Playing God with Neanderthals

Hi AZPaul, In what way exactly? I think that for the most part they would fit in just fine; socialisation would take care of them. They would grow up in a human society, never knowing anything else.There is one area where I suspect a Neanderthal would struggle; language. I've read about key genes regulating language use/acquisition being associated with severe linguistic learning difficulties in modern humans. I've also read that these key mutations may have played a role in giving Homo sapiens that survival edge. Now I don't doubt that Neanderthals had language, but if we were to suppose that they lacked these genes, it would seem reasonable to suppose that our modern Neanderthal child would have difficulties picking up language, especially written language. That would be a real obstacle.Otherwise, I think they would cope. One of the key skills that makes apes successful is the ability to learn new tricks and adapt. What would prevent them from doing so?Mutate and SurviveEdited by Granny Magda, : The word pixies keep stealing words from my posts today, in an effort to make it look like I'm writing nonsense. Damn you word pixies!

You make some fair points. Certainly the experiment angle would be important. The kid's life would be a bit too Truman Show... That would be a concern, but how much of our disease resistance is genetic? Wouldn't it gain some resistance from the mother during pregnancy? I agree. Just to be clear, I regard this as a thought experiment only. Apart from anything else, I don't really see what is to be gained from actually doing it. I'm sure sure what it would really tell us about the original Neanderthals, if anything. No, as you say, the unknowns are too great. It is interesting to consider though.Mutate and Survive