Not wanting to hijack this thread, it got me thinking about how earlier hominids’ intelligence could be compared to ours. We know they were not as smart as we (Neandertals are a possible exception) but would it be fair to call Homo Erectus “retarded”? It’s hard for me to believe that a bunch of “retards” or even “dummies” accomplished what Erectus accomplished: basically subduing the earth. Would it be more accurate to describe them as autistic? ADHD? Slightly drunk?
Intelligence is extremely hard to measure. In the end it all comes down to language (linguistic, or otherwise). In fact, we have no reason to believe any mammals have varying problem solving skills because we have no way of establishing a consistent system of problem communication.
Surely a human can solve so many more complex problems than say a chimp, but as to if it comes down to reasoning capability or understanding of the problem itself is up for debate.
For example, a card shuffling math problem that relies on knowledge of permutation groups and disjoint cycles is out of reach for 99.99% of the human population, but it does not make 99.99% of the human population “algebraicly” retarded, rather, if given the tools to UNDERSTAND the important aspects of the problem, they are capable of solving it.
Back to your question, it is a popular opinion in the scientific community today that a lot of our cranial capacity has to do with our linguistic development. Earlier hominids probably had a much less developed linguistic skills, and as a result of that, most likely had a much less developed ability to analyze and comprehend complex problems. In my opinion, that does not make them any less intelligent, but rather “differently intelligent”.
Yes, I was looking for some term that could accurately describe someone who has advanced skills in some areas (like toolmaking) but not in others (algebra). Perhaps the term “autistic savant” would be good; I believe that refers to people who have fantastic talents in music, art, etc. but otherwise appear more or less retarded.
I would not label a person “retarded” who would be capable of knapping a flint spear head, fastening it securely to a shaft and going on a cooperative hunt with others of similar intelligence, and butcherng the animal afterwards. Yet these abilities appear with Homo Habilis who had about 50% of our modern cranial capacity.
There is no factual answer to your OP question, although the likely answer is “no”.
Also, there is no evidence that H. habilis made spears with hafted points. In fact there is no evidence they made spears or hunted. They may have been scavengers with some sharp (unfafted) stone tools.
Ok, I guess I thought they did based on their name meaning “Handy Man”.
Would you consider a chimpanzee to be “retarded”? How about a dog?
A typical modern human adult who is retarded/developmentally delayed/disabled usually has a variety of mental problems besides just low intelligence, such as lack of alertness, perceptivity, dexterity, etc.
It’s just not possible to compare an adult of one species in which development has gone haywire to an adult of another species that has all its natural capabilities well developed and well integrated.
An adult Homo erectus would probably appear to us to be deficient in linguistic ability, in ability to plan complex tasks, and in foresight. However, I do not think they would appear to be similar to a (typical) retarded modern human, in that they would be highly alert, perceptive, and aware, within the limits of their capacity.
They might possibly resemble an Asperger-type personality… extremely focused and driven to the point of obsession, displaying deep knowledge of technical areas like hunting or spear-making while appearing somewhat ignorant regarding social or language skills.
Well, that’s something I’ve been thinking about as well. I would not consider animals “retarded”. I’m sure learning to fly like a bird requires some smarts. Beavers build dams, birds build nests, lions know they have to hide in the grass so the wildebeast can’t see them… I can’t believe this is “just instinct”. So yes, perhaps animals could also be described as “autistic savants”, or as NattoGuy said, Asperger-types.
[QUOTE=Can Beavers build dams, birds build nests, lions know they have to hide in the grass so the wildebeast can’t see them… I can’t believe this is “just instinct”. So yes, perhaps animals could also be described as “autistic savants”, or as NattoGuy said, Asperger-types.[/QUOTE]
Nest building in birds is instinctive-- they don’t get taught how to do it. Lion cubs do get lessons on hunting skills, so there is more than instinct going on there. You are trying to lump everything into one category, when what you are dealing with is a continuum of behavior that ranges from the purely instictual to the purely learned.
You are going down the wrong road with trying to understand the behavior of one animal as the abherent behavior of another animal. Imagine Dustin Hoffman’s “Rain Man” character trying to survive on the African savanna. Your hypothesis doesn’t stand up to reasonable scrutiny.
I think the question is unanswerable because there’s a fallacy at the heart of it.
Early hominids, non-human animals etc may not be as good at problem solving as humans are, well and good. But that doesn’t make them ‘retarded-equivalent’.
A person with a mental disability is a mind not functioning at capacity for some reason. But an animal is perfectly capable of functioning at capacity.
On a chart of intelligence it wouldn’t be
Human
Human - Retarded/Aspergers/Whatnot
Dolphin
Armadillo
Paramecium
The disabled portion would be a dotted line off to the side of ‘human’ and not properly put in the chain of intelligence.
The question makes as much sense as asking if horses be described as disabled because they have no arms.
Though it made more sense than the above… :smack:
The question makes as much sense as asking if horses could be described as disabled because they have no arms.
As others have pointed out, the question is deeply flawed, in several ways. First off, it’s impossible to determine what the behavior of “earlier hominids” was like; we can speculate based on artifactual evidence, but what they made or caused to be left behind provides only the vaguest clues about how they behaved. Second, no one has any idea when language actually developed, or whether spoken language preceded sophisticated systems of non-verbal language such as gesture. Since we can’t know when or how people started talking, it’s speculation to assume that earlier hominids had no language or limited language. Third, it’s obviously wrong to describe earlier species as “retarded”, since the term implies a delay or complete lack of development of certain mental capabilities, and while we don’t know how much they knew or what sorts of intelligence they possessed, by definition the majority of them were “normal” for their species; likewise, while they may not have developed the range of verbal and linguistic abilities we have, whatever they possessed was “normal” for them and thus doesn’t qualify as the sort of “impairment” or “absence” of such abilities that is characteristic of autism spectrum disorders. Moreover, what we do know about them and the evidence available to us from the behavior of other extant species suggests that social and communications skills didn’t originate with modern humans; a variety of other species, and particularly our closest ape relatives the chimps and bonobos, engage in behavior that strongly suggests that they form theories about the knowledge and beliefs of other members of their groups and that they act on those theories in attempt to manipulate those beliefs. The prevailing understanding of autism spectrum disorders is that they stem from difficulty or inability to understand that other people have such beliefs and knowledge and that theirs may be different from yours. So it seems unlikely that our common ancestor with other ape species entirely lacked this ability, since all of the descendent species possess it to a degree, though there’s nothing I know of in the evidence that absolutely precludes its independent evolution in all of the modern ape species.
Can’t we even make educated guesses based on the shape and size of the brain?
So much of the behavior of modern humans is determined on information passed on through parental and social contact (as opposed to information passed by the genes and natal environment) that the size and shape of the average brain don’t really tell us a lot about how animals behave. We can make some general correlations, like brain mass : body mass and come up with a rough estimate of cognative ability for creatures of a given phylum, but even that doesn’t hold up too well on close analysis.
The reason we have such a massive brain (which is quite an impediment to birthing, BTW…as with with upright posture it argues for some kind of evolutionary advantage to human intelligence despite the manifest difficulties and compromises it creates) is that a large portion of it is dedicated to communication, and in particular speech and facial recognition/communication. However, in order to develop properly (as a modern homo sapiens sapiens) you must grow up in an environment where those capabilities are stimulated and matriculated. The (admittedly anecdotal) experiences with feral children, or children who spend early childhood in a traumatized, restricted social environment is that they aren’t able to communicate well or learn the skills of communication.
“Retarded” (or the more politically correct “differently abled”) is a measure of ability relative to the norm. Since earlier hominids don’t have any ‘norm’ relative to us or vice versa, using a term like “retarded” doesn’t really have meaning. They would be limited in how far they could develop; certainly, they’d be less able to communicate, especially in the sophisticated and subtle ways that we do. Not only would they lack the cultural exposure but also the childhood develoment of language. If you raised a pre-h. sapiens hominid from birth, they’d probably pick up on some of the cues and words; heck, chimpanzees, which are about as primitive of an existant proto-hominid as we have today, are quite capable of discerning emotional states and primative concepts, as are some domestic animals such as dogs and cats.
On the other hand, they’d probably think us somewhat retarded for being less agile, less alert, requiring more food and sleep, being poorer hunters, less observant, et cetera, than they are. Intelligence isn’t an end-goal and there’s no “superior intellect” in all cases; a mathematical genius is useless in the rainforest, as a primitive hunter would be in front of a blackboard.
As for comparisons to ADHD or autism, you might be closer than you think. There is some speculation that these conditions, which we consider disorders in the modern world of traffic jams and cubical farms, may have had evolutionary advantages in prehistoric times. Certainly, some of the characteristics, like the hyperfocus and lateral thinking (“daydreaming”) of ADHD or attention to details and environmental hypersensity of autistics, offer capabilities that could have come in handy, and individual members of non-primate secies of higher cognative standings, such as bears or higher cephalopods (octopus), sometimes demonstrate behaviors that are analogous to human psychological disorders, so there’s no reason to believe that these are limited strictly to human intelligence.
Stranger
Not really. After all, we don’t have their brains, only fossils of their skulls, and cranial capacity isn’t a very reliable indicator of intelligence across species, at least not without considering numerous additional factors, some of which we have only imperfect knowledge of in these cases. Neanderthals, for example, had a somewhat greater cranial capacity than modern humans; doesn’t mean they were smarter. See Body Size and Intelligence in Hominoid Evolution for more detail.
No, certainly not within the parameters of the OP.
Temple Grandin’s new book presents the theory that animal are much like autistic savants – at least according to the jacket copy. (Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to read the book yet.) If there’s anything to this idea, it wouldn’t be a great leap to the notion that the early hominids might also have been “autistic.”
Temple Grandin is both an autistic and an expert at designing livestock handling systems. She feels that her autism is an asset for her work in that it helps her think and see the world like animals do.
Despite the size of the leap, however, it might still be going in the wrong direction, at least with regard to “earlier hominids”. Haven’t read the book either, and only know about Temple Grandin from having heard at least one NPR story about her and her work, but as I understand it, she deals mainly with the sort of animals that fit neatly under the general heading of “livestock”. One common characteristic of such animals is that they don’t generally exhibit the complex social interactions that characterize the behavior of all extant ape species, including our own. Again, while we don’t know with certainty that the common ancestor of all of these species was highly social and formed hypotheses about the state of mind of other individuals, the fact that all of the descendent species we know about exhibit such behaviors strongly suggests that this has been characteristic of primates for a very long time. And if current theories about autism are correct that it entails an inability or difficulty in conceiving of the mental state of others, then it wouldn’t be accurate to characterize earlier hominids behavior as “autistic” if they in fact had that ability, even if it were perhaps not as thoroughly developed as our own.
I have heard that chimps are the only animals who are able to peceive the mental state of others, and it was demonstrated by their ability to “double-cross” ememies, like pretending to hide a banana and then watching for another chimp to try to steal it. But don’t lions know the mental state of their prey? Isn’t that why they hide in the grass, so “they can’t see me”? If the lion knows nothing of how the prey thinks, why does he hide?