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To: Thomas Mercer-Hursh who wrote (45365)	8/11/2001 4:25:46 PM
From: Ali Chen	Respond to of 54805

(deleted)

To: Thomas Mercer-Hursh who wrote (45365)	8/12/2001 12:27:22 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

<<Any ape could invent a hafted tool and chuck some sand, or ore on a fire.> If you care about the accuracy of your opinions, it might help to do some research. Apes do use tools, it's true, but they are all quite simple. None have developed hafted tools and humans didn't either until they had made are fairly large part of the change toward modern form, quite recent by evolutionary terms. Besides, these were not iron or bronze but stone with wooden handles. And, until very, very recently, the stone was never ground, but rather was flaked. That is one of the things that is so astounding about a Solutrean point since the first step requires taking off a flake that is 12-18" long, a couple of inches wide, a fraction of an inch thick, and is dead flat ... with a single blow. I've never managed as much as two inches in my own flintnapping and I'm not aware of any flintnapper alive who has ever been able to create a Solutrean point.> Thomas, I didn't literally mean any ape as in gorilla, chimp, etc. I meant a half-human prehistoric humanoid. I also know that we stand on the shoulders of our forebears, using their ideas to build our own. But I think there is a qualitative difference between some inventions and others, even if one stood on some shoulders. Your argument is that human intelligence peaked some time in the past. Since measured intelligence has increased around the world over the past 100 years [the Flynn effect], your claimed peak must have been before that. I think that's wrong. Now that there is mass survival of stupid people, maybe the average will peak, but the smartest are getting smarter still. That's the nature of open-ended evolution when there is selection for it. We'll have big peacock tails of brains soon enough - except that New Paradigm companies won't wait for men, women and mutation to do the job, they'll clip the right DNA right into the genome. Here again is my argument. Some time ago, what became people was no smarter than chimps, gorillas etc or whatever you want to call the chimpoids which lived way back then [Lucy if you like]. Since then, intelligence has increased, non-stop more or less, to now. I don't see why you think intelligence would have peaked at the time the Solutreans. There is no reason whatsoever to think that the peak and plenty of reason to think it wasn't the peak. Heck, we wear pants now! How smart is that?!! I'm sorry that you have missed out on the smarts DNA when it was handed out and can't chip a good Solutrean flint. I can see that would be embarrassing [being unable to earn a living in the stone age]. Maybe you were so chastened by the experience that you decided [in the interests of personal dignity] that intelligence reached a plateau way back then. <g> Perhaps I will go smash up some rocks to see if I'm as smart as the Solutreans - we can form a "Y2K Klutz Klub" if not. It's great living in the era of really smart people so that we can buy their CDMA even if it baffles us completely. Your comment about yak herders was actually one of my favourite points. There are a couple of billion yak herders [not literally - some are rice growers] who are wasting their 100 horsepower brains in the paddy fields. When they enter the world of the New Paradigm [as they are doing in droves in China and less so India], the network effect you mention will get another big acceleration. Plenty of them will be as smart as Irwin - we can use as many as we can get [I will get my offspring to marry them, with a bit of luck, and hijack their genome to carry my pre-Solutrean DNA]. I don't think we really disagree much [just on the exact timing of peak intelligence - which I think is now; not that it's actually a peak - it's accelerating even faster now]. Okay, back to the regular G&K programme... Mqurice [I have hairy arms which look very chimplike to me].

To: Thomas Mercer-Hursh who wrote (45365)	8/19/2001 1:13:38 AM
From: tekboy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

I'm not aware of any flintnapper alive who has ever been able to create a Solutrean point. Well, perhaps not Solutrean, but how about Clovis? See the fascinating article "Woody's Dream" by Douglas Preston (The New Yorker, November 15, 1999, pp. 80-87), which details how at least one guy could make his points pass... Examples of Woody Blackwell's points are here: lithiccastinglab.com Other modern points are here: lithiccastinglab.com some authentic Clovis points lithiccastinglab.com lithiccastinglab.com lithiccastinglab.com some authentic Solutrean points hf.uio.no tekboy/Ares@chimpoid.com

To: Thomas Mercer-Hursh who wrote (45365)	9/9/2001 1:17:04 PM
From: JerryR	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

OT To add to your thoughtful post: One might also consider the discontinuous innovation of language. Hence network effects and CDMA. And you and me. For more on the decreasing intelligence of mankind, see Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel. In the introduction he makes the argument that modern man is evolving to a less intelligent state because we are no longer dependent upon our own wits to survive in a hostile environment. In our civilized society, our survival is dependent upon the collective herd.An individual's attributes are less critical. Jerry