Is The Boskop Species of Mankind Evidence Against Evolution?

Any species that is extinct today, is just more evidence that evolution does exist. Sorry to say, but they didn't make the cut. Nice try, maybe their genetics will live on somewhere down the line.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
a reply to: joeraynor

Their frontal lobe was larger than that of other homo genus.

Do you have a citation for that ? Just curious because I couldn’t find anything that supports such a claim nor another claim you make further down about the “gene that made them smarter”. I’d love to read the papers that discuss these curious “facts” as you portray them.

Also, your lower estimates of cranial capacity are a little off. They weren’t ever able to make a very accurate estimate of such because of differences in thickness of the bone in the crania. But estimtes are from 1700-2000 cc which while on the high end, is still within the mean for adult male H. Sapiens

One other thought, genetically, “Boskop” are the ancestors of the Khoi San, also known as capoids. And this will probably come off as pedantic but it’s hard to take this terribly seriously when you keep referring to different “Homo’s” as different genus’s. Homo is the genus. They are all separate species of the same genus and all closely related. “Boskop” is, whether you want to accept it or not, H. Sapiens. You’ve made interesting Claims but haven’t supported much with anything resembling science. Even discovery magazine retracted part of the article and states that it is a highly contentious hypothetical scenario and not hard science that they are a separate species

If you prefer, I can cite John Hawkes, PhD professor at University of Wisconsin, he actually studied the remains in question as opposed to finding a random person claiming to be an Anthropologist on quora. That’s not exactly a legitimate citation.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

What if they did exist and they were smart enough they got off world? You never know, ha ha

originally posted by: strongfp
Any species that is extinct today, is just more evidence that evolution does exist. Sorry to say, but they didn't make the cut. Nice try, maybe their genetics will live on somewhere down the line.

Huh??? Evolution relies on extinction. Maybe get a basic understanding of a subject before posting gibberish about it.

a reply to: Barcs

That's exactly what I said tho.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
a reply to: 3n19m470

It isn't "bad science." I have already shown Blaine that the Boskop man did exist. But today most anthropologists think they are part of homo sapiens. But if that is true then we devolved into dumber beings.

Why would evolution take a step back and make us worse?

You're making some pretty big assumptions there and assumptions are not science. Remember the brain capacity they estimated was still inside the normal range.

John Hawks on this topic.

Both Lynch and Granger are experts in neuroscience, with a long list of publications on memory, cortical organization, and chemical regulation of brain activity. Neither of them is an anthropologist or archaeologist.

So I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see what appears to be complete lunacy in the book description:

First, if you do a simple Google Scholar search for "Boskop", you will discover that this has not been a going topic in human evolution for nearly fifty years. Most intellectual effort on the topic of "Boskopoids" happened between 1915 and 1930. I want to emphasize how easy it is to discover these things by a simple Google search. This is obscure knowledge, but for a good reason -- it's obsolete and has been for fifty years!

The supposed "Boskop race" was named after a South African skull -- consisting of frontal and parietal bones, with a partial occiput, one temporal and a fragment of mandible -- found on a Transvaal farm in 1913. The skull is a large one, with an estimated endocranial volume of 1800 ml. But it is hardly complete, and arguments about its overall size -- exacerbated by its thickness, which confuses estimates based on regression from external measurements -- have ranged from 1700 to 2000 ml. It is large, but well within the range of sizes found in recent males.

what happened is that a small set of large crania were taken from a much larger sample of varied crania, and given the name, "Boskopoid." This selection was initially done almost without any regard for archaeological or cultural associations -- any old, large skull was a "Boskop". Later, when a more systematic inventory of archaeological associations was entered into evidence, it became clear that the "Boskop race" was entirely a figment of anthropologists' imaginations.

a reply to: strongfp

No, you said that it is evidence that evolution does not exist, when it's the exact opposite.

a reply to: Barcs

I think you need to re read my post ...

it wasn't just our intelligence that allowed us to dominate the natural world, humans weren't stronger or faster but could outlast anything when chasing or running away and we could out throw anything too.

this is still the case in modern times, just not as well as our ancestors could, the biggest reason besides those abilities was our more aggressive nature compared to our competition, humans have always been conquerors that will do anything to survive and win. whether violence or deception.

others were too big, too small, too passive, too aggressive, too weak, too strong, too dumb, too smart, had too little endurance, too inflexible or any number of things, humans weren't better, we were just more balanced in every aspect.

evolution isn't about who is the best, it's about who is more fit for their environment and humans can live anywhere in any environment so of course we came out on top in the end. but the thing is, evolution never ends for living things.

The morphological diversity among humankind is quite broad:



They are all human, yet have distinct differences in skull size and shape. Surely none of these are more or less evolved than any others. Also to consider - we have had millions of fruit fly generations undergoing artificial selective pressure in labs trying to "evolve" them, yet they remain fruit flies. Same with lab mice, and same with dog breeding. The semantics of taxonomy fall under the assumption that evolution must be true, and any observed phenotypic or genetic similarities are due to homology. In other words, it is a self-perpetuating philosophy that cites itself and has no actual repeatable evidence that a population of organisms can change into another organism. Dogs remain dogs, mice remain mice, fruit flies remain fruit flies despite how much scientists have tried to generate irreversible change.

originally posted by: strongfp
Any species that is extinct today, is just more evidence that evolution does exist.

It doesn't prove one way or another. A decrease in total types of organisms over time would be expected with an intelligent design model as well. As humans continue to fight nature, it continues to depreciate.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: Barcs

I think you need to re read my post ...

Apologies! I even read it twice and thought it said doesn't exist.

Two things:

(1) There is no evidence that Boskop man was more intelligent,

but even if he was...

(2) Intelligence is not necessarily a goal of evolution. Granted, Intelligence may lead to a species being more successful (i.e., able to live successfully within its environment), but that isn't necessarily always the case.

For example, There could be a more intelligent species or variety of a species who, for other biological reasons, do not as successfully live within its environmental conditions. That is, maybe (just stipulating for the sake of argument) Boskop Man was more intelligent than the humans today, but maybe they had other disadvantages that led to them eventually dying off. It could also have been that they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time; their environment changed and they (for a variety of reasons, not all of the evolutionary) may not have had a chance to adapt.

It also may be the case that some other feature not associated with intelligence is what leads to a species to become more successful, such as the shell of a turtle that helps protect it from predators. Turtles who are more intelligent than the average turtle may not have a great enough advantage over the average turtle to make a difference in being able to procreate and send a greater percentage of those "intelligence genes" to the next generation.

originally posted by: Barcs

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: Barcs

I think you need to re read my post ...

Apologies! I even read it twice and thought it said doesn't exist.

It's not just you! I misread it the first time as well. Weird!

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
It's not just you! I misread it the first time as well. Weird!

Mandela effect!!! OMG!

Brain size has little to do with intelligence...many animals have equal or larger brains than humans and are not even close to our intelligence, while there are animals with small brains that are actually intelligent over many of these larger brain animals. Also to say they had a 150 IQ range that number was pulled out of someone's ass...lol

Our brains uses a huge amount of energy to function and we have the largest cerebral cortex of any land animal, so those two things mean a lot. Looking at brains we have 86 million neurons compared to other large apes that have around 30 million, BUT the elephant has 257 million, so are they the smartest??

Dolphins have the largest cerebral cortex that is over 2x that of humans with humans in 2nd place while elephants are only 1/2 our size even with such a big brain, so when you add everything up size, energy, cerebral cortex neurons I would say this is what makes us so smart. I say that with Dolphins maybe being the smartest on the planet, but they can't really use it as we can. I have said before the smartest animal in the universe might be a sponge on the bottom of some ocean...smart as hell, can't do much with it though...lol

a reply to: peter vlar

First of all, they had a bigger forehead than humans, and since the frontal lobe is right behind the forehead, it doesn't take a genius to put together that their frontal lobe was bigger than that of homo sapiens.

...
How does the Boskop brain and face differ from that of a modern human?

Boskop has a bigger brain, and the skull has a larger forehead with little face.
...

quizlet.com...

Second of all, their bigger heads weren't caused by deformities so it had to be a gene, or genes, which caused them to have bigger heads than homo sapiens.

BTW, if you don't find the thread interesting, you can leave at any time you want, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Boskop man? Is that the common ancestor of Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man?

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Intelligence only matters to evolution if it increases fitness.

You can say that maybe intelligence does not directly correlate with fitness in some instances.

For instance: Homo sapiens are pretty intelligent, but now have the ability to destroy themselves to extinction, and much of the rest of the biome in the wrong circumstances. So … is higher intelligence actually helping the fitness of Homo sapiens? Just some interesting conjecture hah

originally posted by: Blaine91555
...
Sounds like a classic case of making the evidence fit the theory to me.

Wouldn't the same be said about the "theory" that the boskop man is modern humans as well, except with bigger heads which were not caused by deformities, or illnesses like encephalitis?

After all, no matter how much some would like to claim it is still a theory, just like evolution is a theory, just like the big bang is a theory.

originally posted by: cooperton
The morphological diversity among humankind is quite broad:

They are all human, yet have distinct differences in skull size and shape. Surely none of these are more or less evolved than any others.
...

From where did you get the above pictures? The first one looks to be a boskop head.

Here is a modern caucasoid head.



www.theoryofuniverse.com...

BTW, i do not contest that they are human. What I am contesting is that they are modern human skulls. I have never seen such large head in modern humans. BTW, a deformed head due to illness is not the same as these skulls. They were not caused by deformities, nor illness. So something else must have happened to wipe that version of "mankind."

Here are comparisons again between modern human heads, and boskop.


Boskop


Left skull is a boskop skull, right skull is modern human.

Now the following is very interesting.

...
The skull has been called Neanderthaloid, Cromagnoid, Negroid, pre-Bush (i.e., Bushman and Hottentot), and pre-Negro. Many anthropologists have associated the Boskop skull with a hypothetical Boskop race because of discoveries of apparently similar skulls at other sites in Africa. It has been pointed out, however, that the Boskop skull is of Bushman–Hottentot nature. Further, accurate data concerning its discovery are not available (investigators were not even able to ascertain its exact position when found), which minimizes its significance. It presents no primitive features, and there is no justification for utilizing the term Boskop race.
...

www.britannica.com...

In the first bold part they are pointing out that there are many anthropologists who still think it is a hypothetical race, then whomever wrote that article adds his/her own "assumption" and that of other anthropologists.

In the last bold part they are once again "assuming" that because the boskop skulls do not show primitive features "they must be just modern humans." Once again, in that last bold part whomever wrote the article is once again "assuming."

We all know what it is said about "assuming" right?

Why isn't it possible for boskop skulls to have been "another version of modern humans", which for one reason or another was wiped out?