How stupid were our ancestors?

Ash.J.Williams · 16-05-2012 02:04PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Eh not quite. Modern humans came out of Africa and spread throughout the world and you can track them by animal extinctions and environmental change as they go. Then we came up with farming and this really took off.

We just love the notion of the noble savage in Europe. Have done for many centuries. Today it's just gussied up in more PC environmental tones. Hunter gatherers, those that people reckon are "in touch with nature etc" can be just as destructive as people living in the modern world. It's just not as obvious. Take New Zealand and the Maori. New Zealand was one of the last large places on earth humans got to. Not so long ago either. When the Normans came here, NZ was still uninhabited. it was around 1300 before he first humans made it. They found an isolated land of diverse wildlife, found nowhere else(especially birds). Their population was quite small for a long time, but even so they wiped out all the moa bird species and many others. NZ had been covered with forest when they arrived, but by the time Europeans show up over half had been cleared by burning.

Look at another environment in microcosm; Easter island. Again a place quite recently colonised. It was covered in forest and many animals etc. By the time Europeans arrived it was a treeless largely barren landscape with a tiny population. They had destroyed their environment to the point where their very existence was threatened.

and then came spanish syphilis!

Sleepy · 16-05-2012 02:11PM

ejmaztec wrote: »

We'd all be pagans dancing naked in the woods every night.

Would we? I'm sure the British would still have colonised us eventually in order to get the oak that grew in those woods...

The Renaissance is so named because it was the re-birth of scientific enquiry and even then the Christians tried to persecute those involved: ever heard of Gallileo?

The Christian Religion was responsible for the Dark Ages and it set science back centuries: it wasn't until the 1st World War that the survival rate of those involved in battlefield amputations reached similar levels to those of the Ancient Romans.

Eramen · 16-05-2012 02:33PM

Where our ancestors stupid? Certainly not, but it's easy to say this in hindsight or just out of blatant ignorance.

Certainly they were more cultured, knowing often 3 or more languages, (usually Irish, English, Greek, and other Euro languages), were heavily involved and knowledgeable of local customs, and in the case of the learned and aristocratic classes, of foreign ones too. It was a second nature to them.

Today learning just a second language for the Irish at least is balked at to say the least, and knowledge of heritage (of themselves or others) is absent and relegated to superficial things. Indeed popular American culture is main one in the current Ireland. Lamentable.

Also they were far more attached to their contemporary society, and thus felt greater belonging than we would, through a knowing of certain histories and folkore, religious rites, placing supreme importance on immediate/extended family etc which in turn gave rise to a community-centered life.

The selfish, isolated and wholly material world-view that we have succumbed to today would be considered quite alien/counterproductive to them. There was a unity of most segments of society because of this.

In fact it seems that we today have actually forgotten what is means to be truly human or to be Irish, having lost touch with nature, family and the ability to create/live with our own hands on even a fundamental level. We have even outsourced the care of family and allowed ourselves as men and women to be forced to trade all our time to be able to have food and shelter. Who is stupider hmm?

Only in the modern western world is a question like 'where our ancestors stupid?' acceptable, and this is owing to our ahistorial mindset (the end of history - where events outside of the modern era are forgotten or often devalued completely while we seek a 'higher moral standpoint').

Don't forget, you are the biology of your ancestors, if they were stupid its no stupider than yourself.

2 stroke · 16-05-2012 02:39PM

HemlockOption wrote: »

Certainly took a giant leap of faith to give the breast milk of another species to your newborn

You have never lived in hungry times. Humans didn't always live in the comfortable,sterile conditions of today. Women died during childbirth or were nearly constantly breastfeeding. Also it could very easily have been the other way around as often happens in the third world today. Human milk been given to feed another species.

Ash.J.Williams · 16-05-2012 02:48PM

ejmaztec wrote: »

We'd all be pagans dancing naked in the woods every night.

Is that worse then now? Pagans were free, we are slaves.

Eramen · 16-05-2012 02:51PM

plasmaguy wrote: »

In any case, it's all of a silly argument this thread. There's idiots in ever society including our own and there are geniuses in ever society.

The point I would make is Ancient Greece had a population of no more than 1 million people, yet were responsible for many vital inventions and innovations, such as in democracy and philosophy, the creation of universities, the idea of a republic, laws of physics, maths.

The Ancient Greeks knew the world revolved around the sun, and the world was round, and were able to judge the size and distance of planets with relative accuracy. The average middle aged person didn't know any of these things.

Just some examples of how the Ancient Greeks knew more than people living in the middle ages.

Finally, the reason we are so smart today goes directly back to the Ancient Greeks and the renaissance which started with the discovery of many ancient greek texts and also the reprinting of these using the printing press.

Without the Ancient Greeks and rediscovery of their writings, we'd still be living in the dark ages.

I agree, the ancient Greeks forged the foundational values in an intellectual, scientific and metaphysical sense, of all the European world.

We literally 'think' within the parameters of these values, we have not escaped them in the least.

But in saying this, the more the West has tried to divorce itself from the basic principles of nature (of which Greek thought simply sought to present in philosophical/mathematical/physical forms) the more our society has waded into the realm of senility and apathy. In fact today as nations and societies we no longer believe in anything because we are no longer capable of it, intellectually (because of the mass-culture) or culturally (because of the absence of hard values aka the false tolerance).

This whole thread has to be looked at as a scrambling for a 'superior moral high-ground' over all of history as a whole and as a justification for the continued existence of the dying modern western civilisation which is just a shell of its former self.

HemlockOption · 16-05-2012 02:57PM

2 stroke wrote: »

You have never lived in hungry times. Humans didn't always live in the comfortable,sterile conditions of today. Women died during childbirth or were nearly constantly breastfeeding. Also it could very easily have been the other way around as often happens in the third world today. Human milk been given to feed another species.

I accept your points, but I think it's amazing that we're still doing it today and that nobody has come up with an alternative. Gap in the market? :rolleyes:

Eramen · 16-05-2012 02:58PM

Sleepy wrote: »

What I've often wondered is just how Christianity managed to force the world into the dark ages and how much further progress we'd have made by now if they hadn't succeeded.

Yea, we could have had the ipod in maybe 1800 instead of 200 years later.. Christianity certainly robbed our progress

Weakness, the failure to change for the better, or to self-improve, lack of activism, these things might also be blamed.. but I guess Christianity is easier to blame and it seems to be the acceptable thing to do today.

Today, when apathy and laziness is the norm, but that's okay because Christianity is to blame. :rolleyes:

bullpost · 16-05-2012 03:04PM

I think you'll find that the dark ages weren't in fact all that dark, but dont let that stop you : http://listverse.com/2008/06/09/top-10-reasons-the-dark-ages-were-not-dark/

Sleepy wrote: »

The Christian Religion was responsible for the Dark Ages and it set science back centuries:

Eramen · 16-05-2012 03:11PM

bullpost wrote: »

I think you'll find that the dark ages weren't in fact all that dark, but dont let that stop you : http://listverse.com/2008/06/09/top-10-reasons-the-dark-ages-were-not-dark/

The Dark Age phenomenon was only an early 20th century theory by historians and archaeologists to counter-balance a lack of understanding of that period at that time. Today we know there was no 'Dark Age' as you pointed out.

Kosseegan · 16-05-2012 03:20PM

Where To wrote: »

I invented this thread, something my grandfather couldn't have done, the poor stupid bugger

At least we have established what an intellectual power house you are. You didn't pick it up from the stones either.

Sleepy · 16-05-2012 04:11PM

Eramen wrote: »

Yea, we could have had the ipod in maybe 1800 instead of 200 years later.. Christianity certainly robbed our progress

Weakness, the failure to change for the better, or to self-improve, lack of activism, these things might also be blamed.. but I guess Christianity is easier to blame and it seems to be the acceptable thing to do today.

Today, when apathy and laziness is the norm, but that's okay because Christianity is to blame. :rolleyes:

Apathy and laziness being negatives doesn't make Christianity a positive. Nice strawman you're building there, care to tell us it's our lord and saviour next?

bullpost wrote: »

I think you'll find that the dark ages weren't in fact all that dark, but dont let that stop you : http://listverse.com/2008/06/09/top-10-reasons-the-dark-ages-were-not-dark/

Nice weather?
Religious Unity?
"Fair" Law?
Scientific Advancements (mainly Islamic) from outside trickling into Europe?

An awful article to argue a point with. It did lead me to have a bit of a read since my knowledge of the Dark Ages would be based on Junior Cert history, the History channel and tour guides etc. From what I'm gathering the naming of the period is somewhat harsh as some advancements took place during the period. What is not in question, however, was that the Roman Catholic Church of the time persecuted those trying to advance science when it disagreed with the stories in their books (or the books they decided were the "right" ones at least).

Imagine, if you will, the advancement in other areas that might have come about if the efforts of those educated were put to good use rather than transcribing bibles, "spreading the word", running inquisitions etc.

Surely the opportunity cost of the human lives wasted "serving the lord in prayer", fighting "holy" wars in the Crusades, building Cathedrals, painting Religion icons etc. instead of pursuing a physical/scientific understanding of our world (rather than a "spiritual" one :rolleyes:) or pursuing their art outside the dictats of the Church is the reason we call this time the Dark Ages? So much of man's capital: human and otherwise was wasted on follies for the Catholic Church rather than productively used?

sock puppet · 16-05-2012 04:36PM

plasmaguy wrote: »

The Ancient Greeks knew the world revolved around the sun

No they didn't. The Ptolemaic model has its name for a reason.

plasmaguy wrote: »

and the world was round

They did. But so did those living in the middle ages.

Wibbs · 16-05-2012 04:43PM

Sleepy wrote: »

An awful article to argue a point with. It did lead me to have a bit of a read since my knowledge of the Dark Ages would be based on Junior Cert history, the History channel and tour guides etc. From what I'm gathering the naming of the period is somewhat harsh as some advancements took place during the period.

Quite a number of advancements came along. The Islamic world is often mentioned as some vastly superior golden age and t was to a large extent. However much of it was built on their own re-interpretaion and rediscovery of the classical world, particularly Greek. Access most of western Europe had lost. However when the first crusades kicked off the western European powers were well able for the Islamic civilisation. They could muster highly advanced troops from all over the Christian world and get them to Palestine. Then cause all sorts of unholy havoc when they got there. Highly unlikely to be possible if they had been so backward. IMHO the dark ages suffers because it's an interim period. Scholars don't tend to like interim periods. They're messy, so they tend to delve deeper, even avoid them. Plus after the fall of the very sexy Rome(western empire) the local civilisations that follow are seen as a bit boring I suppose and interest doesn't seem to kick off until Europe starts being more obvious and more "sexy" again.

What is not in question, however, was that the Roman Catholic Church of the time persecuted those trying to advance science when it disagreed with the stories in their books (or the books they decided were the "right" ones at least).

Imagine, if you will, the advancement in other areas that might have come about if the efforts of those educated were put to good use rather than transcribing bibles, "spreading the word", running inquisitions etc.

That's a very simplistic interpretation and nowhere near the whole picture. Look at our own Ireland. The church transformed the culture from a pretty insular illiterate one into one of the shining torches of knowledge in western Europe. That would have been highly unlikely without the church. Without those same Irish scholars collecting, copying and preserving the classical works and more, it's quite possible we would have lost many of them. There were very few decent libraries beyond this island. Then they went out and that knowledge helped start the Carolingian Renaissance in the 8th century. Never mind the umpteen cities they helped found. Never mind Columbanus founding Bobbio in ITaly which was one of the largest collections of books and scholars in Western Europe. These were the seeds of the later European renaissance.

Surely the opportunity cost of the human lives wasted "serving the lord in prayer", fighting "holy" wars in the Crusades, building Cathedrals, painting Religion icons etc. instead of pursuing a physical/scientific understanding of our world (rather than a "spiritual" one :rolleyes:) or pursuing their art outside the dictats of the Church is the reason we call this time the Dark Ages? So much of man's capital: human and otherwise was wasted on follies for the Catholic Church rather than productively used?

Building cathedrals requires serious innovation. War drives technology like nobodies business. Look to the 20th century for the best example of that. No WW2 likely no man on the moon yet. Or better engines in your car.

They were thinking on all sorts of levels. Yes the christian influence held sway, however lots of good science was also pursued and good philosophy and wider thought. Have a read of our own John Scottus for an example of the latter(his Division of nature is worth a punt. Dig beneath the God stuff to read an incredible mind at work. Te church tried to ban it later on). There were advancements in food production, military technology, metallurgy chemistry and the natural sciences, architecture. The list is a very long one.

Wibbs · 16-05-2012 04:54PM

sock puppet wrote: »

No they didn't. The Ptolemaic model has its name for a reason.

Some favoured a heliocentric universe, but as you say the popular idea was the geocentric one.

Capt'n Midnight · 16-05-2012 05:09PM

plasmaguy wrote: »

I'm convinced the Ancient Greeks, well the best of them, were more intelligent than most people today. They had a very logical approach to everything.

A lot of it existed earlier in Egypt, it just took us longer to find the evidence.

Look at the stuff Imhotep is associated with.

Capt'n Midnight · 16-05-2012 05:11PM

Sleepy wrote: »

What I've often wondered is just how Christianity managed to force the world into the dark ages and how much further progress we'd have made by now if they hadn't succeeded.

Ok I'll bite

http://i.imgur.com/BUqen.jpg

Where To · 16-05-2012 06:11PM

Kosseegan wrote: »

At least we have established what an intellectual power house you are. You didn't pick it up from the stones either.

But we must have picked it up from somewhere.

My great-aunt spent her entire life knitting badly, baking inedible cakes and screaming at crows.

My cousin, her granddaughter, is a neurosurgeon.

How can this be?

plasmaguy · 16-05-2012 07:37PM

Again I repeat for those who haven't studied history, (the renaissance and so on) and are arguing from a point of ignorance, the reason we came out of the dark ages in Europe where the choice was between barbarism or the rule of the pope, was because of the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman texts.

There would absolutely not have been a Shakespeare if there was no ancient Greeks, who invented tragic plays which were similar to Shakespeare in that they had verses and all that.

There would be no modern philosophy without the Greeks.

Maths and science and all that would be in a poor shape.

There probably would be no democracy either.

They invented the lighthouse, made important discoveries in maths, discovered pie if I'm not mistaken, the benefits of using a lever, and thousands of other crucial theories on which modern society is built.

To say their society was somehow inferior or they were intellectually inferior is just incredibly dumb and displays an ignorance of history, philosophy, politics and any other number of topics.

The Greeks have taught us Nothern European a hell of a lot. While we were living like barbarians in Ireland, the Greeks were civilised.

plasmaguy · 16-05-2012 07:40PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

A lot of it existed earlier in Egypt, it just took us longer to find the evidence.

Look at the stuff Imhotep is associated with.

Some of it did yes, but the Greeks perfected a lot of things, and also invented democracy, perhaps even a better and purer form of democracy than we have today where once people go into parliament they do the opposite to what the people who elected them wanted.

DublinWriter · 16-05-2012 07:45PM

Where To wrote: »

Were our forefathers (and mothers) really thick or are we really smart?

The Phil. and Hist. really just aren't what they used to be.

G.K. · 16-05-2012 07:50PM

plasmaguy wrote: »

Yeh, where? In University?

At AS Level (English Exams at Yr 12 - 16/17 yrs old), which is the highest I could be unless I was some sort of progidy given my young age of 17.

One of the things in the course is how lots of the people were so ridiculously stupid that demagogues would be constantly exploiting them.

dodderangler · 16-05-2012 07:52PM

Yet they could hunt and kill animals a lot larger than today with nothing than a sharp stick and herd animals into gorges and drop boulders onto them from top of a cliff
They turned wolves into mans best friend
I reckon they were pretty smart

Capt'n Midnight · 16-05-2012 08:40PM

plasmaguy wrote: »

Again I repeat for those who haven't studied history, (the renaissance and so on) and are arguing from a point of ignorance, the reason we came out of the dark ages in Europe where the choice was between barbarism or the rule of the pope, was because of the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman texts.

Aren't you forgetting the role of Irish Monks and the Byzantine empire in preserving this knowledge ?

Capt'n Midnight · 16-05-2012 08:50PM

dodderangler wrote: »

They turned wolves into mans best friend
I reckon they were pretty smart

Since the time of the Romans we've domesticated the Hamster (the bee was during the dark ages) and the Chinese domesticated the Goldfish.

http://factsanddetails.com/world.php?itemid=1506&catid=56&subcatid=362

flutterflye · 16-05-2012 09:09PM

Watch the documentary ''Transcendent Man''.
It's about Ray Kurzweil the inventor and his predictions for future technology etc...
Or better yet, read one of his books.
He answers the questions in the op.

Wibbs · 16-05-2012 10:19PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Ok I'll bite

http://i.imgur.com/BUqen.jpg

I'll have a chunk of whatever you're eating..

I dunno, again it's IMHO pretty simplistic about the dark ages. OK one point: Let's imagine Rome(western empire) survived and continued. What might have happened? IMHO it would have been like China. Occasionally brilliant, but mostly stagnant, with regular internal political revolutions(kinda like the eastern Byzantine empire). IMHO one of the greatest advances made was when Rome was born and then another when it died. It's death throes gave us major advancements in Europe. Why? Like I said monumental societies tend towards stagnation. Split them up into smaller entities and you get competition. Competition leads to wars, but it also drive innovation and avoids stagnation. Look at ancient Egypt for another example. Yes they did have some supremely bright moments, but for much of their history they stagnated. Look at their art. It changed remarkably little over thousands of years. his may be seen as amazing continuity to some, but again I see stagnation. Cultures are often like individuals. The best ideas usually come form the young(or young in mind), the middle aged consolidate the ideas of the past and the old try to relive them. Rome would have been an old man wearing the cloths and thoughts of his better days.

plasmaguy wrote: »

Again I repeat for those who haven't studied history, (the renaissance and so on) and are arguing from a point of ignorance, the reason we came out of the dark ages in Europe where the choice was between barbarism or the rule of the pope, was because of the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Roman texts.....

Oh I agree, or at least mostly agree. We owe an enormous debt to the classical world, especially the Greeks. Walk through our cities and see the columns and proportions that would not have struck an Athenian as odd, though likely he would have thought them lumpen. I say he, because Greek women for the most part didn't have much of an opinion as far as the culture went. I's quite amazing to me that at any one time a city like Athens had about as many free men as a GAA game in Croker and just look what such a small number can accomplish. They had influences too of course. No people or line of thought exists in a vacuum. The Babylonians in particular(much less so the Egyptians). What's interesting for me about the Greeks is that they are different in one particular way to those before them. They saw nature as something they could understand and change to their will. Their very genius, again for me, is that they didn't have that Daoist type idea of the stalk should bend in the wind, they strove to make the stalk stronger to resist the wind. They were very "modern" in that sense. They ultimately saw the world and the universe as inherently understandable. Prevous cultures could understand alright(and how), but saw "understandable" primarily through the prism of Gods and the like.

Actually "Greece" back then is a perfect example of what I was talking about regarding monolithic empires. They weren't one most of the time. They were city states, effectively nation states, connected yes, but in constant competition. That's what drives this stuff. I think of it as the "Lennon/McCartney" paradigm. Lennon on his own would have been meh, maybe a low end rocker or folk singer, McCartney a tin pan alley jobbing songwriter for the west end. More likely they would have ended up in average jobs, barely being noticed. Together? Their internal competition fueled their talent and forced each one to try to outdo the other.

dodderangler wrote: »

Yet they could hunt and kill animals a lot larger than today with nothing than a sharp stick and herd animals into gorges and drop boulders onto them from top of a cliff

True though we've been doing similar as previous species of Human for close to a million years. Something made us different.

They turned wolves into mans best friend

That was one diff alright. No other human before us seems to have thought of this, though would actually be quite easy. Well about the easiest animal in their environment to try it with. The guy who tried it with a cave bear went unrecorded, but I reckon his last words were "oh fcuk, oh fcuk!!!".

I reckon today given a big enough breeding stock to choose from you could effectively domesticate the European or Indian wolf within one lifetime. For a hunter gatherer lifestyle of course. Cats wouldn't have been much use to a hunter gatherer society, beyond being a cute cuddly animal. Then againmany HG's today tame monkeys and parrots and the like for that purpose it seems. The women will even breastfeed orphaned monkeys. I'd not be surprised to discover that we did similar with kitty cats long before we needed them as vermin killers. You'd need a heart of bloody stone to not go "ahhhhh" at kittens

That dog domestication event gave us a huge advantage. Imagine other human species seeing us at the time. Here come these people who are traveling with another apex predator as partners. That's a Killer app(tm) right there. I reckon the second killer app is that we domesticated ourselves(hence we look like domesticated versions of earlier humans) and then sought to domesticate the world around us. That's what made us different.

How stupid were our ancestors?

Comments