Uber Unter?

 

https://apple.news/AAkvWOSwAQhK81rgSKdOqdg

This article makes the point that I've been trying to make for quite a while. Neanderthals and humans are both very skilled and competent  species, but they are far from identical. The difficulty is due to the teeter totter problem. Neanderthals were originally regarded as genuinely subhuman and then, when we finally realized that this belief was unfair and  inaccurate, we tried to balance that error by piling assertions on the other side that are equally baseless; insisting Neanderthals were just like us.

All this does is result in huge piles of errors on both sides of the teeter totter. 

This Neanderthal expert raises some interesting points that I have not previously known. 

>“Look carefully at Neanderthal tools and weapons. They’re all unique. Study thousands and you’ll find each is completely different. My colleagues never realised that. But when I did, I saw there was a deep divergence in the way Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals each understand the world. 

...Of course, compared to a gorilla we have more creativity and skills. It gives us a certain image of ourselves– one of superiority. But what happens if we compare ourselves to something far closer – something far more like humanity, although different, that only disappeared 40,000 years ago?” Imagine, he suggests, how differently we’d see ourselves if confronted by hyper-intelligent aliens.

... “Their tools and weapons are more unique than ours. As creatures, they were far more creative than us. Sapiens are efficient. Collective. We think the same, and don’t like divergence. 

...“Neanderthals vanished, I think, because of high human efficiency. And this efficiency now threatens to destroy us, too. That’s what’s killing the planet’s biodiversity.”

...Over millennia, humankind has also developed an advanced, impressive technology and culture, of a type Neanderthals could never have imagined. “So while there is something dangerous in our nature, as a collective we can control and reshape it. Understanding this is the key to humanity’s future. Because if we don’t think carefully, next time it won’t be Neanderthals that our efficiency destroys, it’ll be humankind itself that’s the victim.”<

 I do disagree with the conclusion he made that suggests we might have been inferior to Neanderthals in creativity. We were superior to Neanderthals in networking and in working as a cohesive group.

For example, Neanderthals lived in small groups, did not have trade routes, and the small groups in which they lived were frequently heavily  inbred.  You could say that we were simply better at networking while they were better at surviving in individualistic small groups.

As far as creativity goes, compare what passes as  Neanderthal art with human art. One may or may not be art at all.  It is very hard to tell. The other clearly speaks for itself.

Neither species can really be considered as superior to the other in general, but only in certain particulars. We were better at adapting as we were generalists. The history of extinction shows that the more highly adapted and specialized a species becomes, the more successful it will be in that specific set of circumstances for which it has adapted. But it is equally true that the more adapted it is to a specific set of circumstances, the less it is likely to be able to survive change. Generalists adapt and survive. Specialists die out in the face of change.

Unfortunately, I must agree with him that our efficiency and  capacity to network and control our environment, forcing it to adapt to us rather than the other way around, has caused us endless grief and may yet cause us to inflict even greater harm upon ourselves.