All in the Family - Guest star: Neanderthal

Btw, I once did a thread asking people to honestly state how Neanderthals were presented to them. It was interesting.This message has been edited by randman, 01-11-2006 02:25 AM

Sloppiness and incompetence works just as good as deliberate conspiracy which I did not maintain, even though it benefitted evos to inadvertently or otherwise fool the public about the data.

I am not an expert on Homo Erectus and am aware that perhaps there are various forms referred to here, but in general, I have no problem thinking of him as a man, as people, if there were tools and evidence of thinking and acting as people.This message has been edited by randman, 01-11-2006 02:28 AM

could you link that, please? i want to see.also, keep in mind that many people completely misunderstand science. popular opinion isn't really evidence of conspiracy or even sloppiness of the scientists' parts. afterall, in a poll 82% of americans believed that the phrase "god helps those who help themselves" is in the bible.

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אָרַח

Actually, I showed on the Haeckel threads you were wrong to assert this. Evos generally write pr produce these textbooks, even university professors, such as the professor from Brown university. Trying to dimiss this as just book publishers doesn't pass the smell test, imo.I have noticed, even in peer-review literature, a tendency among evos to rely on overstatement and defending icons way past time it was reasonable. I say "peer review" because after publicly denouncing Haeckel as one of the biggest frauds in all of biology (makes you wonder what the other ones are), a few years later and coincidentally after his comments were used to bash evos, he publishes a paper declaring them "good teaching aides."Not to go over Haeckel again, but you have to see that with Neanderthals, Haeckel, microevolution equals macroevolution, etc, etc,...there IS A PATTERN. It's not our imagination. These are facts of evos continually relying on massive overstatements. Once you start noticing this trend, it's quite shocking to see it showing up in nearly all arguments for evolution, imo, except maybe genetics, and I say that just because I don't know as much about genetics to say one way or another, but even there, the "random mutations" parroted to the public often isn't qualified enough to have a clear, definite and testable meaning.This message has been edited by AdminNWR, 01-11-2006 06:55 AM

You commented on it. Do a search.

homo erectus?yeah, how about ergaster?or habilis?a. africanus?a. afarensis?pan troglodyte?don't get me wrong. i'm not claiming this a direct line. i just want to know when they stop being human. (most images stolen from here)

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if it's the thread i'm thinking of, most of us argued that we understood neanderthals were not excessively ape-like, but quite equivalent to modern humans in most ways except for skeletal morphology.

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Indeed, as I said:

quote:

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And you're right, there is no excuse.

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Sloppiness in textbooks is something we consistently agree is a bad thing^TM, however, misrepresenting the hard work of evolutionary biologists and anthropologists does not benefit them.

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Late Edit to clarify for the readers:
Message 27 Belfry says that evos were responsible for the change in Neanderthal depiction.
Message 29 Randman: Not soley, creationists have been complaining about the depiction since the 50s
Message 31 Mod: Evos have been trying to correct this depiction since the 30s, and in earnest since the 50s (sources cited).
Message 34 Randman: So evos depicting them wrong is inexcusable
Message 35 Mod: ANYBODY, evolutionary biologist or otherwise, that depicts them contrary to the primary literature composed by the field-relevant evolutionary biologists is guilty of sloppy research.This message has been edited by Modulous, Fri, 13-January-2006 08:27 AM

Look at those who just answered the question about what they were taught rather than the spin game.

Why don't you start a thread raising this issue then?We are talking about Neanderthals here.

Are using "people" to mean that Neanderthals, Homo Sapiens and Homo Erectus are, for lack of a better word, the same species?Obviously the whole "Can they mate successfully?" test is useless in this context - so "species" here is a little suspect, like "people".I don't really have a problem with lumping all these together as a single group whose traits may be different at different ends of the envelope.Is that what you are saying?Or, like someone else posted, are you using "people" to mean any of a number of different primates which have shown culture and tool use (chimps, gorillas, bonobos, orangs included)?

My bad. Rand was responding to me. It was a predictable departure from topic that I initiated. We should start a thread about who makes textbooks and who should be held accountable.

This is from "Early Man" (1965) Pictures are Neanderthal left, Cro-Mag center, Modern man right.I don't think that this is a particularly damning image of Neanderthal. I would have drawn him more with more robust muscles and a broader chest. Also, I think his head is a little too far forward on his neck. But hardly a brutish thug.My real problem with the picture is Cro-Mag. Where'd he get that spear? Why's he carrying it? No one else brought a spear. And no one else is looking at the side. I think Cro-Mag may have actually killed the artist after this was drawn.Also, why keep a spear when you are buck naked?!

Discussion of textbooks is on topic, provided that it relates directly to the current topic (that is, textbook coverage of neanderthals).I want to avoid having this thread go off at a tangent.There is already an open discussion of textbooks at Science Textbook Authors--are they scientists?.

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