid of going upstream or down. He
searched along the river's edge for some solution and chanced upon a
small inlet that led him into a calm pond. Food was plentiful and
there was no current. After a few weeks living the good life he had
become fat and happy. "This is the life!" But soon he noticed that
the pond was getting smaller and the water was uncomfortably warm. He
tried to go back to the river, but the inlet had long since dried up.
In another week he found himself gasping for air in the muddy goo of
the fast evaporating pond, now a mere mud puddle. He too was eaten by
a passing bear.

In the river, the other trout would often wonder about what happened
to the three brothers. But in time, they forgot all about the
brothers as they swam in the swift current, catching bugs, and playing
among the stones.

Negative Hallucinations

How many times have you looked for something repeatedly, such as your keys, and then someone else finds them right where you had already looked. It's quite possible to NOT see things that ARE there. Take a look at this article, for example.

But just because I don't see it doesn't make it not there. If objective reality were controlled by my mind (as in The Matrix), then people coked up enough to think they can fly wouldn't die from falls off high buildings.

Therefore, just because someone doesn't believe there is a God has nothing to do with whether or not God exists, so one can have a wrong opinion about this matter.
If there IS a God (or more broadly, a supernatural reality), the wrong opinion on this matter has eternal consequences. If there IS NO God and one holds that opinion, there are no eternal consequences, but your opinion on the matter is meaningless. It is the result, ultimately of the random motions of atoms, and has therefore, precisely the same validity as does rolling a die to decide one's opinion.

The Right Question

You are asking the right question, the question most men don't even think about and don't have the courage to face. If there is no eternity, then what we do here DOES NOT MATTER.

Be a rapist, a child-pornographer, a terrorist, a Mother Teresa, a Buddha, or a Christ. If there is no eternity then it does not matter.

Be a great architect or surgeon a Billy Graham or a Genghis Khan. If there is no eternity it does not matter. We are all just the ants on the proverbial log, building shit-castles as the toilet flushes.

But if there is an eternity then what you do here and now "echoes through eternity."

He is no fool, who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. -Jim Elliot