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What can science not explain?

kneemos

Dark matter.
Why nine out of ten people are right handed.
How the Suns corona is hotter than the surface.
Why we yawn.
Are some of the things beyond the wit of the learned lab coat wearing giant brains of our time.What other mysteries are we waiting patiently to have explained

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EndaHonesty

ScumLord wrote: »

If you compare humans to every other animal what stands out is that we don't fight nearly as often as other animals, when was the last time you got into a fight? We need to be inhibreated before there's any real danger of fighting for prowess. There's 20 million people living in London and getting along on a daily basis. It's hard to get two dogs to walk past each other on the street.

When we do fight it's on a massive level but outside of war there's very little violence in your average human community. War gives a totally skewed image of humans acceptance of violence. Outside of war we're even nice to the animal we kill and eat.

What have modern humans living in London got to do with Neanderthal man?!

Humans have been trying to wipe each other off the face the earth forever.

The human capacity for cruelty is simply incredible.
To it's own species, to other species and to the planet as a whole.

"We're even nice to the animals we kill and eat"?!!

Maximus Alexander

kneemos wrote: »

We don't even know if there was a big bang,never mind when time began.

I don't know if you actually exist either or are just a figment of my imagination, but at some point we have to accept that we can rely on our observations.

maudgonner

Why other people's farts smell worse to you than your own.

(Obviously I don't know this to be true, since I'm a laydee and have never farted in my life. But I've heard it's the case)

ScumLord

EndaHonesty wrote: »

What have modern humans living in London got to do with Neanderthal man?!

We were talking about humans, why bring neanderthals into it?

Humans have been trying to wipe each other off the face the earth forever.

They haven't. Humans have been having territorial disputes since they started farming. There isn't much evidence of large scale violence before that time. Even early territorial disputes were borderline sports, they wouldn't have been battles as we know them.

Violence is a pretty fundamental part of life on this planet, it's not surprising we are violent, it's what we were born out of. Fighting was about the only way of communicating displeasure up until humans came along. Then humans began trade. No other animal has trade relations, most other animals can't sympathise or empathise.

The human capacity for cruelty is simply incredible.
To it's own species, to other species and to the planet as a whole.

Our capacity for a lot of things is incredible. Do you think if a bacteria was damaging the planet it would stop? It wouldn't, the rest of life would just have to adapt to the new world created by bacteria. I use bacteria because they're the only other type of creature able to have an influence on the environment like we have, and they don't care at all what happens. They don't have the capacity to care. We've only recently realised we're affecting the environment and we're doing something about it.

"We're even nice to the animals we kill and eat"?!!

Just compare how a farmer treats cattle to how a lion would treat cattle.

EndaHonesty

ScumLord wrote: »

We were talking about humans, why bring neanderthals into it?

They haven't. Humans have been having territorial disputes since they started farming. There isn't much evidence of large scale violence before that time. Even early territorial disputes were borderline sports, they wouldn't have been battles as we know them.

Violence is a pretty fundamental part of life on this planet, it's not surprising we are violent, it's what we were born out of. Fighting was about the only way of communicating displeasure up until humans came along. Then humans began trade. No other animal has trade relations, most other animals can't sympathise or empathise.

Our capacity for a lot of things is incredible. Do you think if a bacteria was damaging the planet it would stop? It wouldn't, the rest of life would just have to adapt to the new world created by bacteria. I use bacteria because they're the only other type of creature able to have an influence on the environment like we have, and they don't care at all what happens. They don't have the capacity to care. We've only recently realised we're affecting the environment and we're doing something about it.

Just compare how a farmer treats cattle to how a lion would treat cattle.

It's pointless...

dar100

How do you get the fig into the fig roll

Steve012

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

I don't know if you actually exist either or are just a figment of my imagination, but at some point we have to accept that we can rely on our observations.

Good points lol, but if I think.. therefore I am!

Steve012

EndaHonesty wrote: »

What have modern humans living in London got to do with Neanderthal man?!

Humans have been trying to wipe each other off the face the earth forever.

The human capacity for cruelty is simply incredible.
To it's own species, to other species and to the planet as a whole.

"We're even nice to the animals we kill and eat"?!!

"The human capacity for cruelty is simply incredible.
To it's own species, to other species and to the planet as a whole."

Its called duality. Good side, bad side.

Depends on whatever has been programmed into us from a young age. Take ISIS and sharia law. Kid's are handed m16's or whatever and witness be-headings and massacres. The grow up normalized to this behavior.

Or 19th century upper middle class England for example. Tea and scones and pet the cat. Whilst watching morris dancing.

We seem to be a very programmable species..

AtomicHorror

ScumLord wrote: »

We were talking about humans, why bring neanderthals into it?

That's not nice. Neanderthals were humans too, just a different species of human.

AtomicHorror

dar100 wrote: »

How do you get the fig into the fig roll

For science!

https://youtu.be/AkL1q23I5no

kneemos

Steve012 wrote: »

Good points lol, but if I think.. therefore I am!

If you think you are you must be.

duploelabs

maudgonner wrote: »

Why other people's farts smell worse to you than your own.

(Obviously I don't know this to be true, since I'm a laydee and have never farted in my life. But I've heard it's the case)

You've actually got taste buds in your colon. You're used to the 'taste' of your own **** and farts, therefore it's not so repulsive to you but is to everyone else

Wibbs

ScumLord wrote: »

Neanderthals had fire, by many accounts they were at least as sophisticated as humans and had bigger brains. They're problem is they didn't trade or socialise outside of their own familiar group.

Seems to be the the thing that held them back alright. They appear to have operated like other territorial group predators. Defined ranges and xenophobia towards anyone different, external to their group. No doubt this would be temporarily dropped for mate acquisition, or they simply stole women(almost certainly women) when the need arose. Or they could have been like wolves. Family group of interrelated individuals that when individuals mature they leave the group and go out and try to forge a territory of their own and find a mate(my personal view would be the latter and that's how they ended up with modern humans every so often).

They never become common in the landscape anyway. Unlike us, who at some point start building bigger and bigger groups, also with territories, but as you say trade was the biggie at the point of contact between groups. We see this with items found at occupation sites. With Neandertals and other previous humans pretty much all the material found is local, within a few miles of the base camp. With modern humans, even in the very early days when we lived alongside Neandertals in the Middle East and appeared to be culturally identical, our range of collecting material is slightly wider. That gap grew with time, until some point is reached where we've become very different(which also seems to be the point where we stop having kids with each other. They/we were too different by then). That's before we get to cultural stuff like art. Even something like gender division of specialisation. Some have suggested that Neandertal men and women had basically similar roles, but modern humans split more along gender lines. This increased the scope of food acquisition. In hunter gatherers today it's the women who actually bring the bulk of the calories, the men largely bring in the high density type food(meats and the like). Neandertals also needed more food which made them vulnerable if things got scarce.

The landscape started to change too. Forests gave way to grasslands. Neandertals seem to have been built as ambush hunters in forests. They appear to have had no long range weapons at the stage when we come along. They have on average larger brains than us, but much of that extra grey matter is in the visual cortex, possibly adapted for low light forest conditions. They couldn't run as fast either. We on the other hand were coming from grassland conditions so this was a huge advantage and as the forests shrank so did their ranges. Maybe that global trepidation of the deep dark forest of fairy tales and nightmares comes from a race memory of them.

Sure Neandertals were very clever and resourceful people who cared for family and friends and survived for longer than we have been around, but without the network they were lesser. Kinda like the history of the PC. When those first came along they were popular with hobbyists and gamers, but the wider public largely ignored them. The internet comes along and that's the real killer app. Take a brand new laptop back to 1980. It would be very impressive and useful for very specialised tasks, but as an everyday tool? It would be extremely limited and damned near useless to Mr and Mrs Bloggs in the suburbs. To take the analogy further, Neandertals because of no network, also had no "cloud backup", so a Neandertal Newton's idea would usually die with him or her.

So bit by bit, by small changes and large they became rarer and rarer until the last one looked out on a new world and passed into time. Or, more and more we and them got jiggy with each other at the fringes and there was never any real "last Neandertal", they lived on in us. Today we can have up to 4% of their genes, in the far east some people have up to 10% of a cousin of theirs in the blood. Otzi the Iceman found a few years back had close to 7% as he was slightly closer to events and a lad's bones from 30 odd 1000 years ago found in Russia last year had a Neandertal for a great grandparent.

Oh and the idea that if you shaved one and put him or her in modern clothes they'd not be noticed on the bus. Nope. They were a very different looking people. If you ver get the chance to hold a cast of one of their skulls and a cast of a modern humans the differences are immediately quite striking. They'd stick out like a sore thumb(they weren't so short either. One lad found in present day Iran was nigh on a six footer. With a 52 inch chest. Rule one, don't spill his pint, or insult his ma.).

EndaHonesty wrote: »

It's pointless...

It is when your deeply entrenched position is that we humans are savage creatures intent on killing. It's an odd notion. Very "poor sinners we are" adapted to the agnostic generation.

Steve012

kneemos wrote: »

If you think you are you must be.

:rolleyes:

maudgonner

duploelabs wrote: »

You've actually got taste buds in your colon. You're used to the 'taste' of your own **** and farts, therefore it's not so repulsive to you but is to everyone else

Well I'm sorry I asked now...

misstearheus

I was sad but I'm nearly crying laughing at the post above me now.

Thanks maudgonner.

I would dearly dearly love Science to have an explanation for Chronic Illnesses. Scientific proof for no physical evidence.

Cycles and behaviours and certain patterns of recurring ongoing symptoms can point / lead to a mental diagnosis. Something physically wrong with you can display and prove its' own sickness / illness.

But constant chronic recurring ongoing symptoms is the short straw of the 3.

It's a dead-end-road.

**No dis-respect or be-littling intended to/for anyone here.** But, it's not 24/7 I'm sad want to end my life jump in the river stuff that would point / signal to mental type, it's not a physical Heart Attack or a broken leg. It's not Cancer. It really is just a dead-end-road....

May as well roll over and play dead and wait to see if anyone notices or comes to help!

With all due respect, the miserable crux of it is trying to induce a Heart Attack or something similar would be 1 way to get seen to.

For 1 Chronic Illness that comes to mind, suggestions stated a chemical missing in the Brain could point to it. I don't think that was ever put to test but it would be so great if it was.

whatawaster81

I like the way you're all in here on the Neanderthals had fire bandwagon. Again as I said it's a theory that they did not use it as extensively.
Please see below article taken from study.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3050984/Did-Neanderthals-die-couldn-t-master-fire-Cooking-food-given-modern-humans-edge.html

Makes interesting reading to me. Again science cannot agree nor explain.

Neanderthals use of fire is still a highly controversial issue

Mister Vain

Why does my piss come out in two different directions?

kneemos

Mister Vain wrote: »

Why does my piss come out in two different directions?

Can't even piss straight.

AnonoBoy

Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near?

Wibbs

whatawaster81 wrote: »

I like the way you're all in here on the Neanderthals had fire bandwagon. Again as I said it's a theory that they did not use it as extensively.
Please see below article taken from study.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3050984/Did-Neanderthals-die-couldn-t-master-fire-Cooking-food-given-modern-humans-edge.html

Makes interesting reading to me. Again science cannot agree nor explain.

A) it's the Daily Mail, so expect bullshít clothed in authority. We'll let the spelling mistakes go...

If she's being correctly quoted - unlikely with the Mail and it's mouth breather "journalists", Ms Goldfield's research and conclusions are at the school project level of someone trying to make a name and get tenure by being "controversial". C) she references the Quina period as some sort of evidence. I LOL'd at that, given how narrow a slice of time it is(referencing the Quina is akin to referencing the so called Dark Ages as representative of modern humans worldwide). D) The field of human evolution is IMH peppered with way too many quacks and mountebanks among the measured scientists and thinkers. E) This is a very good example of the shíte "science" that is all to common of late. These people's use of fire is well documented. Hell they were making up a complex glue that required lots of "experimental" knowledge of fire, combustion and anaerobic chemistry 70,000 years ago. Never mind that there is direct evidence of fire control going back half a million years. F) many modern human cultures eat raw food, even when they have perfect control of fire. Eskimos the obvious one. Sushi anyone?

Could certain populations of Neandertal be clueless and opportunistic about fire? Sure. Some modern humans are in the same boat. Certain Andaman Islanders can't make fire, they can only preserve it in smouldering tinders and the like. This wouldn't mean all modern humans are fire clueless, or it would be daft to suggest same.

Put it another way; if we hadn't the knowledge of the incredibly detailed backstory culture of the Australian Aborigines and only had their stone tools to go by, we would largely conclude that they were inferior to the Neandertal Mousterian culture, which is generally more complex and the hints of their woodworking skills makes the native Aussie look a little lacking too. If you take things on first glance and without applying any level of vigour to your research.

Wibbs

Don't drink the milk. Call a coroner.

maudgonner

Wibbs wrote: »

Don't drink the milk. Call a coroner cowroner.

Yeah I make bad puns, what you gonna do about it??

Wibbs

Only a concern if said person has a part of the apparatus attached to their jolly organs. In which case it's a clear case of death by "misadventure".

Or one could simply flick the power switch to off.

EndaHonesty

Wibbs wrote: »

It is when your deeply entrenched position is that we humans are savage creatures intent on killing. It's an odd notion. Very "poor sinners we are" adapted to the agnostic generation.

You can imagine all you want what my "deeply entrenched" positions is, just as you are imagining what caused the demise of the neanderthals. It's pure speculation!.

Scumlord says "by many accounts"! there are no "accounts" it's ALL pure speculation based on no solid evidence.

The context of THIS exchange is the relationship between humans and neanderthals when they existed together and it's just as plausible that humans simply ate the neanderthals!

Humans have a huge capacity for greed and cruelty. I could clog up the thread with examples throughout history of this cruelty, but I won't.

There is no evidence of the neanderthals being the barbaric ones. plenty of evidence of humans being so...

Wibbs

EndaHonesty wrote: »

You can imagine all you want what my "deeply entrenched" positions is, just as you are imagining what caused the demise of the neanderthals. It's pure speculation!.

Scumlord says "by many accounts"! there are no "accounts" it's ALL pure speculation based on no solid evidence.

I'm afraid EH, you and any knowledge on the subject are not bedfellows. There is all sorts of evidence that has come down to us from this time period. How one interprets such evidence is often up for grabs, but there is plenty of it and more is coming by the month.

The context of THIS exchange is the relationship between humans and neanderthals when they existed together and it's just as plausible that humans simply ate the neanderthals!

There is no evidence of the neanderthals being the barbaric ones. plenty of evidence of humans being so...

This idea seems have to come around back in the hippie 60's and 70's and books like Clan of the cave bear(itself based on dodgy science of the time), where the peaceful hippie Neandertals were wiped out by the Nazi evil modern humans. I can never understand the self hating human hippie logic of this. Wah wah we're so terrible. Never mind that the evidence is scant. Funny you mention cannibalism. There is plenty of evidence for cannibalism among Neandertals. Here's one example from Spain where our beetle browed cousins chowed down on their fellows going all the way down to the marrow and breaking open the skulls and feeding on the goo inside(a few kids in that mix too). This can be inferred from other sites in Europe, but is pretty clear in this example. IIRC the DNA recovered suggests that this was a family group so may have been a turf war in lean times and why let good meat go to waste? They may have had a very different cultural attitude to eating humans(as some of our cultures can) so it's no judgement, but they did have to kill these people first. Oh and they were at this long before we showed up from Africa, so no modern humans in the mix.

As for violence. Every single neandertal so far found shows evidence of physical trauma, often heavy duty trauma. Now some of this may be explained by their hunting strategies, but quite a few seem to have been hurt, sometimes badly by others of their kind. They also cared for their injured too, so it's not all bad, but "cuddly hippies at one with nature until we paved over their parking lot" they were not.

Evidence of us attacking them? Pretty much nonexistent(ditto for them attacking us BTW). One possible modern human attack may be found in one Iranian Neandertal lad, where in the month before he died(from a rockfall IIRC) it appears he was wounded by a spear. The angle of said spear looks to suggest a thrown weapon. Now by this time Neandertals relied on stabbing spears rather than thrown projectiles, so one theory has it that maybe this was one of us trying to kill one of them long range(good plan as in hand to hand we'd last seconds). That said the oldest shaped wooden throwing spears so far found are 3-400,000 years old and were used by the folks who would become Neandertals, so they may have still had some long range weaponry with no modern humans needed in the mix. The dating of the Iranian site would suggest an earlier than expected date for us to be there, but not impossible.

BTW I don't always sing from the accepted science hymn sheet, for example I don't believe they intentionally and/or ritually buried their dead as is widely accepted today. IMHO it's based on early and rough excavation, bad science and cultural projection. The actual evidence they did is extremely thin on the ground(no pun).

Boom_Bap

Gout, science cannot explain gout.
And who the heck named it?

Maximus Alexander

Boom_Bap wrote: »

Gout, science cannot explain gout.
And who the heck named it?

Ah would you gout o' that garden. :pac:

EndaHonesty

Wibbs wrote: »

I'm afraid EH, you and any knowledge on the subject are not bedfellows. There is all sorts of evidence that has come down to us from this time period. How one interprets such evidence is often up for grabs, but there is plenty of it and more is coming by the month.

This idea seems have to come around back in the hippie 60's and 70's and books like Clan of the cave bear(itself based on dodgy science of the time), where the peaceful hippie Neandertals were wiped out by the Nazi evil modern humans. I can never understand the self hating human hippie logic of this. Wah wah we're so terrible. Never mind that the evidence is scant. Funny you mention cannibalism. There is plenty of evidence for cannibalism among Neandertals. Here's one example from Spain where our beetle browed cousins chowed down on their fellows going all the way down to the marrow and breaking open the skulls and feeding on the goo inside(a few kids in that mix too). This can be inferred from other sites in Europe, but is pretty clear in this example. IIRC the DNA recovered suggests that this was a family group so may have been a turf war in lean times and why let good meat go to waste? They may have had a very different cultural attitude to eating humans(as some of our cultures can) so it's no judgement, but they did have to kill these people first. Oh and they were at this long before we showed up from Africa, so no modern humans in the mix.

As for violence. Every single neandertal so far found shows evidence of physical trauma, often heavy duty trauma. Now some of this may be explained by their hunting strategies, but quite a few seem to have been hurt, sometimes badly by others of their kind. They also cared for their injured too, so it's not all bad, but "cuddly hippies at one with nature until we paved over their parking lot" they were not.

Evidence of us attacking them? Pretty much nonexistent(ditto for them attacking us BTW). One possible modern human attack may be found in one Iranian Neandertal lad, where in the month before he died(from a rockfall IIRC) it appears he was wounded by a spear. The angle of said spear looks to suggest a thrown weapon. Now by this time Neandertals relied on stabbing spears rather than thrown projectiles, so one theory has it that maybe this was one of us trying to kill one of them long range(good plan as in hand to hand we'd last seconds). That said the oldest shaped wooden throwing spears so far found are 3-400,000 years old and were used by the folks who would become Neandertals, so they may have still had some long range weaponry with no modern humans needed in the mix. The dating of the Iranian site would suggest an earlier than expected date for us to be there, but not impossible.

BTW I don't always sing from the accepted science hymn sheet, for example I don't believe they intentionally and/or ritually buried their dead as is widely accepted today. IMHO it's based on early and rough excavation, bad science and cultural projection. The actual evidence they did is extremely thin on the ground(no pun).

A personal insult camouflaged in a long winded and boring soapbox?! You are so clever W... :rolleyes:

Wibbs

EndaHonesty wrote: »

A personal insult camouflaged in a long winded and boring soapbox?!

Where is the personal insult?

The closest I came - and by god one would need to be digging deep to find insult - was suggesting your knowledge of this subject is or appears to be minimal. Folks are welcome to suggest my knowledge of Hurling is minimal. I don't see it as an insult as it is a plain fact. More I would see it as a good reason not to try and debate the finer points of the sport with someone with even a passing knowledge of it.

Anyway, here's a thought. Rather than pulling a huff because someone doesn't agree with you on the interwebs maybe try and get into a discussion that rebuts any of the points backed up by evidence I made, with your own points also backed up by evidence. I'd be all ears for that.

You are so clever W...

Why thank you.