You Can't Trust Science!

Wibbs wrote:

That's a very big sea change from even a year ago and wiat for the backlash. Look at "out of africa" explanations even currently on the web that havent been updated yet and the consensus is/was that all populations were the same came from the same source and we had no admixture from archaic humans. The chimp analogy would have gotten you roasted in academia and still would. Indeed the chimp analogy most used its quite the opposite. That two chimps from different sides of the same valley in africa are more genetically diverse than all modern humans today(which is still true BTW). Quite different. So this study could be a bombshell.

That said I dont see how. It certainly cant possibly explain a notion of racism. Not with any logic anyway, though logic is often lacking in those eejits.

yeah, but, even in the out of africa theory for Modern Humans theNenaerthals still exixt as a seperate Breed/Species of human for a long time and then just dissapering from existance, it was previously postulated that they had interbred, this new research shows a Third genetic marker of another species of hominid at a later date which is seperate to both the Africans and the Neanderthals.

I'd like to see a much broader study done to really map out the divergence and evolution that led to us

Flamed Diving wrote: »

I am clearly making a point. Allow me to help you in seeing it. There are potentially an infinite number of guesses that could be made to explain any phenomenon. Unless you have some mechanism for telling them apart, then literally anything goes. Out of the list I provided, there was only two that were falsifiable, and one which has already been tested rigorously.

Not all options are equally valid. If something is falsifiable, then it at least can be ruled out. This is what the thread is about. Can science be trusted? Well, science only deals with what is falsifiable, something it can attach some level of confidence to. Whether you like to admit it or not, all else is simply guessing, and ideas in this realm, are equally valid. This group were the, ahem, "bat**** crazy" stuff.

Yeah...I'm well aware of how the scientific method operates. I don't think anyone was making a scientific claim of knowing that they were correct, apart from Mysty.

No-one was making assertions...they were just discussing possibilities. When it comes to historical sciences, alot of the time you cannot falsify the claims, you just have to go on what is possible,likely and probable. For instance, when scientists look at a fossil, they infer certain traits about that dead animal onto it, say that it was likely a fast runner due to lower bone density or whatever. Those claims are unfalsifiable, no one can go back and say...aha you're wrong, I went back to the Triassic and he was a slow b@stard. So it is not as clearcut as that when postulating what could have happened in the past.

The theories/hypothesis/ideas whatever you want to call them that MC put forward, are very reasonable. We know that Neanderthal and modern Africans came in contact with each other. We know Neanderthal was stronger and had more pronounced feautures. We know that when a species becomes extinct as neanderthals did, that they recede to more isolated areas(i.e further up the mountains). We also know of the phenomenon known as cultural memory, wherby ancient stories are passed down by people and the "memory" can become embedded in the culture. So is it not a reasonable suggestion that the folklore tales of trolls could be cultural memory of Neanderthal? Which do you think is more likely...that or that there is a race of space-neanderthal that came to earth and thats where the memory comes from.

In my opinion, you stifle discussion and generally p1ss people off when you cheapen the discussion by saying what we all already know...that there are an infinite number of possible answers to any question.

Instead of saying that, why not respond with a variant of "thats interesting" or "I doubt thats true because x,y, z". I mean, you don't go onto the paleontology forum when the possible uses of early dinosaur plumage is being discussed, and say "eh lads, you do know all your suggestions are unfalsifiable , I mean maybe they used them as a way of communicating with the invisible pink unicorn LOL!"