Is there any indication of increased intellegence over time within the Human species?

Even if tools were improved by accidents it takes intelligence to recognise and repeat that accident. In any case, there is no reason to suppose that Cro Magnon suddenly started having a whole load of lucky accidents where prior homonids did not. Which species developed these? We actually have quite a good idea what wood and bone tools the Neanderthals had. But even if we did not; the fact they failed to advance in stone tools is sufficent evidence of inferior intelligence regardless of what wooden tools they had. The more specialised and refined tools of Cro Magnon man are simply better.

You're limiting intelligence to the ability to modify material.If you want to look it through that very narrowly defined window, then sure modern humans are better at making and modifying tools than any of our previous counterparts.But that really discounts other mental abilities - memory for example.I think we need to radically broaden the scope of what is considered "intelligence" before we start saying one group is smarter than another.

How do you suggest we evaluate the memory capabilities of extinct homonids? The discussion has centred around the material artefacts left by them because that's all we have to work with. The fact is that we can never fully assess the intelligence of a extinct creature, hell, we struggle to do it for living ones. All we can do is search for the most likely conclusion given the evidence we do have.That evidence is the tools and other artefacts left behind. Those things imply that homo sapiens is smarter than any prior homonid.

There's no justification for your claim that Australian Aborigines as a group are less intelligent than modern Europeans as a group. They're Homo sapiens sapiens and we're Homo sapiens sapiens - the two groups have similar variations in cognitive abilities.IQ tests aren't a useful measure of intelligence across cultures for the reasons Nuggins gave.The technological differences between modern Homo sapiens groups are not due to differences in intelligence but to differences in (amongst other things):1. Availabilty of resources (you can't develop iron tools, for example, if you don't have access to iron ore or fuel to do the smelting);2. Access to technology developed by others (most cultures receive their new technology by contact with other groups rather than inventing it themselves);3. Cultural attitudes to innovation (many cultures, unlike our own, have negative attitudes to innovation)Personally, I always smile when people take pride in the technological superiority of western culture. I always want to ask them, 'So which bit of it did you invent?'

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

To be clear, I am speaking about Aboriginals living a pre-contact lifestyle or one similar to it. IQ tests do have some level of cultural bias, yes, but only in some areas and not a great deal. It is also possible to reduce this bias through better test design. They aren't a perfect measure of intelligence but they are the best measure we have and groups living in more primititive societies do score lower on them.I don't think this is any great surprise. We (as a society) spend an awful lot of time and money exercising kids mental abilities; I'd be far more surprised if this didn't have an effect on mental ability than if it did. We're also less prone to disease, and malnutrition which helps development and probably also has an effect.The rest of your post I shall ignore because you've said exactly nothing I disagree with in it, nor anything that contradicts what I said.

So, if you brought up a group of Aborigine and a group of French children under identical cultural conditions, would you expect the average IQ between the two groups to be pretty much the same?

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

Yes.As I, in fact, said in my first post:

quote:

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Yes, I would say Europeans are more intelligent than Aboriginals. Not genetically, but there is good evidence that living in the kind of environments that we do increases our intelligence (as measured by IQ).

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This message has been edited by Mr Jack, 08-24-2005 10:51 AM

So is the difference between Neanderthal intelligence and modern Homo sapiens intelligence also a cultural difference, or is there a biological difference too? What about the differences between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, or between Australopithecus and Homo erectus?

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

Since there is no evidence of Neanderthals who lived concurrently with Cro Magnon man having mastered their tools I would conclude that, most likely, Cro Magnon man is genetically more intelligent than Neanderthals.

Or could it be that the tools used by each culture were better suited to the individual applications and lifestyle?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I can think of a different reason for Neanderthals failing to copy Cro-Magnon technology (if there is evidence that they tried and failed). The attempt to copy the technology already shows a high level of intelligence - perhaps they failed simply because they didn't have the very fine motor skills required, rather than because they lacked the intelligence. (I can't help picturing to myself a group of Neanderthals sitting around a campfire, trying to compensate for their clumsiness by composing clever satires on the lives of their nerdy Cro-Magnon neighbours!)Evidence about technology isn't enough on its own to make a judgement about the relative intelligence of hominid groups. As we've seen in our discussion of Australian aborigines, a difference in technologies is not a clear cut indicator of biological differences in intelligence (and biological difference is what we're really talking about here).Comparing Australopithecus and Homo erectus, or Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, we have clear differences in the morphology of the cranium as well as the tool-making evidence, so we can say fairly confidently, 'Homo erectus was more intelligent than Australopithecus, and Homo sapiens was more intelligent than Homo erectus'.However, the evidence is not so clear cut when we compare Neanderthals and modern man. The morphology of the cranium is pretty similar, except that the Neanderthal cranium tends to be larger than that of Cro-Magnon (although we have no idea whether this means that the upper cortical areas were larger in Neanderthals - suggesting higher intelligence - or that the cranium was packed with insulating material.So, on balance, I'd say the jury was still out on this question.

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible

No. Cro-Magnon tools are functionally superior to Neanderthal ones. They are lighter, sharper, more balanced and more specialised. I would go as far as to say there is no function for which Neanderthal tools are superior.

But if the Neanderthal tools were easier for the Neanderthals to aquire and served the purpose needed, were more of a swiss army knife, meet general needs tool than the specialized tools of the Cro-Magnon, I could make an argument that they were superior. Being heavier might not be a disadvantage if the users were not traveling and might even be an advantage with a more sedentary people.In addition, even if the advantages you describe were fact, that does not show an increase in intellegence.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Neanderthal and Cro Magnon tools can be made from the same raw material.As I've said already, tools do not prove that Cro Magnon man was smarter than Neanderthals but they sure as hell imply it.The ability to produce better solutions to the same problem is one of the hallmarks of intelligence, as is the ability to understand and perform complex, multi-stage procedures and operations. Based on the evidence we have, Cro Magnon man scores more highly than Neanderthals do. It's possible Neanderthal man was smart but too clumsy but, frankly, the lack of development in his tools do not speak to that answer nor does the lack of multi-part tools. It's possible Neanderthal man was a mathematical and philosophical genius but oddly lacking in practical skills, but how likely is that?I agree, there are many explanations for superiority of Cro Magnon tools over Neanderthal ones but the most likely is that Cro Magnon man was smarter than Neanderthal man.

Was Einstein more intellegent than Newton?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion