Were the cave men all geniuses?

[Tumbleweed]

Let's face it: with Man's lousy senses he had to come up with something to survive in a world full of Sabertooths, and that something was logic. A So I am suggesting that a DNA mutation produced sheer genius in an individual and his offspring. a Stone Age einstein or Newton, in other words. The problem was, they had utterly no infrastructure to work with. So this band of geniuses did what they could, inventing the wheel, language, cooking, sewing, and eventually agriculture and permanent dwellings, and pyramid construction just to prove it could be done
But alas, due to entropy and gene dilution, man has been getting dumber ever since he no longer needed his wits to survive, and instead relied on the conceptions and inventions of a few throw back geniuses like Newton and Edison, and now instead of the cave man's average 140 IQ we have dumbed down to 100 being that average

[casebro]

Good concept. Proof?

[blutoski]

This competes with opposite implications from the Flynn Effect, though.

Since IQ is rising rapidly over the last three generations, if you extrapolate backward, it seems to follow that our ancestors must have been dumber than a sack of hammers.

This may actually be the case. I recall the opinion of one of my physical anthropology profs about H. habilis. Oldowan technology went through a unifacial period, then we saw a bifacial period for awhile. Finally, we were looking at more modern, complex, chipping.

The point was, though, that there was half a million years between unifacial and bifacial Oldowan technology. It took 500k years for our ancestors to figure out that one smack on a cobble made a sharp point, but two smacks made it even sharper. I don't think they were as sharp as their cobbles during this period.

[blutoski]

DP

[Darat]

Let's face it: with Man's lousy senses he had to come up with something to survive in a world full of Sabertooths, and that something was logic.

...snip...

What makes you think that we have lousy senses?

[Jimbo07]

What makes you think that we have lousy senses?

I call it: Dog.

:D

[Darat]

But mine smells terrible!

To consider your suggestion seriously - I think this is one of those persistent myths like "only use 10% of our brain", take another example - a cat. Often it's mentioned how superior their sight is to humans - well it is but only in dim light, in bright light human eyesight is "better".

[Esperdome]

Ah, another proponent of Devo, the de-evolution of mankind.

Whip it, whip it good!

[plumjam]

of course cavemen were geniuses.
no mortgages to pay, just club a chick in the head when you're feeling horny, and they got to hang out with Raquel Welch all day.

[madurobob]

I think "having opposable thumbs" came in mighty - ahem - handy. And while our ancestors may not have been as fast as, as strong as, or had the olfactory capability of a tiger, they had fantastic visual processing capability. But yes, obviously intelligence was a big factor, too.

And while I'm sure there were occasional geniuses then, just as now, I've not seen any evidence of anything super. As referenced already, the timespan between significant discoveries suggests that there was no "master genius race" running things for the cave dudes.

[Loss Leader]

Let's face it: with Man's lousy senses he had to come up with something to survive in a world full of Sabertooths, and that something was logic. A So I am suggesting that a DNA mutation produced sheer genius in an individual and his offspring. a Stone Age einstein or Newton, in other words. The problem was, they had utterly no infrastructure to work with. So this band of geniuses did what they could, inventing the wheel, language, cooking, sewing, and eventually agriculture and permanent dwellings, and pyramid construction just to prove it could be done
But alas, due to entropy and gene dilution, man has been getting dumber ever since he no longer needed his wits to survive, and instead relied on the conceptions and inventions of a few throw back geniuses like Newton and Edison, and now instead of the cave man's average 140 IQ we have dumbed down to 100 being that average


250,000 years to invent permanent dwellings. In that time, they burned the entire interior of Africa to the ground and managed to kill every predator over 100 lbs. in the Americas and Australia (as well as most of the larger herbivores). They grouped themselves and herd animals together so as to facilitate the transmission of diseases. They independently invented writing exactly twice and independently invented decimal notation exactly once.

Geniuses.

[gnome]

"Yeah, walking upright, discovering fire, inventing the wheel creating the foundation of civilization—sorry we couldn’t get that to you sooner."

http://www.cryptomundo.com/wp-content/uploads/caveman_3.jpg

[XBoxWarrior]

If I were to have lived back "then".....

I would have killed them all, with my version of Willy Nelson's "Whiskey River".

I could have been the King of All Kings.......

Dango time warps.

ETA, this site is slower than my grandma runnin' upstairs.....

[Dr Adequate]

Let's face it: with Man's lousy senses he had to come up with something to survive in a world full of Sabertooths, and that something was logic. Chimpanzees survived the same period.

I'm not sure what you mean by "lousy senses" but like the chimps, our sense of smell is poor, our eyesight rather good, and so forth --- I am not aware of any differences.

So unless you maintain that chimps also became logical to evade sabertooths, it would seem that the first stage of your argument fails.

[steverino]

Well the cavemen got laid whenever they felt the urge, with a club. Today we are reduced to eHarmony.

[IXP]

Next time you walk your dog, notice what the dog notices before you do, then notice what you notice before the dog does. You might be surprised.

IXP

[MG1962]

I think the main ingredient is time - Early on, humans spent virtually all their time just surviving. Getting enough food, not being something else's food, defending territory etc.

As man became more efficient in controlling food supply etc, it allowed more down time, hence more time to goof off and think. Now the vast majority of them would sit around thinking about girls, talking crap etc etc. Not unlike the modern world really. But every now and then a Newton or Hawkings came along, and a technological step forward was taken.

It is easy for us to be a bit egotistical and say - they were as dumb as a sack of marbles, but when you have no idea what a knife is - and then go and invent one - I for one am pretty impressed

On the other hand, being as dumb as a sack of marbles isnt that bad - if everything else around you is ten times as dumb - all relative really

[quarky]

humans have dumbed-down humans...just like they did with cows.
Cows used to be pretty clever, but it wasn't to our advantage.

I'd guess that it took more smarts to survive 40 years back in wild and primitive times, than it does today.
We likely didn't have the luxury of being stupid 10,000 years ago.

It took a lot of smarts to enable stupidity.

[MG1962]

humans have dumbed-down humans...just like they did with cows.
Cows used to be pretty clever, but it wasn't to our advantage.

I'd guess that it took more smarts to survive 40 years back in wild and primitive times, than it does today.
We likely didn't have the luxury of being stupid 10,000 years ago.

It took a lot of smarts to enable stupidity.

I like that :)

[Dancing David]

Let's face it: with Man's lousy senses he had to come up with something to survive in a world full of Sabertooths, and that something was logic. A So I am suggesting that a DNA mutation produced sheer genius in an individual and his offspring. a Stone Age einstein or Newton, in other words. The problem was, they had utterly no infrastructure to work with. So this band of geniuses did what they could, inventing the wheel, language, cooking, sewing, and eventually agriculture and permanent dwellings, and pyramid construction just to prove it could be done
But alas, due to entropy and gene dilution, man has been getting dumber ever since he no longer needed his wits to survive, and instead relied on the conceptions and inventions of a few throw back geniuses like Newton and Edison, and now instead of the cave man's average 140 IQ we have dumbed down to 100 being that average

Hi,
perhaps some research into the hominids would be helpful.

Stone tools may have been used 1.5 MYA. Humans ancestors were prey animals who scavenged after all the big predators had already stripped the carcasses. What makes humans interesting, besides the upright posture, is social cooperation and coordination. Extending the social groups of apes and monkeys one can become a mobile small scavenger that roams the plains, harvests marrow, hides, tendons and other resources.

I doubt that Lucy was a genius by any standard. Expect most animals are geniuses already. It is a silly word.

String, glue, fire, those are the first really versatile tools, hard to say where stone chips and flakes came in.

:Total aside and derail:
Most of what we mistakenly think about civilizations come from Victorian notions of the predominance of their society.

The indian subcontinent rocks with all sorts of stuff, the persian empire dominated, agriculture came about in north africa.

Most primitive societies have very complex technologies that just don't have the economies of scale seen after agriculture.

[Just thinking]

... It took a lot of smarts to enable stupidity stupidity's proliferation.

Fixed it for you.

[quarky]

thanks.
(much better)

[Tumbleweed]

Well I got some good laughs out of it anyway!
And to those who pointed out how dumb the cavemen were, thanks! That was my point. They needed a genius mutation t o rescue them. Otherwise we still couldn't figure out that two splits on a rock is better than one
Actually, I'm sort of paraphrasing 2001 a Space Odessy. Remember? At the beginning of his book Clark claims man was so dumb that he could not figure out how to pick up a stick and use it as a weapon. and then along came the Monolith. Now substitue a mutation of genius for the Monolith and ----

[Creekfreak]

Sure there where smart ones and dumb ones we havent changed a bit in millions of years just look at president bush !

[Tumbleweed]

As to man's lousy senses if we are the crown of creation why is it that a wide variety of animals have better ones. A robin can hear a worm crawl, an eagle is a virtual telescope, a bear can practically smell food in a sealed can, as some examples. Thank God for our logic which is almost as good as a Raven or Coyote!

[madurobob]

As to man's lousy senses if we are the crown of creation why is it that a wide variety of animals have better ones. A robin can hear a worm crawl, an eagle is a virtual telescope, a bear can practically smell food in a sealed can, as some examples. Thank God for our logic which is almost as good as a Raven or Coyote!

"crown of creation"? Huh?

An eagle can see like a telescope - true. But, at the expense of peripheral vision and depth perception. If given the choice of the two, I would certainly choose human sight. The bear has a great nose, but has only fair vision. The robin can hear the worm, but its smell and peripheral vision is nothing to write home about.

See where I'm going with this? All animals have evolved heightened senses specific to their survival needs and no single animal has the best of each sense. In fact, "best" is even debatable. We humans have a pretty fair range of senses and exquisite visual capability. We're certainly not handicapped compared to all the other animals.

[uruk]

I think it may have to do with the greater numbers now as compared to back then.
All you need is a few really smart guys to do the advancing while everyone else runs static in thier heads.
Today you still have a few really smart guys do the advancing, But it seems there are more static runners.

Call me an old fogey. but I believe much of the blame lays on all the mindless entertainment available now.

[Radrook]

Lousy senses because we can't tell which of the many young human females in a crowd are in heat?

[Radrook]

As to man's lousy senses if we are the crown of creation why is it that a wide variety of animals have better ones. A robin can hear a worm crawl, an eagle is a virtual telescope, a bear can practically smell food in a sealed can, as some examples. Thank God for our logic which is almost as good as a Raven or Coyote!

Setting the criteria for crown of creation is the key.

[Darat]

As to man's lousy senses if we are the crown of creation why is it that a wide variety of animals have better ones. A robin can hear a worm crawl, an eagle is a virtual telescope, a bear can practically smell food in a sealed can, as some examples. Thank God for our logic which is almost as good as a Raven or Coyote!

Who has said that man's senses are the "crown of creation"?

However since you are apparently interested in the differences between animal compare human sight to a dog's sight and tell me which creature has the "lousy" sight? Overall compared to many animals our package of senses is quite competitive. Another for instance - when there is a very strong wind a cat and a dog's ability to hunt is greatly diminished but a human's ability isn't.

[SirPhilip]

Let's face it: with Man's lousy senses he had to come up with something to survive in a world full of Sabertooths, and that something was logic. Necessity is the mother of invention. As for simple reasoning, consider the estimation (mass, distance and energy) a cat requires to jump across fences. The cat has no necessity however to care. An even more charming example is Linophryne Arborifera (http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/abyss/life/images/ellis265.jpeg), a deep sea bioluminescent 'fish' of sorts.

[SirPhilip]

of course cavemen were geniuses.
no mortgages to pay, just club a chick in the head when you're feeling horny, and they got to hang out with Raquel Welch all day. JBi_e989x5A#

[H3LL]

There is no reliable evidence to suggest intelligence was any different thousands of years ago. A Victorian myth may be the best explanation for the idea it was otherwise (suggested above).

Modern humans living in bands (not moved to tribal living) often show higher intelligence (IQ if you will) than modern humans living in cities.

Band members usually have an encyclopedic knowledge of their local flora and fauna and geography. Which plants are good for eating, medicine, dyes, shelter...etc comparable knowledge would only be found with skilled botanists and zoologists. Low intelligence and the inability to learn for a band member would often be rewarded by death.

Band members today are limited to the more inaccessible regions where local resources are very low. With no permanent residence and daily life limited to life's necessities. Any "Einsteins" would apply their intellect to immediate needs.

Prominent "inventors" such as Einstein, Newton, Darwin, Edison etc. did not function in isolation. None of their great ideas sprung fully formed from their imagination. They were standing on the shoulders of giants and required writing, communication and high population density. None of which were available to our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

Only the advent of farming (only started independently in three places) and a permanent residence with food surplus, allowed for artisans to manufacture items and technology and communication to advance.

Population density would also be a factor. Moving from bands to tribes to chiefdoms to states. Historically, not everyone made the progression at the same rate - if at all.

Also necessity is rarely the mother of invention, usually the invention has to find or create the market. For an ancient example, the Phaistos disc preceded printing and movable type by several thousand years but failed as there was no necessity for it at the time and place. Looking at the tens of thousands of patents that have gone nowhere and are unlikely to go anywhere would be another indicator.

[H3LL]

Could we reverse the OP suggestion and argue that only cities and/or civilisation allow for stupid people to survive?

After all, government and organised religion, neither of which occur in bands and few tribes, require the population to be rather gullible and dim.

:D
.

[Dancing David]

Lousy senses because we can't tell which of the many young human females in a crowd are in heat?


Um, free cycling esterous means that female humans don't go into heat. They get to couple when they want.

[madurobob]

Call me an old fogey. but I believe much of the blame lays on all the mindless entertainment available now.
You've, um, seen your avatar, right?

...female humans don't go into heat.
"Clearly you have never been to Singapore"

Best I could do without coffee this morning.

[Cold one]

Might I add that intelligence or smarts is relative, the inventing of tools taking so long for instance wasnt needed because they were smart enough to survive without them and therefore didnt spend alot of worry or time perfecting existing tools or making new ones. IMO humans were probably extremely intelligent in the beging and slowly got dumber and now we are finally at the point where we can see an increase in intelligence simply because the information is there waiting for us to learn it as opposed to the middle ages where information was horded. It still doesnt say much for our ability to think (we dont all have breakthrough earth shattering discovery's everyday) but mearly gather new information that someone else has discovered, in other words I think we are dumber now we just have more access to information that they had to work to get. As the collective intelligence goes up so does the "burst" of "random" genius which allows for more advances into what we know but which does not make us smarter than our anscestors.

[SirPhilip]

Um, free cycling esterous means that female humans don't go into heat. They get to couple when they want. You've never been dragged to a Backstreet Boys concert, have you.

[DrBaltar]

So I am suggesting that a DNA mutation produced sheer genius in an individual and his offspring. a Stone Age einstein or Newton, in other words. The problem was, they had utterly no infrastructure to work with. So this band of geniuses did what they could, inventing the wheel, language, cooking, sewing, and eventually agriculture and permanent dwellings, and pyramid construction just to prove it could be doneYeah, but they also invented religion, so I am not too impressed.

[DrBaltar]

Stone tools may have been used 1.5 MYA.True, but they have also been used for about 1 million years with no advancement. This has been compared to birds making a nest. It's something tricky and innovative, but more of a behavior than a sign of intelligence.

[mrund]

Just a few thoughts.

1. No cavemen. That's an artefact of differential preservation: only the stuff that ended up in caves is preserved.

2. No saber-teeth. H. sapiens evolved in Africa where there were none.

3. Inventions were few and far between for hundreds of thousands of years until the start of agriculture. The changes through time in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic toolkits isn't really evolutionary toward better stuff. It's largely random morphological drift within a flint-and-bone paradigm.

[Tumbleweed]

Well well well, I just read an article that stated anthropological studies show that the domesticted cat's brain is much smaler than the one's they evolved from because they have beco=me dependent on humans, thereby reducing the amount of brain needed to devote to the senses
So could one say that the average Joe or Josephine's brain has also become smaller since they became dependent on Safeway and WalMart and the inventions to contact them with such as the phone, internet and automobile, instead of needing the smarts necessary to hunt and gather -- or even grow food for that matter! Most 9 to 5 stuff is merely monkey see monkey do stuff, and the maze from home cubicle to work cubilce can easily be taught even to rats
Crown of creation? A phrase somebody somewhere came up with to describe the Holiness of man. I am merely being sarcastic by using it

[Tumbleweed]

And one more thing. If we are getting smarter how come they have to keep coming up with procedures so easy a cave man could do it. By now the average schmuck should be able to figure out a computer or engine repair without lessons, much less a gas pump. Try operating one of those for the first time if you are functionally illiterate. The clever ones simply wait to see how someone else does it, and then repeat it

[Radrook]

Well the cavemen got laid whenever they felt the urge, with a club. Today we are reduced to eHarmony.

Somehow I have difficulty imagining women, be they Neanderthal or otherwise, being that docile. : )

[madurobob]

Well well well, I just read an article that stated anthropological studies show that the domesticted cat's brain is much smaler than the one's they evolved from because they have beco=me dependent on humans, thereby reducing the amount of brain needed to devote to the senses
So could one say that the average Joe or Josephine's brain has also become smaller since they became dependent on Safeway and WalMart...
One could say that, but they'd be wrong (http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vwsu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor/phychar/culture-humans-2two.html).
As humans evolved, brain size increased dramatically. We can see at a glance in the image at left the increase in brain size and shape over 3.5 million years. The A. afarensis skull at left is approximately 400 cc, about the same size as a chimp's brain. The million-year old Homo erectus skull in the center is 1200 cc, and the modern human skull at right holds a brain of 1400 cc. The shape of the homind skull changes dramatically as well, to accommodate the development of a forebrain. Note that A. afarensis on the left, one of the earliest hominid species, has almost no forehead at all.

[LostAngeles]

I think the main ingredient is time - Early on, humans spent virtually all their time just surviving. Getting enough food, not being something else's food, defending territory etc.

As man became more efficient in controlling food supply etc, it allowed more down time, hence more time to goof off and think. Now the vast majority of them would sit around thinking about girls, talking crap etc etc. Not unlike the modern world really. But every now and then a Newton or Hawkings came along, and a technological step forward was taken.

It is easy for us to be a bit egotistical and say - they were as dumb as a sack of marbles, but when you have no idea what a knife is - and then go and invent one - I for one am pretty impressed

On the other hand, being as dumb as a sack of marbles isnt that bad - if everything else around you is ten times as dumb - all relative really

You're actually pretty much on the mark. The advent of agriculture lead to specialization and complex societies.

Lousy senses because we can't tell which of the many young human females in a crowd are in heat?

Human females don't really go into heat. There's no signs of estruss so you can't know if she's in a fertile period or not. She can't tell you if she's fertile or not. I presume I'm infertile since the probability otherwise is something like .05%, but there you go.

[Radrook]

....Human females don't really go into heat. There's no signs of estruss so you can't know if she's in a fertile period or not. She can't tell you if she's fertile or not. I presume I'm infertile since the probability otherwise is something like .05%, but there you go.

I know. I was only joking. : )

[Dancing David]

You've never been dragged to a Backstreet Boys concert, have you.

;)


I think you might need to update your boy band.

[Dancing David]

True, but they have also been used for about 1 million years with no advancement. This has been compared to birds making a nest. It's something tricky and innovative, but more of a behavior than a sign of intelligence.


Uh, how do you gauge intelligence except from behavior. It is important to remember the myths about intelligence and civilization like the "Magdalenean revoltuion" that claims culture developed in europe about 14,000 years ago. It is an artifact of the preservation window for non-stone items.

[Dancing David]

Just a few thoughts.

1. No cavemen. That's an artefact of differential preservation: only the stuff that ended up in caves is preserved.

2. No saber-teeth. H. sapiens evolved in Africa where there were none.

3. Inventions were few and far between for hundreds of thousands of years until the start of agriculture. The changes through time in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic toolkits isn't really evolutionary toward better stuff. It's largely random morphological drift within a flint-and-bone paradigm.


Those tools kits also don't always reflect the use of bone, wood and fiber, so that is not something that can be commented on with certainty. Most tool kits come from very specific sites, hunting spot where tools were made and left, so if you are making your hunting set or your slaughter set, they aren't going to vary a whole lot.

[aggle-rithm]

Well well well, I just read an article that stated anthropological studies show that the domesticted cat's brain is much smaler than the one's they evolved from because they have beco=me dependent on humans, thereby reducing the amount of brain needed to devote to the senses


In a recent book by Temple Grandin, she spoke of the millenia-old symbiosis between man and dog. She pointed out that one of the characteristics of domisticated animals is that, over time, their brains shrink.

Dog's brains have shrunk since they teamed up with humans. However, the human brain has shrunk as well -- specifically, the olfactory lobe has gotten smaller.

Her conclusion was that, while man was domesticating dogs, dogs were domesticating man as well.

[madurobob]

DERAIL
Human females don't really go into heat. There's no signs of estruss so you can't know if she's in a fertile period or not,
Um, really? Are you sure there are no hormone cycles that a really good nose could pick up on? AFAIK human females are most fertile in the middle of the menstrual cycle. Not coincidentally, this is the time my wife is the most - ahem - amorous (as opposed to the 1 week out of four she loathes me). I find it hard to believe there is no outwardly detectable hormone cycle (I mean, besides the loathing). Heck, some scientists think dogs can be trained to sniff out cancer.

She can't tell you if she's fertile or not.
My first wife sure could. When we were trying to have a baby she knew exactly when she was most fertile and was not shy about telling me... in crowded rooms even. This simple observation of the cycle was not her discovery - people have known for ages about the "rhythm method".

/DERAIL

[Ocelot]

We seem to be ignoring sexual selection favouring larger brains. The brain is after all IMHO the most attractive sex organ.

[aggle-rithm]

We seem to be ignoring sexual selection favouring larger brains. The brain is after all IMHO the most attractive sex organ.

Caveman 1: Check out the occipital lobes on HER.
Caveman 2: Hubba, hubba!

[Hawk one]

We seem to be ignoring sexual selection favouring larger brains. The brain is after all IMHO the most attractive sex organ.

Whenever someone claims this, I automatically assume they are cannibals that use dried and powdered brain as an aphrodisiac.

[DrBaltar]

True, but they have also been used for about 1 million years with no advancement. This has been compared to birds making a nest. It's something tricky and innovative, but more of a behavior than a sign of intelligence.Uh, how do you gauge intelligence except from behavior. It is important to remember the myths about intelligence and civilization like the "Magdalenean revoltuion" that claims culture developed in europe about 14,000 years ago. It is an artifact of the preservation window for non-stone items.

Behavior does not equal intelligence. People talk about the behavior of a storm - obviously no intelligence there. Some behaviors are instinctual and do not require intelligence. If a previous hominid used stone cutting tools for a million years without modification, and without any other significant innovation, then from that behavior I would say their intelligence is below that of humans, yet above the typical mammal. This was actually the point of my original text.

BTW, usually speech disfluencies such as 'Uh' are limited to speech and are omitted and certainly edited out of text. ;)

[uruk]

You've, um, seen your avatar, right?
I never said I wasn't a staic runner.

[Dancing David]

Behavior does not equal intelligence. People talk about the behavior of a storm - obviously no intelligence there. Some behaviors are instinctual and do not require intelligence. If a previous hominid used stone cutting tools for a million years without modification, and without any other significant innovation, then from that behavior I would say their intelligence is below that of humans, yet above the typical mammal. This was actually the point of my original text.

BTW, usually speech disfluencies such as 'Uh' are limited to speech and are omitted and certainly edited out of text. ;)


You can not assess intelligence apart from behavior was my point. Homonids and humans are very low in sterotypic (IE instinctual behaviors). We can not tell without extensive study of the tool what they were used to process, any thing other than stone does not preserve that long. So if they had glue, string and sticks, we would not know. You can tell some things from the stone tools but certain items would not be at most tool sites.

But certainly Lucy would have a limited range of rationality compared to a modern muman.

[LostAngeles]

I know. I was only joking. : )

Sure you were. Next you'll complain about how our noses are so bad, we can't smell that alcohol is a toxin like my cats can. :D (seriously, you should see the face the make).

DERAIL

Um, really? Are you sure there are no hormone cycles that a really good nose could pick up on? AFAIK human females are most fertile in the middle of the menstrual cycle. Not coincidentally, this is the time my wife is the most - ahem - amorous (as opposed to the 1 week out of four she loathes me). I find it hard to believe there is no outwardly detectable hormone cycle (I mean, besides the loathing). Heck, some scientists think dogs can be trained to sniff out cancer.


My first wife sure could. When we were trying to have a baby she knew exactly when she was most fertile and was not shy about telling me... in crowded rooms even. This simple observation of the cycle was not her discovery - people have known for ages about the "rhythm method".

/DERAIL

I've been mispelling btw, it's "estrous"

I'm quite sure. Not only is the rhythm method notoriously unreliable unless your cycle is very, very regular, but if you looked at a crowd of women, you could not tell who was ovulating. If you look at a crowd of, say, female bonobos (our closest genetic relative), it's pretty damn clear and not just by which ones are having sex. (Bonobos are slutty.)

While wikipedia says, "Humans, unlike some other species, do not have any obvious external signs to signal estral receptivity at ovulation (concealed ovulation). Research has shown, however, that women tend to have more sexual thoughts and are far more prone to sexual activity right before ovulation (estrus)," it does not contradict what either of us are saying.

You can look at a cat and know she's in heat. You can't look at a woman and know that she's fertile right now. While there is a tendency to be more sexual about that time, it isn't always the case. Women who are using hormonal methods generally don't ovulate and are can be found to still be *********** like bunnies.

[dogjones]

"Hey! Look what Zog do!"

[Cuddles]

Um, really? Are you sure there are no hormone cycles that a really good nose could pick up on? AFAIK human females are most fertile in the middle of the menstrual cycle. Not coincidentally, this is the time my wife is the most - ahem - amorous (as opposed to the 1 week out of four she loathes me). I find it hard to believe there is no outwardly detectable hormone cycle (I mean, besides the loathing). Heck, some scientists think dogs can be trained to sniff out cancer.

There are certainly signs that indicate fertility, but they are nowhere near as obvious in humans as in most animals.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19626294.900-misleading-message-in-a-womans-walk.html
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg19325894.600-when-women-are-in-the-mood-to-make-a-baby.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15721250.600-subtle-signals-keep-menstrual-clocks-in-sync.html
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/dn8251--hormone-levels-predict-attractiveness-of-women.html
and particularly interesting is this one (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19626255.100-lap-dancers-in-heat-are-the-ones-to-watch.html), which suggests that not only are the signs present, but they really do have a noticeable effect.

[Tumbleweed]

In a recent book by Temple Grandin, she spoke of the millenia-old symbiosis between man and dog. She pointed out that one of the characteristics of domisticated animals is that, over time, their brains shrink.

Dog's brains have shrunk since they teamed up with humans. However, the human brain has shrunk as well -- specifically, the olfactory lobe has gotten smaller.

Her conclusion was that, while man was domesticating dogs, dogs were domesticating man as well.>>

Ah yes, I like it. Its so Yin and Yang

[LostAngeles]

There are certainly signs that indicate fertility, but they are nowhere near as obvious in humans as in most animals.

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19626294.900-misleading-message-in-a-womans-walk.html
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg19325894.600-when-women-are-in-the-mood-to-make-a-baby.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15721250.600-subtle-signals-keep-menstrual-clocks-in-sync.html
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/dn8251--hormone-levels-predict-attractiveness-of-women.html
and particularly interesting is this one (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19626255.100-lap-dancers-in-heat-are-the-ones-to-watch.html), which suggests that not only are the signs present, but they really do have a noticeable effect.

Well, in the presence of new evidence, I'll have to stand down a bit from what I said to Cuddles' first sentence.

Correction noted.

[madurobob]

... and particularly interesting is this one (http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg19626255.100-lap-dancers-in-heat-are-the-ones-to-watch.html), which suggests that not only are the signs present, but they really do have a noticeable effect.
Oh, thats brilliant! And, definitely worthy of significant additional study.

"I'll be home late, Honey, I have a lot of grinding research to do this evening"

(ETA: and the one about women living together eventually migrating to the same cycle should have been a dead giveaway and I'm ashamed I didn't think of it earlier. I've certainly experienced the side effects)

[Tokenconservative]

of course cavemen were geniuses.
no mortgages to pay, just club a chick in the head when you're feeling horny, and they got to hang out with Raquel Welch all day.

Thought it was Barbara Bach and they also got to smoke huge friggin doobies.

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

Whenever someone claims this, I automatically assume they are cannibals that use dried and powdered brain as an aphrodisiac.

Or maybe they are like the aliens in the pilot episodes of Star Trek?

I mean...in order for those folks to breed, they'd hafta think those enormous heads were filled with hella hottie sexy brains, right?

Tokie

[Tokenconservative]

And one more thing. If we are getting smarter how come they have to keep coming up with procedures so easy a cave man could do it. By now the average schmuck should be able to figure out a computer or engine repair without lessons, much less a gas pump. Try operating one of those for the first time if you are functionally illiterate. The clever ones simply wait to see how someone else does it, and then repeat it

I used that copycat method the first time I had to kill a wooly rhino.

Works like a charm.

Tokie

[quarky]

not to be gross, but:

if humans were more naked, and it was more acceptable to stick your nose and tongue into female crotches in public, as it is with other mammals, I suspect we'd come to have a better guess as to when a female was impregnatable.

we have evolved beyond the behaviour; not the obvious evidence, or our sensory apparatus.

[articulett]

Caveman 1: Check out the occipital lobes on HER.
Caveman 2: Hubba, hubba!

Sexual selection is generally a female prerogative... hence the gaudy plumage of the peacock as selected by the peahen.

Cavewoman 1: Check out the frontal lobes on HIM.
Cavewoman 2: Yowza!

[SezMe]

I've been mispelling btw, it's "estrous"
But the article cuddles cites speeled it "oestrus". What's a feminist to do?

On a separate note, I think most of the growth in mankind's intelligence took place in Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Caveman 1: Check out the occipital lobes on HER.
Caveman 2: Hubba, hubba!

You must be good looking. I prefer my women to have as bad eyesight as possible. ;)

[Radrook]

My ex wife claimed to have all under control by monitoring her temperature. She had this chart tacked on thge refrigerator and was so confident that she dispensed with the contraceptive pills. Whenever I showed concern about her vaunted methodology, she would pontificate that all was %100 under control. She also would boast about her ability of knowing exactly whgich one pof her overies was doing the ovulating and would become exceedingly wroith if I insisted she be careful.


A few months later I noticed tha she began becoming progressively silent. Until I asked why and she gave me a murderous look and growled.

"Is something wrong honey buns?"

"I'm pregnant that's what's wrong.

"How could that happen, didn't you say...." I began to say meekly when she interrupted and shot back with:

"But you have nothing to worry about right? Since it's not you!"


Had I been equipped with a canine nose I guess all the ensuing arguments and accusations hurled in my general direction coud have been avoided.

[ponderingturtle]

My first wife sure could. When we were trying to have a baby she knew exactly when she was most fertile and was not shy about telling me... in crowded rooms even. This simple observation of the cycle was not her discovery - people have known for ages about the "rhythm method".


Ah but they often got the rhythm wrong.