What if Homo erectus was alive today?

That Noah and the people who built the tower of Babel were Erectus, not Sapiens. This is already known to smart creationists like Kurt Wise, on the basis that Erectus is found on three continents, and therefore must be part of the scattering of tribes (Neanderthal too)!http://EvC Forum: Did Homo Erectus build the Tower of Babel? -->EvC Forum: Did Homo Erectus build the Tower of Babel?

That occurred to me, as well. However, I realised that from a creationist point of view, an increase in brain power probably is a "downward" change.

All generally true, although it might have been better if you'd put "merely" before "a cultural creation" (because there are elements of illusion and fiction about it).What should be said is that it's a much more nebulous concept than many people think, because human population movements out of Africa would have involved all kinds of crossing and mixing of groups, including migration back into Africa, etc. Many of us would find surprising relatives on a genetic level for certain features - people who don't look like us at all! The mixing of tribes is not a modern phenomenon at all (and by modern, I'd include all the mixing that would have gone on during the Roman Empire, for example, as "modern").Here's something interesting to look at:Haplogroup - WikipediaHuman Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup - WikipediaHaplogroup H - Wikipedia(mtDNA)Now look at the picture below. Supposing we have four EvC members. One considers himself African, another European, a third Jewish, and the fourth Arabic. All four could happen to share a particular mutation in their Mt DNA due to a common ancestor on the direct maternal line that the rest of us don't have, and that most people in the "racial" groups that they identify with don't have.So, "so called race" (as Darwin called it when talking about humans) is a complicated and nebulous thing. Distribution density of E1b1b1a (E-M78) according to Cruciani et al. (2007).Edited by bluegenes, : Added picture caption

I'm not sure about this, Bluejay. A very small number of mules (about 1%) are fertile. Also, Przewalski's Horse has 66 chromosomes (to 64 for all other horses and 62 for mules) and produces fertile offspring when crossed with domestic horses. Also, changes in the number of chromosomes cannot mean infertile offspring, because the mutation would happen in one individual, and it could never become fixed in the population if that were the case. So: I agree that it could play a role, but it certainly wouldn't be decisive (and I think our fusion was before the split, also). Although it's possible that we might be able to produce offspring with Erectus, it's much more likely with Neanderthal. In their case, we've got the genome to look at, but we'll need to know exactly what genetic factors actually are important in reproductive isolation first.As for how we'd treat Erectus if we found them alive, it's an interesting question. In the past, they would have had a rough time, I'm sure, but now I think they'd be treated very well, and given space to live in, and basic rights. We've got a lot more civilized over the last century or so in many ways.We would also want to study him in detail, so there wouldn't be too much privacy!Another aspect to the breeding question is sexual selection, and I'm sure we'd find them very unattractive because of the divergence.