Neanderthals

[KonstantinII 1,106]

If the Neanderthals had indeed survived to this day (by idk, living on Iceland or something). 

 

No not in Iceland. They didn't have boats back then in the stone age. It's in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and how are you to reach it. In fact, the first people on Iceland were the Eskimos and Vikings. Neanderthals migrated to Ireland which is now an Island close to England which is located in Europe. Back then the whole British Isles was just a peninsula jutting out from Europe.  There is no reason why prehistoric humans could not have migrated to Ireland. Iceland is a remote unreachable island. Ireland is a reachable place. Two entirely different places.Don't you know that? 

You also say that Neanderthals need not be separated from us, but then again 700,000 years of separate brain chemistry evolution doesn't sound like they'd fit right 

They didn't have chemistry back then.

Chemistry was only seriously begun in the 16th century. Your posts indicate a great lack of knowledge of history.

[hym 358]

I think she was referring to the idea that the chemical construction of the brain of a Neanderthal would be significantly different than that of a typical human today.  Not whether Neanderthals understood chemistry.

 

Regardless, let's remember to be polite and discuss the issues as opposed to each other.

[KonstantinII 1,106]

Neanderthals, I believe they would've never developed civilizations.

What about bow, arrow, spear, club, hammer, fishing hook, clothes made of animal fur, cave paintings art? Not civilization? 

Insulting the ancestors! 

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Personally, I rather have a society run by technocrats like Asimov who pay no heed to all the...people, but rather just do what they need to do in order to achieve certain goals. Politics doesn't work well if the guys leading the country are constantly busy trying to explain what they are doing to people who are incapable of understanding, and whose job depends on those people actually understanding. 

 

Only problem is that if you shut off the government's agendas from the general public... For all we know it might just be a matter of decades before your original technocrats become corrupted by power or change in such a way that shady business starts being conducted behind the entire nation's back. What about the people that are perfectly capable of understanding the government's agenda?

 

Definitely agreed with everything else you said. But, as much as I would absolutely LOVE to run things my own way and give certain branches of government a whopping 20% of our budget (instead of the military). It is still best to keep the public well informed and educated (i.e. the National Science Foundation getting 10% of the budget so they can really educate the youth). We can make the people care... Especially the youth!!! Once that slowly becomes taken care of we wouldn't have to worry about having to explain things to total boloney-brains.

 

 

not the least of which was the Neanderthals language was mostly non-verbal which meant the movie had subtitles.

 

Personally, I don't buy the notion of Neanderthals having a dumbed-down language structure. Recent findings have shown they had the hyoid bone (which attaches to the back of the tongue and allows for a wide range of vocalizations... like us). So, theoretically they would've had their own language. That part of the series was sadly wrong :/ Not sure if Auel made this distinction.

 

 

Neanderthals, I believe they would've never developed civilizations.

What about bow, arrow, spear, club, hammer, fishing hook, clothes made of animal fur, cave paintings art? Not civilization? 

Insulting the ancestors! 

 

Hunter-gathering is not considered civilization, it's a non-sedentary culture. Civilizations involve having large permanent establishments, trade, written language (not as much though), government, and most importantly: agriculture... The Neanderthals had absolutely none of this.... Therefore, they had no civilization.

 

Neanderthals are not extinct. The Celtics are descendants of Neanderthals. Even Celtic people right now are not pure Neanderthals. They were the first people to come into Europe and after them many more groups came into Europe and partially subdued them like the Slavics, Scandinavians, Greeks, and Aryans. Where one tribe subdues another they give the subdued tribe their culture and language but the blood is mostly of the former people. You say that Neanderthals are extinct. Where did 500 million people go? Obviously someone hasn't had their history lessons.   Small populations of people can become extinct like tribes living on remote islands but never large populations. All humans in Earth are Homo Sapien because Neanderthals are Homo Sapien too.

 

I don't want to immediately condemn most things you said as being misleading or as extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence (since I don't believe in derailing legitimate threads and directing all posts at one person, especially the OP). But, I do have to say one thing:

 

Where did you get the number of 500 million from? If you're going to make claims like that the Neanderthals are still alive, or that the Celtics are "pure-bred" Neanderthals, or that 500 million Thals once roamed the Earth, please show a reference to such a claim.

 

And you do realize that the entire Earth's population of Homo Sapiens at around 10,000 years ago consisting of hunter-gatherers was only 1 million, right? And since Neanderthals were confined to Europe, and since Europe only makes up 7% of all the world's total land-mass, the Neanderthal population could've never been more than 70,000 people at absolute most, especially since they lived in smaller population groups than us and were also hunter-gatherers. Look up world population estimates for prehistoric times if you don't believe me.

 

 

If the Neanderthals had indeed survived to this day (by idk, living on Iceland or something). 

 

No not in Iceland. They didn't have boats back then in the stone age. It's in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and how are you to reach it. In fact, the first people on Iceland were the Eskimos and Vikings. Neanderthals migrated to Ireland which is now an Island close to England which is located in Europe. Back then the whole British Isles

was just a peninsula jutting out from Europe.  There is no reason why prehistoric humans could not have migrated to Ireland. Iceland is a remote unreachable island. Ireland is a reachable place. Two entirely different places.Don't you know that? 

>>You also say that Neanderthals need not be separated from us, but then again 700,000 years of separate brain chemistry evolution doesn't sound like they'd fit right 

They didn't have chemistry back then. Chemistry was only seriously begun in the 16th century. Your posts indicate a great lack of knowledge of history.

 

 

You're completely misreading all my posts -_____-

[LexusInfernus 908]

Personally, I rather have a society run by technocrats like Asimov who pay no heed to all the...people, but rather just do what they need to do in order to achieve certain goals. Politics doesn't work well if the guys leading the country are constantly busy trying to explain what they are doing to people who are incapable of understanding, and whose job depends on those people actually understanding. 

 

 

Only problem is that if you shut off the government's agendas from the general public... For all we know it might just be a matter of decades before your original technocrats become corrupted by power or change in such a way that shady business starts being conducted behind the entire nation's back. What about the people that are perfectly capable of understanding the government's agenda?

 

Definitely agreed with everything else you said. But, as much as I would absolutely LOVE to run things my own way and give certain branches of government a whopping 20% of our budget (instead of the military). It is still best to keep the public well informed and educated (i.e. the National Science Foundation getting 10% of the budget so they can really educate the youth). We can make the people care... Especially the youth!!! Once that slowly becomes taken care of we wouldn't have to worry about having to explain things to total boloney-brains.

 

That's why any good government has checks build in so that no one can have enough power to do anything stupid. Besides, there are always people who are capable enough to understand. Just not everyone. But in today's society, we assume that every person has the brains and the willingness to understand and care about what the government is doing. Its sad to see that the average person only starts to care when the government is messing with the size of his soda cans, but can't be bothered about the thousand of infinitely more important issues the government has to decide on. 

 

And sure, educate people as much as you can, that never hurts, but keep in mind that there are varying levels of intelligence. Even with the best education in the world, the majority of the people simply have an average intelligence. I'm sure we can crank up the definition of average, but I wonder if it will be enough. 

[Zukunftstraume 220]

That's why any good government has checks build in so that no one can have enough power to do anything stupid. Besides, there are always people who are capable enough to understand. Just not everyone. But in today's society, we assume that every person has the brains and the willingness to understand and care about what the government is doing. Its sad to see that the average person only starts to care when the government is messing with the size of his soda cans, but can't be bothered about the thousand of infinitely more important issues the government has to decide on. 

 

And sure, educate people as much as you can, that never hurts, but keep in mind that there are varying levels of intelligence. Even with the best education in the world, the majority of the people simply have an average intelligence. I'm sure we can crank up the definition of average, but I wonder if it will be enough. 

 

Well, the government of the US, was supposed to be a good government, but even then there was two colossal things they missed when drafting the constitution:

1) Privatization of Banks

2) That only two political parties will be powerful for over 150 years, thereby dividing the nation in nearly two halves, with next to no middle ground.

 

^Those are ultimately the things that lead to the US acting the way it does now, and the poor forefathers could've never seen this coming. I can only imagine how much more the world could possibly change in two or three centuries, where the checks and balances set aside several centuries back won't be enough to prevent foul-play from occurring. I guess the US's biggest problem is that most people regard the constitution as nearly sacred (so that changes to it are incredibly difficult to make). While the French government is perfectly okay with throwing out their constitution every two decades or so and starting again from scratch. Also while the UK essentially has no constitution! If anything we should also allow ourselves to be rather flexible with our government, instead of overly rigid, but while still maintaining the appropriate long-term checks (somehow).

 

Yup, there definitely are varying levels of intelligence. Up until recently I was so caught up on the idea that one person's "intelligence" is set in stone. That is, up until my current calculus teacher made us read this short article as part of a class assignment:

 

http://seattlecentral.edu/faculty/jwright/math91/Assignments/due_10_03/YouCanGrowYourBrainArticle.pdf

 

^ I highly recommend reading it if you're interested, it's a pdf file... It really was a bit of a life-changer for me.

 

And of course! People were indeed born with varying degrees of natural intelligence determined by genetics, and then raised a certain way where their brain developed in response. But turns out (like mentioned in the article), that doesn't just stop by the time adulthood hits, the brain is like a muscle... More "exercise" leads to neuron connections multiplying and thus increasing neuro-pathways and ultimately intelligence altogether. That article really changed my perspective on things.

 

So, ignoring the varying degrees of natural intelligence, if we can really make most people care, be educated from childhood upwards, have them focus on the bigger issues in life, I really feel like we can all advance forward as a generally unified group. Sure, there will be some people left out (like the extreme dying breed of conservatives refusing to give their mentality up or people who were sadly born with severe mental disorders), but that's the price we'll have to pay in order to advance... At least without the assistance of great technologies to make sure no one has to ever live with the burden of said mental disorders again.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Well, the government of the US, was supposed to be a good government, but even then there was two colossal things they missed when drafting the constitution:

1) Privatization of Banks

2) That only two political parties will be powerful for over 150 years, thereby dividing the nation in nearly two halves, with next to no middle ground.

 

^Those are ultimately the things that lead to the US acting the way it does now, and the poor forefathers could've never seen this coming. I can only imagine how much more the world could possibly change in two or three centuries, where the checks and balances set aside several centuries back won't be enough to prevent foul-play from occurring. I guess the US's biggest problem is that most people regard the constitution as nearly sacred (so that changes to it are incredibly difficult to make). While the French government is perfectly okay with throwing out their constitution every two decades or so and starting again from scratch. Also while the UK essentially has no constitution! If anything we should also allow ourselves to be rather flexible with our government, instead of overly rigid, but while still maintaining the appropriate long-term checks (somehow).

 

Yup, there definitely are varying levels of intelligence. Up until recently I was so caught up on the idea that one person's "intelligence" is set in stone. That is, up until my current calculus teacher made us read this short article as part of a class assignment:

 

http://seattlecentral.edu/faculty/jwright/math91/Assignments/due_10_03/YouCanGrowYourBrainArticle.pdf

 

^ I highly recommend reading it if you're interested, it's a pdf file... It really was a bit of a life-changer for me.

 

And of course! People were indeed born with varying degrees of natural intelligence determined by genetics, and then raised a certain way where their brain developed in response. But turns out (like mentioned in the article), that doesn't just stop by the time adulthood hits, the brain is like a muscle... More "exercise" leads to neuron connections multiplying and thus increasing neuro-pathways and ultimately intelligence altogether. That article really changed my perspective on things.

 

So, ignoring the varying degrees of natural intelligence, if we can really make most people care, be educated from childhood upwards, have them focus on the bigger issues in life, I really feel like we can all advance forward as a generally unified group. Sure, there will be some people left out (like the extreme dying breed of conservatives refusing to give their mentality up or people who were sadly born with severe mental disorders), but that's the price we'll have to pay in order to advance... At least without the assistance of great technologies to make sure no one has to ever live with the burden of said mental disorders again.

Actually, private banks are not really a bad thing. Two things went wrong. The first was a change in culture. Where banks and businesses used to be about growth and sustainability in the long run, somewhere in the 80's that changed more and more to short term profits. People wanted quick money even if it meant you basically ruined your business on the long run. The second thing that went wrong was that we started deregulating the whole thing. Where at first there were rules that kept the excesses in check and prevented the greedy from doing to much damage, now we gave them free reign to do whatever they wanted, and they did. And after 30 years the system finally collapsed under its own weight. What we need is to revert back to focusing on long term growth and sustainability of business, rather than making a quick buck and ruin the economy. And second, we need rules that underpin this new (or actually old) approach. 

 

And having two political parties is not a bad thing, as long as both parties are moderate in their approach and willing to work together. And they mostly were up until the 60's-70's. It was back then that they slowly started to drift apart. Interesting though that some elements in the US seem to be creating a religious cult around certain aspects of the government. Mixing religion with politics is always a bad thing, and if this trend persists it will end up ruining the United States by paralyzing the system. 

 

As for the intelligence article, it is interesting, but note that it deals with task specific intelligence. Essentially, it says that if you train yourself in a certain task, you will become better at it. However, task specific intelligence is not the same as a more general intelligence, nor will it lead to more general intelligence. Seeing how the brain is compartmentalized, doing math you only use the 'math' part of your brain and therefor only train that part of your brain. And being good at certain tasks is in no way a guarantee that you will become more open to alternative ideas in areas not related to that task. Just because you are able to read words does not mean you can comprehend the meaning behind the word. Creationists can read just as good as anyone else, but that doesn't stop them from rejecting scientific facts and judging by the quality of their arguments, often completely fail to realize what evolution actually is (how often I don't hear them come up with creation of the world or universe arguments). 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Are we off topic or not?

 

Raving about governments and banks doesn't seem to belong in a palaeontological discussion.

 

And BTW, the expression 'good government' is an oxymoron.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Are we off topic or not?

 

Raving about governments and banks doesn't seem to belong in a palaeontological discussion.

 

And BTW, the expression 'good government' is an oxymoron.

 

It's fine, the thread was about Neanderthals and how their demise is a valuable lesson for us to learn from. Which of course, would naturally be a thread to deal with huge issues in today's society as a whole.

 

To be honest, I'm actually rather against the idea of threads being on topic, all the time. If it drifts a bit, who cares, so long as it still comes back to the original topic from time to time.

 

 

Well, the government of the US, was supposed to be a good government, but even then there was two colossal things they missed when drafting the constitution:

1) Privatization of Banks

2) That only two political parties will be powerful for over 150 years, thereby dividing the nation in nearly two halves, with next to no middle ground.

 

^Those are ultimately the things that lead to the US acting the way it does now, and the poor forefathers could've never seen this coming. I can only imagine how much more the world could possibly change in two or three centuries, where the checks and balances set aside several centuries back won't be enough to prevent foul-play from occurring. I guess the US's biggest problem is that most people regard the constitution as nearly sacred (so that changes to it are incredibly difficult to make). While the French government is perfectly okay with throwing out their constitution every two decades or so and starting again from scratch. Also while the UK essentially has no constitution! If anything we should also allow ourselves to be rather flexible with our government, instead of overly rigid, but while still maintaining the appropriate long-term checks (somehow).

 

Yup, there definitely are varying levels of intelligence. Up until recently I was so caught up on the idea that one person's "intelligence" is set in stone. That is, up until my current calculus teacher made us read this short article as part of a class assignment:

 

http://seattlecentral.edu/faculty/jwright/math91/Assignments/due_10_03/YouCanGrowYourBrainArticle.pdf

 

^ I highly recommend reading it if you're interested, it's a pdf file... It really was a bit of a life-changer for me.

 

And of course! People were indeed born with varying degrees of natural intelligence determined by genetics, and then raised a certain way where their brain developed in response. But turns out (like mentioned in the article), that doesn't just stop by the time adulthood hits, the brain is like a muscle... More "exercise" leads to neuron connections multiplying and thus increasing neuro-pathways and ultimately intelligence altogether. That article really changed my perspective on things.

 

So, ignoring the varying degrees of natural intelligence, if we can really make most people care, be educated from childhood upwards, have them focus on the bigger issues in life, I really feel like we can all advance forward as a generally unified group. Sure, there will be some people left out (like the extreme dying breed of conservatives refusing to give their mentality up or people who were sadly born with severe mental disorders), but that's the price we'll have to pay in order to advance... At least without the assistance of great technologies to make sure no one has to ever live with the burden of said mental disorders again.

 

...Where at first there were rules that kept the excesses in check and prevented the greedy from doing to much damage, now we gave them free reign to do whatever they wanted, and they did. And after 30 years the system finally collapsed under its own weight. What we need is to revert back to focusing on long term growth and sustainability of business, rather than making a quick buck and ruin the economy. And second, we need rules that underpin this new (or actually old) approach. 

 

And having two political parties is not a bad thing, as long as both parties are moderate in their approach and willing to work together. And they mostly were up until the 60's-70's. It was back then that they slowly started to drift apart. Interesting though that some elements in the US seem to be creating a religious cult around certain aspects of the government. Mixing religion with politics is always a bad thing, and if this trend persists it will end up ruining the United States by paralyzing the system. 

 

As for the intelligence article, it is interesting, but note that it deals with task specific intelligence. Essentially, it says that if you train yourself in a certain task, you will become better at it. However, task specific intelligence is not the same as a more general intelligence, nor will it lead to more general intelligence. Seeing how the brain is compartmentalized, doing math you only use the 'math' part of your brain and therefor only train that part of your brain. And being good at certain tasks is in no way a guarantee that you will become more open to alternative ideas in areas not related to that task. Just because you are able to read words does not mean you can comprehend the meaning behind the word. Creationists can read just as good as anyone else, but that doesn't stop them from rejecting scientific facts and judging by the quality of their arguments, often completely fail to realize what evolution actually is (how often I don't hear them come up with creation of the world or universe arguments). 

 

Hopefully Obama gets on it now that he's in his 2nd term. Of course, he'll receive massive backlash from the extreme conservatives. But, if he can pull this off... We'll be alright for now.

 

Every time I think of how terrible the system is here, i can't help to think of two big things. How the mega-corporations have betrayed us (by outsourcing MANY industrial jobs or two-thirds of the top 100 companies finding ways to weasel out of paying income taxes) and also how the US is too divided. I look at the government of the Neanderthals, Japan, or many others and they have a multi-party system. As opposed to here where one side proposes a plan, and practically half of Congress immediately condemns the plan. So, negotiations have to be made on both sides (oh, we'll pass you're healthcare if you give us rich people even larger tax breaks). Eventually, these trade-offs are enough for one side to finally agree with the plan and get a majority vote (or more to prevent a veto), meanwhile the trade offs created another problem. In this two-party system we never really advance anywhere quickly, always stuck fighting down stupid traditions and problems arising from trade-offs or lack of cooperation.

 

Meanwhile systems that have 6 powerful parties get things done very quickly, in the common interest of the people as a whole, instead of just one side. I.e. someone in congress proposes a clean air act, The Green Party and Progressives completely back it, while the Libertarians and Socialists mostly back it as well, but the Conservatives and Capitalists strongly opposed it. However roughly 70% of congress passed it (which overrides any chance of a veto and is also immediately a majority), therefore no backwards negotiations nor detrimental trade-offs occur. It quickly gets passed, and on to the next topic. Meanwhile, the Americans are stuck arguing over the same topic for well over a year and end up creating three other problems in the process. -____-

 

 

Creationists are so stuck up on traditions they were raised with since childhood or blindly came to later in life. These people were either rather lost in life, without direction, and wanted a way out... Or, they were people who since youth were raised with a very narrow-minded mindset and strong rigid morals. Simply put, they were just people who were never raised to have an open mind. Once they're adults, trying to get them to open up (like someone else said), is incredibly difficult and usually not worth the effort. But, education can really change things. If we can devote more of our money to going towards elementary schools for showing them how cool the sciences can be, I really feel like we'd be going places much much faster. Little things like that can really open up the next generation.

 

[KonstantinII 1,106]

Neanderthals are the direct ancestors of Celtics and possibly Ainus.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Neanderthals are the direct ancestors of Celtics and possibly Ainus.

 

Care to share with us the links to these claims?

[LexusInfernus 908]

Every time I think of how terrible the system is here, i can't help to think of two big things. How the mega-corporations have betrayed us (by outsourcing MANY industrial jobs or two-thirds of the top 100 companies finding ways to weasel out of paying income taxes) and also how the US is too divided.

Outsourcing would have happened regardless. If not to developing countries, then automatization would have made (and in the future will make) millions of jobs superfluous. That is the inevitable cost of progress. 

 

I look at the government of the Neanderthals, Japan, or many others and they have a multi-party system. As opposed to here where one side proposes a plan, and practically half of Congress immediately condemns the plan. So, negotiations have to be made on both sides (oh, we'll pass you're healthcare if you give us rich people even larger tax breaks). Eventually, these trade-offs are enough for one side to finally agree with the plan and get a majority vote (or more to prevent a veto), meanwhile the trade offs created another problem. In this two-party system we never really advance anywhere quickly, always stuck fighting down stupid traditions and problems arising from trade-offs or lack of cooperation.

 

 

Meanwhile systems that have 6 powerful parties get things done very quickly, in the common interest of the people as a whole, instead of just one side. I.e. someone in congress proposes a clean air act, The Green Party and Progressives completely back it, while the Libertarians and Socialists mostly back it as well, but the Conservatives and Capitalists strongly opposed it. However roughly 70% of congress passed it (which overrides any chance of a veto and is also immediately a majority), therefore no backwards negotiations nor detrimental trade-offs occur. It quickly gets passed, and on to the next topic. Meanwhile, the Americans are stuck arguing over the same topic for well over a year and end up creating three other problems in the process. -____-

Heh, coming from a country that has 6 major parties, I can tell you that is an extremely positive scenario you paint there. Generally proposals are horribly mutilated before they pass, or for every proposal one party supports, they have to support a proposal they absolutely hate in order to buy the support for their own proposal. And they certainly aren't quick about it. A nice example is our support to the F-35 program, which was an issue 13 years ago and still hasn't been solved. That's right, after 13 years of debating and pushing the issue into the next year and we still aren't done. 

 

But yeah, deal making and doing concessions is an even bigger part of politics in a multi party system compared to a two party system. 

 

Besides, not to mention that besides 6 major parties, we have about 14 smaller parties that also run during the elections. 

 

 

 

Creationists are so stuck up on traditions they were raised with since childhood or blindly came to later in life. These people were either rather lost in life, without direction, and wanted a way out... Or, they were people who since youth were raised with a very narrow-minded mindset and strong rigid morals. Simply put, they were just people who were never raised to have an open mind. Once they're adults, trying to get them to open up (like someone else said), is incredibly difficult and usually not worth the effort. But, education can really change things. If we can devote more of our money to going towards elementary schools for showing them how cool the sciences can be, I really feel like we'd be going places much much faster. Little things like that can really open up the next generation.

Perhaps. We managed to pretty much wipe out Creationism over here in Europe. At least no one takes it serious as a 'science' and the people who believe in it are part of small secluded minorities. So I suppose it could work for the US as well. 

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Neanderthals are the direct ancestors of Celtics and possibly Ainus.

 

Care to share with us the links to these claims?

Amen!

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Perhaps. We managed to pretty much wipe out Creationism over here in Europe. At least no one takes it serious as a 'science' and the people who believe in it are part of small secluded minorities. So I suppose it could work for the US as well.

 

Heh, coming from a country that has 6 major parties, I can tell you that is an extremely positive scenario you paint there. Generally proposals are horribly mutilated before they pass, or for every proposal one party supports, they have to support a proposal they absolutely hate in order to buy the support for their own proposal. And they certainly aren't quick about it. A nice example is our support to the F-35 program, which was an issue 13 years ago and still hasn't been solved. That's right, after 13 years of debating and pushing the issue into the next year and we still aren't done.

 

But yeah, deal making and doing concessions is an even bigger part of politics in a multi party system compared to a two party system. 

 

Besides, not to mention that besides 6 major parties, we have about 14 smaller parties that also run during the elections. 

 

Good to know few take creationism seriously, it's something like half the country over yonder.

 

And wow, that completely caught me by surprise... Well, if you had to take a gander at which system you considered better, a multi-party or a duo-party, which would you pick?

 

[LexusInfernus 908]

Good to know few take creationism seriously, it's something like half the country over yonder.

 

And wow, that completely caught me by surprise... Well, if you had to take a gander at which system you considered better, a multi-party or a duo-party, which would you pick?

 

It depends really. Both a two party and a multi party system have advantages and disadvantages. Both systems work fine as long as the parties involved realize that deal making is an essential part of politics and that it should never be treated as a zero sum game. The two party system is then more efficient, but at the cost that certain issues are likely to be overlooked. Things like sustainability are better of with a green party rather than two parties that are broadly based around the social economical divide. That is when a multi party system is better, with specific issues getting adopted by specific parties, giving certain views a stronger voice. But at the cost of efficiency and the risk that the political spectrum gets more and more fragmented. To give an example of how the Dutch political landscape looks like, going from the left to right we have the Socialist Party (former Maoists) the Party for Animals (extremists greens) the Evangelical Christian Party, the Labor party (moderate left) the Green Party, the Christian Democrat Party, the 50 plus party (old peoples party) the Democrat party (mix between left and right) the Liberal party (old school capitalists) the Freedom Party (Neo Fascists) and the Christian Fundamentalist party (anti abortion, anti women's right, creationists, etc). For reference, only about 4 major parties existed a 100 years ago. 

 

As you can see, all these parties have seats in parliament. Some have only one or two seats, others are bigger. You can actually vote on even more parties, but they are generally to small to get into parliament. And that is not to mention the hundreds of local parties that only run in their own municipality. 

 

In the end though, once the democracy becomes ill with populism and stupidity, both systems become equally unworkable. Maybe a multi party system can hold out slightly longer against those ills, but it is by no means immune against it.  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Heh.  I prefer a multi-party system rather than the muley-party system currently infesting the U.S. congress.  It has become reduced to counting coup on each other, rather than conducting the business of the country.  Needs a shaking up.

[KonstantinII 1,106]

 

Neanderthals are the direct ancestors of Celtics and possibly Ainus.

 

Care to share with us the links to these claims?

Amen!

[JanYpe 17]

Are we off topic or not?

 

Raving about governments and banks doesn't seem to belong in a palaeontological discussion.

 

And BTW, the expression 'good government' is an oxymoron.

Better to have "off topic chat" than "creepy theorizing about racial purity chat".  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Racial purity?  Haven't heard that one since about 1945 in any serious context except for a few neo-Nazi nuts here and there.  Studies have shown that everyone has 99% common DNA and the differences are small.  However, the number of pairs is very large so DNA works as an identifier using the distinctive pairs.  "Molly O'Grady and the colonel's lady are sisters under the skin".

[Zukunftstraume 220]

 

 

Neanderthals are the direct ancestors of Celtics and possibly Ainus.

 

Care to share with us the links to these claims?

Amen!

 

Just show us where you read that "Celtics and Ainus are the descendants of Neanderthals". Simple as that.

 

 

Racial purity?  Haven't heard that one since about 1945 in any serious context except for a few neo-Nazi nuts here and there.  Studies have shown that everyone has 99% common DNA and the differences are small.  However, the number of pairs is very large so DNA works as an identifier using the distinctive pairs.  "Molly O'Grady and the colonel's lady are sisters under the skin".

 

Someone in this thread started arguing that certain groups of people are purebred Neanderthals, while others are only partially... Of course, all of this was without a single drop of evidence or any citations, links, etc.

 

Not pointing any fingers, but it's pretty obvious who that was.

[KonstantinII 1,106]

You know that Celtics have the same characteristics as Neanderthals such as red hair, low forehead, freckles, white skin.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Are you suggesting that Harry Windsor is some kind of throwback?

[Zukunftstraume 220]

You know that Celtics have the same characteristics as Neanderthals such as red hair, low forehead, freckles, white skin.

 

Are you also suggesting the Celtics have flat noses, a protruding brow-ridge and are bulkier/stronger than all other populations on the planet?

 

Also, you do realize that many other European populations besides the Celtics are light-haired, light-skinned, and have freckles right? Like the Scandinavians. If anything, the Eskimos match the description of a Neanderthal better than any other race, except Neanderthals never made it to the far-East (and thus saying Ainus are Neanderthals is also wrong). I'll also point out that you claimed at one point that Ainus no longer live in Japan. Of course they do! There's something like 100,000 of them! Plus, you are still contradicting yourself because you also said Neanderthals didn't have boats... but yet, Japan is a series of islands -____-

 

By the way, freckles are impossible to deduce from fossils. There are also plenty of other races that have freckles, light skin, and brownish hair colors across the world.

 

They've also discovered that only some Neanderthals had light hair, not all. Plus, do you really think that light-colored hair only evolved once in the past couple million years? Light-hair colors evolve out all the time, along with red pigments. Just look at the vast array of other mammals that have light hair colors. It's something that happens all the time in evolution and is particularly easy to occur. Neanderthals were a separate species from Homo Sapiens, they evolved different brain chemistry, but similar skin/hair colors because of the environment they were in... Just because a few had the same hair color doesn't mean that they were the ancestors to Celtics.

 

Scientists would say that your claims are absolute boloney because they have no scientific backing, and they're nothing more than that pseudoscience you keep accusing people of following. Europeans have similar DNA, while other races have slightly different DNA. But from the fossil record, we've found that the DNA of Neanderthals is MUCH more different than any other human being alive today. Not one group of people alive has DNA that matches that of Neanderthals (except for that 1-4% that I mentioned earlier). This shows that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens were separate species, with only a very very few Neanderthals managing to pass their genes to us by intermingling with our ancestors. But, their entire species was wiped out. No one today is a descendant of the Neanderthals, they're gone. Get used to this because these are the facts.

 

Seriously, where are you getting your information from? No one's going to believe you unless you show us where you got this from.

[bcnurse247 33]

Hi all,

 

There is actually a project underway to trace human ancestry through DNA analysis.

 

www.dnaancestryproject.com

 

Basically, you can purchase a test pkg (prices $119 or $199), send in a DNA sample from yourself and I think one parent or sibling (probably buccal cells from the inside of the cheek), and they will send you information about the history, timeline, and geography of your biological ancestors. There is also some kind of public biological genealogy database underway. I thought this was pretty neat when I heard about it. Also, it could be great for people who were not raised by their genetic parents to find a biological connection. I know 1 person who has done it (the $119 option) but I don't think a lot of people know about it yet.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Hi all,

 

There is actually a project underway to trace human ancestry through DNA analysis.

 

www.dnaancestryproject.com

 

Basically, you can purchase a test pkg (prices $119 or $199), send in a DNA sample from yourself and I think one parent or sibling (probably buccal cells from the inside of the cheek), and they will send you information about the history, timeline, and geography of your biological ancestors. There is also some kind of public biological genealogy database underway. I thought this was pretty neat when I heard about it. Also, it could be great for people who were not raised by their genetic parents to find a biological connection. I know 1 person who has done it (the $119 option) but I don't think a lot of people know about it yet.

 

This has got to be the coolest thing ever! I've been looking for this type of service for a while now, not avidly though. So, after first reading this post, I actually started looking into this quite a lot. I don't exactly have the money to get the combo kit that cost something over 300$ for the full blast of info just yet, but I'll make it an effort to have it done by this summer! Thanks a bunch this!

 

I also found two particular television interviews of Spencer Wells, a leading genealogist who does another version of this for National Geographic. Both the hosts of these television shows have their lineages revealed during their respective interviews.

 

The first link is to the segment of George Stroumboulopoulos from The Hour, a Canadian show featured on CBC.

 

 

 

 

 

The second link is to none other than Stephen Colbert's show the Colbert Report. His particular segment made me chuckle quite a lot.

 

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/183232/august-14-2007/dr--spencer-wells

 

 

 

EDIT: Turns out the National Geographic one is the more reputable one. The one from dnaancestryproject.com has a few bad reviews and the information given isn't as complete or detailed as NG's. It's the same price $199, but looks more in depth. I haven't looked at all the perks of it, but either way to anyone interested, I would highly recommend browsing reviews for whichever one you're interested in.

 

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/about/

[bcnurse247 33]

This has got to be the coolest thing ever! I've been looking for this type of service for a while now, not avidly though. So, after first reading this post, I actually started looking into this quite a lot. I don't exactly have the money to get the combo kit that cost something over 300$ for the full blast of info just yet, but I'll make it an effort to have it done by this summer! Thanks a bunch this!

 

I also found two particular television interviews of Spencer Wells, a leading genealogist who does another version of this for National Geographic. Both the hosts of these television shows have their lineages revealed during their respective interviews.

 

The first link is to the segment of George Stroumboulopoulos from The Hour, a Canadian show featured on CBC.

 

Thanks for gathering more info on this. I enjoyed the George Stroumbo segment. Now that you've mentioned it, I've heard of the National Geographic one as well and I may have gotten them mixed up (that might be the one my friend ordered). Anyways, I think the message is important: that we all share a common ancestry, and that each of us is linked, each and every cell, to many cultures and regions beyond our current experience. The science lets us look back so much further and see so much more than we ever could.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If you must have a god, how about that first living creature in the primordial soup that first had reproductive DNA?  Every living creature on earth is descended from it.  Let's hear it for the zooplankton.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

If you must have a god, how about that first living creature in the primordial soup that first had reproductive DNA?  Every living creature on earth is descended from it.  Let's hear it for the zooplankton.

 

I think you might enjoy this:

 

 

[KonstantinII 1,106]

 Plus, you are still contradicting yourself because you also said Neanderthals didn't have boats... but yet, Japan is a series of islands -____-

Yes but not during the stone age! Back then Japan was part of the Asian mainland.

Scientists would say that your claims are absolute boloney because they have no scientific backing, 

You are not a scientist. You don't speak for scientists. 

Neanderthals were simply one of the many groups of Homo Sapiens to migrate from Africa. There is no "brain chemistry" which you speak of. 

Neanderthals were a separate species from Homo Sapiens, they evolved different brain chemistry, but similar skin/hair colors because of the environment they were in

[hym 358]

Once again, it is worth remembering that discussions are about the issues, not each other. When people start talking about each other, things generally start going downhill fast.