Note: For the purposes of this thread, I am setting the characteristics of Neanderthals. Any similarity to anthropological theories about the real Neanderthals is accidental, and would be news to me.
Imagine if you will that Neanderthals were not driven to extinction by Homo sapiens (hereafter referred to as “humans”), and continue to live among us today. Some characteristics of Neanderthals are as follows.
Neanderthals have an average IQ of 70, and are particularly deficient at abstract reasoning (they rarely advance past arithmetic, for example, and have limited proficiency in the sciences.) Critics of these results argue, as many do today, that IQ tests are not an accurate measure of intelligence, and may have species bias, as these tests are constructed by humans.
Neanderthals have a stockier build than the average human, and are also hairier. While a well-shaven Neanderthal could pass for human in a busy street, close inspection can distinguish between the two with very good accuracy. Humans and Neanderthals are fairly sexually compatible, but the population of hybrids is small.
Neanderthals are about 50% stronger than humans, on average, and this, combined with their lower intelligence, leads them to be disproportionately represented in manual laber and the military.
Neanderthals have a distinct culture, and tend to live among themselves in enclaves.
It has been statistically shown that Neanderthals are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. While psychological tests show that Neanderthals tend to be more aggressive than humans, some argue that the higher crime rate is a result of social conditions rather than physiological differences.
Because Neanderthals had a lower rate of technological growth, their population did not grow as rapidly as that of humans, which took off in the Stone Age due to advances in agriculture and social organization. Neanderthals therefore compose about 10% of the genus Homo.
Currently, Neanderthals are given free and equal opportunities to find jobs and attend schools, but because of their physical limitations, they are underrepresented in white-collar jobs and in higher education. While they were subject to slavery in the past, it was no more than humans have enslaved other humans, and was abolished at the same time as slavery was abolished in the real world.
Given this hypothetical, I give you the following questions:
Should Neanderthals have the right to vote? The intelligence data show that they are less able to understand political concepts, yet they are affected just as much by the outcome of elections.
Given their greater propensity to crime, is “specieal profiling” acceptable? We are talking here about robberies and murders, not suicide bombings.
Should schooling be integrated? Again, the intelligence data (criticized by certain groups, but generally accepted) show that integrated teaching would be detrimental to the humans students by forcing them to slow to Neanderthal level. On the other hand, integrated schools are a sign of an egalitarian society
Should there be affirmative action for higher education and white-collar jobs? On one side, people claim that the data show that Neanderthals are simply less competent at those tasks; on the other hand, it is argued that they were never given a chance in the first place; AA can give them a foothold in the market that they can exploit or fail to exploit.
Check out A Different Flesh, by Harry Turtledove. (The sims – Homo erectus – are even more mentally inferior than the Neanderthals as described in the OP, but they can learn rudimentary speech.)
To the best of my Cro Magnon knowlege Neaderthals were not that dumb. And anyway us humans who have an IQ of 70 (no, not me I just feel like it sometimes) are still allowed to vote. And I don’t see a larger propensity for crime. Over all they seemed like nice fokes.Lett’em in.
We don’t have any direct knowledge of either Neanderthal intelligence or behavior; however, going from anatomy, Homo neanderthalensis had a braincase that was 10-15% larger than modern H. sapiens, and on that basis probably had an equal if not greater congitive ability. It is commonly belived that Neanderthal Man was unable to perform extensive and precise vocalization that hallmarks modern man due to a lack of hyoid bone (the bone attached to the larynx) like other non-human apes, but in fact it was discovered in the early Eighties that they did, in fact, have such a structure, as well as a similar braincase structure in the frontal lobe where verbal processing occurs, and were possibly capable of both speaking and comprehending conceptual grammar and language. They were also reasonable sophisticated lithic toolmakers, displaying advanced flaking techniques to produce knives, scrapers, and handaxes. There’s no reason to believe that they were more aggressive than humans; despite their stocky posture and thicker skeletal structure, there’s no evidence of the use of projectile weapons. Indeed, why now one knows why they went extinct, it seems likely that they were unable to compete with the aggression of “modern” humans who moved into Central and Northern Europe around 45kBCE and were displaced. Indeed, of all extant ape species, human beings are by far the most aggressive and violent (although chimpanzees can demonstrate incidences of great aggression as well).
All that being said, the o.p. postulated a near-human ape species with atavistic characteristics. What would we do with such a species? Probably the same that was done with ethnic groups that were considered to be “sub-human” in times past, i.e. either intern them in a reservation, sterilize them, enslave them, or eliminate them. We’re uncomfortable enough with people who don’t quite look like us but have a similar level of intelligence and capability; a species that is somewhat feral would be both a monstrosity to the esthetic sensabilities of most people (look how apes are treated in Africa) and a difficult practical matter to administrate. We couldn’t expect a species with subnormal intelligence and a tendency toward atavistic or aggressive behavior to mix freely in polite society any more than we could let dogs run loose in packs. On the other hand, we would be compelled, as we increasingly are with the great apes, to recognize that they have significant cognitive capabilities as well as a capacity to feel and express emotions, which (I hope) would require us to treat them with as much compassion as such a situation would allow. The best thing to do would probably be to isolate them in a large environment which they would be able to function normally in whatever sort of lifestyle is appropriate to their evolution.
Probably not. Given the current understanding that modern humans and Neanderthals parted ways about 500k years ago, it would be highly unusual for us both to have evolved the same level of intelligence independently. Otherwise, you’d have to assume that our shared cognitive ability was something we inherited from our common H. erectus ancestor-- again, very unlikely. In fact, many anthropologists doubt that members of our own species from 100k years ago shared the same cognitive abilities with us (and our 50k year old ancestors).
Only human beings can vote, and we’re not horrible people for denying citizenship to creatures outside of our species.
That doesn’t mean that we should be irresponsible about how we treat Neanderthals. We should preserve and protect their environment, and take care to prevent any extortion or coercion of the Neanderthal population. We should leave them alone, and never try to inject our culture into theirs, but we draw the line at Neanderthals entering our cities.
First response is to use non lethal means to transport offending Neanderthals back to their own habitat, the same way we would with a black bear in our back yard. Why should it be different for your hypothetical Neanderthal?
Why not treat these Neanderthals as we do those with Downs Syndrome, or other forms of mental retardation?
I think this is the part that needs to be fleshed out further. If the two groups are sexually compatible, then we’d form one continuous population since we’d have been interbreeding for about 40k years. If you’re assuming that we’ve just discovered some isolated population somewhere, then they wouldn’t be part of our political entity.
