[meteorite-list] Mammoth Stew

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:52:25 -0600
Message-ID: <029b01c84118$a4028bf0$b842e146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Jerry, List,

There is no reason to believe that human mental
capacities have changed at all in the last, say,
35,000 to 42,000 years. Paris Hilton survives
because her existence is subsidized and supported
by the efforts of many other, more capable people.
A small Neolithic society can only afford a small
number of useless people. But my guess is that if
you bundled Paris up in a fur bikini like Raquel
Welch in "One Million B.C.," stuffed her in a time
machine, and send her back to the Neolithic, she'd
either be dead in a week or, a year later, she'd be a
formidably capable human being. That's what it
takes to survive. A small society with Neolithic
technology (which is more sophisticated than most
people imagine) is the ultimate survival challenge,
and likely very satisfying.

As for "small" groups or villages: "Consider genius
in the past. Most people considered geniuses have
IQs in the vicinity of 150, or 3 1/3 standard deviations
above the mean IQ of 100. In a population with a
mean IQ of 100, individuals with IQs of 150 occur
with a frequency of about one in 2300 people-they're
rare, but every small-to-medium town has one or more,
and even a small country with a population of only one
million has more than 425 such geniuses."
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/IQ/1950-2050/

On the other hand, in very large groups (like the world),
there are effects that predict people will just get dumber
and dumber (same reference as above). Of course, IQ
may well mean... nothing much.


Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry" <grf2 at verizon.net>
To: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>; "Jason Utas"
<meteoritekid at gmail.com>; "Meteorite-list"
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 6:51 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Mammoth Stew


YOU WROTE

Neolithic man never hunted game down to
extinction. It takes so long, you'd starve first. [They weren't stupid,
you know.] They were opportunists, and they lived off the fat of
the land, not the lean.
Brackets[] Mine

Well maybe some were. Consider some of our family members, friends and of
course, the 15 seconds of Fame crowd as depicted on TV, now.
We on the List, however, do fall into your generalization.
right?????????
Jerry Flaherty

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Received on Mon 17 Dec 2007 08:52:25 PM PST