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Irish Times Waffle Alert

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 33,106 ✭✭✭✭Penn


    jank wrote: »
    That depends on what smart is. If smart is sending a rocket to the moon then yes, however if it means surviving by means of hunting and gathering then we as a population in general wouldn't last a week i.e we are dumber. Our smarts have evolved with the environment we occupy so to speak, doesn't mean we are smarter per say.

    Again, I'm not talking about environment or time. Obviously, environment is a huge factor, hence why I fully agree with gvn that a child born thousands of years ago and instantly brought to this time would do just as well here as any child would.

    However, we're mostly talking about cave men. In my opinion (I'm far from an expert on this so if an actual expert wants to weigh in on this and tell me I'm wrong, feel free), if you told a cave man that you could give him food for that night, or if he waited until tomorrow, you'd give him enough food for two nights. He'd probably take the food for that night because they worked more on instinct than rationality. Their instinct would be that they needed food.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,809 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    Penn wrote: »
    Again, I'm not talking about environment or time. Obviously, environment is a huge factor, hence why I fully agree with gvn that a child born thousands of years ago and instantly brought to this time would do just as well here as any child would.

    However, we're mostly talking about cave men. In my opinion (I'm far from an expert on this so if an actual expert wants to weigh in on this and tell me I'm wrong, feel free), if you told a cave man that you could give him food for that night, or if he waited until tomorrow, you'd give him enough food for two nights. He'd probably take the food for that night because they worked more on instinct than rationality. Their instinct would be that they needed food.

    Are we talking early humans or proto hominids here. Our ability to reason has evolved and hasn't changed much since early humans hence all the nonsense thinking we have around today. I think you could easily convince early humans. However again I'm far from an expert.


  • Registered Users Posts: 33,106 ✭✭✭✭Penn


    Are we talking early humans or proto hominids here. Our ability to reason has evolved and hasn't changed much since early humans hence all the nonsense thinking we have around today. I think you could easily convince early humans. However again I'm far from an expert.

    I was mostly basing my answers on "cave men" as per the previous posters comments. Though in general, I still think that, mostly due to our environment, we've been conditioned to look for answers more nowadays than thousands of years ago. Even if you believe in religion, a lot of people come to that answer themselves (whether it's true or not, they've looked for an answer and they believe it to be true)


  • Registered Users Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    Penn wrote: »
    However, we're mostly talking about cave men. In my opinion (I'm far from an expert on this so if an actual expert wants to weigh in on this and tell me I'm wrong, feel free), if you told a cave man that you could give him food for that night, or if he waited until tomorrow, you'd give him enough food for two nights. He'd probably take the food for that night because they worked more on instinct than rationality. Their instinct would be that they needed food.

    With the greatest respect, I think you are severely underestimating the intelligence of cavepeople and this comment shows a bit of ignorance on the topic (are we even on topic anymore?). Much evidence has been found to show that even pre-Homo sapiens cavemen stored food and water to be had later, most likely in anticipation of harsher times eg: drought.
    Even neandertals, our much maligned evolutionary 'cousins', buried their dead in complex rituals (which may even have been religious curiously enough). Such things are not instinctual, but the learned behaviour of very complex minds.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,775 ✭✭✭✭Gbear


    Galvasean wrote: »
    With the greatest respect, I think you are severely underestimating the intelligence of cavepeople and this comment shows a bit of ignorance on the topic (are we even on topic anymore?). Much evidence has been found to show that even pre-Homo sapiens cavemen stored food and water to be had later, most likely in anticipation of harsher times eg: drought.
    Even neandertals, our much maligned evolutionary 'cousins', buried their dead in complex rituals (which may even have been religious curiously enough). Such things are not instinctual, but the learned behaviour of very complex minds.

    Saw this in the "Bawwwwwwwww" thread over on cool pics and vids.



    If even a gorilla is capable of understanding something as abstract as being told that their kitten is dead and being able to understand the implications and, via sign language, be self-aware enough to be able to convey emotions about it, it's not stretching it at all to assume that 10,000 year old or even 100,000 year old humans, with the same brain sizes and structures as us (from what we can tell from imprints inside their skulls), had similar cognitive abilities to ourselves.

    Sometimes I think we overestimate how clever we really are. Intelligence isn't a recent evolution.
    I'd say, in terms of intelligence, we just about reached a tipping point not a million miles away from some of our primate relatives, some birds and cetaceans, that gives us amazing abilities.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 11,797 ✭✭✭✭PopePalpatine


    You've obviously put a lot of faith in your pc/ laptop/ smartphone and internet.

    More like confidence. I am confident that my laptop and modem are working right now, based on previous experience. I would define "faith" as trying/believing something without any idea how that thing would work - for example, buying a car without test driving it or finding out about its performance.


  • Registered Users Posts: 33,106 ✭✭✭✭Penn


    Galvasean wrote: »
    With the greatest respect, I think you are severely underestimating the intelligence of cavepeople and this comment shows a bit of ignorance on the topic (are we even on topic anymore?). Much evidence has been found to show that even pre-Homo sapiens cavemen stored food and water to be had later, most likely in anticipation of harsher times eg: drought.
    Even neandertals, our much maligned evolutionary 'cousins', buried their dead in complex rituals (which may even have been religious curiously enough). Such things are not instinctual, but the learned behaviour of very complex minds.

    Fair enough.

    *still think we're smarter than cave men though. I am anyway. I'm a f*cking genius


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,753 ✭✭✭fitz0


    Galvasean wrote: »
    (are we even on topic anymore?)

    There was a topic?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,870 ✭✭✭doctoremma


    fitz0 wrote: »
    There was a topic?
    Too much concern for staying on topic around here (well, certainly on the dark side).

    I am currently participating in a single debate thread elsewhere that has meandered through the height of Francois Hollande (short), the frequency of pedophilia in Belgium (high), the best vintage motorbike to own (no idea, zoned out there) and whether you can kill a dog by pulling apart its front legs (undecided, I'm in the "no" camp).

    (I'm not seriously questioning the moderation, BTW).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    fitz0 wrote: »
    There was a topic?

    Sort of, but as it was waffle, what it was may forever be unknown.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 3,809 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    Nodin wrote: »
    Sort of, but as it was waffle, what it was may forever be unknown.

    Something about having true beliefs is a bad thing, which is absurd!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Something about having true beliefs is a bad thing, which is absurd!


    There was that in the beginning, I think, then something about "cavemen" and whether they were as "smart" as us, which translated into modern humans 10,000 years ago and their "existential understanding". We had begun to wring blood out of the stone to discover precisely what "existential understanding" meant, and he left.....presumably the deadline at the times was looming.


  • Registered Users Posts: 966 ✭✭✭equivariant


    fitz0 wrote: »
    There was a topic?

    As op I can definitively say that there was no topic worth staying on ;)


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,730 ✭✭✭✭expectationlost


    its strange, joe humphreys is a news editor for the irish times, apart from having columns. it like the irish times gives people hobby (hobbyhorse) columns. same with peter murtagh and his trip around ireland, and all the other columnist who don't get fact checked.


  • Registered Users Posts: 33,543 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Golgafrinchan 'B' Ark


    'Fact checked' - Peter Murtagh's personal impressions on a trip along the coast aren't factual so can't be fact checked. He did call out Shell to Sea's BS though. Maybe it's Waters you're getting at but he gives all the signs of never quite recovering from a 70s bad acid trip.

    I wonder is this Humphries/Humphreys related to the other Humphries the Irish Times dare not speak about? Still awaiting his trial date isn't he..?

    I've said it before, over something much more important than this (impugning the reputation of a suicide victim at the behest of Terry Prone) but the current editor of the Irish Times is rapidly destroying the credibility of the paper.

    Here's what you could have won.



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,730 ✭✭✭✭expectationlost


    all this kinda stuff happening under the previous editor and the one before that...


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,730 ✭✭✭✭expectationlost


    you know this guy is now the IT education correspondent


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,232 ✭✭✭Brian Shanahan


    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0717/1224320251262.html

    I know that its not strictly speaking about atheism/agnosticism but its
    verging on Waters-esque. How can the IT publish anything by someone who can proudly declare that he knows "f**k all" about science?

    Any chance you could do a copy/pasta job (if legal)? I'm not paying to view the IT archives.


    Scratch that, I didn't realise that the OP was from 2012. Sorry.


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,730 ✭✭✭✭expectationlost


    I don't how the irish times can employ somebody with such enmity towards the none religious as their education correspondent

    Cog Notes: All together: what’s in a word?
    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/cog-notes-all-together-what-s-in-a-word-1.1933661

    another hobby column from joe humphreys


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