Forum Replies Created
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Yeah, the flag is a brick wall that blocks all meaningful discourse. If someone appears to disrespect the flag then nothing else matters. It’s the one line that can’t be crossed. “I don’t care if the streets run red with the blood of your unarmed people gunned down by cops, you better pay this colored piece of fabric its due respect.”
So Kaepernick probably did his cause more harm than good. For change to happen he needs to get the people on his side. But the people he needs on his side are the same people who are most offended by his stance. Bottom line he’s about as effective an activist as he is a pocket passer.
You won’t win hearts and minds by antagonizing the hearts and minds you’re trying to win. It’s like when BLM blocks a freeway. Instead of rallying support they just make people hate them. Whether their cause is just or not isn’t even a consideration at that point. They inconvenienced people. They pissed people off. Game off.
In terms of evolution, I think the human/dog connection was just an evolutionary accident that turned out to be wide-ranging and deep.
Just chatting. I ain’t sayin nothin you don’t know.
Yeah, when I said dogs directed human evolution that was just a manner of speaking. Evolution via natural selection is random – it isn’t directed – although it can move along a certain path. Natural selection (random) and later artificial selection (non-random) forged the partnership.
Did you know the pronghorn antelope isn’t really an antelope? It’s a giraffoid more closely related to giraffes and opakis.
. That does not mean we chased them down and killed them – an unlikely scenario given their muscular physiques.
However, Shipman argues that it wasn’t just modern humans alone that Neanderthals were forced to deal with…it was also their partnership with domesticated wolves. This partnership made modern humans better at hunting big game. She says this advantage tipped the scales in modern human’s favor at a time when both groups were already under pressure from climate change.
Coupla things.
First, didn’t humans have bows and arrows at that point? And them launch style spear things (ie where you launch a sphere with a holder you don’t just throw it). I ain’t sure on the dates. If so, then Neanderthals were easy targets. Not that that alone accounts for their disappearance. (Well people SAY they disappeared. But if you watch The 13th Warrior, which is one of my favorite bad movies, they were still around in the 9th century.) (Yes kidding.)
Also, on dogs. Domesticated wolves. There is a lot of work being done now on the history of dogs. It very well could be that the human/dog partnership runs so deep that it helped shape the species we are. It goes way back and it includes a myriad list of adaptations that would never have happened without the dogs.
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Yeah the bow and arrow was invented in Africa about 70,000 years ago so modern humans had them when they made first contact with Neanderthals 45,000 years ago. And modern humans certainly had spears designed to be thrown whether they had the holder that increases the distance or not. I doubt the greater physical prowess possessed by Neanderthals would have been much of a deterrent to modern humans with their advanced weaponry and wolves/dogs.
The wolf/human partnership is fascinating. It certainly must have been beneficial to both parties to have lasted through thousands and thousands of years of prehistory up to today. It was important enough for evolution to ensure its preservation. You probably have heard that looking into a dog’s eyes causes ‘feel good’ chemicals like oxytocin to be released. So in essence dogs have triggered a mechanism that makes it feel good to be in their company. This is an example of dogs sorta directing our evolutionary pathway to their benefit and ours.
Why would modern humans mate with Neanderthals?
Bigger brains. Neanderthals apparently had bigger brains and were stronger physically.
Home Sapiens won the war. But it’s kinda like VHS versus Betamax. The latter should have.
Neanderthals were certainly more powerful than modern humans but it’s doubtful that their larger brains made them more intelligent. One study found that more of the Neanderthal’s brain was devoted to vision and body control than ours and less was geared towards cognition and social interaction. This would make sense given the way they hunted. Neanderthal’s didn’t kill from a distance like modern humans. Their spears were designed for stabbing not throwing. Therefore, a Neandethal had to get within a couple meters of his prey to kill it. And they hunted big, dangerous game. Vision and body control would come in handy when you’re only a few feet from an angry bison with nothing but a spear for protection. They must have been incredibly athletic to avoid getting trampled or gored to death every time they hunted but they took a beating nonetheless. Many of their bones show evidence of healed fractures. They lived a short, tough life.
As every well-read first grader knows, The fossil record suggests,
many of them wore corsets. Which is just plain weird. Still, one doesnt
argue with the fossil record.w
vTrue.
And apparently they were bipedal.
The article didnt make it clear. Were the big tigers pack animals or did
they hunt alone? If they hunted in packs i would think they could indeed
bring down the big full-grown Mammoths.On Game of Thrones there was clear evidence that Mammoths could be stopped
by shooting flaming arrows at their rectums. Seems to me, a pack of Smilodons
with arrows could probably bring down a fullgrown Mammoth. Just speculating, of course.w
vThere were many species of saber-toothed cats but none of them were closely related to modern big cats, so ‘saber-toothed tiger’ is a misnomer.
There is no direct evidence for pack hunting in Smilodon but some of their bones have been found with crippling injuries that had partially healed. Hard to explain how a solitary Smilodon with a debilitating injury could survive long enough for the bone to heal unless it was being cared for. For that reason it is believed they were probably pack hunters. But that’s not certain.
Smilodon’s body was about a foot shorter than a modern lions and it had a bob tail ta boot. So it wasn’t very long. However, it was about twice as heavy as a modern lion. It was a really powerful stocky animal that wasn’t very fast so it probably was an ambush predator. But given it’s hyper-powerful build and saber teeth, it was certainly a very different type of hunter than any modern cat. They’ve tried to determine how or even *if* they used those long fangs when hunting. There was a school of thought that said the fangs would be prone to breaking if the Smilodon bit into a big, struggling animal like a camel or horse let alone a mammoth. So some paleontologists actually thought the teeth were primarily for display. However, now they think that the Smilodon used it’s powerful body to wrestle the prey item to the ground and once subdued, finished it off with its saber teeth. They’ve done studies that show that given the Smilodon’s wide gape, if it bit the underside of a horse’s neck then the saber teeth would be aligned perfectly to penetrate the thick muscle and cut the poor animal’s windpipe. But of course, the prey would have to already be subdued to allow for this. Modern big cats do this as well. They’ll hold the animal down while clenching the animals throat in their mouth, compressing the windpipe until the animal suffocates. Smilodon would have done this much more efficiently because it wasn’t just compressing the windpipe – it was cutting it into several pieces. Death was comparatively quick and painless.
Stone knapping and tool use isn’t known among any saber-toothed cats and Smilodon most likely couldn’t make fire because its lack of opposable thumbs would prevent it from striking a match.
;Just how long do you think
His disembodied head will be running the Rams well into the reign of the Apes.
greed is what brought them to st louis. and it’s what brought them back to los angeles.
And it will probably take them to Portland or San Antonio in 20 years when the new stadium in Inglewood becomes outdated. 😉
(yes I know Stan owns the stadium in Inglewood – just play along)
