It’s very likely these Neanderthals, although able to interbreed with humans, and probably capable of speech, will be on average considerably less intelligent than humans. If I had to guess I would suppose their average adult IQ to be about 70, or -2 SD relative to modern humans. You might wonder how they could have survived for 300k+ years with such modest intelligence, but based on my experiences with 5-10 year old kids I don’t think that a sub-adult level of maximum intelligence precludes the ability to form societies and function as hunter-gatherers. (Apes survive with even less cognitive ability.) I just don’t think that higher developments (e.g., invention of writing) are likely for such a population. What Homo Sapiens accomplished in 50-100k years far outstrips Neanderthal accomplishments over a much longer period of time.
I find this comment very confusing, because why is he comparing what Homo Sapiens have accomplished in 50-100K years to what Neanderthals have accomplished “over a much longer period of time”? Shouldn’t he be comparing what the two species accomplished at the same time?
All the higher developments Hsu speaks of (i.e. invention of writing) didn’t occur until about 35,000 years after Neanderthals went extinct and even “advances” like agriculture didn’t occur until about 30,000 years after. If the IQ of our species is judged only by the accomplishments we made at the same time as Neanderthals, we had no higher developments either.
But Hsu seems to be saying “it’s not when you accomplish something that reflects IQ, but how long it took you to accomplish it.” Obviously a more intelligent species will be expected to learn, invent and discover things faster than a less intelligent species, but Homo Sapiens have been around a lot longer than 50-100 K.
I don’t doubt Homo Sapiens are smarter than Neanderthals and that we accomplished more, even contemporaneously, I’m just puzzled by the achievement rate over 50-100 K years being compared to “a much longer period of time”?
Perhaps you could say that anatomically modern humans first appear in the fossil record somewhere between 195 kya and 300 kya, depending on how you define “anatomically modern” and still exist today. Let’s split the difference and say we’ve been around for 248,000 years.
Meanwhile Neanderthals first appear in the fossil record between 400 kya and 600 kya. Again, splitting the difference, about 500 kya, but since they vanished 40 Kya, they lasted 460,000 years.
So maybe one could say our species accomplished far more in 248,000 years than Neanderthals accomplished in 460,000 year, but this doesn’t really tell us much about our differing rates of accomplishment.
What is needed are achievements that Homo Sapiens made that Neanderthals also independently made, but at a later date, so we can compare.
For example, Homo Sapiens started engraving “quite a complex geometric pattern” by about 70 kya at Blombos Cave in South Africa. Meanwhile Neanderthals started carving “abstract, almost geometric shapes” by about 40 kya in Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar.
So could one argue that Homo Sapiens acquired this skill when our species was just 178,000 years old (248 kya – 70 kya) while Neanderthals didn’t acquire it until their species was 460,000 years old (500 kya – 40 kya)?
It’s tempting to apply the old age ratio method of calculating IQ to claim Neanderthals had an IQ only 39% as high as modern humans (178,000/460,000 = 0.39) but that’s clearly nonsense, and one of the reasons it’s nonsense is it’s not as if we were starting from scratch when we became our species 248,000 years ago, nor were Neanderthals starting from scratch when they became Neanderthals 500,000 years ago. Both species were building on the accomplishments of ancestral forms.
So perhaps instead of starting the clock at the speciation point, we should start it at the last common ancestor of both species. Research suggests “the early predecessors of humans diverged from those of Neanderthals between 550,000 and 765,000 years ago — too far back for the common ancestors of both to have been Homo heidelbergensis, as some had posited”.
Let’s split the difference and assume the two species diverged 658 kya, which means it took Homo Sapiens (and our ancestors) 588,000 years to create geometric designs (658 kya – 70 kya), while it took Neanderthals and their ancestors 618,000 years to do the same. Applying the old ratio IQ method would now suggest their IQ was 85% as high as ours. A lot more believable than 39%, but possibly still nonsense.
Pumpkin Person 
Do you think the structure of Neanderthal intelligence was similar to humans? Maybe they were extremely intelligent in some narrow areas but retarded in others.
Also, what happened to the post you were going to make about the 100 most important living Americans? Remember that poll you were taking at the beginning of the year?
Do you think the structure of Neanderthal intelligence was similar to humans? Maybe they were extremely intelligent in some narrow areas but retarded in others.
It’s likely their intelligence was both qualitatively and quantitatively different from our own which is why it’s always risky to read too much into a single example of intelligence (geometric engraving), but as more examples of many different type accumulate, we can average them out.
Also, what happened to the post you were going to make about the 100 most important living Americans? Remember that poll you were taking at the beginning of the year?
The results of the poll were interesting but not worth publishing because people seemed to be using two different definitions of influential: how powerful you are vs how much you’ve affected history. Although I emphasized that I was interest only in the latter, people kept mixing the two definitions.
I still plan on publishing the list before 2018 but I don’t want to use those poll results. Perhaps I’ll do a poll just asking people what are the most important events of the last 50 years, and then I’ll list the 100 people most responsible for them.
But they had AIDS and malaria and crack cocaine habits Pumpkin. You have to compare Neantherdals that grew up in suburban communities with modern humans who grew up in the same environment. You can’t compare two groups from different environments to be able to cognitively conclude anything.
As far as I know, chipmunks could be as intelligent as humans if they weren’t forced to build dams in the water in my opinion.
Lol
I think there is a paper that states that if modern humans were forced to live in Kingston Jamaica they would have the same IQs as dolphins. I find that incredible and an indictment against all those who profess to believe our species is the ‘king of the animal kingdom’.
More speciest hate!!!!
Another celeb I might file under Schizotypal is Kanye West. He seems to have a very odd personality that is an weird exaggeration of traditional black man traits like narcissism and histrionic behaviours. He seems to be very delusional. He has the personality of someonce on cocaine but doesn’t need to be on cocaine. Schizotypals are usually excellent at music like Scriabin and Mac DeMarco.
Speaking if the schizo-autism spectrum, there’s a theory on the Internet that autism is caused by neanderthal genes
Why though?? Neanderthals didn’t have the genes for autsim.
“However, when both strands of a segment of DNA are flanked by highly identical sequences, they can be susceptible to large copy-number differences, including deletion, duplication and other changes, during the process of cell division. In this case, deletion, which causes the loss of the segment’s 28 genes, results in autism.
In the new study, researchers determined that this structure, located at a region on chromosome 16 designated 16p11.2, first appeared in our ancestral genome about 280,000 years ago, shortly before modern humans, Homo sapiens, emerged. This organization is not seen in any other primate – not chimps, gorillas, orangutans nor the genomes of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Yet today, despite the fact that the structure is a relatively new genetic change, it is found in genomes of humans the world over.”
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-08-human-neanderthal-gene-variance-involved-inautism.html
https://www.geekwire.com/2016/uw-prof-genes-autism-neanderthals/
The Neanderthal causes autism theory predates the genetic counterevidence you cite. The idea was based on the claim that Neanderthal admixed regions have more autism today, but I’ve argued that might be because cold climate selects for autism and the Neanderthal connection is spurious.
Of course philosopher argues it was actually civilization that selected for autism. It would be interesting to compare European genomes before and after civilization to see if there’s a difference in autism genes.
I don’t think either were selected for. More than likely they’re side effects of either a linguistic or mathematical brain. The variance across geography would be from the demand of particular cognitive traits. Then again autism and schizophrenia are not strongly correlated with the percieved racial hierarchy.
I should have been more precise. I speculated cold climates are K selecting (per rushton) & when a K personality has executive dysfunction, we call him autistic. Meanwhile when an r genotype has executive dysfunction, we call him schizophrenic.
So i argued it’s the r and K that are selected while the executive dysfunction is just a defect.
That rests upon the assumed validity of Differential K theory. I believe there is enough evidence to discredit it. There’s also an article on your blog debunking it.
It’s the proposed selection pressures that are discredited but the idea of fast vs slow life histories and quantity vs quality of offspring have not been discredited.
How does quality of offspring and life/growth expectency relate to the prevalence of autism and schizophrenia? Why is either associated with r/K selection?
How does quality of offspring and life/growth expectency relate to the prevalence of autism and schizophrenia?
I speculated they might be related because if you evolved to have high quality slow growth offspring instead of high quantity fast growth offspring, you wouldn’t need the social skills to attract numerous partners because you’d only need one. Thus you might evolve a technological IQ > social IQ type mind, which is perhaps a risk factor for autism. By contrast if you evolved the opposite reproductive strategy, you might evolve a social IQ > technological IQ, which is perhaps a risk factor for schizophrenia.
Why is either associated with r/K selection?
According to Wikipedia: In ecology, r/K selection theory relates to the selection of combinations of traits in an organism that trade off between quantity and quality of offspring.
Apparently Neanderthals were r selected:
Research by Tanya Smith of Harvard University recently revealed that modern human childhoods became longer than those of Neanderthals. By studying the teeth of Neanderthal children, she found they grew much more quickly than modern human children. The growth of teeth is linked to overall development and shows Neanderthals must have had a much reduced opportunity to learn from their parents and clan members.
“We moved from a primitive ‘live fast and die young’ strategy to a ‘live slow and grow old’ strategy and that has helped make humans one of the most successful organisms on the planet,” said Smith. Thus Neanderthals – who already lived in sparse, small populations across Europe – were fundamentally ill-equipped to deal with the newcomers who had arrived from Africa.
Well actually it turns out that Neanderthals probably grew very similar to us. Of course their life history probably varied like ours, since both pieces of evidence only come from a handful of fossils
“Crucially, this means his brain – whilst it was the size expected of a human – hadn’t reached the same 95% threshold for Neanderthals. Instead, his brain was closer to 87% of the adult Neanderthal size. This would suggest he was growing up at the same rate as modern humans, likely for longer to get to the full Neanderthal brain size at this slow rate. His childhood may have been as long, if not longer, than our own”
http://www.evoanth.net/2017/09/26/how-quickly-neanderthals-grow-up/
Also, it turns out Neanderthals were a lot more numerous and genetically fit than previously thought. The inbred individuals thought to be the norm for Neanderthals only came from one population: the Altai Neanderthals. Now that a we one genome has been sequenced we realize they were nowhere near as inbred as the altai specimen suggested.
http://beta.bib.irb.hr/708538
If you can prove 100% african people cannot develop autism, then the theory might be true. I personally don’t think that.
I think you can create an autistic son if you keep doing hardcore K selection with humans.
70 IQ blacks seem to have done relatively okay. I’m sure 70 IQ neanderthals would have also.
The black african IQ of 70 is spuriously low because kids who grow up with illiterate parents aren’t prepared for paper-pencil tests, even language free ones like Ravens. On a truly culture reduced test black Africans would score higher than 70.
Also Neanderthals survived ice age Europe which is likely more cognitively demanding than Africa, though Neanderthals had physical adaptations to help them.
PP,
I cant seem to find the article on which i asked why vietnamese,cambodians, have a lesser IQ compared to indonesian, filipinos, or malaysians as a reply to a chart that posted the latter group as showing having a higher IQ. As the former group lives in relatively colder climes.
If you dont mind can you please post a link to that article. I want to see your and/or others replies to that comment.
.
I don’t know what article you’re referring to. What was it called?
Sadly, I dont remember the title.
An important video about causes of poverty in Africa and elsewhere.
Corruption in African mostly based on favoring clans and not others for jobs.
Why Some Countries Are Poor and Others Rich
ONE of the causes
The problem is crack cocaine and malaria and poor inner city governance in africa by the democratic party. The democrat party have ruled over the inner cities for nearly a century and the results are shocking. Sad!
The reminded me that I was once wondering why Asians were so short if they were so evolved, then realized 80-100% of Mongoloids are lactose intolerant. This is probably the reason they’re so short, while races that aren’t lactose intolerant (Nordics, Mediterraneans, Berbers) grow quite tall in comparison to the rest of the human race. Milk drinking quite literally leads to stronger bones and taller heights it seems, I myself am 6″3 and have noticed that height correlates startlingly strongly with intelligence, most likely due to the scaling of brain size with body size.
No doubt a 6″3 Chinese man would be smarter than even a Jew, considering the average male height is 5″6 yet they manage to maintain such high IQs for a short people. I recall reading a study done on the correlation of height with IQ a while ago, I’ll have to go and dig it up.
Yes, being East Asian and being tall are both positively correlated with IQ, yet negatively correlated with each other, so anyone rare enough to have both traits (tall AND East Asian) is likely to be very smart, especially if they’re a woman, since women also have high IQs relative to their heights.
See here:
https://pumpkinperson.com/2015/05/17/revised-formula-for-estimating-iq-from-bio-demographics/
I’m 6″3 > 99 percentile (+2.4 SD) with a 62.5cm > 99 percentile (+5.2 SD) head circumference.
Your formula predicted 125.8 > 95.2 percentile.
I score much higher, lower in mathematical tests (134 > 98.82 percentile) but very high in Ravens (over 145 > 99.83 percentile).
I am probably more schizoid than aspergers. I focus on psychology, abstract concepts and intentions, not mathematics and formulas.
But are you comparing height and iq correlation within east asian populations*
What’s avg and taller for them tend to mean other thing/level for ”us”, or at least for northwestern levels.
”It’s likely to be very smart” but exactly why*
I plan to marry a tall Chinese woman before the time comes when such a woman would be well out of my league, just as Mark Zuckerberg, Lyor Cohen and George Soros have done. All the smart Jews have picked up oriental wives, seeing as any intelligent person can clearly see China is the place to invest in for the next few centuries.
I will learn Chinese and have many tall half-Chinese children.
It’s a shame they’ll be slightly shorter than me and with small penises, but ah well. It’s intelligence, not physical ability that lead the human race to prominence, after all.
I wonder: Is height inherited from the father or the mother, or maybe an average of the two? I am identical in height to my father, my mother is 5″10.
Anecdotally my mom is 5’7 my dad is 5’6 and I’m taller than both of them, my height is closer to the white mean
Also I can drink milk with no problem
milk is racist.
Then why are blacks dumb and asians smarter in similarily impoverished countries?
The answer is the democrst party. Or the democreeps!! They have ruled over aftica for nearly 100 years and all they have are slogans and poor tax policies. In my opinion aftica needs a tax cut to stimulate growth and trade deals!!!!
At least it probably explains why Nordics are so tall compared to Southern Euros and the rest.
Nordics were just as tall as anyone else for nearly all of history. The Dutch especially have shot up in height. For most of history, they were 5″4. Now they’re around 6″.
Though yes, they are currently the tallest race, though the tallest people are a tribe in Sudan with an average height nearing 6″4 for men.
That map is wrong. This one is correct. Only Asians and South Africans are completely lactose intolerant. Caucasians in general aren’t lactose intolerant.
“Algeria is one of the world’s largest powdered milk importers and relies heavily on imported powdered milk for its growing needs, reports the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.”
I myself am a proud milk-drinker and have grown tall as a result. No lactose intolerance in this Fenoopy.
eheheheehehehe
the dutch are only half nordic.
Fenuck is ….
Your map is incomplete. There is no data for a lot of countries especially the arab world.
Height differences between Nordics and Southern Euros appear to have a genetic origin : https://www.unz.com/gnxp/why-northern-europeans-are-taller-than-southern-europeans/
The map is incomplete because no studies were done in those countries, they also don’t take data-census.
The newspaper today says that in 1907, the average height of Spanish men was 163 cm (5’4”).
It seems most people in history were 5″4, including the Dutch.
I presume most Caucasians were around 5″4 in height for most of history, I will have to research the matter. I can’t find any data on Nordics in 1900.
Asians are smarter than whites, but have accomplished less. Japanese scientist says this is likely due to higher levels of openness among whites, leading to an inventive mindset. Perhaps Homo Sapiens are merely that compared to Neanderthals – inventive.
They actually did more , if you see throughout human history and not just the last 400 years. Last 400 years were unique in the west that everything that enables innovativeness came together. Modern schools and unis, high percentage of educated population, an enabling govt, necessities like having to conquer and holding new lands, manufacturing sector boom, decrease in poverty, also west came out of having to depend on subsistence agriculture so they could focus on other things.
“Applying the old ratio IQ method would now suggest their IQ was 85% as high as ours.”
Should ‘our’ I.Q. be understood as the current global average, or the white/western average?
I’ve taken a few stabs at estimating Neanderthal I.Q.. 80 seems very plausible to me. If a Neanderthal were raised in the developed world, he might well be smarter than the average black American.